Oct 8 (morning): The random sights at the station: dirty, disorganized. Certainly the worst looking station in Europe so far. The people looked “different.” The hostel, Carpe Noctem was a large 3 B/R apt converted to fit around 20. Fresh shower and off to the “Buda” side of Budapest. In case you don’t know, Budapest is two cities — Buda & Pest, seperated by the gorgeous river Danube. Coincidentally, I met four other hostelmates on the bridge, and we all headed to the Buda castle and the museum. We spent the entire afternoon walking around the castle, the museums, the art shops. The views from the castle were wonderful. By 4pm, the beerd buds were calling for a drink, after a couple of drinks, we headed to church hill. It was so tempting not to miss the breathtaking view from the top of a restaurant where beer was poured with private music being played by the side. Spectacular. Now what was I doing with the bulgarian guy and the kiwi girl? We just smiled.
After watching the sunset, we walked all the way, down the hill, to “Pest.” The hungarian parliament in particular us so incredible I had to shoot 20 different angles of the same. Magnificent architecture (for a parliament). I walked over 10 miles already. Hungarian architecture initially reminds you of Czech but its not really. Nevertheless, its gorgeous. In the day or night. We ended up having dinner at a local place for 1100 forints (4.6$), we got two large soups of bowl, fresh hungarian bread, salad and 3 mushroom potatoes. I tell you, it was amazing.
Back at the hostel I was contemplating whether to take the pub crawl or not since I was so tired already. But I did go anyways. It was crazy, never before Ive seen pubs as “gothic” as these.The first one was an “underground” garage themed pub with graffiti, old car wheels, broken tables and lighting which resembled the set of “dracula.” The second one was an old castle-like pub. The third one had cartoons from all around 
the world screened on it’s walls. I’ll stop with the fourth since it was a regular pub. My hostel mates, who were around 20 of them are a peculiar brand of people. One of the girls seems to have put herself “up for auction.” Suddenly there were so many guys in our group. Where did they come from? Something fishy here. As if it wasn’t over yet, we went to a night club. It was tuesday and we were in till 4 am. Donner kababs and out to bed. Long day!
Oct 9: I was surprised that I woke up early but not until 11 am did I get out. This time around I headed to the “Pest.” First stop was the house of terror. Go check it out for the nazi regime on the hungarian jews. I walked 2 miles on the famous street, forgot it’s name but it surrounds itself with trees, and some of the 
houses looked like palaces. At the end of it was the spectacular hero’s square. I walked past it to a palace/museum, I was so hungry that I ate in the fine dining restaurant in the palace. I’ve said this before and I say it again, the vegetarian food in Europe (if ordered special) tastes so much better, its like everything about the food is organic. Anyways back to the square and took the subway this time to St Stephens’ Cathedral. The views from the top, again are unmissable. Catch a glimpse of Hungarian life from here. I forgot how many more “attractions” I saw enroute, but I must’ve walked for another 10 miles, again. Came back to the hostel at 8pm, had the cheapest burger (yuck) in town and slept at 10pm. I really needed some sleep.
Oct 10: Woke up surprisingly early. I had to catch a flight in the evening. I went to the Citadell, a long hike to the buda side of the city. I should’ve done this on day one since I was there alreadty, but you know, we were distracted. But it was well worth the hike to the top. See my pictures later and you’ll know why. Some of the most spectacular views of a city from across a river. I took a bus to the city and headed to the second largest jewish synagogue in the world. (First is in nyc). I visited the museum, the “tree of life” among others before heading back to the hostel, late evening.
Off to Madrid!