Täglich Wiederkehrendes Abenteuer

The next morning we got up at 5:30AM and all quiet like snuck out of the room. Some of the other people had only gotten back at 4:45AM. We brushed our teeth and headed down to the tram. The plan was to take the tram part of the way, then walk up a street we wanted to see. Yeah, that didn’t work so well.

We got to the tram stop and discovered that both ticket machines were out of order. We walked down to the next tram stop and found that one of the machines was out of order. We managed to find a working machine, but when we put the money in for a ticket, nothing came out. We couldn’t cancel the transaction or anything. It just plain ate our 320 HUFs. As a side note, I call the money there “huffs”. That’s because the code for the currency is HUF, like USD is for United States Dollar. The actual name is Hungarian forint, but that’s not nearly as fun to say.

At that point it wouldn’t have been worth getting a tram ticket for the two stops, so we walked the entire way up to the bath house. The street we wanted to see was fairly nice. It had some nice houses, a few embassies, and a large art gallery (or at least I think that’s what it was). It took quite a long time, but we finally arrived at Heroes Square and the start of the park with the bath house.

We walked through the park a bit, got lost, then found the bath house. We got our day tickets, then moved into the changing areas. They have this neat thing where you walk into a little room that leads from the entrance area into the locker rooms, shut the door to the entrance, shut the door to the locker room, then fold down a little bench that blocks both doors from opening inwards. It’s kinda clever!

We got changed, then a nice security guard showed us how to use the RFID lockers. Full technical explanations on request!

We wandered into the bathhouse and found a room with several different pools. We were confused, so we just went outside to the main pools. The pools are kept a little warm, but it’s actually really relaxing, even on a not-so-chilly day. We sat around in the first outdoor pool for a bit, then decided to explore. We walked down the pool area, past the swimming pool (caps were required, so we didn’t get to go in), and found the other outdoor pool. This one was a little warmer and had bubbly areas. We hopped in… well, we actually walked in. They have a little ring around the pool filled with water that you step in to wash your feet, then you get into the actual pool.

Once in the pool, we tried the bubbly areas. They are quite nice and rather popular. We noticed that there was a ring in the middle with seat and more bubblies, so we went in there and sat. Pretty soon we noticed that the bubblies had stopped and that people were coming into the center. They weren’t coming for the sitting area though. Once the bubbly areas turn off, the pool gets a strong current the goes around the center area. There’s a circle in the middle where you sit, then an outer circle that forms a ring of swirly water. You can just hop in the ring and let the current drag you around. It’s a really fun time. I spent quite a bit of time in there.

Actually, the Internet can provide the picture I was too timid to take myself!

After the pool switched back to bubblies, we went inside again and found an entirely different room with a large circular pool. We sat in there a bit and got all pruny. It turns out that they have about three different types of pools and each of those types comes in different temperature variations. All the info was in Hungarian, so we can’t say much more than that. We walked through the entire building and tried pools with about a 30 to 40 degree Celsius temperature range. It was neat.

I should say a bit more about this. The outdoor pool we first tried out was pretty normal. It was just water with stairs leading into it from all directions. There was one little thing that bears mentioning. Part of the pool has a chess board. It was just a little ledge that had a board on it, and you could stand there in the water and play chess. Again, the Internet is awesome:

The inside of the building is slightly old in style and decor. It really had a 50’s hospital feel to it. At least for me. Here’s a sample (thanks Internet!) of what the inside pools look like:

Pretty soon we decided to leave, so we got all changed again and headed back toward the hostel. We made a quick stop by this little castle we had seen. Next to that there was some modern art in the park’s lake. They had a little flooded house, sailboats made from oil drums, and four cars welded to a platform in a cross shape. Who knows.

We got back to the hostel just in time for a little breakfast, then we checked out and headed to the train station. The Budapest Keleti train station is pretty neat looking on the outside and the inside.

Unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of the inside. The ticket office is buried in the building and we didn’t have much time before the train we wanted left, so we had to focus on that. It actually looks a lot like the market hall inside… but with less produce… and more trains.

We got on the train and found it to be very crowded. We sat next to each other across the isle… after we asked people to move their bags. It was a bit before the train cleared enough for us to sit next to each other. The rest of the ride was uneventful.

We got back to Linz, grabbed some noodle box, and just crashed. We spent the evening working on the last minute prep for our big trip that starts tomorrow and getting stuff ready to blog. It’s taken us until Sunday night (it’s 11:59PM) to get everything done. So, tomorrow we start the big one. We might be able to update on the road, but we’re not sure. So if you don’t hear from us for a few weeks, no need to worry, it just means you’ll have a solid day of reading once we get everything blogged!