Cycling to Szentendre

Since I've been in Hungary I haven't actually been outside of Budapest (the train journey from Berlin doesn't count). In fact, the farthest I've been from the city centre was Ikea, which is conveniently located at the eastern end of the red (no. 2) metro line, at Örs vezér tere. But Ikea doesn't count - it's just a little piece of Sweden, albeit one where they speak Hungarian. So, I was pleased when some of my lovely colleagues organised a bike ride* to a town called Szentendre, about 20km north of Budapest. The only downside was that it meant getting up early on a Saturday.

We all met up at Batthyány tér, well that was the plan, however Kata seemed to be missing. After about 15 mins Betti called Kata to discover that she was waiting for us at another place further along. Anyway, we all managed to meet up and began the journey along the number 6 cycle route.



It was a beautiful cycle ride (I'm sure the sunny weather helped) as we followed the Danube north for about 10km, and then turned off to cycle through a forest  and open countryside. After about 2 hours, and a few stops to drink water, we arrived in Szentendre. The cycle route takes you to a busy main road, and my first thought was "is this it?", however, after about a kilometer we turned off from the main road and onto the quiet backstreets and cycled alongside the river again into the town. The town is a beautiful place, with cobbled streets and colourful buildings. It's a bit touristy, so there are lots of cafés and gift shops, but that's okay - it's still very picturesque.

Want an iPhone 4?

Every now and again people approach me and ask me for directions. I don't really know why this is, well okay, I know they're asking (because they don't know where to go), but I don't know why they ask me, rather than, for example, a woman walking a dog or a business man.

Anyway, it was for this reason that I wasn't particularly surprised when a guy wandered up to me and started saying something in Hungarian - I just replied "sorry, I don't speak Hungarian", to which he said, almost under his breath, "Hey man, do you want an iPhone 4?" while showing me this little box he was carrying. As much as I like Apple products, I didn't want an iPhone 4, and even though I'm sure he was offering it for a very reasonable price, I certainly wasn't going to buy one on the street, from a guy who was whispering to me and constantly looking around as if the police were about to jump out and arrest him.

The Sziget Festival

One of the events that had only been on the periphery of my consciousness, was the Sziget Festival. I'm not a festival person, never have been really, and I have to admit that I'd never heard about it until I started to look for hostels in Budapest - I soon realised that there was a reason that they were all nearly fully booked.

The festival takes place in early August (this year it was the second week of August) on a small island in the north of Budapest and it's huge - apparently approximately 400,000 people attended this year. It's also very expensive - 45 euros for a day ticket, and then 140-200 euros for the week, depending on whether you camp on the island and when you buy. There are though lots of really big names who play there - this year they had: Prince, Good Charlotte, Pulp, Skunk Anansie, Kate Nash, The Prodigy, Kaiser Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, and lots more. That was just on the Rock-Pop stage - they have lots of different stages to suit your mood.

I would've liked to go for the day, but I couldn't really afford to go and sadly that seems to be the case for most Hungarians too - it's become very commercial, very international, and therefore very expensive. And for some reason I kept meeting Dutch people going to the festival.

Anyway, if you're a festival person and want to experience it while you're here, you can find more information here: www.sziget.hu

Opening a Bank Account

If you're staying here for a more than just a couple of months, then you may want to open a bank account. I realised after a few weeks, when I checked my netbank in Denmark, that it costs a lot to use the ATMs - I was paying about 4 euros everytimee I withdrew cash!!! So I decided that I had to open a bank account, then I would be able to transfer the money once a month, and avoid all those extra fees.

There are lots of banks to choose from, but the biggest bank (with the most ATMs) is OTP (www.otpbank.hu) so, for convenience, I thought I'd go to them. I set out on a sunny Friday afternoon and wandered into my local OTP bank and was struck my the first obstacle: a ticket-queueing system with about 10 options entirely in Hungarian. Hmmm, this wasn't going to be my day. The thought of waiting for 10 minutes, then finding out that I'd taken the wrong ticket and having to wait again didn't really appeal to me, so I thought that this was something I could leave for another day.

Getting a Hungarian SIM Card

One of the first things I did when I got here was to get a pay-as-you-go SIM card, since it still costs a lot to use international mobiles across Europe (although it's much cheaper than it once was). Anyway, it's the kind of thing you're going to want to do if you're staying here for longer than a few weeks, and because I was looking for an apartment and needed to speak to agents, I knew it would be cheaper.

