Everyone tells me how brave I am and how much they admire me for following my dreams, but I don’t see it in the same way. I could not imagine doing anything other than what I am doing. As scary as it is to travel alone, I think it would be scarier regretting never having taken the opportunity to see the world. There are so many incredible places to visit that I have a difficult time deciding where to visit first. I’ve stopped making a list of the places I would like to visit and have just accepted that I am going to be travelling for as long as possible. Since moving to France I’ve learned a lot about myself and my friends and family. Maintaining friendships isn’t always easy, especially with the 6 hour time difference, but I’m doing the best that I can. Whenever I feel down and defeated, I FaceTime Nana and she is always able to give me the exact advice that I need at the time. During out past couple of conversations she has been so incredibly supportive of my desire to travel and see the world. It’s interesting because she and my late grandpa are the people who instilled a love of travel in me from a very young age.
Of everyone I know, Nana is the person I listen to most seriously. While I love my mother, I feel like Nana is able to give me unbiased advice, even if she would rather have me in Michigan with her. Our past couple of conversations have focused on two ideas:
1. I will not be young forever and I must seize every opportunity that I have to travel while I am young, healthy, and able bodied. (This was great advice as I am going to become a senior citizen in less than five months…)
2. Don’t worry about the money. It will always work out. If it were always easy, it wouldn’t be worth it. Focus on the memories and experiences and everything else will sort itself out.
So, Nana and I have had many conversations about my life and life decisions, and whenever I am doubtful or fearful, she is able to talk some sense into me. Thus, my trip to Budapest. Originally, I had a different destination in mind, but after researching, learned that it will be better to visit this other country in April. As I mentioned, I no longer have a list of places I want to visit, I just want to see the world. My new strategy for deciding where to travel is based on the affordability at the time. Because I am living in Europe, so many countries are only a few hours and a few hundred euro away. Budapest happened to be one of the most affordable places to visit at this time of year. So, I bought my ticket and didn’t look back.
I decided to spend four days in Budapest, which tends to be the maximum amount of time I can spend visiting one place. Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest, that are divided by the Danube River. I was able to get a really good deal on a hotel on the Pest side, right near the Danube Riverwalk. What’s nice about Budapest is that there is an airport shuttle directly to most of the hotels, for considerably less than the cost of a taxi. My roundtrip ticket was 20 euro, which is impossible to beat.
My hotel was in a perfect location. A two minute walk to the river, and bus stops and metro stations within a five minute walk. The public transit was super reliable and super easy to navigate. In the city centre the metro arrived every 90-seconds, so it was never a long wait. It was a similar system to that in Copenhagen or Prague, where you bought one ticket, validated it, and could freely use all of the public transit. However, even though the public transit system was super easy to navigate, when someone is as directionally challenged as I am, a lot of time is wasted trying to determine the direction to head after exiting the transportation.
I spent most of my time out and about, trying to see and do as much as possible. The one thing that I was really hoping to do, but wasn’t able to make happen was visit the Mini Bar. Apparently, there were special hours for the January through March. I was really bummed at first, but then I realized that this was a perfect reason for another trip. Additionally, I was only able to visit two of the bath houses, so I’d like to visit many more. While I saw and did many different things in Budapest, there were a few things that stood out, and others that were not very memorable.
One of the not so memorable things I did was visit Buda Castle. Don’t get me wrong, it was an awesome adventure/experience trying to get here (see directionally challenged commentary above), it just wasn’t what I was expecting. It might be because living in France has left me jaded when it comes to castles, or it might be that it simply wasn’t anything too special. The zoo was a cool experience, but it was also a little depressing. Compared to some of my favorite zoos (Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago,Illinois), Cleveland Zoo (Cleveland, Ohio), National Zoo (Washington D.C.), and Memphis Zoo (Memphis, Tennessee), and Beauval ZooParc (Beauval, France) to name a few) this one was much smaller and didn’t give the animals as much space to play. However, there were several baby animals in the zoo (elephant, giraffe, kangaroos).
Also, the architecture (especially the roofs) was stunning. I am falling in love with Eastern Europe. Another reason I would love to visit Budapest again is to spend more time discovering the architecture. I didn’t realize how comfortable and at home I felt in Eastern Europe until this year. Prior to moving to France, I had only visited Western Europe. This was a nice change of pace and is helping me to want to understand my own heritage in a new and deeper way.
Overall, I had a wonderful experience in Budapest and hope to visit again in the ‘near’ future. Below is a collage of the highlights of my trip. It is difficult for me to remember (and more importantly, accept) that I cannot see and do everything a city has to offer in one trip.
Tracy's Life Abroad 