Location: Budapest, Hungary

M: We woke up this morning in Vienna after a surprisingly restful night’s sleep on the train. The seats all reclined into the middle row area, making for an almost flat bed to stretch out on. I woke up pretty early this morning and the first thing I did was look up the US election results… I had about an hour and a half of darkness by myself before Savanna woke up to contemplate what the hell is happening. Unfortunately this gloomy, reflective hour and a half yielded no answers. I am still stunned and will be for a while.

It was nice to be in Vienna for a bit this morning because we are familiar with the main train station. We got some coffee and breakfast while waiting for our train to Budapest. The train ride was uneventful but we did have an interesting character in our cabin to keep us equal parts entertained and confused. Now that we were properly caffeinated after getting coffee in Vienna, our levels of exasperation about the election and excitement about returning to Budapest were at a new high.

Walking through the streets of Budapest again was lovely. The sun was shining and the leaves were falling. We found our way back to Vitae no problem, pointing out places we remembered from our last visit. The feeling of familiarity and ease we felt earlier this morning in Vienna was magnified because we had such an amazing time here.

When we arrived at Vitae we searched around for Maddie, the girl we met here in Budapest last time and who came to Croatia with us. We hadn’t seen her in a while and we were super excited to be reunited! There was a lot of hugging and a lot of catching up.

As much as the train sleep was good, it was still a train sleep. Because of that and the fact that we secretly still want to be five years old, we indulged in nap time. We woke up from our naps excited to get things going and to meet the new people here at Vitae. As with every other night, the hostel had a fun evening planned. We made our way over to Retox for a while but Savanna wasn’t feeling very well so we headed home early.

S&M