the end of Budapest, hello Romania

it's 10 pm in Oradea, Romania. i'm in a small, somewhat hard to find, exuberantly friendly hostel - 60 minutes after i arrived last night i had already been presented with two shots of palinka, a portion of some house painters' dinner, and was down in the wine cellar drinking a red aszu dessert wine called Cadarissima (fantastic). not only that, but the hostel was actually full so one of the guys who works here gave me his bed (he slept elsewhere).
so far, so good. (okay except for the part where a weird Hungarian guy I can't communicate with just wandered into my room in his underwear and stared at my back for a while...he didn't want to use the computer...I'm locking the door tonight.)

still, it was hard to say goodbye to Budapest and all the amazing people who have befriended me.
if i could split myself into two or three parts i would leave a piece there.

the last two weeks were incredibly hectic and my plans for lazing about the city, visiting museums etc were way too optimistic. packing, cleaning, figuring out trains, deciding where to go (last possible minute), writing reports (last possible minute), recovering from a typical weekend with Sergio and Frederico, cooking up a feast featuring the random remnants of our freezer and pantry (thanks Natasha and Natasha's mum and everyone who ate!), doing all the administration involved in eventually getting paid and trying to send a package home without spending all the money I've earned (UPS wanted several hundred dollars. i've gone with the dodgy postal system instead.) took up all of my time. At least the time that was not being spent at West Balkan and Szimpla Kert. Four nights in a row at the same club? What do I think this is, 1995 at Zaphod's?

On my way home from this evening (Night#1 at West Balkan, with some very fun French Couchsurfers who were crashing at our place):


I saw this view of Andrassy and just had to stand in the middle of the road to capture it. This is Budapest.