sixty-eight, sixty-nine

A number of significance, if only to me.
I arrived in Budapest roughly 6 days ago, e-mailing the hash ahead of time. I got a response, but it was pretty lackluster, a reiteration of where trail was meeting and a hopeful forward of it to their groups page to see if I could get a couch somewhere.
4 days later I hadn't heard anything from anyone and I had pretty much done "tourist" Buda and "tourist" Pest to the degree I could afford.
Then I found out there was a half-marathon being run on the same day as the hash (and regrettably over the same time frame).
I fired off another e-mail, basically giving a day's notice that I would miss the hash and asked if they were doing anything later that day or had a beer stop on course, then signed up for the half-marathon the next day.
The number I got, 6869.
Coincidence? Hardly, I specifically asked for that number.
The damn thing was pricey, but it included admission to Budapest's famous Baths afterwards and that was the one thing I had decided was out of my price range originally.
So, throwing the prospect of new shoes out the window, I went back to my hostel to register for another couple nights only to find out they were closing for the season.
Shit.
Oh well, I packed up my stuff, and the next morning (Sunday, Sunday, Sunday) I walked the three kilometers to the start in my running clothes with the rest on my back, never hearing from the hash.
After tossing stuff in storage, I had a beer and went to the race start to wait for the take-off.
Two hours, four minutes and 33 seconds later I crossed the finish line.
I won't be breaking any records, but I'm content in that I finished with basically no training (the last distance I've run that's non-hash related was the Las Vegas Marathon back in December) and that I wasn't one of the several who had heart attacks on the course as a result of the 100 degree heat that day!
Getting in from the run, I stopped by the Nike tent to share a beer with a gent who I met the day prior and is sponsored by the company. Yay, beer!
Then I went and soaked in the heated pools of the Baths for an hour or so, got changed and went searching for a new hostel, only getting the last room available in the last one I checked as most every other hostel in the bloody city is either closed for the season or full.
Yep! Hostel is an excellent choice if you're ever in Budapest.
After cleaning up and changing and taking a well deserved nap, I proceeded to go to Iguana, a Mexican restaurant owned by a cousin of sorts that lives out here. He's out of town, but they were kind enough to make me a guest of the house, which was a definite bonus for some excellent food! I hear the restaurant won, "best mexican restaurant in budapest" or something along those lines. I can see why!
So, today I'm off to the train station to get a ticked to Kiev, Ukraine. This should prove interesante.