You Can Have This Coffee With The Gourmand But Only For Today

Our last stop was Budapest – a city in which I would definitely live if anyone there spoke English. After buying a ticket using almost exclusively hand signals as communication, we navigated the metro and began to search for the street on which our hostel was located. We eventually became hopelessly lost. The first people we asked for directions were two old ladies walking arm in arm down the street. They didn’t speak a word of English so we pointed at a map. Yelling slowly in Hungarian, they tried to explain why they couldn’t help us. When one of them mimed putting on a pair of glasses, we discerned that they couldn’t see the map. The next pair of women we stopped was slightly younger than we are and were wearing quite possibly the two most trashy outfits one could ever put together. They didn’t speak any English either, but they could see the map and walked us to the street. The hostel was located behind a huge wooden gate and was right next to a really unsettlingly sketchy construction site. Having had some bad experiences with the other hostels on the trip, I wasn’t expecting much from this one, particularly because it was the least expensive. I was pleasantly surprised.

The hostel had just opened two weeks before and was in a breathtaking historical building. The terraces were lined with candles and paper lanterns, the rooms were freshly painted, and the showers and linens were brand new. Since we were the only three people staying in the hostel for those three nights, the staff doted on us, giving us a free shot of a traditional Hungarian liqueur as a welcome drink and serving us delicious breakfasts in the mornings.

During our stay, we met up with my friend Justin and saw all sorts of sites such as Buda Castle, Parliament, Heroes Square, St. Steven’s Basilica, and this really cool museum called the House of Terror, which chronicled the history of Hungary during the reign of the Nazis and then that of the Communists.

I returned to Paris exhausted with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and an empty wallet, but I’ve never had such an amazing experience. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to see so many places, meet so many new people, and learn so much about countries with which I had no familiarity previously. But aside from enlightening me of the existence of truly incredible places in the world, my trip also reminded me how much I love the states. While these cities were certainly amazing, none of them really felt like home. I miss the homey feeling that New York, and to some extent D.C., gives me. I’m pumped to visit Copenhagen next weekend, and maybe a few more cities before I bid farewell to Europe, but I think I’m going to be really happy to be home when the time comes.