Middle East Feet: May 4

Sunday, we were once again up and out the door pretty early. We packed our things and stored them at the front desk to pick up later. We checked out of the hotel and headed to Burger King to change it up a little bit, but they were closed. So we went to the staple of McDonalds (actually it was quick, easy, and cheap). We walked to the National Museum, which was actually not too bad. There was way too much of it in a Language that I did not understand, but it was interesting none the less. Plus with our awesome Budapest Cards, we got in free…so that is always a plus. It was a great way to spend a few hours before heading off to the highlight of the day.

After leaving the Museum, we decided to head towards the Gellert Bath and Spa. This is one of the many spas/baths that are in and around town that feed off many of the natural hot springs in this area. Before heading into the spa, we stopped at a café and had a quick club sandwich to alleviate our hunger. After lunch, we decided to try this out. Now, my accent is very pronounced…so I get Carol to do most of the talking to people who do not understand English. They had a board with many options on it, however we could not get anyone to explain them to us. So we paid for our passes, which I think we got what we wanted. We headed to the entrance, and you can see one of the pools through the glass. However 2 sets of steps go down, one left, one right. No signs. Luckily, a man was coming up the left side, so we parted ways to meet later on at the pool. After a long corridor and many steps I ended up at the locker room, which was interesting… The signage in this place was horrible, and you just had to hope you didn’t walk in the wrong door. Granted it is Europe, so I doubt anyone would have said anything if I would have accidently walked into the Women’s bathroom…but luckily I didn’t find out.

I went outside to wait for Carol and got in one of the hot pools. These were extremely nice. Very warm. It was really a neat experience, many people just come and hang out in the hot water for hours. The water is supposed to have some sort of healing effects. Soon, I heard the wave pools getting fired up, so I went and jumped in. WOW. That was cold. Brrr. Especially after being in the hot pool for about 15 minutes. Needless to say, a return visit to the hot pool was in order after 5 minutes in the wave pool.

We went inside to check out the other baths. They had another pool that was probably Olympic size. This pool had bubbles coming up through the floor for 10 minutes every ½ hour. It was a little cooler than the pool outside.

I played and swam around while Carol went and grabbed some pictures. After her return, we went to a smaller semi-circle shaped pool which was great. There were probably 50 people in there, and it was the hottest by far. It was a really neat experience seeing men and women walking around in bathing suits again. I am so used to only seeing eyes, a face, and maybe hands that it was a little weird.

After hanging out for a couple of hours, we headed to the locker room to change. We turned in our towels and got our deposits back and walked in the direction of the hotel. It was really early for dinner, but we wanted to get something before we got on the Train. So we grabbed some easy food at a restaurant near the hotel. I had some Goulash, which is a traditional Hungarian dish.

After dinner we grabbed out bags from the hotel and headed for the main station. Our train left in the early evening, so it was actually a pretty quick day. We boarded the car, which was a first class sleeper car. We had 3 bunks in our room, but only 2 were out. There was room for both of our bags, a sink, a few lights, and that is about it. It would have been doable, but really tight with 3 people. We had a couple drinks and some snacks followed by some reading before heading off to sleep. Carol had the top bunk and I had the bottom, which was great, especially for that late night call of nature. It was ok, except the open side of the bed was towards the front of the train.

The driver started out OK, but about 3AM he was hitting the breaks pretty hard and we both almost fell out a few times. Luckily, both of the bunks had safety rails on them. We arrived in Prague at about 6:00 to start a new day…