Entering highlight mode!
This morning I walked with a gal I’d met the previous night to the Szechenyi baths, deep on the Pest side. She had to catch a flight soon after, but I ducked into the baths to check it out. It was there I decided to go to Prague next instead of Berlin as originally planned and visit Aleks–the buses were cheap.
The baths looked really neat and I paid the entrance. First order of business: I’d seen some old men playing chess in one of the baths. I went over and started kibitzing. Unfortunately, after I’d watched a couple of games, the yokels wouldn’t let me in on one! I did get some entertaining pictures of me standing near the board by some British fellows I met but that was it. So I checked out the rest of the baths. There were mineral pools galore of various temperatures and aromas. It wasn’t quite as much fun by myself as in the Schinznach Bad with Muriel, but then few things were quite that fun. My favorite part of Szechenyi (aside from the chessboard in the pool) was the steam room, which was hot and blinding and felt like another world. I also at some point went and got a shower cap for 40 cents or so in order to swim in the big swimming pool–the lifeguards would summarily detain anyone without such a cap in that pool. I felt kinda ridiculous swimming with the shower cap, which kept filling with water and eventually floated off like a jellyfish when I wasn’t paying attention. I couldn’t find it, therefore I had to leave the swimming pool :P
Eventually I left Szechenyi and headed back into town. My plan was to visit one of two awesome looking museums. But the evening was absolutely beautiful and I stopped to check out a castle near Szechenyi and a public plaza with amazing statues. I got myself a langos, which is a fried bread like a chapati with various toppings, nom, and kibitzed while some Australians pedaled around on a self-pedaled party bus.
So, by the time I got back to the hostel, I had to get myself dinner quick if I was going to make it to the goofy pregame session for the boat party. I found one incredibly reviewed place and walked over–all reserved! Dang! I walked to an-other place–also all reserved! I had to run back and get myself a gyro box at Pizza King Express, which I wasn’t too unhappy about.
The pregame session was indeed pretty hilarious. Our team, team Langos, sucked at everything. But there was an exciting moment–I was the first called on to keep three balloons in the air for a minute and had no trouble, though I should have made it look easier–I did a few try-hard dives :D Other people had more difficulty with this really straightforward job–you just couldn’t let the balloons collide with each other and scatter in opposite directions.
Finally, it was time for the boat party! I walked down with my new American pals, Gauge, Mary-Ellen, and a couple of Finnish gals. We were having a great time. Boarded the boat, gave Mollie a big hug, checked my coats. We availed ourselves of some alcohol and went up on deck. It was beautiful there, with buildings rushing by and the Parliament backlit. The night started beautifully too–I remember doing some dancing, goofing around with various people. But the unlimited alcohol had its downsides, and due to the ubiquity of beer in Eastern Europe, I had gotten tired of it and drank wine and weird other thingies instead. This was not my best call in retrospect. I remember the passage back to the hostel with some kind yokels–I remember complaining at them about something the whole time, which shows what kind of a state I was in.
I slept like a log until morning…