Beautiful, Beautiful Budapest

sunset in Budapest, Hungary
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Last summer while I was on my big trip I had the opportunity to visit Budapest and fell in love with it in about five minutes, so I was pretty excited that my flight home this time was from there so I would get another day there.

My train got in about 4PM and being the incredibally intelligent person I am I forgot to write down the address to my hostel. I went to the tourist info place at the train and she looked it up for me and showed me on a map. She told me what bus to take but I was in the mood to walk (again map distances look so much smaller!) so I loaded up my pack and set off. Budapest is a pretty easy city to navigate and be comfortable with so everything still looked really familiar from last year and I knew exactly where I was going. Well about a half hour later I got to the area I needed to be in, soaked with sweat and ready to throw my backpack off a cliff (fortunately there were none around!) when I realized that the tourist info lady told me how to get to the hostel but again I forgot to write down the building number, very smart! So I walked up and down the street asking people and searching very unsuccessfully for the Caterina Hostel! Finally I decided I needed the internet and found it in Burger King of all places. I must have looked pretty wrecked because people kept giving me funny looks! Found the buiding number and got there. The Caterina Hostel is in an apartment type building and has no sign, hence the reason I couldn't find it! Of course it was on the top floor with no elevator! When I finally got up there I met the wonderfully friendly and helpful owner, dropped off my stuff and headed out right away so see my favorite city.

The Chain Bridge, Budapest, Hungary
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I walked down Andrassy Boulevard which has all the old, rich buildings all the way down to the Danube River and the famous Chain Bridge. Just like last summer, they had the bridge closed off to cars and had vendors, food and music going on for the summer festival. I found my same food booth and got my brat, beer and veggies and sat down on the bridge to chill and listen to some music. I walked up and down the river and watched the sun set over Castle Hill and the river which ws absolutely gorgeous. All up and down the river there was music and tons of people. I began my walk back to the hostel and walked right by the best chocolate place in the world, Gerbaud, but was out of money so no chocolate for me:( Despite the no chocolate thing it was a pretty perfect evening and Budapest is as good as I remember the perfect place to end my trip!