The Recap - Eastern Europe (and around)

Eastern Europe.  The region where at times you feel as though a Western European city has been gifted to a South East Asian government, which as you can imagine can sometimes be very trying but at the same time very interesting and very different to what we're used to.

Over our month and a bit in the region we met some beautiful and very generous people, ate some great food, drank copious quantities of spirits distilled from everything you can think of and have left wanting more and cannot wait to get back to the region in summer to delve deeper.

The Ticks

• Beer snacks and food in general in Czech.  We had no idea how much we were going to grow to love this nation's food.  Just brilliant. 
• Dogs EVERYWHERE in Romania, every train station that you stop at has its own welcoming and farewelling dog pack. 
• Zdiar actually gave us snow! 
• Christmas markets. 
• The Octogon in Budapest for NYE is mental. 
• Viennese coffeehouses.  So fancy, so traditional, so cool, so good. 
• The salamanders at Home Made Hostel. 
• Rail and bus services in Czech actually do work like clockwork.  They were even more reliable than Germany's.  Gasp. 
• The Budapest coffee scene.  Something that again took us by surprise and gave us a much needed taste of home. 
• Romanian "boobies" 

The Crosses

• The speed of trains in Serbia and Romania.  Whilst they actually allow you to enjoy the countryside as it slowly drifts by, sometimes you just want to get there and not take an hour to do 20 kilometres. 
• The hype behind Bratislava.  Sorry but it was lost on us. 
• Water that gives you the shits in Serbia and Romania.
• Not being able to find traditional Hungarian food in Budapest. 
• ATMs that eat your card in Bratislava. 
• Unfortunately every place that we visited we found ourselves saying, "wouldn't this place be great in summer". 
• Where is the snow? 

The Food 

Christmas Markets - the "tradelink" in Brno, hands down.  We've tried about five or six others throughout the region now and none of them have come close.

The Rest - Czech garlic soup and pickled trout from U Černého Vola .  This was a tough one and there are about five other things that we ate in Czech that could've taken this.  Czech food wins, that's the moral of the story.

The Booze

Christmas Markets - the wine punč at Český Budějovice that was packed full of sultanas and macerated strawberries.  So good when the temperature is hovering around zero and your fingers feel like icey poles.

The Rest - rakia/palinca/fire water/slivovitz/slivovica/brandy.  Call it what you will, this drink is now synonymous with Eastern Europe for us and it will feel like we're catching up with an old friend anytime that we have it again throughout our lives.  This drink is quite possibly the most memorable thing about our time in Eastern Europe.

We would've already been in Morocco for a week once you read this so look forward to sheep's heads, goat's testicles and year old preserved camel meat.  The regularity of those posts will depend on us getting decent internet connections. 

There's one more post on its way before the Morocco ones begin to (hopefully) roll though, it's a goodie.  At least I think it is anyway... 

Bathed in Buda, Ruined in Pest - Hungary Part 2

Food Failings 

This is normally the part where I tell you about all of the great, traditional local food we tried however we seemed to fail on this front but not through a lack of trying.  Over the six days that we were in Budapest we returned to various restaurants in hope of them being open however due to the New Year festivities opening hours were very erratic, if at all.

Traditional foods that we did get to try:

• Első Pesti Rétesház - amazing Hungarian sour cherry and poppy seed strudels that were still warm when they were served to us
• Karcsi Vendéglő - egg drop soup, húsleves fridottó and a random sort of pork concoction that would only pass as a Sunday night dinner
• A random selection of snacks from an old school bakery on Kirily Utca where the little baton things were the stand out and would be a great beer snack
• Delicious, reasonably priced Hungarian goulash soup from a street vendor 
• Another "tradelink" however it still wasn't as good as Brno's
• Főzelékfaló - főzelék, which is a traditional Hungarian vegetable stew.  I think our old 'point and hope' didn't work so well here.   I ended up with potato and Nix white bean but both were very average.  Certainly not the traditional taste sensations that we'd been promised

 
And the non traditional foods that we had to "settle for":

• Hummus Bar - where we had two great hummus plates, one with chicken thighs, hearts and liver that was beautifully earthy and rich, and a great compliment to the creamy hummus
• Massive pizza slices from another shop along Kirily Utca that were pretty good and just what we were after having walked an hour to discover that all of the restaurants that we wanted to visit were closed.  Whilst pizza clearly isn't Hungarian food, ordering a single slice of pizza is a very Hungarian thing to do 
• Arriba Taqueria - this place offers the biggest, heaviest burrito you have ever wrapped your pie hole around.  There are small children out there that weight less than these burittos.  And not only are they big but they're also fekking tasty and the perfect NYE hangover cure.   Oh, and they do pretty good poppers too.  And if you don't know what poppers are well shame on you

Ruin Pubs

Budapest's main draw card for youths is it's ruin pub scene.  At the turn of the century ruin pubs emerged in Budapest where bars were slapped together, using rejected furniture, in buildings doomed for destruction.  They're furnished with all manner of things hanging from the roofs and walls, and covered in brilliant street art.  And when the building that they're occupying is demolished or refurbished they just move a couple of streets to another unoccupied building and pick up where they left off.

