More Budapest.

Yesterday we went on the hop on hop off bus. We hopped on and did almost a full loop. Some of the stuff was interesting and some was a bit dull. Sometimes I think they feel obligated to say something about streets that perhaps don't have that much to be said. There are some great sights though and I learned a little about the history. It involved those people from a previous blog post that would sail down the Danube to fight the Ottomans. Mick and I both forgot who they are.

We got off the bus and got one of those peddle bike carriage things back to a pub near our hotel. The guy peddling, who for once wasn't me, showed us some sights as he weaved in amongst the traffic. He showed us a stone building riddled with bullet holes from a revolution in 1956 (Mick reckons 1959). Earlier we also saw bullet holes from WW2. While we were waiting to cross the road a tourist came up and asked the peddle guy where some place was and he told her the directions. When she left he turned around and told us he just gave her the wrong directions for fun. That isn't funny, but really it actually was hilarious.

We were having a beer at the place the bike guy dropped us when the man we bought our bus tickets from, James, walked by. He'd actually recommended the pub we were at earlier in the day so we invited him in for a beer. He is a Nigerian immigrant who has lived in Budapest for 12 years. He is married to a Hungarian lady and has a little girl. It was really fun chatting to him. He has led an interesting life and there was a bit of a spark in him. Like a perpetual happiness and enthusiasm that you don't often see. He reminded me of the Nigerian guy in the TV show Sense8, if anyone has seen that. He said he plans to move to Australia in a year or so. I hope he does, I want to be mates with him.

James had to leave because he was only supposed to be out for a little while and he had locked a bunch of people in his apartment. Not sure what that was about. We moved on to another pub and started an impromptu pub crawl. Each pub we found seemed to be cheaper than the last. Beers were less than a Euro and there were a lot of people about so it was a good night.

The last place ruined it. We should have called it a night but we went into one last bar not far from the hotel. It was empty except for us and mid way through our first beer we could tell something wasn't quite right. It felt uncomfortable so we decided to leave. The guy brought the bill and it was just under 20000 huf per beer. 300 huf 1 euro so he was asking for over 100 euros for 2 beers. It was our own stupid fault, we should have checked the menu. I'm not really sure what the procedure was supposed to be. We didn't have that money so we started arguing with this guy and he was showing us some Hungarian writing in the menu. Eventually I slapped down 10000, which is still 30 euros, grabbed mick by the shirt and pulled him to the door. The guy chased us and I slammed the door in his face and we legged it. So finally we've been spotted for the suckers we are. Well done Budapest.

Today we awoke somewhat worse for wear. I felt horrible that 30 euros just got pissed away like that. I had also massively cut back my alcohol intake before I left and during this trip. So that went out the window. I wonder what changed. I wonder if there was a thing or a person having some sort of influence on me in Budapest that wasn't previously there? Hmm. Can you still blame other people for your own bad decisions when you're 32? (yes, as long as you post it on facebook).

Today we went to a shooting range to shoot some guns. We got the WW2 package which were guns from that war. I didn't really know what to expect. I've never fired a gun before. It wouldn't normally interest me but after Normandy and seeing so many guns in the various museums I really wanted to have a go.

It's a really touchy subject at the moment because some people in the United States like to shoot other people. But I have to say, guns are fun. I really enjoyed it. We fired a lot of different guns. I thought firing a gun would be a violent affair. Violent in the sense that it would be noisy and there would be a huge recoil. But actually it all felt really naturally. The ear protection blocks out the noise and the kick, even on the rifles wasn't bad at all.

We fired some pistols first. I enjoyed them but was a fairly ordinary shot. From the first pistol, the Walther PP, I only managed to hit the paper 7 times out of 10 shots. I think 6 of them hit the guy drawn on the paper and one got him through his stupid cowboy hat so I can't complain. Mick was a pretty good shot. Compared to me anyway.

The highlight from all the pistols we fired was probably the Colt 45 1911a or the Luger. The Luger was cool because it is so iconic but also how it looked and felt to fire. The Colt was the largest calibre of the pistols and it had quite a big kick. You could tell it was way more powerful.

After that it was time to fire some sub machine guns and rifles. I was flat out scared of the kick. With the rifles the recoil throws the gun back so I didn't really know what to expect from big guns recoiling into my shoulder. The first of these I fired was the MP38 which was a German Army gun. It is very similar to the MP40 which is in a lot of different video games. It didn't feel violent at all to fire. It was kind of calming. We also got to fire an American Thompson and a Russian ppsh. The ppsh was probably the coolest looking gun in my opinion.

Of the rifles we fired an M1 Garand, a K98 and a Mosin-Nagant. These were my favourites. They had a lot more recoil but I enjoyed the bolt action of the K98 and the Mosin-Nagant. The Mosin-Nagant was really big too. The M1 Garand is semi automatic and ejects the clip when it's done with a ding sound. If you play WW2 video games you know the sound.

The last gun was an extra. Mick decided to fire an AK-47, which had a lot of recoil. Almost as much as the rifles. The video of it looks really cool. I fired an Uzi. It didn't seem as fast as I expected but looking back at the video it was still very fast. It was really difficult as it doesn't have a foregrip and you hold it like a pistol. It makes it difficult as it was very heavy for its size too. In the video I realised that I'd been leaning a long way back when firing all the guns. I think I was scared.

I think I'd like to play with guns again some time but I'm not sure if I can be bothered. I know they are obviously dangerous but to me they felt like toys. Probably not the right attitude! It's difficult to remember that those guns were produced to kill people, which they did a really good job of doing. They were still fun though.

Tomorrow I'm going to say farewell to Mick and his snoring. He's going to go back to London then Australia. I'm going to get an overnight bus to Prague. I'm meeting up with Gabor tomorrow, who I met in Komoron and he's going to buy my bike. I'm going to be sad to see it go. I can't believe it got me this far. Hopefully Gabor gets a lot more km out of it.