Closed

Today was slow, long, hot, dehydrating, and thoroughly unproductive. Heather had told us that everything would be closed on Sunday, and she was NOT kidding.

Our first stop was to this restaurant called D1 which serves all you can eat Pakistani food. It's a buffet where you "pay as you wish". So most people pay only 3 or 4 euros and stuff their faces. And this restaurant's motto is "Good Food, Good Mood", which is now my newest personal motto. We found the restaurant, only to find that of course, it is closed on Sundays.

Next.

Well, we had to find lunch somewhere else so we got some street food. I got a chicken kebap (kebap is my new favorite word here, I love the spelling). It was delicious and filling as far as street food for 2.9 euros go!!! I got it shaved fresh off the spit, with yogurt sauce and veggies and a little hot sauce and it was yummmmy. We topped our lunches off with ice cream. Seriously, people are eating ice cream here 24/7, regardless of age, weight, time, or weather. Ice cream, 24/7. We sat in the sun and ate our cones and then tried to find souvenirs.

This was the most draining part of the day. We walked around until about 3:30 PM up and down streets looking for souvenir shops (which were open, by the way) but neither of us liked anything we saw there. It was very disheartening, since we are running out time here (we're planning on leaving tomorrow). We called shopping quits and when back to the Naschmarkt to get some fresh food to make our host dinner.

We arrived at the Naschmarkt, which was of course closed on Sundays.

Frustrated with our lack of productivity we decided to call it a day. Heading back to Veronika's, I found a plate I liked better than anything else I'd seen at the freaking tram stop that connects Veronika to the main city area. I can't believe it was just there the whole time! I got it so that my annoying search for it would be over, and we went back to her flat. After feeling dehydrated all day, I downed 3 glasses of water in a row. While we waited for Veronika to get home from work, Laura and I began catching up on the most recent Grey's Anatomy episodes - because, yes, Veronika has all of this season downloaded. Love it! We finished the 2nd to last episode and had just started the most recent episode when Veronika got home. We put the show on hold and chatted with her for a while.

She told us a lot about her family, and I always really respect those conversations. Not everybody is willing to talk about their families, but it is so interesting for me to hear and learn about. Aside from her family, we also had quite a long discussion about World War II which was extremely interesting as well. And also, today just happened to be the Austrian Presidential election day. So Veronika explained to us some of their political things and told us about each of the candidates. It was awesome talking with her about all of these important, real things. These kinds of conversations make me love CouchSurfing even more - who else can you just have an open dialogue about these types of things with? I'm sure you could find people, but having hosts that are willing to share with you their life, their culture, and things about their country and their country's history just makes me so happy. That is really how learning about other lifestyles and countries and making connections happen. Having a broad knowledge base about how things function and operate in other places is so valuable. So it was a wonderful early evening to counteract our mediocre day.

After our conversation wrapped up, we watched a few more minutes of the Grey's Anatomy episode while Veronika got ready to go out to dinner with us. She walked with us to this place called the Tunnel. It is a place that Nathalie had told us about, and Veronika verified that it was in fact a cool and cheap place to go eat. It was a pleasant 20 or 30 minute walk to the restaurant and it was really a great place. It had outside seating, two stories inside, and in the back there was a concert venue area. Laura and I were planning on staying for the evening because there was supposed to be live rock/jazz music starting at 9 PM.

Veronika helped translate the menu for us, and Laura and I in our creepy way ordered the same thing as usual. It was a cous-cous-esque dish mixed with minced meat and topped with cheese. It also came with salad and tzatziki (they eat tzatziki here plain like something in between a yogurt and a salad). We also got little white wine spritzers and later I tried some of their house wine. The place was so ridiculously well priced that I actually ended up spending more than I would have at a normal restaurant because I bought so much freaking food. By about 2/3 of the way through my main meal, I was already full, but kept charging ahead. What can I say, it was good! I have totally abandoned by "stop eating when you're full" philosophy and it is really taking a toll on my belly! After dinner, I got a reasonably priced dessert which turned out to be a huge bowl of fruit (bananas, apples, and pineapple chunks) served with a scoop of strawberry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was not the simple, quasi healthy dessert I had anticipated but of course I ate all of it anyway. Yum. Once again feeling like rolling instead of walking, the three of us walked back home. (The concert was canceled due to health reasons).

Since we really hadn't accomplished what we wanted to today, we asked Veronika if we could stay another night. She said that was fine (yay!). Laura messaged our Budapest host that we would now be a day later, and that was that. The joys of flexibility!!!


Quotes:
"I'm not going to force you to go, I'm just saying you'll regret it if you don't." - Veronika, about an ice cream place.

Accomplishments:
NOTHING.
(Well, I got my plate).

Travel Tip:
Save the walking tours for days when everything is closed...?


I'm just hoping I'll be hungry again by tomorrow morning since of course we have planned our whole day around food...