A useful afternoon

I have been sitting in the lobby of the Continental Hotel and trying to figure out the rest of the trip. I feel like I have been doing this forever! I booked 2 nights in assorted hostels, and my flight from Budapest to London. I found a cheaper rate for one of the hotels I had already booked (30$ cheaper a NIGHT!!) so I am trying to book it through that site and then cancel the booking I already have - it says that I can do that. Everything is just so *expensive!* Except for in-city rail and changing my flight home to the 16th everything travel-wise is now taken care of. I am still a bunch of nights without a hotel, but I have made a bunch of "availability requests" and have already gotten some answers, so things will be okay. I am reminded of the scary night last year when I was in Frankfurt and every room in the city was full. PERIOD. No rooms anywhere and if there were they were rediculously overpriced (I managed to look pathetic enough so that when my former hostel - in which I was sitting and looking properly dejected...would you not also with the thought of sitting all night in an internet cafe looming? - received a cancellation for a bed in a dorm, he gave it to me at the usual price. In fact, I looked so pathetic that one British lady gave me 10€. She was leaving for Britain and for her it wasn´t real money anyway. Poor me! (actually lucky me! 10€!)

I have no idea why I just wrote that.. oh right, current hostel bookings. This hotel is full for tonight and people keep coming in and getting turned away. I helped a group of 5 Americans find a hotel on the computer. I am so *nice!*

The train leaves in an hour and a half. Someone just called the hotel to ask about rates (I am in das lobby) and it costs from €130-€159 for the room I just had. And I paid €35! Lucky mee! Sometimes things go my way. Actually, besides the annoyances of...basically everything I think I have had a lucky day. After all, I got to play internet for free here in the lobby, and the hotel manager has a book with a bunch of European hotels in it, which he lent me so I could look for Rome and Budapest.

I think I deserve a milchshake.