Farewell Budapest

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Our last day in Budapest was well and truly family day.

A visit to the cemetery to see the old man in the morning turned into a 3 hour mission to tend to all the graves of the dearly departed that used to live in Nagymama’s block. The place is huge - there are roundabouts in the middle of the cemetery - so you can understand how a quick visit turns into a day trip and lots of false turns.
The cemetery is literally snowed under over winter so most people are only just beginning to return after their Christmas visits…notable by the number of Christmas trees and decorations that hang over a lot of the grave sites. As a result the place looked a little run down, but in a couple of weeks the Spring clean will see to that.

Back to Nagymama’s for a last lunch and to say our goodbyes. I was surprised that it took an entire week before a Hungarian family drama reared its head, but this afternoon made up for it, with a seemingly 4 hour argument about some of the most inconsequential topics to take us through the afternoon. You gotta love family.

We headed to Eva’s place (the one who has opened the gym) for a quick catch up. Eva’s mum - Eva - was also there and her brother Zsolt and his wife Szilvi arrived from a weekend away in Slovakia. Our quick visit turned into dinner, and endless supply of Slovakian dessert, and drinks, including Gabor and Zsolt knocking off a bottle of palinka (Hungarian moonshine) in between the beers and wine. We think we convinced some of them to come to NZ for a visit, but it could’ve been the palinka talking.

Marti the superstar cousin/host/tour guide/translator dropped us back at the apartment and we said our goodbyes around midnight before packing up and getting ready for a 4am departure on Monday.

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