Since I was a kid I've always liked travelling, but the way I define travelling has changed a lot during the years. Of course I enjoyed visiting new places, going to touristic attractions, making all the preparations before a holiday, buying souvenirs, sending cards back home (which usually they will arrive after I was back) and taking pictures to everything that looked interesting.
But everything changes once you have the chance to travel to a very unfamiliar and culturally different place or for a long enough period that you can't have everything planned and organised in advance. You have no choice but to leave some space for the unknown. And from that moment travelling becomes a part of you. And from that moment, wherever you travel, even if it is a nearby place or on another continent, you don't just go there, you try to live there.
And I started to realise that in order to live there it helps if I think of the place as a person which I just met and try to figure out how good friends can we can become. And so, with the hope of making many friends along the years, I present you the most recent one I've made — Budapest.
Hmm, I will have to visit you again, but Budapest I can tell you for sure we can be friends :) Wanna know how you convinced me?
1.You can be loud and still in the same time. There were many places crowded with people, both locals and tourists, but you just take a turn and you find a very peaceful place that seems from another time.
2. I could just walk and walk and walk. Especially when I am in a new place I love to just walk around, and you Budapest were just perfect for this with your nice sidewalks besides Danube, large parks and cozy streets.
3. You don't have to be an academic to feel the history of the place. The architecture of the place will give you a deep sense that many things happened here and in the same time the city feels so alive that you know for sure things will still be happening.
4. Those coffee shops and bakeries. Around every corner you find nice coffee places that feel so intimate and cozy.
5. You speak one of the most difficult language for me …but I appreciate we still get along and I was impressed of your good English almost everywhere I went.
6. Bridges, bridges, bridges. Never been on so many bridges in such a short time :D But it is amazing to catch that moment in the evening when they all light up.
7. You can be quite weird!!! Now don't pretend you don't know what I am talking about. You know it kept happening to see people that seemed like they have lost a bet and now their friends were making them do embarrassing things in public, but they just seemed like having so much fun, and no one around felt disturbed by them (that's why I didn't take any pictures).
Budapest, it was nice meeting you. Don't worry, we'll meet again! :)
