All Smiles

I'm back from my holidays! The past week has been really funtastic. Both Budapest and Prague had excellent sunny weather, and yes, I have managed to get tanned! Yippee! (my housemates would know how much I treasure being tanned)

My friend, Szel, and I left on Saturday morning to Budapest. The day started really strangely. At the check-in counter, we were informed by a member of the staff that our flight has been cancelled because the ground workers at Budapest Airport were on strike. We were surprised and went to the Help desk. The officer rechecked our tickets, disappeared for about 15 mins, and gave us the assurance that the flight will proceed as arranged. *phew. I was actually thinking about plan B, just in case we were not able to board the flight.

The first 3 days of my hol was spent in Budapest, Hungary. I must say that I was not totally impressed by the views of Budapest. The scenery was beautiful, but nothing stood out to me as "wow," if you get what I mean. Having said that, I still enjoyed my trip. We booked a room right in the middle of the city. The room was actually part of a 3-bedroom penthouse, with an exceptionally nice view of River Danube. Mind you, we only paid about 24 pounds per person per night, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

The funny thing about the room was the shower curfew. You must be wondering what this is all about. Well, the hostel owner told us that we should not have a shower after 11pm because it would disturb the neighbour of the hostel. Pretty weird eh? We did not obey the curfew and I was the first person to go for my shower at about 5 minutes past 11 pm. As soon as I turned on the shower, someone began banging against the wall of the bathroom. I was shocked. This carried on for about 15 minutes, before whoever that was behind the wall, stopped. The next day, we made sure we had out shower before 11pm. haha. I learnt the reason for the curfew was because the neighbour is a famous Hungarian actress....(so what? fame is irrelevant!!)

From Budapest, we took an overnight train to Prague. The train ride was "interesting." Why?

1. The whole train was not lighted up. It was pretty scary and eerie as it was about 8pm when we got on the train.

2. The train was not like any other train I have sat before. In a single coach, there were 3 rooms. In fact, the structure of the train was pretty similar to the train featured in the Harry Potter movie. There were 2 seats opposite each other, no beds.

3. We were woken up about 10 times throughout the entire journey, for ticket and passport inspections. Waking us up for the inspections were fine, but the way we were woken up was rather frightening. The officer slid open the door to the room with a loud "bang" and mumbled away in Hungarian/Czech, requesting for our tickets/passport. To add to my fear, the immigration officers carried guns! I have not seen such officers with guns before.

We arrived at Prague early in the morning. I LOVE Prague the moment I stepped out from the train. The city is, no doubt, more beautiful than Budapest. Things were much cheaper and shopping was excellent! Prague is a very walkable. Szel and I conquered every part of this picturesque city by foot! We also managed to catch "Carmen" and "Bolero" at Prague's principal concert hall. The performance was short and sweet. Food was simply delicious and the coffee in the cafes....wow...it was THE best. Oh....I would love to visit this place again if I get a chance in the future.

I am all smiles after this short break. =) But, I have to admit that I am pretty exhausted. And I am not looking foward to go back to work tomorrow.