Good morning, from my last few minutes in Budapest! I am currently on the plane awaiting departure to my next stop, the Netherlands. Budapest has been a wonderful shitshow. I made some amazing friends, felt so at home at my hostel, and I honestly can’t wait to go back. Possibly before the end of this trip. We’ll see.
One of my favorite times here was for sure the beer bike. Fifteen of us were thrown onto a giant bike thingy, and we spent two hours pedaling around the city and trying to finish 50 L of beer. It honestly would have been fun without beer anyway, so you can imagine what the alcohol did for us! During breaks we had chugging trains (I’m terrible) and peed in parks like the classy tourists we are. Somehow, we managed to finish all of it, an accomplishment we deemed very important.
Afterwards, we met the rest of our hostel and sister hostels at a jager train event. Jager bombs are never a good idea, but luckily I had the foresight to know how drunk I would be from the beer bike and didn’t sign up. From what I remember about the rest of the night (it’s a bit fuzzy), I had a couple beers, helped a stranger with a jager bomb, and made out with an American guy from my hostel. Somehow the two of us ended up back in his room – I honestly have no idea how we found the hostel and don’t actually remember getting back? I was drunk enough that when I left to pee, I had to ask people in the common area what direction I had come from because I had no idea. Anyway, all in all, it was a pretty solid night.
It’s really fortunate that I don’t get hangovers, because the next day I decided to go caving. I didn’t really know anything about it, but multiple people have told me that it’s their favorite activity to do in Budapest. A huge group of us from the hostel all went together, which was good because it was a confusing tram to bus to other bus ride, and I probably would have gotten lost and died otherwise. Once we (finally) arrived, we suited up in these sexy jumpsuits and helmets with headlamps.
So guys, if you have any form of claustrophobia at all, caving is definitely the wrong activity for you. I expected us to be mostly walking, maybe doing a little crawling through some holes or something. WHELP. As it turns out, we weren’t just crawling through holes; we were on our stomachs or backs, trying not to get stuck. We went into these tiny crevices that I wouldn’t have even noticed had our guide not pointed them out, and there were a lot of “nope, nope, nope” moments. Our final challenge was called “The Sandwich,” which is exactly how you would imagine something called “The Sandwich” in underground caves would be. It was the tightest crevice yet, and also BY THE WAY the floor was completely slanted, and the only way to move forward was slowly inching along on your stomach, pulling yourself with your arms that you can’t really move and pushing on the ceiling with your feet that you can’t really move; several people actually got completely stuck for a couple minutes.
I’m so glad I did it, but it’s also the kind of thing I don’t want to do again for a long time. My knees and elbows are red and bruised, and every single muscle around my shoulders is pretty mad at me right now.
You would think that after caving, I would want to take the night off, but this is Budapest, dammit! I took a quick shower, scarfed down some food, and joined in our drinking games to pregame for ANOTHER PARTY BOAT. THIS TIME WITH UNLIMITED ALCOHOL. Since I had already gone on a party boat I wasn’t that concerned with seeing all the sights, which was good because I definitely didn’t see any of them. We had a great group of people out with us, a ton of staff members, and spent the night drinking and dancing and putting glitter all over our faces. Well, that was mostly just me.
My BFF American friend was feeling terrible after the boat – like, she had been even sicker than me for the last few days – so I walked her home after the boat. In my experience, drunk people trying to take care of drunk people doesn’t usually work out too well, but eventually she was settled in and I could meet up with my crew again, and again, DON’T KNOW HOW DRUNK GENEVIEVE FOUND THEM BUT SHE DID.
We were at one of the sister hostels that I had never been to before, and this part of the evening gets a bit fuzzy. The only really significant thing was that I accidentally ended up hooking up with (another) staff member whoops. For future reference, kids, this is honestly pretty convenient, because they have the ability to see what rooms are empty so you’re not doing the gross hostel thing where there is someone in the bunk above you. So yeah, that happened.
My last day in Budapest was pretty chill. Everyone was nursing their hangovers from the Boat Party, and it was another day of just chilling out, watching some TV, listening to music, and hanging out with the staff and friends. They tried to get me hammered before we went out our last night, but I didn’t want to be sick on the plane so I ended up sobering up pretty quickly, going home after the first bar, and falling asleep in the movie room to “Kung Fu Panda.”
For anyone planning on going to Budapest, I 100% recommend staying at Carpe Noctem Vitae- I stayed there for a week and I didn’t even want to leave then. From what I hear, the sister hostels Grandio and Retox are way crazier and you can barely sleep- but people also have lots of fun there, so it’s really whatever you’re in the mood for.
Everything is cheap- the boat party that I went on with unlimited alcohol was the equivalent of about $30 USD. You can afford to go out and have a great time and not worry about how much money you’re spending. I spent about $.75 on a slice of pizza. Ridiculous.
One thing to know, however, is that the drug laws in Budapest are insane. If you get caught, it’s two years minimum for all drugs, including marijuana (which is obviously ridiculous). Unlike most party hostels, nobody does any drugs at all at any of the Budapest Party Hostels, and they tell you when you check in that if you are caught with anything (again, including marijuana) that you will be immediately kicked out and banned from their entire chain for life. It’s a super serious thing there, and if you really need your weed, just go to Amsterdam. I’m here now – come hang!