NYE of 2007 and first moments of 2008
NYE of 2007: Was helping Greg to drag his huge-ass suitcase across streets after streets of Budapest that are covered in mud…
Arriving Budapest was definitely an interesting experience. After leaving Krakow in the afternoon, we finally arrived Keleti Pályaudvar at Budapest. Travelling by train in Eastern Europe was definitely a different experience from the Scandinavian experience. We were completely spoiled by the Scandinavians – even having the automatic doors mulfunctioning all night on the way to Kiruna, our train journey from Poland through Slovakia to Hungary still manage to surprise us by another level. First off, we were stuck in the middle of no where for hours… well, maybe not no where, but it was definitely somewhere no one could communicate with us – boy, how much did I wish I could master Russian or a Slavic language or at least German at that time to get a clue what was going on. After then, a train lady tried to convince us that we did not pay for the train ticket, fortunately, with no avail… it might be her inability to understand a train ticket issued by the Polish authority, but the hell with it, we knew what we have paid for. And there were two ticket-checkers who have checked the tickets and they did not say a single thing about it.
The moments of joy on the train…
After checking in with our hostel, we decided to go out and have a walk and celebrate the new year with the hope that there will be a spectacular firework show over the Duna by midnight. (Ain’t I just completely spoiled by the NYE fireworks on the Yarra…) And of course, instead of a spectacular firework show over the Duna, we got spectacular firework showsss on every single street of the city instead. There were not once, but a lot of the times that people were literally just shooting fireworks up the sky without any warning right next to me. Having grown up in a city where fireworks are under absolute restrictions, I couldn’t help but went back to the hostel partially traumatised by the first impression of Budapest…
Anyway, I shall come back later with details…