adventures in budapest, day 1 and 2

as if yesterday wasn't long enough when i was last online, the 6pm and onward section was even more of an adventure:
*dinner with shalom and zsofi (yay!) followed by gelato, attacking a playground made for 3 year olds for an hour, and wandering around downtown
*turning myself into swampthing accidentally (more explanation below)
*awhile (an hour?) on the phone with roommate, who i hadn't talked to in ages

today so far:
*slept in til 10am
*watched an hour and a half of coverage of the crazy british airline goingsons (the only english TV i get here is VH1, CNN europe, and BBC world)
*wandered the castle district and finally went through the underground buda castle labyrinth (more below)
*wandered the mall and got cool earrings and lots of food. i love that i can get dried strawberries, dried kiwis, bread, cheese, lots of pudding, a large jar of nutella, and a liter of beer for under $10.

more on swamp thing:
last night, after shalom, zsofi and i parted ways around 10:30pm, i headed towards the nearest tram stop that would get me home. i saw the tram coming so i decided to run the 100 meters to it and not have to wait 20 minutes for the next one. the side of the road i was on was sidewalk, with tram tracks in the middle, and dirt on the other side. i dashed off the sidewalk, and as it's not smart to run on the tracks started running on the other side of the road (the side the tram was coming on)... not dirt though, it was really sticky gooey mud instead, and about 2 steps in i went flying and sliding through the mud and landed sitting in a bush, caked in the stuff. i wriggled my way out and ran on the tracks into the tram just as the door was closing, leafs stuck to me, and mud in clumps all over me. i got home and cleaned myself up, rinsing the bulk of the mud off my clothes in the tub... the irony is, the black capris i was wearing had JUST been washed tuesday night since i went sprawling in a mud puddle while wearing them on sunday's hike. at least the rest of my clothes are clean?... to add insult to injury?, halfway home, the tram stopped and the driver announced that several trams were stopped in the tracks ahead, and he was going to check out what was going on... i don't know what had it jammed but i just walked the 3 more stops home, taking care to take back streets so that only old ladies walking their dogs could laugh at the sorry state of my appearance, rather than tables full of restaurant/pub patrons. lara and mud... oi... go me...
thing is, for as ridiculous and annoying as it all sounds, i spent much more time laughing about it than being irritated... that's good, right?

more on the labyrinth:
under the Buda castle is a series of tunnels and caves that date WAY back in time... for about $5, you can go through a decent portion of them (takes 30 minutes to get through quickly, much longer if you take your time). they were mostly built for defence in times past and after communism fell, they nicened them up and opened them to tourists. it's one of 4 major tourist things i've never done in all the months i've been in budapest and hope to do this year. anyhow, they're fairly cool, but very dark and wet, and there are occasional statues, etchings etc, that appear out of nowhere and sometimes freaked me out. i spent a lot of time being scared because it's purposely not well lit and a statue would appear around a corner and make me jump! the coolest part though is halfway through there's a fountain that instead of water flows with wine (yes i drank some, and i knew it was down there... if i was smart i would have brought an empty water bottle with me ;P) anyhow, now i can say i've done the labyrinth, even if it freaked me out at points. yay lara?

btw, i probably lied about internet... last year i discovered that my old internet cafe hangouts from 4 years ago had basically all closed down, and the easy to find ones besides are touristy, expensive, and packed. however, the guy i'm renting from for the next two weeks showed me a small one that charges all of $1.20/hr and caters mostly to the local neighborhood people just 2 blocks from where i'm staying. the lady who runs it is super nice, so i might as well give her my business since the price and location are right. expect more hungarian adventures soon. :)

dinner time, followed by coffee house with several of my old budapest friends.

i love hungary :)

end of essay.