Berlin to Budapest

I left Berlin on August 6 and took a 13 hour overnight train to Budapest. At this point in my journey, I had accumulated so much stuff that I was carrying around 4 bags: my large backpack, a smaller backpack, a very large purse and a plastic shopping bag full of stuff that wouldn´t fit anywhere else!
The train ride was much more comfortable than my previous overnight train rides because I had decided to get a private sleeping room (instead of the sleeping dorm I shared with 3 strangers last time).
  At about 5am I was woken up by the train conductor because we had reached Slovakia. I have a global rail pass, which basically entitles me to unlimited travel in the 21 countries in Europe that participate in the rail pass. But for some strange reason, Slovakia is not one of these countries. The conductor told me that even though I had a room and a reservation and a pass, and I had already been sitting on the train for 10 hours, I would still have to pay for the 230km we were traveling in Slovakia. He offered me a deal, he told me for 15 Euros he wouldn´t issue me a train ticket for the 230kms, but he would ¨forget¨ that I had no ticket, and I could continue my journey in peace. I took the deal, and went back to sleep.
I arrived in Budapest later that morning and found my dad´s friend waiting for me at the train station. He gave me the keys and took me to the apartment I would be staying in.
Since I had spent 2 summers living in Budapest, I didn´t need to do any of the ¨touristy¨ things. I could just enjoy myself, hang out with family, and have fun! So that is exactly what I did!!
I had dinner with my brother:
And then I went out on the town with my cousins Lilla and Jolan.
  I spent the next day resting and relaxing, and later in the afternoon I went with Lilla for some Thai massages. Since I had been carrying my backpack around for the past 7 weeks, my back was aching pretty badly!
The massages were wonderful! Actually they were pretty different than the massages I was used to in Toronto. We were brought to a room with beds on the floor, with a curtain between us (we opened the curtain of course, so we could have our massages next to each other). We were instructed to change into these very large, baggy and comfortable pants (which seemed strange to me, as you don´t generally wear clothing for the massages at home!). Once the massage started I totally understood why we were wearing pants (but no top)!
The massage consisted of stretching and deep massages. It involved our whole body, and our bodies were moved, stretched, twisted and pulled in many different ways (which I could imagine would be pretty awkward if we were pants-less). The Thai ladies used their whole bodies for the massage too, using their feet, legs, arms and hands, and at one point actually sat on us and put their whole weight into us to help with the massage.
The massage was wonderful and relaxing, and exactly what I needed for my aching back!
We went out for a really good dinner later that night.

It was another great night out! It was a really good break from the constant trains and touring! I now have to get myself ready to start traveling again, as Mikaela is arriving at the airport in Budapest in about 2 hours, and we will set off tomorrow morning (August 10) to Zurich, Switzerland, and then Munich, Germany, before coming back to Budapest on Friday (August 14) for the Budapest Sziget festival (a week long music festival in Budapest).