Highway to Budapest

The train left Prague at 10PM, and by train I don't mean modern, clean or in any way Western European, I mean the Stalin express, a train so dirty, and so soviet you couldn't help but imagine it once terminated in a Russian gulag.

Chris, Nate, Josh and I had decided to visit Budapest for the weekend and little did we know how far down the hatch a discounted seat would take us. With the extra money cleverly salvaged by the dive, we decided to purchase bread, pretzels and four liters of Eastern Europe's finest Kentucky bourbon "The Kentucky Highway." Choking down the bottle as we sat cramped in our train cubicle, we began to notice the intense heat waves pouring out of the vents behind our seats from the broken A/C lever that had most likely been stuck on high heat since the early regime. However, despite the hourly conductor call, and the occasional heat/whiskey induced hallucination, we made it to Budapest train station with only one attempt made by a fellow Hungarian passenger to steal our wallets in the middle of the night.

The story begins at about 10AM when we checked into our hostel located somewhere in back alley Budapest. Still choking down a heavy hangover, we proceeded to spend the morning sleeping off the train ride from the night before. As we began to unpack our bags in walked the six foot six Aussie that would graciously make our night the craziest night out in Budapest. The Aussie stumbled into our room around 10:30 AM from his previous night out on the town, and after a slurred happy Australia Day he passed out face first into the bed across the room not to be awoken until 9:30 that night.

Once night rolled around we were fortunate enough to meet Tristan and Robb of SoCal. Donning graphic tees and neatly trimmed five o'clock shadows, Tristan and Robb invited us out a bar located somewhere deep inside the city. Later that night we decided to head in that direction in the hopes of finding the Budapest experience.

Upon reaching Morrisson's Two, Chris, Josh, Nate and I were pleasantly surprised. A bar compiled of a series of cavernous rooms, one traditional bar, one techno cave, one 80's room and to our great relief one karaoke bar in the room furthest into the back. Reaching the pinnacle of the night we stepped to the karaoke bar only to find Tristan, Robb and the giant Aussie awoken and ready to party. With a commanding presence over the microphone, the Aussie bellowed out over the seemingly miniature, and unsuspecting Hungarians who'd been happily singing along to Hungarian folk music, "This is a little song by a band we English like to call AC/DC, and this one is for all you English motheeerrr fuckeerrrs!!"

--A strong Hungarian silence ensued, quickly followed by the craziest night out in Budapest

After the bar closed, we headed outside to call our cab, who showed up minutes later in a full khaki colored suit and tennis shoes to drive us back to the hostel. Immediately after entering the cab, the engine cut off, which we found out through broken English was typical. We then exited the cab, using all 5 of us, pushed the taxi down the street, until the engine caught and we drove home.