However with this world renowned reputation comes the negatives and whilst the ruin pubs were once only frequented by locals and tourists in the know they're now filled with anyone who can read a Lonely Planet guide (I get the hypocrisy again) and there are no locals in sight given a pint now costs about the equivalent of most locals' hourly wage.

We went to Instant the night after New Year's which is the size of five or six smaller bars put together and you can see it would probably be an amazing place on a good night.  However being the night after NYE it was pretty quiet and our snobbishness got the better of us and we didn't stay there too long.  Unfortunately expensive cocktails and lager you'd liken to VB doesn't cut it for us well travelled beer aficionados these days.

Csak a Jó Sör (Only Good Beer) 

We dropped into this place (that rates extremely high) on our first night in Budapest for a couple of Christmas ales.   What a random place it is.

It's a bottle shop come beer bar with an extensive stock of good local and international craft brews that you can see the locals are very keen to learn about and try but unfortunately this place has the atmosphere of a funeral parlour.   Service is dry at best, there's no music, little conversation between patrons and it's just a very strange environment that you feel like the owners have almost deliberately gone for.  Maybe it's just baby steps for Budapest's craft beer at the moment.  It's high rating was lost on the both of us.

Surprisingly Great Coffee

We went to three coffeeshops in Budapest and I can't recommend each of them highly enough if you're ever there.  Espresso Embassy pumps out perfect coffee everytime that's made from a range of different single origins that are on offer, My Little Melbourne (that gives a nice little tasteful taste of home) and Rengeteg RomKafé that's in the cavernous ruin pub style and cannot be missed.

The owner of Rengeteg RomKafé presented us awesome coffees, followed by two little cups of just about the best mulled wine we've had on the trip and then shook our hands on the way out and thanked us for coming.  We could not have been made to feel anymore welcome.

Szeged Stopover

We called in at Szeged on our way to Serbia to try the region's famed fishy delights.  At Vendéglő a Régi Hídhoz we into tucked karp soup that was absolutely loaded with fish, and the "Carp secret á la hungry ferryman" (carp cracklings, smoked bacon, mushrooms, smoked sausage, paprika, garlic and potatoes).  Both good but not brilliant.  I think we were maybe expecting too much.

And finally, as everyone does and should do in Szeged we visited the Pick salami factory and picked up some snacks.

Hungary Part 1

The Beers 

Anchor Christmas Ale
Armando Otchoa Hangover Santa
Brewdog Santa Paws
Anderson Valley Winter Solstice

Bathed in Buda, Ruined in Pest - Hungary Part 1

So, after now having been to each of Vienna, Prague and Budapest I feel that they fall on different parts of the same spectrum.  Having all been rich and powerful centres at different periods in their respective histories, all of them in their own way are very, very grand.  Where Vienna is like the rich, aristocrat uncle, Prague the thirty something investment banker and Budapest the grungy, early twenties uni student with wealthy parents.  They're all similar in ways however each have their own unique set of charms and points of difference.

Buda-Pest 

The name Budapest comes from the connection of the two districts where Buda lies on the west of the Danube and Pest to the east of it.  As far as I'm concerned Pest is where it's at, and districts VI and VII in particular, that are the eating and drinking hubs of Budapest.  And to be even more specific, if you do ever find yourself in Budapest there's only one place to stay and that's Home Made Hostel.  The best hostel we've stayed in so far by a country mile.

Turkish Baths

Due to the abundant natural mineral waters available to Budapest and its very strong Ottoman influence, there is a very good Turkish Bath scene in Budapest.  We did our research and found Veli Bej that is out of the tourist centre, quite difficult to find and was supposedly very traditional so off we went, nice and early to try and avoid a) other tourists and b) the judging eyes of locals.

Paying for entry and accessing our lockers was easy enough and we got changed and were ready to go.  We'd read that you shower before you hit the thermal pools so Nix and I walked into the first shower we saw and started washing ourselves only for a Hungarian man to walk in a couple of minutes later and advise Nix that she was in the men's shower, much to her great embarrassment.

It was fairly smooth sailing from that point on though.  Into the main, beautiful thermal pool we went followed by repeated cycles in and out of various saunas and smaller thermal pools of varying temperatures before finishing off with a massage.

However the massage wasn't really up my alley as it was too oily and sensual to come from a man and was only slightly less strange than the one from the lady boy in Krabi.

Thank you #1 Brother in Law for that very good Turkish Bath Christmas treat.

New Year's Eve

We chose to stay in Budapest at this time of the year on the basis that we'd get to have NYE there.  The night started off slowly with dominoes, a bottle of cherry pálinka and our salamander friends (another reason to stay at Home Made Hostel).

We then moved out into the street where everyone was going nuts with horns and vuvuzelas and fireworks were being let off left, right and centre.  The New Year was brought in with a bottle of the worst sparkling wine (and possibly alcoholic beverage) that either of us had ever tasted, but given I'd bartered with a guy that had a trolley full of them to sell me a bottle for $5 we couldn't really complain.

The night finished with more drinking and Nicola being taught how to dance to Arabic music.  "It's all in the hips".

Hungary Part 2

Pug Sightings - 21