So thursday afternoon we had an orientation session at the university...we were sat there for about 3 hours getting more and more bored. Jaakko, a Finnish guy, asked us what we were doing at the weekend (not a lot as it happened) and he said he was going to Ljubljana with some others which got me thinking. As soon as we got out of the lecture theatre I told Scott we should be spontaneous and go away for the weekend....and he agreed after a bit of persuasion :) sooooo we got a few others together and "spontaneously" booked a hostel in Budapest for two nights (I say spontaneously....it actually took like 3 hours to find one which was near where we wanted to be and at a good price!).
So friday afternoon, after a short orientation session in the morning, we went down to the station and got on a train. The journey took 6 hours ish with 3 changes but as we had all packed (pretty) lightly we didn't have many problems.
We arrived in Budapest - Keleti station at 10.30pm ish and set about trying to find out hostel which was supposed to be in Baross Ter which is the square right outside the station. We eventually found it.....an old run-down Avon shop basically but the actual hostel itself was really nice. As we had only booked a room for 4 (myself, Scott, Richard and James)but Pierre had decided to join us, the guy running it gave us a 6 bed ensuite room for no extra charge and Pierre only had to pay €12 so not bad. We were all pretty hungry but there wasn't that much open at just before midnight in that area so in the end we went to McDonalds as it was really close by.
Saturday we spent exploring the "Pest" side of Budapest, grabbing cheap breakfast in Tesco (yes tesco exists there!!!) seeing the Basilika, Parliament buildings, chain bridge, Danube etc. and even going over to the zoo (which unfortunately for Richard was about to close), castle and millenium monument. For lunch we found a little pub/restuarant type place which was great.....until they added a service charge on.....which wouldn't have mattered had the service been any good!!! In the evening we went back to the tesco as it was a superstore, and bought some stuff to make our own cold meal back at the hostel (- breadrolls for the equivalent of 2p were one of the bargain purchases!!).
Sunday we spent exploring the "Buda" side of Budapest. This included climbing the mountain to Buda castle (think Schlossberg but WORSE and HIGHER) and walking down the river a bit. We also went to the "tourist trap" area for lunch - where we spent an hour looking at all the identical meal deals being advertised at diff prices, trying to find the cheapest and best! In the end we settled for one which gave us Goulash soup, ham and cheese pizza and pancakes with apricot for 1780 hungarian forint (yeah they don't have the euro yet)....which is equivalent to 6 pounds which is like nothing for a full meal! We got a direct train back in Graz at 5pm getting in at around 10.30ish which was ok although there were a few hairy moments when the train split and we thought we were on the wrong part and when the train stopped for a long while at a station and all the lights went out as if it was stopping for good!! but we all got back ok :)
so yeah all in all a great weekend - definitely a place worth seeing, it really is a beautiful place :)