Of course, there's no reason you can't get a contract mobile if you're going to be here for a while, but I'm a guy and so phone conversations usually consist of "Hi", "yeah good thanks, how about you?", "okay, 8 o'clock - at Szimpla?", "yep, okay, see you then" - and that takes all of 45 seconds, so a contract phone with "free" minutes, and all the other nonsense that some people find useful, wasn't worth it for me. So I just looked up some of the big mobile companies websites to find out what they were offering. After a chat with my Hungarian friend, I settled on T-Mobile and their Domino scheme.

http://www.t-mobile.hu/english/all_plans/domino_sim/domino_sim_card

There are quite a few mobile phone shops across the city, but I to the T-Mobile shop on Petőfi Sándor utca 12, in the 5th District, just because it was nearby. They have an electronic ticket system for queuing, and thankfully you could choose English, so I was able to get a ticket for Mobile Sales, rather than some other department. When it was eventually my turn (it took at least 15 minutes, which is a long time to sit in a phone showroom with nothing but smart phones to look at, btw I'm not in the slightest bit interested in smart phones - my phone makes calls and sends SMSs, so it's smart enough). The girl I spoke to fortunately spoke good English, but I noticed that some of the others didn't - there was a late 50s German guy who was clearly having some trouble explaining something. All I needed was my passport, an address, and some cash to pay for it - and the girl installed the card straight away - the domino contract I got seems quite cheap and the card cost about 5000 forint (about 17 euros) and included some credit, so I really can't complain.

The only thing I've found slightly annoying is that I've no idea how to check my balance, and see how much credit I have left - if I work that one out I'll post it here.

Update (28/03/14):
To check balance on T-Mobile Domino dial *102# and press call.
You see a message displayed.
"Egyenleg" Means balance.
(Thanks John!)

Finding an Apartment

Finding an apartment when you're not living in the city is difficult. Before I arrived in Budapest I'd found a few websites (listed at the end of this post) offering apartments for rent, from about 250 euros + bills, and there were lots of nice pictures on the websites, but don't be fooled - I've come to realise that the agencies are very good at taking good pictures. After e-mailing some of the agencies I decided that the best way to find an apartment would be to actually be in the city so that I could see the apartments and then decide - it was a wise decision. When I viewed some of the apartments, a lot of them looked nothing like the pictures, which were obviously taken when the apartments had been refurnished and cleaned.

I decided to just go to Budapest and stay in a hostel while I viewed some apartments, so I had a look for hostels on www.hostelworld.com (which is great btw - I've found the reviews really helpful in finding good hostels, and more importantly avoiding the bad ones) . I booked into the Good Morning Budapest Hostel, on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky utca, which had good reviews and was well located. From the reviews there are lots of good hostels in Budapest, Njoy Hostel is one of them, but GMB Hostel was great - the staff were really friendly and helpful and on Thursdays and Sundays they make traditional Hungarian dishes, which was a nice touch - I can really recommend it.

The Transit System

This map makes it look complicated - it's not.

The tram, bus and metro system in Budapest is really good. Sure, some of them are a bit old and well-worn, but that's all part of their charm. In saying that, there are some new trams with air-conditioning, which has been really nice on those days when it was 30+ C and you're baking hot.

The other good thing is that a monthly ticket, with which you can use the tram, bus, and metro, is really cheap - ok, cost is always a relative thing, but at just under 15 euros for a monthly student pass, I think that's pretty cheap considering a 3-zone monthly student pass in London costs almost 100 euros*!!!). And that reminds me, there's no zone system in Budapest - you can just travel around on the buses, trams, and metro as much as you like :-)

Before the Beginning

The best place to start is often at the beginning, however I'd like to start before then, since it will hopefully be of some help to anyone else who is thinking of moving to Budapest.

The story then starts 13 hours before the beginning, with me getting dropped off at Berlin Hauptbanhoff by a friend in an old white Volkswagen Polo. I was a little early and so it didn't surprise me when I looked up at the departure board and couldn't see the direct train from Berlin to Budapest listed. So I waited patiently, as any polite Englishman would ... 15 minutes passed or approximately four songs (Rolling Stones: Beast of Burden, Lilly Allen: The Fear, Imogen Heap: Hide and Seek, Bill Withers: Use Me). Ok, there's a long queue at the information desk and I've got two ridiculously heavy bags, so I can't be bothered to drag them around and stand in line ... as you'll no doubt encounter throughout this diary forward-slash alternative travel guide, many of my actions are based upon my loathing of queues and doing anything to avoid them. Anyway, the helpful people at Deutsche Rail or whatever they're called have paper timetable which list the platform number that trains depart from. This could never happen in England since you never know in advance how late the train will be or whether it will turn into a bus.