Budapest Round 2

I call it round 2, as this was actually my second trip to Budapest within the last year, however I was lagging on the blogging front last time and unfortunately didn't actually write about it. So this is a convenient way to fill in what I missed out (as we did a lot of the same things as last time) and add in the extras.

On the first day I was rather exhausted, so whilst the others headed out to explore I stayed in at our hostel (Home Plus Hostel, defo recommended!) writing postcards and blogging. As I said I'd been before so I wasn't too bothered about missing a bit out. That evening we headed out to a Hungarian/Italian restaurant near the basilica, which had tasty food but the slowest service in the universe and was drastically overpriced. I'd recommend heading a little further out of the main area if you'd prefer cheap and cheerful, especially if you don't want to wait two hours just for the main course.

We spent the whole of Sunday at the baths. The others had gone out to a club called Traffic the previous night, so it made for a good hangover cure/chill out day. At only 4300 HUF (a bit less that £15) it's a great day out, with saunas and loads of different heated and chilled pools. It's the second time I've been and I'd definitely go again! I did however forget to top up my sun cream and severely burned my back... Well done Em.

(Instagram @smutimer)

Picture from last July with the lovely Lauren :)

En route back we took a detour through Heroes Square which looked beautiful in the sunshine. 

On our final day we discovered an all you can eat and drink Hungarian buffet... So naturally we spent almost the entire afternoon eating and drinking ourselves silly. I think we had five bottles of champagne between the four of us. I tried so many different dishes: venison (which was divine), duck, veal, shark (not nuts on that one) and ate so much cake I felt like a little kid who scoffed their party goody bag a little two quickly. Had someone presented me with a wacky warehouse I'd have been raring to go. I think it was called Trófea and it got TripAdvisors top place to eat last year, so it's definitely worth a look in if you fancy treating yourself.

Stumbling out the restaurant Steve decided to give his flip flops a 'funeral' by chucking them off the side of the bridge so in solidarity as good friends we all decided to wander barefoot to the park in the middle of the river. Oh champagne logic. Unfortunately the musical fountain that I visited last time was under construction...

...and we were a little bit too betrunken to rent bikes...

...so despite the weather starting to turn we decided to lie in the rain listening to Disclosure and Taylor Swift drinking a bottle of wine we'd opened on a rock because we're just that classy.

I was supposed to be getting a train to Brasov in Romania that evening but the taxi that was supposed to pick me up cancelled at the last minute because it was spitting a bit (no exaggeration, I was so mad) so I missed my train and eventually decided to join the others going to Belgrade rather than risk being stranded. I met three English lads in the station who were lovely enough to let me share their cabin since I was too late to bunk in with the others. Although it wasn't a particularly comfortable journey or fruitful in terms of sleep, I actually quite enjoyed myself since we stayed up chatting for most of the night. It's so nice when you click with strangers :) 

The only things we missed out on this time was the trip up to the castle which gives you a fantastic view of the city...

...and the ruin bars which have an incredible vibe. But I've enjoyed this visit just as much, Budapest is definitely my favourite European city. Luckily for me, one of my besties is moving to Budapest for his year abroad, so that means this visit wasn't my last!

Now we're in Belgrade, dying from liquid cocaine induced hangovers (it's a shot, not a drug, don't worry Mum) but that's for another post! Also my head might explode if I have to concentrate on writing anymore...

Bull's Testicles and Sun Burn

By the time we'd arrived in Vienna I'd survived two night trains in a row, had a grand total of ten hours sleep over three nights and visited eight cities in six days. Safe to say I was pretty exhausted.

As Mitch and I have already visited the city before we spent the morning at the castle with Steve and Josie, before parting ways to head to Bratislava around lunch time. We didn't really achieve much until tea time when we gorged on traditional Slovakian garlic soup (served in a bread bowl!) and the tastiest beef goulash with dumplings. I was so full I could hardly walk and we only spent like 7€ each!

Steve and Josie arrived on the last train that night, so the next morning we all went out to a lake on the recommendation of two lovely Canadian girls from our hostel. It was such a BE-A-UTIFUL day, we just lounged around in the sun and swam for six hours. Which unfortunately left Josie with a rather interesting tan...

At lunchtime we were feeling adventurous so we decided to try something new... Bull's testicle goulash. Now I expected (and kinda hoped) not to enjoy it, but it actually turned out to be really tasty! I kid you not. I actually preferred it to my bolognese. It looked different to how we expected too, which probably lessened the trauma a little.

