“Why is everything so expensive?!”
Jeremy and I furiously searched every website imaginable trying to find a reasonably priced accommodation in Budapest. $250 per night…. $500 per night…. $1,200 per night…..
Hotels that should have been $80USD a night were triple that.
“There must be an event this weekend…”
Sure enough, a quick Google revealed that there would be a Formula 1 race on July 21st. This is the moment where we should have rerouted. We could have popped over to Bologna. Or perhaps gone to Vienna first. Maybe even a journey over to Sofia. But no. Why go with the flow when you can battle your way upstream?
“I FOUND SOMETHING!”
Less than 2 miles to the downtown area. Around the corner from a metro station. 24 hour lobby. Laundry facilities. Private room with shared bathroom available. $80USD a night.
It was the only option available for under $100.
I had a feeling in my gut that we weren’t going to like the hostel.
But how bad could it be?
Famous last words….
Our travel day from Milan to Budapest just so happened to be the day of the major global tech outage.
Long story short. We missed a train. Went to the wrong terminal. Got a handwritten boarding pass. And had a two hour delay. The cherry on top was arriving in Budapest and sitting on the tarmac for twenty minutes because “no one is answering the phone.”
(Get the rundown on our 2 nights in Milan here!)
We rolled into Pannonia Hostel at 8pm.
But it wasn’t a hostel. It was a boarding school.
The walls were decorated with photos of happy kids in football (AKA soccer) jerseys. Large signs saying “Vasas Kubala Akadémia” were on every floor. Turns out it was a football academy, and they convert it into a hostel during the off seasons to help raise money to maintain the building.
A kind Hungarian man, maybe in his 30s, checked us in and handed us sheets. Uh oh. I was expecting a simple room with a shared bathroom that connected us to another shared room. That was wishful thinking. We went up to room 207 to find a room with 3 bunkbeds, 6 desks, a full can of trash and no fan or AC. The bathroom across the hall had urinals, a few toilet stalls, and showers with skimpy curtains that’d hardly allow modesty.
“It’s fine. We can make it work.”
I went to take a shower, and was petrified to see two young shirtless men brushing their teeth. In the women’s bathroom.
“We can’t stay here.”
Jeremy and I furiously started looking for alternatives.
- Option 1: We could pay $350 a night to stay somewhere else and eat the money for the hostel.
- Option 2: We could go stay in Gyor for a night then come back to the city and use a gift card at a Marriott for two nights. Problem was there was no guarantee we could use the gift card until showing up.
- Option 3: We could go to Bratislava for 2 nights then come back on Monday. Problem was hotels in Bratislava were expensive too.
We were close to puller the trigger on option 2. Then stopped.
“It’s been a long day. We shouldn’t make a decision until the morning after some sleep.”
8:30am hit. We went to a grocery store to procure caffeine and yogurt. After sussing out the neighborhood, coming up with the plan of Jeremy keeping watch of the bathroom while I showered, and looking at everything with a fresh brain, we decided we’d stay the course.
There was good internet. We had a fridge. It was a nice locale. The room had desk space for work. I suppose most couples wouldn’t love sleeping in different bunk beds on their honeymoon trip. But hey, we rather not lose $200usd while paying upwards of $500 extra for the alternative.
The stay was fascinating.
It was far from your normal hostel crowd. Rather than rowdy 20 year old backpackers downing beers, there was a mix of young students and older Eastern Europeans. There was no bar in the lobby, shared kitchen space, or “join tomorrow’s walking tour!” signs posted in the elevator. No one was looking for friends and casual conversation. “We are just here to sleep” was the unspoken agreement.
We were able to reframe “this is terrible” into “this is a cultural experience.”
Hungary has had a tumultuous war torn history full of political turmoil, destruction, and reconstruction. Soviet troops didn’t leave until 1991, meaning many people I passed on the streets probably endured starvation, war, possibly imprisonment, maybe worse.
All things considered, I could certainly could sleep on a bunkbed and share a bathroom for three nights.
