HUNGARY AGAIN

I've gorged myself on travel recently. You'll not that I avoided use of the word 'overdosed' because honestly, how can you have TOO MUCH travel in your life?

So I've already told you about Belgium at the start of April, next was Budapest at the start of May. It was a long weekend with 12 friends, and marked my second time in the lovely twin cities of Buda and Pest. We went to the baths (of course), ate lots of food (of course), went to a salsa club (of c... actually that probably was a bit unusual in Hungary).

One of my favourite adventures was when a few of us were wandering the streets looking for a drink in which to rest our weary livers, and ended up at the surprising and delightful Piaf club. We were walking along the street and passed a nondescript black door with an enticing sign reading 'Ring Bell'. Having no idea what lay behind that door - perhaps it was the meeting place of some modern day cultural revolutionaries? - I found the simplicity and invitation of the sign too much to resist. I Rang Bell.

The door opened a crack and a head popped out. The view behind that head was of a dark, smoky room, seemingly decked floor to ceiling in red velvet. Sounds of jazz drifted out from behind The Head, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a singer in an evening gown drift past the entrance. The Head itself was brusque and Hungarian, and didn't seem welcoming by any definition of the word.

"Um...is this a bar or something?"
"Yes." No further movement, no opening of the door crack.
"Ah...can we come in then?"
"You pay."

Unsure what we'd be getting ourselves into, I was feeling the weight of responsibility for the group's decision on whether to enter this odd and uninviting establishment. However, once The Head elaborated that the entrance fee would include our first drink, all concerns were brushed away and we stepped inside to find out exactly what lay behind the door.

Piaf. It was red velvet curtains and sofas. It was red lamps, barely lighting the dark room. It was a sultry older woman with impressive cleavage revealed by a clinging ball gown, singing Edith Piaf songs and evoking the atmosphere of the 1940s. It was fantastic.

After an hour or so there, we noticed that other people were walking through the door, down some stairs at the back of the club, and not reappearing. At first we assumed the bathrooms were down there, but the 'not reappearing' aspect made that either unlikely or eerie. A couple of us went down to investigate, and we found a cavernous space, populated by flashing disco lights, flashy disco people, and pumping music. A proper nightclub!

The party moved downstairs, where we stayed until the wee hours. It was great, with lots of classic oldie tunes from the eighties mixed in with more modern dance numbers to keep the kids happy. We had such a good time that we returned the next night with the complete group. The second night was much, much messier than the first  (sponsored by Jägermeister) but equally as awesome.

Everyone was notably subdued the next day, but we still managed to get ourselves out and about. We found a very chilled bar for some hair of the dog afternoon beers. It was spacious and eclectic, with graffiti on the walls, old bath tubs transformed into cosy sofas, a pot-plant installation made from cut up plastic water bottles, and cheap beer. It was reminiscent of a squat or a student sharehouse furnished by particularly creative and ecologically aware students. It was unpretentiously cool.

Altogether, it was a cracker of a weekend. I returned to a three-day work week that would mark the end of my contract. So what do I do at the end of every work contract? Travel! Next stop...Thailand.