Arrival and Budapest

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July 16th
After three red-eyes in a row for me we are finally here. Right before we left I was invited to attend a reception at the White House to honor the AIDS community and the only way I could make the time after the NCLR conference was to red-eye it both ways. The trip to the White House was definitely worth it beyond a doubt but by the time we arrived in Vienna last night I was simply exhausted. The emergency exit door looking very tempting over Greenland for while during the flight but Enrique with his old soul patience and a few words of wisdom got me through some anxious moments. The flight to Zurich was long and on the flight to Vienna I met the Insurance supervisor for the Country of Vienna who explained that Austria is nine different countries. Karl, my fellow passenger, offered us a tour of the city, which we may very well take him up on when we return. I am always so amazed at the graciousness and hospitality of everyone we meet.

After minimal confusion in the Vienna airport we were picked up by our great Turkish driver Damiel and stopped at a Billa to buy some milk and juice for the next morning. I didn’t know that a cart costs 2 euros so Itzel and I loaded up our coinless hands with 24 euros of provisions for the next day. We then headed for our very old, little apartment in the city. Thankfully, after our trip to Europe a few years back, when we stayed in an ancient apartment in Montmartre, Quique was sufficiently prepared and didn’t burst into tears when he saw the chipped plaster and the old wrought iron stairway that led up to our space.

The inside was classic and basic Ikea with beautiful parquet floors-simple, small and efficient. Had it not been 90 degrees on the inside we would have been just fine. After cold showers by-order-of-da-motha everyone settled in for an amazing thunder and lightning storm that brightened our collective view of things considerably and cooled the space enough for us to sleep.

This morning we woke up before 6am and got moving-after a few Skype calls to California we headed to the hotel Steigenberger where we will be staying tomorrow night until the 24th for the World AIDS Conference. The taxi ride was amazing and our Turkish driver Momat explained a few things in Arabic, Turkish and German and we tried to reply in English and Spanish-thankfully 95% of communication is non verbal anyway so we got along just fine. We missed our train to Budapest by three minutes but took advantage of the time to buy some incredible seed bread and a few croissants to go with the cheese we had been given by the wonderful flight attendant who took one look at the five of us before he loaded us up with wine (for the parents), cream cheese and chocolates.

After spending 250 Euros on second class tickets to Budapest (UG!) we are on our way. We met some great folks from Spain at the station. We are trying to stay out of comfort zone (SPAIN) but they made us miss it already. Of course we congratulated them on the Futbol Finale and then headed to our seats for a lunch of Swiss Air donations, grapes, and incredible bread! I keep thinking about how much I wish that the US corporations would figure out how to genetically modify taste or at least create some food that had some and actually tasted good-too bad that most of us just don’t know what we are missing!

We just passed through Mosonmagyarovar and are definitely in Eastern Europe. The first thing we saw was an old, humungous Soviet style factory with broken windows-a skeleton of its old self. In an hour and half we will arrive in Budapest for two full days before we head back to Vienna tomorrow night.

The kids are doing great-don’t know where they get the energy and Enrique and I are holding up well. Itzel just finished a little break dance in the aisle to the amusement of a group of Austrians and everyone has been extremely nice-I just wish we treated outsiders as well as the rest of the world does! Hopefully I will be able to write again tomorrow on our way home.

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