12:07 p.m. - Leave the Bosphorous Four Seasons in a taxi.
12:18 p.m. - Rifle through my bag to find Melissavina's stolen bars of hotel soap so that I can smell something other than our taxi driver.
12:19 p.m. - Make the mistake of taking my eyes off the road to look for the soap; let out a little bit of pee while our taxi swerves violently to miss another car and blasts the horn.
12:48 p.m. - Arrive at Istanbul International Airport.
12:54 p.m. - Stand in line to have our baggage scanned and go through security.
1:07 p.m. - Have forgotten to take off my belt, I am forced to unbutton my pants and have a stranger sweep his fingers around the inside of my underwear. Unfortunately, he looks exactly the same as the guy who scrubbed me down at the Hamam.
1:26 p.m. - Stand in line to go through customs, right behind a 3-year-old having a temper tantrum and about 200 other people.
1:48 p.m. - Vow to never have children.
1:50 p.m. - Get our passport stamped and walk to the Airport Lounge.
1:53 p.m. - Wander around aimlessly until someone gets up and there is a table available.
2:01 p.m. - Sit down next to next to a family with small children; Turkish music plays in the background.
2:01 p.m. - Renew our vow never to have children.
2:07 p.m. - Read
4:17 p.m. - Board plane. Sit directly in front of small children.
4:18 p.m. - Cry a little bit.
5:13 p.m. - Look for the soap again as child behind me has thrown up.
6:34 p.m. - Arrive at Munich International Airport.
6:47 p.m. - Arrive at Lufthansa Airport Lounge.
6:50 p.m. - Watch Ryan's face light up when he sees that the free bar and deli counter is serving these:
6:58 p.m. - Read7:13 p.m. - Get to the gate early to relax and wait. Find that we will be waiting with 45 members of a Christian youth group band wearing matching T-shirts. Awesome.
7:40 p.m. - Board the plane to Budapest.
7:43 p.m. - Cringe as I see children nearing the seats directly behind us.
7:58 p.m. - Read.
10: 02 p.m. - Arrive in Budapest.
10:08 p.m. - Get our luggage and find our driver in the lobby.
10:12 p.m. - Sink into the back of the car listening to the classical music and breathe a sigh of relief as we take the 30 minute drive to the hotel.
We've already bitched about the hotel room (which, I realize, is ridiculous and know full well that if I pull the princess card too many times this trip I will be dealt another Turkish 'ass over teakettle' moment) which has been sorted out. We have a new room that is more spacious with working air conditioning (I know you were all really concerned).
This morning we got up and went on our tour. Our guide, ZOLTAN picked us up. We've got a really good friend (Hi, Zol!) in Vancouver. I thought it was a huge coincidence until he told us that there is a millions of Zoltans in Hungary. Oh well. Here are some pictures from our day:
In this last picture, the Danube river is in the background. On the right of the river is the city of Pest (pronounced Pescht) and on the left is the city of Buda. Two cities. Who knew? (Well, I'm guessing the Hungarian maybe...)After the tour we went for a late lunch (around 2:30 p.m.). Ryan took one look at the menu and fell in love with Budapest. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, cream, butter, onions... things are definitely looking up in the food department compared to Turkey (and for me too, to be honest). Here's a picture of his appetizer. I tried to get a picture before he started eating it but I was having flashbacks to childhood when I got too close to my dogs food dish while he was eating. Pictured below is a salad with a massive slab of fried goat cheese:
Apart from that, we went for a quick walk and are now back at the room. I'm thrilled that Ryan has been inspired by this country and has started calling me his little Buda. He thinks it's endearing... you know, endearing like 'Obesey.' I'm thinking of getting a foam replica made of the statue below and carrying it around with me for pictures.
6 comments:
mmmmmm fried goat cheese! have you tried out the greeting zol mentioned? "Ma pene vizas"
maybe get someone to translate this one for you, as zol wasnt too sure about the pronuciation of the vizas (vee-sas or vee-sash) part.
im seeing marta tonight, she give me some other handy things to say.
glad you like the food. definately LOTS of meat. meat and paprika or "papricash". hungary has some pretty amazing wines as well... or at least zoltans dad thinks so... maybe hes just biased though. try and get your hands on some hungarian firewater/moonshine.
also, great news about the room. i could barely sleep last night i was worring so much about you guys. "are they ok right now?? oh my god, i hope the bed doesnt squeak again! i wonder if they are sweating right now?? oh god! somebody DO SOMETHING!" at least tonight ill sleep better knowing that you will as well... tisk tisk! xoxoxo *d
How sad I am to see the 1:48pm comment. You know you can have the kids, just no travelling allowed or hire "grandma" to watch them while you jet-setters are on vacation.
Oh my, the food looks like my kind of food, yum, yum!
Thanks for the laugh! You are just so darn funny!
a. I would have been excited for the fried goat cheese too. It's pretty much my favorite thing in the world.
b. Please reconsider the children, because how will I ever be your travel nanny if there are no children? Maybe Hungarian children are more ill tempered for some reason? Okay, get dogs and I'll be your travel dog walker. Fine, good enough. I'm sure the Four Seasons offer that service but you probably want someone who is familiar with your dogs. My future job security is waning... I can feel it.
c. I'm glad my soap is helping you on your journey. Please do not become too attached. I am looking forward to rubbing it on my body and pretending I'm on vacation.
d. I'd complain too. You're pretty much guaranteed to get those Four Seasons bastards to give you their left arms if you really insisted, so why not exploit it? I'm so with you on that. While you're at it, have them send up more of that goat cheese and shove it in your suitcase to be shipped with my soap.
e. Ryan, I'd be just as excited to see giant hot dogs being offered. If they only had some Salsa Golf for dunking.
Hey, that 3 years old having a temper tantrum sounds familiar. Was he behind me Boston Logan airport last month? ;-)
The appetizer looks rather good, even shown half-eaten as it is.
just as I was visiting Vancouver, BC, you two were away exploring another part of the world. I'll be checking back. Keep the photos coming--lunch plates and all.
12:19 makes me belly laugh and snort everytime I read it!
Kids can be taught not to scream, cry or whine, actually they mimic their parents :)
Dalyn: We had a bottle of wine here that was excellent. I'm not sure about the rest but I'll let you know by the time these three days are up.
Mum's the word: I'm going to print out the promise you wrote down just in case...
Melissavina: I'll be sure to put wrap up any leftover cheese and put it with your soap.
KennethSF: How was Vancouver? What were you in town for?
Mama Sceetch: You laugh because it's probably happened to at one point or another in your own travels.
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