Eastern Europe was just about everything I imagined it to be.  The overcast skies only enhanced the bleak image as our train rolled through the worn down country of Slovakia.   The only color around me was from the graffiti on the broken down train cars littering the industrial train yards.  Even the toilet paper on the train felt like  leftover basic from the communist era.

As we rolled into Budapest for either 12 or 24 hours to visit (at this point we were still debating how we would be able to leave Hungary and get into Austria…the migrant crisis had stopped all trains last we heard and the massive fence was being built—our back up plan of regional buses to Bratislava involved a very early wake up call…) and the rain was pouring down.  We knew there was some beautiful old castles and buildings to go wander around, but this was a very cold rain. Since we only had such a short and undetermined time in the city, we were determined not to let the Paris weather crisis affect us here also.  It was time for random indoor Plan B number 2 of the trip: 16th century thermal bath houses.

Does anything sound stranger to an American than paying money to spend several hours soaking in community baths filled with sulfur water?  Apparently, these are a huge thing here.  The bath we found (after my husband rejected 3 built in the 1800’s for not being old enough…) was a slightly renovated one from the Ottoman empire.  [Ed. note: Seriously people. It was built in the 16th century. The original clay pipes are still being used!] It had 4 baths in varying temperatures from 26 to 40 degrees (Celsius conversions are almost as hard as currency, so I’m not even going to try…) and 2 saunas.   

Once inside, the people watching was probably worth as least half the cost of admission.   You had the overweight old men in speedos who’s belly almost covered the small patch of swimsuit and left you with a mental image beyond repair.   There was the German 20-somethings on a bachelor party.  And you had the couples.   Lots and lots of young couples…who probably should have paid the extra $10 for the private sauna, but instead they just gave everyone else in the pool quite a free show. 

We spent an hour alternating between cooking ourselves and freezing ourselves as we moved around the 4 pools and then decided to try the sauna.   As we walked inside, there was a printed sign on the door that I now suspect was telling us the sauna was broken.   But it was in Hungarian so we just went inside.   There wasn’t much steam so I pulled a cord…and set off the alarm.   Yup, I sounded the emergency alarm for the entire Hungarian bath house.   Oops?   My husband and I looked at each other and then around the baths.   No one seemed to be concerned or be moving, so we decided it was time to leave and scurried away to find the showers…