That evening we attempted to try out the Bratislavan night life but failed somewhat miserably. We ended up drinking a little too much cheap Slovakian vodka at the hostel with a couple if Swedes we'd met and despite wandering the city streets for an hour or so didn't manage to find anywhere suitable so just retired early. Well, around 2.30am.

We're now in Budapest and about to head out to the baths for the day, I literally cannot wait! :)

Catch up...

Between my first year of university starting and an all together hectic four months I really haven't had chance to blog about well... anything it seems.

Since my last post I've also visited Budapest (at the end of the trip I didn't finish documenting) and spent a weekend in Amsterdam at the beginning of November. If I tried to write full posts on those and tried to get you properly up to speed I know I'd just end up falling behind again, plus my travel journal is at home and I'm at uni. Combine that with the absolute worst memory in the world (hence why I write everything down) and you'd get a rather shoddy recount of events. So in pictures and captions, here's the highlights of those last two adventures:

Budapest

The Roman Baths. So chilled out it's unreal, we spent a whole day there and with more time would have spent more.

This is a MUSICAL fountain. It played classical music and then the water 'danced' in time. Amazing.

This is from the day we went adventuring up a big hill (which perhaps has a proper name...) and had this incredible view of the whole city from the top.

We went out every night (if I remember rightly) to various different ruin bars, all with a pretty cool vibe. We also spent one night in a club, then got lost trying to walk back at 5am. Good times :P

Amsterdam

The red light district was actually really pretty and very different to how I expected. So clean and well kept. However a tip to female travellers; if you don't want to spend every evening oggling at prostitutes, don't visit Amsterdam with 4 boys.

In a coffee shop. We spent a fair amount of time in these. And I discovered I just don't really like weed. Ironic eh?

We did the Van Gogh mile and saw lots of art because we're just cultured like that.

Recognise these chicies?? The lovely dutch girlies I met whilst doing the trek to Machu Picchu in June. So good to see them again :)

On the last day we visited the gorgeous Botanical Gardens. I also went to Anne Frank's House, which was incredible.

And to finish it off here's the boys in front of the Central Station.

...and with that, my country count is now up to 25.

22 down, 174 to go!

There are 196 countries in the world (unless you're a US citizen, then apparently you're not allowed to count Taiwan.)

I have already visited:

1. England (obv.)
2. Scotland
3. Wales
4. Germany
5. France
6. Belgium
7. Austria
8. Denmark
9. Italy
10. Switzerland
11. Spain
12. Greece
13. Portugal
14. USA
15. Canada
16. Columbia
17. Peru
18. Bolivia
19. Chile
20. Haiti
21. The Bahamas
22. Puerto Rico


Next week I'm setting off to the Czech Republic (Prague), Austria (Vienna) and Hungary (Budapest), with six other friends, so that adds two more to the list :) This is our second Eurotrip after we visited Nice, Milan, Zurich, Frankfurt and Hamburg last year. It was such a brilliant trip so we're all rather excited for this one to get underway. Only 8 days to go!!

So after this summer I'll have been to a grand total of 24 countries, which I don't think is a bad start considering I'm only 19. I've already starting planning next years grand adventure too, though we're still debating between South Africa and Australia :) I've totally caught the travelling bug now.

(N.B. I had to edit this post. You know when you know you've forgotten something and can't figure out what it is? Well this time it turns out I'd forgotten that I'd been to Haiti, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas... Silly em...)

Bucket List

I'm back for the next 3 weeks or so before heading on my next (slightly less extravagant but no less exciting) adventure to Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Although I have been slacking quite considerably on the blogging front for the past few weeks (sorry!), I have really enjoyed keeping one and intend to do so every time I decide to go gallivanting around the world. Therefore I have decided that the blog itself needs a new make-over and purpose, considering that I won't ALWAYS be off exploring/my gap yah is very nearly over.

I mentioned briefly in a post a few months ago that at the age of 14 I wrote a bucket list outlining all the exciting things I want to do before the age of 30. I haven't really got started on this list yet even though I keep adding to it, though in fairness to myself I have probably been too young to do so until now as the majority of the list is full of things to do whilst travelling. I decided to create a challenge to combine as many things on this list as possible.

So here it is:
Visit every country in the world before I die.

Before each trip I'll also post the various challenges from my bucket list that I have to do during the trip as well as asking for more suggestions.

Now I realise the logistics of this aren't exactly straight forward. For example I'm not actually allowed into North Korea or Somalia (to name but a few) for various different reasons, but I figure I'll work around that when I get to it.

I'll also blog every so often between trips about places I go in the UK, travel advice, language learning and anything else travel related I can get my hands on that's worth sharing!