Europe 2012: Day 8 - Budapest/Vienna

We enjoyed one last breakfast at the hotel on our last morning in Budapest. Then, we stored our luggage before heading to the Parliament tour we had scheduled beforehand. It began at 10 but we were supposed to have been able to pick up our tickets 15 minutes beforehand. It was kind of confusing because the guards were only allowing so many people to enter the ticket booth at a time. If we hadn't been one of the first people in the line, we wouldn't have gotten the tickets we reserved. Thankfully, it all worked out and we didn't get pushed to a Spanish tour or something. Both the inside and outside of the building were absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, we got stuck in the same tour as a large tour group of people who were really annoying. For example, when we got to the room that housed the crown jewels, we were asked not to use flash. Of course, several people in this tour used flash. The tour guide gave several warnings and said that if she saw one more flash we would have to leave the room. Again, someone in the group used a flash and we had to leave. Besides the people on the tour, it was really neat to see the inside of the building.

Next, we headed to St. Stephen's Cathedral. We went inside part of it because it was free, but we didn't stay long. We were getting hungry, so we headed back to the Great Market Hall to have one last Langos before we left Budapest. We also did some shopping while there. Then, we headed to Gerbeaud, which is a cafe that is supposed to have really good dobos (which is a type of cake eaten in Budapest - it has something like 7 layers). it was pretty amazing. This is a picture of us sitting outside at the cafe...

We walked around a little and then headed back to the hotel to get our luggage and wait for our ride to the train station. While we were waiting, Eric ran down the street to get some open-faced sandwiches to take on the train for dinner. Apparently, those are also really popular in Budapest.

When our driver showed up, we headed to the train station and were able to board the train right away. Even though the ride was only 3 hours or so, it felt like an eternity because Anya was horrible. I think she was tired but she wasn't able to sleep on the train. Here are a few pics of us on the train...

We were really glad when we finally pulled up to the train station in Vienna. Of course, no one was in a good mood because we had spent so much time trying to contain Anya, but we managed to find the ticket office so we could purchase our tickets to Bratislava which we planned to use a few days later. Next, we found a taxi and met the renter at our apartment. 

We had chosen to rent an apartment halfway through our trip so that we could wash clothes. We were mainly concerned about Anya and her messy eating, and it was a good thing we did this. She was starting to run out of clean clothes. The apartment was huge and super nice. The only problem was that it was not air conditioned. Weather had been fairly cool so far but of course, that night was warm. It did have a lot of fans so we set those up and opened the windows. Eventually, it cooled down to a bearable temperature.

We headed out to get a snack and ended up getting some Asian noodles to take back to the apartment. For some reason, we were hungry again and they were really good. Then, we got Anya to bed and were headed that way as well when we realized that there was construction going on outside our window. And I'm talking jack hammers, etc. Right outside our window. At like midnight on a Thursday night. It took awhile, but we finally were able to sleep.

However, the construction went on until around 4 in the morning. I am certain about this because I woke up after only an hour with an upset stomach and ended up spending most of the night in and out of the bathroom feeling like I was going to puke.

To be continued....