To keep myself busy yesterday, I rented a bike from Yellow Zebra (www.YellowZebraBikes.com) and spent five hours peddling around Budapest, city of two million, which is divided into two distinct parts: Buda and Pest. The former is the hilly, greener side of the city, east of the Danube River, and the latter is pretty much flat and has the majority of tourist attractions and shops.

Part way, I stopped at St. Stephen’s Basilica (1905), the largest church in Budapest. For 500 Forint (less than two Euros), I took the spiral staircase to the top and was rewarded with views across the entire city.

There really is plenty to see in this amazingly beautiful and romantic city. Unfortunately, I’m still not in the right frame of mind to write, so here are some of the photos that I took.

So the reason the place I stayed at in Budapest felt like a university hall of residence is because that’s exactly what it is! It’s only used as a hostel during the summer months, hence the name Summer Hill Hostel.

When I wrote earlier, I’d made a reservation on-line at Domino Hostel through Bookings HU, a Hungarian hotel site. The hostel only opened last week. I was feeling happier about everything.

Until at 1800 hours when I went to check in, armed with reservation number.

“Sorry, we’re full,” Dan said. “Don’t know what to tell you. Robbie Williams is in town.”

Bloody wonderful. I was close to tears and ready to just turn around and head right back to the train station.

To give Dan credit, he did make a couple of calls to find me somewhere else to stay for the night, accompanied me on the tram and carried my backpack, but Lord is this place nasty. For starters it’s nearly double the price and looks like an old university: huge, square, and with absolutely none of the character of the beautiful buildings downtown. I’ve got my own room but am sharing the bathroom with one other person, whom I went to dinner with this evening.

Can’t say I’m not meeting a diverse bunch of folks during my travels. This guy channels energy for a living. Actually makes money from it. And check this out… he channels energy through his guides: extra terrestrial beings.

Don’t get me wrong, whatever rocks your boat, but all the time we were talking I kept wondering if ET really was just “phoning home” all those years ago.

Anyway, it at least got me out for the evening. Am feeling better but think I’ll head out tomorrow afternoon after doing some sightseeing.

It took just over an hour to get to Rajka from Vienna by train, and it only took me 30 minutes to walk the entire length of the village–twice–to snap some photographs. According to Multimap, Rajka is in Slovakia, but it’s not. Okay, it’s only 2 km from the Slovakian border, but it’s definitely in Hungary.

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Sisters Angeline and Josette picked my next desination out of the hat. On Tuesday, after a couple of days R and R back in Vienna, I’ll head to Rajka in Hungary, which lies right near the Austria/Slovakia borders.