Blogs from Buda, Budapest, Central Hungary, Hungary, Europe

We awoke in our new AirB&B place at around 9am, showered and we both called our respective better halves. I then took some notes on 'Top 25 Hungarian Phrases' whilst Dan plotted a number of attractions, restaurants and bars which our hosts had recommended (via their laminated notes left on the table) on Google Maps. Eventually at gone 11 we headed out for the day. The first stop was 'Vinyl and Wood' a relatively new coffee and breakfast bar which was number 2 on TripAdvisor for tea, coffee and breakfast in our area. Having prepped myself on Jo Napot (Good Day/Afternoon) for the last 1/2 hour, I confidently(ish) spat it out in greeting when we walked through he door, it seem well received. Sadly they didn't have much of a selection of food (we later overheard ... read more

I left America 5 weeks ago, and in 6 weeks from right now, I'll be on a flight over the Atlantic heading home. Since I wrote my paper today, I didn't do much in the way of sightseeing or cultural experiences. But a couple of things happened, and I thought I would share them here on my last night in Hungary. First off, my paper is ... done! Well, almost. This was the rough draft of an 8-10 page paper, and I have 8 full pages, so I'm satisfied. The more I do at this stage, the less I have to do later, right? I'm going to go back in and put in the citations and such tonight, but what a load off. Smooth sightseeing from here! So, remember when I wrote yesterday that my night ... read more

Hi Everyone, This past weekend was Budapest. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures this round - it turned into a social trip instead of a sightseeing one :-/ Cheers, Joel... read more

Between Prague and Budapest we did a quick stop over in vienna for two nights. It wasn't super exciting, but a good stop to have a coupe of slow days, which are necessary on a trip like this one. We saw the schönbrünn palace and the zoo in the palace gardens. We spent all day walking around the palace gardens, it's quite massive. The zoo was especially awesome because we got to see polar bears and panda bears, which I have never seen before. It was a bit expensive, but totally worth it. It's a great zoo. We had schnitzel for dinner both nights, as there was a schnitzel fast food joint down the street from our hotel. So good and so greasy and soooo cheap. The hotel we stayed in was the Austria Trend park ... read more

Well, here we are again. Landed in Budapest around 5pm, taxi to hotel. The Sofitel is very nice and quite reasonable with club lounge access which means if you don't have to eat out if you take advantage of the spread they provide. You also don't check in in the lobby, but get taken straight up to the Club lounge and check in there. Very civilized. Gaynor is getting stuck into it with her champagne journey around Europe. We spent the evening chatting with a couple of ladies from England Sue and B who are here on a girls weekend away, and loving it. The lounge closed so we off to bed to ready ourselves the next day of sightseeing. In the morning after breakfast bought a Hop on-Hop off bus ticket and went around the ... read more