On his last conference day, Bill told me he’d be done with work early. We decided to spend the afternoon picking up some souvenirs for his grandchildren. In retrospect, maybe we should have gone and done something interesting together, like visiting St. Stephen’s Basilica. I do regret not going there during the week, now that I’ve seen some photos. But, to be honest, we were both a bit ready to go home and see our dogs. I was also pretty tired of the D8 Hotel and ready to sleep in my own bed.

So, on Friday morning, I decided to head out to the Danube and take some more photos, using my “fancy” Nikon digital camera. Of course, I forgot about all of the tourists… I’m not sure why I forgot, since there was a constant reminder of them. Cruise ships in Budapest are no joke! But I was thinking about how, on Sunday evening, I’d noticed park benches along the river, and I figured I could sit there for awhile and gaze at the water. Below are some photos I took with my phone.

As I sat on benches, looking at the river, I kept getting disturbed by groups of people milling around. Some of them traveled in tour groups. Some were just big families or groups of friends. Most weren’t watching where they were going, exercising any situational awareness, or being very considerate.

But at least I got a few more river shots. Below are some from the Nikon… It has an “artsy” setting. Maybe it’s time I bought a new Nikon. I’m sure they’ve upgraded this feature since 2017, when I bought my last PowerShot camera.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that I also saw a lot of people riding e-scooters, renting them from an outfit called E-Magine. I didn’t try one myself, because one time, Bill and I rented Segways when we visited Antigua in 2011. I fell off of mine, and that experience, along with having my feet fall asleep, put me off of renting motorized vehicles that aren’t cars. Below is a very short video I took.

Once Bill got back from work at about 1:00 PM, we went shopping on Váci Street. First, we stopped at the Retro Cube II Rubik’s Cube store and picked up a genuine Rubik’s Cube for Bill’s eldest grandchild. They had all kinds of stuff in there– puzzles I well remember from when I was about 8 or 9 years old myself!

Then we decided to have lunch. I was thinking maybe we’d go to a restaurant in an old, cool looking building, but we ended up at the place next door. They had a sign up that read “Local Food.” When I noticed that it looked like a lot of locals were there, we decided that might be a better bet than the more touristy old building next to it. The restaurant we had lunch at is called Simaliba, and it turned out to be a real gem! The food was fresh, creatively presented, and tasted good. It was also inexpensive! I noticed a large bass violin in the dining room, which suggests that they also have live music. If we go back to Budapest, we’ll have to visit Simaliba again.

I was really impressed by how good the pork was. It was very tender and flavorful. Yes, this was a heavy dish, and maybe not the most obvious choice on a warm September day, but I was unable to ignore temptation. Bill liked his fried perch, too. I had been eyeing that dish, myself!

After we ate lunch, we spent about an hour trying to locate the art store I found earlier in the week that had coloring books. We walked up and down Váci Street twice, and I was wondering if maybe I’d imagined seeing the place. But then we went a block further and finally found the shop. We bought a couple of prints, some magnets, and a Hungarian coloring book for the kids. I hadn’t noticed until we were paying that the guy running the shop was wearing a t-shirt that horrified me. It was shit colored brown and had pictures of toadstools all over it! Yikes!

After we bought our souvenirs, we headed back up Váci Street, and visited the World of Souvenir [sic] (I didn’t even recognize that the sign was missing an “s”), where we picked up a few more things for the younger kids and Bill’s daughter while Avril Lavigne blared over the speakers. By that time, it was late afternoon, so after we paid for our souvenirs, we decided to go back to the room to pack up our stuff. As we were heading back to the hotel, I noticed how extremely crowded the main shopping plaza was. Budapest was teeming with people. I felt a sudden urge to hole up in the hotel room, away from the crowds!

We decided that we didn’t want to go back out into the streets of Budapest. Bill picked up a bottle of wine at the hotel’s bar, and we stayed in and watched videos on YouTube, in preparation for our 11:35 flight back to Frankfurt the next morning.

