LET THE FUN BEGIN...

Pictures from Budapest: http://picasaweb.google.com/kejercito/BUDAPEST

Hi there! I got back from Budapest a week ago and it was lots of fun. Some may say it's a little crazy to travel nearly 30 hours for only 3 full days in the city, but you've gotta jump on these opportunities when they pop up.

I left on Wednesday morning, went through JFK, and on to Budapest, arriving early Thursday morning. My grand plan was to take a sleeping pill on the JFK-BUD leg so I could sleep well and be ready to hit the ground running upon landing. You know... make the most of my 3 days. Well, I got up at 3 a.m. that morning and forced myself not to sleep on that LAX-JFK leg. I get on the plane and find out I have the whole row to myself. Woohoo. Right after we take off, I lay down for a bit (without taking the sleeping pill) and promptly fall asleep. I wake up when they start serving dinner. That's good and bad. It's good because I don't like missing any meals. =D It's bad because it would have been preferable to sleep straight through to Budapest because at this point, it's too late to take the sleeping pill since I won't have enough time for the pill to run its course.

After sleeping on and off through the 9.5 hours, we finally arrive. I usually pull money from the ATM as soon as I land in a new country, but of course the ATM is broken. I change $100 so I can have money for the shuttle to the hotel... and get HUF 17250 (that's Hungarian Forints)! Wow. I've never had a 10000 bill before. =P The airport shuttle is very affordable if any of you ever head out there. I was fortunate and had the whole shuttle to myself, so no other stops for me. Unfortunately, NATO was having a conference in town (actually, in the next hotel over) so there were many road blocks up and lots of security, so what is usually a 30 min drive turned into an hour.

I get into the room and it has an AWESOME view. After appreciating the view for about 10 minutes, I quickly change and go back to sleep... until about 2:30. While Laryna is at work, I decide to explore and walk around. This was made more challenging by all the road blocks set up for the NATO conference, but I managed to find Gerbaud, a famous coffee house and sample their cakes and capuccino... for lunch. Always a great way to start the day.

I walked around for a bit more then headed to the hotel to meet up with Laryna for dinner. We plan to get dinner on our own, but run into her co-workers who insist we come along on the big company dinner outing to Sir Lancelot, a medieval themed restaurant. Cheapos that we are, we go with the free dinner. It was lots of fun and they give you this huge platter of food. Mostly meat actually. Great for a carnivore like me. They also have lots of alcohol and entertainment. By the end of the night, I have no idea how many mugs (yes mugs) of wine I've had. But we're not done yet. No, those engineers are party animals and we move on to some bar on the way home... and then another one. When we finally head back to the hotel, it's 2 a.m and some of them are still going to stay out and gamble at the casino across the street. Crazy! They have to work the next day!

More on the rest of the trip in a bit.