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Published: September 24th 2017
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So very tired already....yaaaaaawwwnnnn. The 8+ hour flight was uneventful (which, lets face it, is how we hope all flights go). Departed and arrived on time. Sweet. But with an overnight flight and the time difference (Budapest is 6 hours ahead of Ottawa) I am working hard to stay awake to get on Eastern European time.
Travelling in and out of my home country of Canada a lot, and very often to (or through) our US neighbours, I'm super used to a thorough "what is the purpose of your travel" and "how long will you be here" and "do you have anything to declare" when we get to Customs. Even when coming home we have declaration forms to fill out that are handed out on the plane before we land. Not so for Hungary - no form, no questions, just as somber eyeballing when I approached the booth, a quick stamp in my passport and I was on my way. That's it.
We arrived at 11:00am local time and made our way to our hotel (lovely), decided to take the metro (magnificently clean and efficient) to the train station to reserve seats for our long train ride to Bucharest
this Friday. While we were there a film crew was setting up and were told that a Chinese action film was being shot there. Very cool. The train station was glorious and for any fellow video game nerds out there looked just like a smaller version of the one in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. I desperately wanted to parkour over a stack of crates a la Evie Frye, but alas the desire not to look ridiculous in public has once again saved me from what I am sure would have been a painful and embarrassing tumble.
Reserved seats in hand we made our way back on the metro to the inner city where we were staying - pretty close to the National Museum and a few blocks away from the Danube. We stopped for a spot of late lunch and had a cup of goulash (magnificent beefy paprika-y soup) and chicken paprikash with "dumplings" (like spaetzel). There is no chance I'm checking the spelling - but you know what I mean - those little pasta nuggets you get with schnitzel (I'm not checking the spelling on that either, so there).
We took a little stroll after in our neighbourhood
and came across a little local festival in honour of a Hungarian poet, Arany Hetvege (ther should be accents on the first two "e"s in his name). It was lovely and charming. Also lots of dogs everywhere (including riding the metro!) which I am loving. They are all at risk of ending up being "appropriated" and hauled back to Canada. It's not stealing if they *want* to come wth you, right?
There are also lots of outdoor cafes and restaurant patios. Even with the cooler weather (it maxed out at 19 Celsius today, but was about 12ish by the evening) people were eating outside and many of the patios had blankets for customers to keep warm.
The next two days we are hoping to hit Buda Castle, the chain bridge, and a whole lot of good stuff, but for now since I am fall asleep drooling on my iPad, I is going to bed.
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Happy travels!
Thanks for sharing, Lyla! Everything sounds amazing!