Next time maybe you can skip the hotel and sleep in the Budapest Eye! Then you could stay for just 9 Euros. I'm not sure how good the security is there, though, or if it gets cold there at night in the summer. When the ride stops perhaps you could hide in the corner, and just stay on. Maybe bring a blanket in a bag in case it gets cold.

Just kidding. I've always wanted to visit Budapest and I hadn't even realized they had built an Eye. Is it modeled on the London Eye? Or did it come first? My mother lived in Vienna in the late 90s and I visited her several times, but unfortunately we never took the trip together to Buda. She had gone there with friends another time and loved it. I will have to find a way to go back.

It is funny that you said the hotel cost a fortune. I had always heard that Budapest was nicer than Prague, more affordable, and not yet overrun with American hipsters. Perhaps only one of those things has changed?