I arrived in Budapest in the early evening to find my hotel, wasn't a real place and the contact person was, to put it kindly, not a real gentleman. I did find a real hotel to stay at pretty quickly since my first destination was on a well traveled toursist road.
I joined the Budapest Internations group for a outside dinner, the dinner was hosted in a bombed out type of spring and summer only restaurant/bar. The group was congenial and warm, they also all spoke English, which was great for me, I had lived in an apartment with two non-English speakers for 6 weeks just prior to this.
A huge thunderstorm came and washed away our dinner left overs as we huddled up three to a tiny umbrealla. It was a quick way to get to know people :)
One of the group members took us on a local tour to the "best beer you have ever tasted". I'm not a huge beer fan, but this local stuff was really good. Our group had 6 beers and some appetizers for a grand total of $3 Euros...this is a definite place to visit if you are on a budget and love beer.
We took the night train the "the best place to dance in Budapest" (the Hungarian girl that was taking us around really liked that phrase). It was interesting to seeing another culture's night clubs. Everyone was friendly, it was layed out like a Denny's restaurant. Everyone sat at their tables and drank, when a good song, most likely 80's American rock came on, they would stand at the tables and dance. As the night went on people would move around to different tables and dance with everyone. It was a very laid back event, so different from a plastic American dance club.
On my second day I took the hop-on-hop-off bus around town and then the evening Danube cruise. I took a cheap one and had hot dogs, chips and beer for dinner. If you have a good camera, take it on this adventure, a smart phone just doesn't cut it. The buildings were amazing in the evening, very romantic if you're with the right person.
If you are a solo traveler my two recomendations for meeting people are the Internations group and the outside bar at the Hard Rock Cafe, it attracts a lot of English speakers.
Overall, Budapest suprised me with it's friendlieness, and fun locals, not to mention architecture and the WWII damage that wasn't scrubbed up yet. The prices can't be beat for the amount of culture in this place. Do beware of the taxi drivers, you'll need someone to call a taxi for you unless you want to make a large donation to someone's beer fund.
Ciao for now.
