Day 9 - Thursday 1st November 2012 - Budapest, Hungary

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As always, we woke up early and went to breakfast, same sort of things as yesterday – more leftover vegetables etc.

We needed to kill some time before the taxi so decided to go for another swim to make most of the pool. There were less people than yesterday but 2 old people in Jacuzzi most of the time so didn't join them. We did manage to get quick dip in Jacuzzi eventually. We spent most of the time on the shelf in the main pool with all the bubbles haha. We then changed and went back to the room to pack. I packed my case then I did Fiona’s again. For some really stupid reason my bag was super heavy so I asked Fiona is I could but the "gold leaf" schnapps from the Vienna museum into her case.

We checked out and left our bags in left luggage so we could go for a walk to the shops in the town – wanted to get some snacks for the journey. We bought loads of Balaton Bars and a drink plus I got a magnet for my mum. The cat from yesterday came running up to us for a stroke. Much more active than yesterday and very friendly! He kept following us when we tried to walk away – we totally wanted to take him with us!! We too some funny photos on the way back to hotel trying to get good shot of us together.

Went for more cake at Anne Café I wanted to buy some bottles of the fruit juice but the lady behind counter didn't seem to understand what I wanted. We were sad to be leaving; it would definitely be nice to have stayed here a bit longer and explore more of the town + have more cake!

We sat in hotel lobby waiting for taxi – it arrived 15 mins early which was awesome as we were worried it would be late! The driver seemed nice and took our bags out to car. Not sure if he spoke much English as he wasn’t very chatty, but luckily knew where we wanted to go. The taxi seemed to go along the same route as the train for much of the journey. We both kept dozing off as it was very warm. There were some really nice views along lake. When we got back to Budapest we drove passed our hotel from the tour, then onto the airport on the outskirts of the city. It ended up taking us just over 2 hours so quicker than we expected. We gave the driver most of our leftover money as tip. I’m so glad we got taxi as it gave us more time in Balatonfüred and just eased of mind about journey.

Again as always we had a lot of time before we could check in – becoming a habit!! Luckily this time there was a café, we got Kettle Chips and drink. Water was much more expensive than any other drink for some reason! We sat and did some people watching again. Security guards noticed bottle of drink left on stairs going up next to café, after a lot of standing around looking at it they decided to close the area off for bomb threat!! We had to leave the café – bit annoying as nowhere else to sit. There was an extremely long line for security going right across terminal – we were not looking forward to standing in that! They didn't evacuate whole place though and didn't seem to know what to do. Then they decided it was fine somehow and a policeman picked it up and carried it away..?! We were allowed to go back to café again – all a bit bazaar!

Finally we could check in, our bags weighed approx. 19kg each so worked out well with weight distribution packing. Luckily by then the security line had gone down a bit. The airport is quite nice, it was quite big with lots of food outlets upstairs – was going to have KFC for change but all the chicken was hot and spicy, so we decided to get a Burger King instead. I bought more Gerbeauds chocolate in the departure lounge for work. We then realised the time had gone so fast and the plane was boarding – ran to departure gate, although big queue still no need to rush.

Sat in seats on plane similar to going to Vienna. For food we got a wrap but did neat it and decided to sneak them in our bags for my brother and dad. The flight was ok, seemed to take longer than going, time was dragging! Fiona ended up dozing off but still kept waking up. We had a good night time views while coming into land over London – seemed very close to the ground – tried to take pictures but they came out blurry. We flew in circles a few times, and finally landed in Heathrow on time. Our bags took forever to come out onto the carousel – getting worried they got lost! We met my mum and dad in arrivals and drove back to Kingston. We were very sad to be back in UK but lots of memories from an amazing trip!

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