***

We had breakfast on Saturday morning and grabbed our bags. Both of us were ready to leave Hungary’s capital, even though we had a good time on the trip. Bill was very happy I came with him on this work trip, because Budapest is a great city, and with me there after work, he was able to really enjoy the restaurants and the wonderful music and sights. I didn’t come away from Budapest quite as bowled over as I did in 2009, but I did make new discoveries, and realized that it’s an enchanting city, even though it’s very touristy now. Going to Budapest made me want to see more of Hungary, where not everyone speaks perfect English!

The cab driver picked us up and drove us to the airport. He was very friendly, and pointed out areas of interest, even letting us know that Budapest’s airport is not actually in Budapest, but is in a neighboring area called Vecses. He even pointed out the sign. However, if I look up the airport’s address, it says it’s in Budapest. Anyway, he pointed out a Holocaust museum, as well as Aeropark Budapest, an airplane museum at the airport that I noticed on the way in. I saw a couple of old Malev planes. I would come back to visit both museums, but only if Bill could come with me.

Once again, we waited at the gate for our flight. We were early enough that we got to see the last stragglers getting on the earlier Frankfurt flight! I sent Bill to go buy some Unicum— a Hungarian digestive liqueur that tastes like death– just so we could have it. I like the bottle. If I’m honest, though, I prefer the Czech herbal digestive, Becherovka. It has more of a cinnamon taste.

When we got on the plane, I was sitting in business class. The flight was mostly completely booked, but I had been moved from my original 4F seat to 3F. I figured maybe they needed the extra row for economy passengers. As I waited to see who would be sitting next to me, I noticed a bumbling guy in the front row. He and his wife had three carry on bags between them, and were holding everyone up. And then, when he went to get something out of one of the bags he had stowed over the second row, a metal water bottle fell out and almost hit the lady sitting by the aisle. He was going to put it back in the overhead compartment, but the flight attendant wisely told him to keep it at his seat so it wouldn’t leak, or roll out again.

As more people filed onto the plane, one of Bill’s co-workers walked by me and laughed. She said Bill sure knew how to treat me right. I commented that he’s the “anti-incel”. And then, the boarding was completed, and neither I, nor the Lufthansa crew member on the opposite side of the aisle, had people sitting next to us. Lucky us!

Needless to say, it was a dreamy flight. Even the food was pretty decent. I enjoyed some white wine with it… and took some photos of the sky. I even got a couple of pictures of Budapest as we flew over it. And, of course, I also got pictures of Frankfurt’s famous skyline.

When we landed, I really needed to pee! And since we were twenty minutes early, the plane’s parking spot was occupied. So I held on… and then, once I got off the plane, I went to the first restroom I saw. There was a long line. I felt a light tap on my shoulder, and a kind airport worker invited me to use the handicapped toilet! Phew! What a relief! But then, I couldn’t get the toilet to flush, no matter what I tried. It was one of those motion detector ones. I sheepishly slunk out of the bathroom, while another woman quickly took my place. I hope she wasn’t offended… but then, she probably also discovered that the toilet wouldn’t flush.

I went down to the baggage claim. Bill showed up a few minutes later. We got our bags, and I noticed one of the baggage carousels looked like a roulette wheel…

And soon, we were in a taxi, heading back home to Breckenheim. Bill brought the dogs home a few hours later, and I am now left here with my memories of a great week in Budapest.

We definitely had fun in Hungary. I’d love to go back. If we do, though, I think I’d choose a different hotel than D8. It wasn’t a terrible place to spend a night or two, but for six nights, it was a bit too cramped. Also, the doors were heavy, and not spring loaded, so when people would leave their rooms, and let go of the doors, they would SLAM!!!! That got old really quick!

D8 Hotel does get good reviews, and I can see why some people really like that hotel. It’s probably the cheapest in the area, and it’s in an excellent location. But, even that is a bit of a drawback, because it gets pretty loud in that part of Budapest. And unfortunately, we didn’t figure out the air conditioning until the final night… then we had it on too high, and spent the night chilled. I know… we should have adjusted it, but I think we were just over trying to discover things and wanted to get through the night and back to our normal life.

So ends my blow by blow of our trip to Budapest. Stay tuned for my usual “ten things I learned” post. This time, I’ve got some interesting stuff to report.