On Friday morning I was up rather early and off with Sizi to Victoria Station to meet Woolley, Will, Duncan and Lorenzo before our flight to Budapest for Woolley's stag weekend. We knew beforehand it was going to be a big weekend, and were trying to mentally prepare ourselves for it :) From Victoria Station, we caught the bus up to Stansted and met Giulz there. He was supposed to fly out on the Thursday but missed his flight, so landed up re-booking another one with us. Duncan then realised he'd forgotten to print his boarding pass, so needed to cough up the money for that, we we certainly were starting out well with the weekend!

The flight out to Budapest was about 2 and a half hours and as expected with the outgoing flight, was rather messy. As well as fairly turbulent, just to add to ask the going ons. At Budapest after landing, we met up with the driver and took the transfer to the apartment for the weekend. Outside the accommodation we met up with Jamie, Fraser and Big Chris who'd all been there a couple of days already. Our first mission was to find food, and after a few indecisions and random wanderings by Jamie, we headed for the main road and settled on Oktogon Bistro which were serving an all you can eat buffet which was perfect! After a good feed and a couple of sundowners we headed back to the apartment, met up with Jack and Dan who arrived late, and then waited for Julia to pick us all up. Julia was our rep for the weekend who would be in charge of taking us around and getting us from place to place. We landed up hoping from pub to pub to pub, and then finished up at some strip club which turned out to be rather boring actually, clearly where they take all the stag parties to - so after not that long there we decided to call it a night, grab a kebab and head home - ready for a big Saturday day and night.

Saturday morning started with a mission down towards the river and the inner city in search of breakfast, and after a bit of walking down Rakoczi Way (one of the main streets), we came across a small little side cafe which looked to be serving a decent breakfast at a decent price. Without any further negotiations, we settled down there for a decent feed.

After eating we took a walk down towards the river and then a slow walk back to the apartment. For the afternoon's activity, we had time booked in at the shooting range for all of us, so after getting picked up by Julia from the apartment we headed out towards the shooting range. We had to wait sometime for the other group to finish with their round of shooting, but at least it was nice and sunny and were able to soak up a bit of that Eastern European sun!

Inside the shooting range was brilliant - in the middle was a dance floor with stripper dance pole, at the back was a bar and food catering service, and then on either side was the actual shooting range. We first each got to fire a few rounds with the shotgun, then followed by rounds with a handgun, revolver, rifle and then AK-47. Lots of fun! After we were done with the shooting, we were dropped off in the market square for some food and refreshments before making our way back to the apartment to get ready for the evening.

That evening we met Julia once again and as before did our usual pub crawl and landed up at an awesome club/pub venue with an outdoors area in the middle surrounded by a few rooms which were either bars or dance floors, each playing a different style of music. Really cool. We landed up staying there most of the night, and heading home once the place started to close. Definitely a good night out there!

Yesterday, after dropping our bags at reception for the day, we went on a walk in search of food. Eventually we settled on Anna Cafe in Fovam Square, but quickly changed our minds when we saw the prices and the menu. So off to headed back to the little cafe where we had had lunch on Saturday morning as well. Once breakfast was out the way, we decided to head up to the thermal baths for the afternoon, but before that we needed to find a store that sold ridiculous bathing costumes. Which we did :) We then caught the metro up to the Széchenyi Thermal Bath and spent the best part of the afternoon up there. Budapest is also called the capital of baths and spas because of its many natural water sources and the amount of baths which the Turks brought to Hungary around 1550. Over the years the Budapest bathing culture became bigger and bigger and up to date it is one of the top addresses in Europe for spa or bath holidays due to its more than 1,000 natural water springs. Many of the baths in Budapest are very old such as the Szechenyi bath we went to, or the Gellert bath, which are not only interesting because of the water and pools but also architectural they are very beautiful.

After some good relaxing time in the baths, we headed back down towards the city centre and split with the others who wanted to head back for a beer or two. Si, Lorenzo, Duncan and myself decided on a bit of a walk along the river up to the Parliament Buildings and then wind our way back through the city. We landed up at Jack's Burgers for lunch, which had just opened, but certainly didn't impress any of us at all.

From there it was back to the reception where our bags were to meet up with the others and then catch a taxi out to the airport. To conclude the weekend, we got ourselves a round of Heinekens (obviously) just as the sun was slowly setting in front of the airport. How lovely!

The flight back into London was a lot calmer than our flight heading out there, especially with Woolley fast sleep on this week, or more like having passed out. Certainly was an excellent weekend, but after only getting in at 1 this morning, I'm certainly struggling today and feel this could be a fairly long week coming up... but then I remember it's another 4 day week only. And that definitely helps!