Day 39 - Budapest

We got up at 9ish and headed straight out, picked up some pastries for breakie, and then headed over to the Soviet Terror Museum. The museum is in the old communist police station where they used to torture and execute prisoners. The museum was pretty amazing and really well done with every room having its own music (creepy Soviet instrumental music) and pretty much every room had flat screen televisions with old black and white video ranging from Jews being killed and their bodies disposed of to Hitler giving speeches and Nazis marching to the destruction of Budapest during WW2 by the Nazis and then again after the war in the 50s by the Soviets when they took over and occupied Budapest and Hungary. The museum went through the last 100 years in Hungary and showed all the shit they've been through. It was alot of really terrible, terrible crap and i can't help but looking at the seniors around here now without trying to imagine what their lives have been like. Makes you realize just how incredibly lucky we are in Canada and just how sheltered our lives have been compared to alot of the rest of the world. The stuff we heard that the Soviets did to the Hungarians makes the Americans look like gods with what they've been doing around the world. A matter of perspective i guess. We got to go down into the dungeons and see the original cells where they held and tortured prisoners (often innocent ones) and killed them. It was crazy and disturbing.

After that we grabbed some lunch, then went back to the hostel and napped for a couple hours. Around 3 o'clock we headed off to the Kirali Baths, something mentionned in my guidebook as one of the top 30 things to do in Europe. Budapest is known for its thermal bath houses that are supposed to heal and rejuvenate you. So we figured we couldn't come to Budapest without trying them out.

So we got there (it was on the Buda side) and paid to get in and changed. Surprisingly bathing suits were mandatory because at the Kirali Baths they have women and men only days, so we figured it would be all old, naked, fat, Hungarian men (like Rob except for the Hungarian part). So instead, it was old, fat, Hungarian men with speedos on. The place was pretty cool though. It was kind've like an underground cave which was lit by small holes in the ceiling that let small rays of sunlight in. The main room had a large, octagonal bath in the middle (about 10 meters across) and had a few 2-3 person baths around the outside adn then also a couple of saunas. The large bath was luke warm and the smaller ones varied from much hotter to ice water. So we relaxed and sat in teh big bath for awhile. This one old Hungarian man kept trying to talk to me (although he spoke no English at all) and was very touchy whcih weirded me out and made Rob laugh alot, but we figured it was just Hungarian culture, so we got away from him, jumped in the ice water, then into the sauna. When we were in the sauna, my buddy from the bath showed up and sat beside where i was standing and rubbed my calf a couple times at which point we took off again to the bath.

So we were enjoying ourselvs, relaxing in the bath, when we noticed these two guys being very touchy with each other across the bath from us. Then we noticed to our right a guy whispering pretty closely in another guy's ear. This was weirding us out a bunch, but again, just Hungarian custom because by rule, European men are much more affectionate with each other than North American guys, always kissing each other on the cheek and stuff. So we headed back into the sauna where two men were sitting up on the top row of benches with one guy rubbing the inner leg of the other. Very weird and we were both glad we aren't European at that point.

So we finally took off after about an hour and a half and walked back to the hostel checking out the Parliament buildings from up close on the way back and joking around with each other that had we been anywhere else, we would have just been at a homosexual bath.

We hung out at the hostel for awhile, then hit an Italian place around the corner for dinner. Rob really wanted to go to the casino, so we went for an hour or so where i quickly lost my 10 Euro adn then took off (i hate casinos and don't know why i walk into them....never again on this trip).

On the way back to the hostel, we ran into our old buddy who'd been trying to convince us every night to go to his table dancing club, and since we were leaving in the morning and had a few Forints to burn, we went with him. We weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into, but we figured it would be an experience. We got in the front door where we met the ape working the door, paid the cover which included our beer and went in.

Wow.

Not like any place I've ever been for sure. It wasn't anything like establishments back in Canada. The place was very tiny and the only stage was around a pole in the middle of the room, and we were the only ones there. So weird. The girls all stood up from there couches when we got in adn we had no clue what to do. We both, i think, wanted to just turn around and leave, but we'd already paid, so we figured we could at least just have our beer and take off. So we headed to the bar; a girl got on stage and started dancing and we got our beers. So we talked to the girl behind the bar for abit and she asked what we'd done in Budapest adn we told her about going to the bath to which she said 'Not the Kirali one though right?'.

Shit.

'The Kirali Bath is just for homosexuals...you're not homosexual are you?' asks the girl.

Apparently all of the touchy-feely stuff we saw wasn't 'Hungarian custom' as we'd hoped. She explained to us how that place is known to be a homosexual hangout and she laughed at us alot. The look on our faces must've been priceless at that point. We'd just spent an hour and a half at a homosexual bath and didn't have the faintest clue. And now, here we were, thinking we were going to a big joint to watch a couple of ladies dance and have a beer before bed, but instead end up at a brothel and were the only guys there. The girls figured out in a hurry though that we weren't there to buy sex or anything else, including beers for them (they asked a couple of times). We finished our beers, said bye to the girls and got the hell outta there.

We got back to the hostel and i took a cold shower and cried (a la Ace Ventura). Then i went down and chatted for big with the girl, Stef, at the desk and i told her about our day. Before i told her what bath we'd gone to she said, 'Not the Kirali one though right?'.

Thanks guidebook for recommending a homosexual Hungarian bath as one of the top 30 things to do in Europe.

What a weird, weird day. Started out with being in an old Soviet torture and death house, followed by bathing with a bunch of homosexual Hungarian men, and then finishing up with hanging out in a brothel.

Gotta love Budapest!

Off to the Czech Republic tomorrow morning.

I'm sure nothing weird will happen there...