Joan
 Ubide
 Photography
 &
 a
 few
 sounds

Budapest, Hungary, has been for the time being our best experience. The city is a mixture of beauty, ruins, modernity and past, all together and in the right measure. This makes this city something very special.

Without doubt, the best thing of these 5 days in Budapest has been our hostel, a house for travelers very appropriately called “Our Place”. There we met and shared experiences with great people.

Let’s talk about Victor and Jake. They are two friends who started up this small hostel in the city centre, right in front of the Keleti Palvaduvar station. It was the cheapest hostel we could find on the Internet: only 9 Euro, but after a couple of days at “Our Place”, we decided that we would spend 3 more days there. Victor is Hungarian, from Budapest, and he is, or at least he thinks he is (he laughs), 33 years old. Two years ago he started up the hostel after traveling over the world during 4 years, always studying and working. Victor was a little shy at the beginning, but he always offered us coffee and was very helpful with anything we needed. A couple of days later, he was sharing coffees and beers with us, and he even organized, together with Jake, a farewell party for us. Jake, Victor’s hostel mate, is quite a character. He was born and lived in South Korea, and decided to live his life in other places. He radiates friendliness and happiness. He took us to know a pair of incredible terraces we would have never found by ourselves. He jumps for joy when he talks about how good Spanish cured ham is with a glass of wine.

Travelers and friends:

Besides Victor and Jake, we shared experiences with Ashley, a girl from Hong Kong who hit the trail alone to see the world, by the end of February. She has already been to Peking, Moscow, Moldavia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and, at the moment, Hungary. Right now se is thinking about where to go next, probably she will go to Rumania. Her budget will be gone soon.

We also had a great time with Molly and Sarah, two American girls who offered to show us the city. Unfortunately, they had to leave, so we could only share hostel with them for a couple of days.

A great friend we’ve found along the way has been Chris, from Chicago. He is a 23-year-old traveler who took his degree in Aeronautical Physics one year ago. Chris decided to take a couple of years off to travel and see the world before going for the postgraduate courses. His trip started on the 19th of February, and he has been to Kenya, China, Italy, UK, Scotland, Holland, Germany, Czech Republic and now Hungary. Chris has had so much fun with us these days in Budapest, he is going to join us for a few days on our trip to Transylvania (Rumania). This is one of the most interesting things of this trip, the fact that people joins us and follows our route during a few days.

From this journal, I would like to take the opportunity to say hello to all the other people who arrived the last day: Sanane, the two Luanas, Lara from Brazil and the team México!

A very special hug to Laura and Peter from Belgium. Spending some time with you has been a pleasure; I hope I can meet you again some day.

And also a hug, but a very gentle one, to Megan from the UK. And I say a gentle one because the last day she fell asleep in the sun and turned up at the hostel as red as a lobster.

While I’m writing this little journal, we are in the train on our way to Rumania. It’s getting dark, and we are entering the gloom of Transylvania. I have just realized that we are all by ourselves in the coach, along a track which looks half abandoned, among trees and bottomless precipices… I still believe that Dracula is a pantomime, but the truth is that it is a bit scary to pop your head out of the window.

The next album and article of these travelers will bring you to this country.

Note: I have received some e-mails asking when I will publish new articles and pictures. I don’t have an exact date. Sometimes I can’t even access the Internet. I recommend you to subscribe, so that you don’t have to enter the web page every now and then looking for new contents. When I publish something new I’ll let you know by e-mail.