Budapesti

Forgive the bullet points. The hostel has 1 computer and many Asians.

Unexpected closures of everything in Iasi led us on a wild goose chase for some fun looking place to hang out and talk to locals about the history of the area, and what people do there now. We did find a castle, and one of Stefan Cel Mare's little churches, but not much else. After walking with out baggage (baggage storage was closed for Christmas) 2 1/2 hours walking up and down hills with everything shut, we admitted defeat and holed up in McDonalds to wait the remaining two hours before the train

Budapesti itself has been enhanced by wandering around behind our own tour guides, Zach, another volunteer came this far with us to meet up with some friends of his here as this is where he got his Masters degree> Thus, the places we go are local, cheaper and far more interesting. Though, funny enough, they don't speak much Hungarian.

Zach says that everyone young here speaks English and everyone old speaks German. He just spoke German for two years! Very cool, as it turns out Hungarian is more distantly related to English than Farsi or Sinhalese. I remember learning this in language classes, but seeing it in action is a little intimidating and fascinating.

Like last night's coffee bar: a three storey affair with giant spiral staircase and clearly student generated art work everywhere. The coffee was delicious and served in square cups. Hungarian beer was on tap and everything very happily priced. I also got to peruse some art and theatre magazines for their pictures. It looks like a full and vibrant art house life. And considering the hype, I guess I should not have been surprised!

Budapesti is good.

But you may have to learn about Budapesti later as this keyboard is turning caps and number lock on at random, and the punctuation is scatter shot and the typing difficult. gr.