Budapest!

The participants:  An Aussie, a Canadian, a Slovak, a Czech, and a Texan.

The music: The Beatles, "Magical Mystery Tour". Adele, "21".  Arcade Fire, "Suburbs".  IAMX, "Kingdom of Welcome Addiction".  Oaisis, "What's the Story Morning Glory?".  Coldplay, "X&Y".  And a playlist mix simply titled "Get Psyched" made by the Canadian. 

The car:  Some trusty red hybrid Honda thing. 

The destination: Budapest.  Debauchery. 

A formula for awesome!  And yet things were far from awesome here and there....but we brought it back and made it awesome.  The hostel was super cheap...and pretty crappy.  The city was hard to get around, hard to find any good bars, and not as modern as Prague.  But there was lots of cool stuff to see and do.  Namely the baths.  Oh man, the baths were incredible.  Big pools, small pools, hot pools, cold pools, fountains, jets, whirlpool rides of joy.  The city has several but we went to the Szechenyi.  I would go back just for those.  We could have done more with the city, but it was mostly just good to get out of town and see some new scenery. I think when visiting somewhere else you either need to spend more than a couple of days or have a local/residing expat to take you to cool places.

Although it's hard to even remember at this point what my expectations of all this were, I do remember feeling like Prague wouldn't be as modern as it is.  Both Vienna and Budapest have more of an old-world feel with the older metros and trams, older cars, less English spoken, etc.  They've been great to see (and add to my places been list), but so far I much prefer Prague.  Part of that is just being familiar with the city and having friends here though. 

I do think getting away now and then is super important.  Today was just fantastic for lot of reasons, but taking off and coming back might have helped too.  Great weather, great lessons, and great company all day.