So I've now spent two days in Budapest, Hungary. My first impression: wow. My second impression: eh. Budapest is an absolutely gorgeous city. Why Prague is considered the gem of Eastern Europe is beyond me. It has nothing on Budapest. However, Budapest, like Prague is geared towards tourism, and the overt commercialization definitely detracts from the whole experience. What is most annoying are these giant groups (mostly old people and Asians) who take these bus tours, moving en masse at an absolutely glacial pace, constantly getting in the way. Oh, by the way, someone needs to explain to me why a good number of Asians feel the need to wear surgical masks as they walk around. Why?! Why?! Do they think the air is poisonous? I keep getting the urge to go up to one of them and rip it off to see if they scream. Anyway, I realized today why I loved Krakow, as well as Poland in general - no tour buses, no large annoying groups, no overt commercialization. Just Polish people being Polish, which equals awesome. It's really disappointing, because I'm sure Budapest has so much to offer, but I'm already tired of it, and ready to move on.

My hostel (Goat Hostel) has a great atmosphere, and the staff is the nicest I've encountered since Bahaus in Istanbul, but there hasn't been anyone to really talk to. There are two Canadian boys in my room that I've talked to, but otherwise there never seems to be anyone else around. I've moving hostels tomorrow though to Carpe Noctem ("Seize the Night"), a full out "party hostel" run by Aussies, and while I don't exactly consider myself the partying type, I've learned that these are the best places for a solo traveler. And it's not like I really care if it's too loud to go to sleep - I never have any place to be in the morning.

Today I'm half way done with my trip - day 40 of 80! Wow. I can't decide if I'm happy or sad. I guess both. Like I've said before, traveling makes me bipolar and I spend half my time never wanting to come home and the other half homesick out of my mind. How funny is it that not a day goes by without me missing my Adidas sweats? I get homesick for the oddest things. Anyway, I've tentatively mapped out the rest of my trip, although it will probably change. As of now, here's all the places I still plan on visiting:

Transylvania: Flying into Targu Mures, then to Sighisoara and Brasov
Possibly Bucharest - still undecided . . .
Belgrade, Serbia
Sarajevo, Bosnia
Mostar, Bosnia
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Possibly Montenegro
Skopje, Macedonia
Either Sofia and Veliko Tarnova in Bulgaria or some place in Greece depending on money
Istanbul! Yay!

My last day in Krakow I ate at possibly the best place on the planet. I was just wandering around with this guy I met, and we ended up in this residential neighborhood where we spotted a milk bar (student cafeteria). We weren't even sure if we were allowed to eat there at first because we had to walk through this student building to get in, but no one stopped us. We ordered and sat down, and I looked at the walls and realized they were covered in Winnie the Pooh murals. It looked like a cafeteria in a preschool room. Only in Poland.

I decided to take the bus to Budapest, because I had read that it goes through the mountains, while the train bypasses them. It was definitely a good choice - absolutely gorgeous - piney, snowy, quaint. Visiting the Tatras would be a must if I returned to Poland. We had to go through passport control on the Slovakian border, although I'm not quite sure what the point was. My passport could have belonged to some old man, since the guard hardly glanced at it. While it's certainly nice not having to deal with passport control ever, I'm a little bummed I won't have many stamps in my passport at the end of my trip. I find it funny that while the States are tightening border security, you can go practically anywhere in Europe without anyone knowing . . .

I went on a pretty awful walking tour yesterday, and much to my displeasure, this annoying Australian girl who was on the same walking tour as me in Krakow was on that one too. I almost left when she walked up. The only part of the tour I found entertaining was when the guide told us they called mountains mounds in Hungary since they weren't very big. I'm looking across the river at these "mounds" just laughing - coming from Illinois, those are mountains as far as I'm concerned.

So I gave up on hand washing my laundry when it got cold and it took three days for a pair of socks to dry, but it's awkward because usually the hostel does it for you. I don't want someone else doing my laundry. This hostel doesn't have a dryer, they just hang everything up in a laundry room. So this male worker was the one who hung up all my laundry. Weird right? Not only did I have to pay $5, but I had let some random guy hang up my underwear.