Day 5.. Back to New York Cafe

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Well, that was a rubbish nights sleep! I can decide if it was because of the Two Baileys that I had, the fact that I’m over tired, or the bunged up sinuses from the air on! Who knows? But the outcome is rubbish.

I finally got up at about 6:30, but tried not to disturb Kerry, but that’s hard when you’re sharing a double bed! Although Kerry had never complained! In fave, she’s been most gracious about my rubbish sleep patterns… lo lleven feeling sorry for me at times, but as we have both said, there is nothing I can go about it! C’est La vie!!

Although Kerry was annoyed at the ladies from Wales, they made a right drunken song and dance in the corridor at about 1am. I never heard anything as I had my iPad on with the earphones in!

We got showered and sorted, then packed all our stuff up before breakfast to make it an easy getaway for today’s plan!

We went in for breakfast, to be honest, breakfast is slim pickings. I really didn’t fancy the orange sausages, mixed vegetables, or even the sloppy semolina. Southgate it’s toast and scrambled eggs again! That’s ok for me, at least I do like that!

Kerry caught up with a couple of the Welsh ladies. Apparently, they were also very annoyed at a couple of their friends who were oft on the town last night! They are awaiting heartfelt apologies this morning… not sure how that will play out!

We went back to the room to collect our stuff. That was a quick turnaround due to being well organised this morning! We put our cases in the holding room as we don’t leave until about 4pm.

Today we are taking our last opportunity to visit The New York Cafe. It is allegedly the most beautiful cafe in the world! We did try to visit a couple of days ago, but we weren’t aware of the wiring situation. It is very similar to wiring outside Bettys Tearoom in York, or Harrogate! But today we have nothing better to do as it’s the last day, so we are going … prepared to queue! Kerry is desperately hoping to get a muffin here. We haven’t seen muffins anywhere, she feels she is now really ready for one… we’ll see!

On our way, we passed a heartfelt memorial piece dedicated to the Jews, and their sad ghetto events. So sad.

We joined the queue at about 10am; it is now 10:56…. And we are now at the front! Here goes!!!

The history of the Cafevis of more than 120-year-old building which is closely intertwined with literature. Even though it endured different eras, systems and major historical changes, the place known as “The Most Beautiful Café” has always revived and eagerly waited to provide comfort and cosyness not only for artists, but also for commoner people.

It is an amazing sight inside. It was worth the wait, but unfortunately for us, we couldn’t really order food! All breakfast food finished at 11am, but lunch foods don’t start until after 12…. It was 11:08 when we got in! We could have had cake, but when your belly and mind want Eggs Benedict, or lunch…. Cake doesn’t quite cut it! So 24k cappuccino it is. (That is a cappuccino with gold dust on it!) I do like a coffee, but can’t help feeling a bit disappointed! … belly wise!!!

To add to the pure luxury of the environment, we were literally sat on the first table in front of the violinist, who had no choice but to keep looking, and smiling at us. He actually had no choice.. because we were under his nose! He asked Kerry where she was from, then asked her what music she wanted him to play. She smiled … as if she was so shy… more embarrassed I would say, We both looked at each other not wanting to laugh, as neither of us had any ideas of what music to request…. And I offered no support whatever!! In the end she opted for a Christmassy tune! Good call Kerry. Better than my choice, all I could think of was Eidleweiss…. For some crazy reason! What the hell made me think of Eidleweiss??? He actually did played a Christmas song, and lovely it was too.

We left the cafe to have a steady meander back towards the hotel. We have to pan out the time so we don’t end up being at a loose end as we are leaving today. We are going back to ask the girl at the hotel if she will charge my phone for me. It is completely flat, which isn’t a huge issue, it just messes with my OCD! It’s been an annoying situation throughout the whole time that we have away. My phone is about ready to be renewed, so the battery simply doesn’t hold the charge as it should anymore. Therefore, I always have a fully charged battery pack with me, but the lead that I brought, just did not work. It was the correct connection, but I’m not sure it was the original lead that I got with the charger! No point stressing about something I can’t change, but it certainly did annoy me!!!

We arrived at the hotel, the receptionist was really helpful. She was happy for me to leave my phone with her on charge whilst we went back out for a late lunch. We opted to go up to The Pointer, we have been there for a drink a couple of times, but not eaten there before. Also, we didn’t want to get too far away from the hotel as pick up time is looming!

Lunch/dinner was simple but nice. Nothing to shout about, enough to fill us in preparation for coming home. We were out long enough for my phone to be fully charged when I got back.

We collected our cases from the holding room…. And we’re off. Our transfer taxi is booked to pick us up from outside KFC on Vaci Utca (our street!) at 15:35. After walking to Starbucks for a coffee and a muffin on our way…. Which we then changed our minds about wanting, as it wasn’t long ago that we had lunch!!!! We arrived at the pick up pour at about 13:25.

By now it was starting to get colder, and darker. Time continued to tick away. At first, we were laughing and seeing the funny side of waiting. After about 20 minutes, we were not singing and laughing so much. Kerry started to get whiney as she was getting cold and miserable, asking me to call. To be honest, wrongly, I accept that culturally… other countries do not keep to time like we do! also… it’s teatime in the centre of a capital city!!! You can’t expect miracles!! Finally I did call them, the woman said 10 more minutes. 10 minutes later I called back again, she said she get the driver to call us, which he did….!it’s hard to describe the next 10 minutes…. I’m on my phone, speaking to a Hungarian man who is trying to tell me in his very broken English that he needs us to move to another meeting point due to the traffic congestion. Miraculously, we managed most of the conversation which would take us to the big busy road with lots of cars, him coming from bridge, other side. Kerry then grabbed the phone shouting Mercedes Benz…. Ordering him to stay in the phone….As there was a showroom across the road…. Finally after a difficult 19 minutes…. We could see a man frantically waving his arms above his head at the other side of the road…..phew…. That was hard!…. When we got into his car… we both completely cracked up laughing…. I would say that was the sheer relief!!! I actually felt a bit sorry for the driver, the traffic was absolutely horrendous every bit of the way! There is no wonder he was so late!

Then at the airport we went from one saga to another! We got the cases checked in, no problem. We checked them into the hold as Kerry had some litre bottles on our way into the country, so they couldn’t go as hand luggage. We sauntered over to duty free, did a bit of browsing, saw which timbal we needed to be at. All sorted so far!

We were both very pleased to get a Costa coffee and a muffin. Kerry had been talking about getting a muffin everyday…. I’m not really a lover of muffins, but I would certainly never turn one down!!! Here’s our chance.
We had been sat down about five minutes, I looked at the board and the flight was boarding already!!! The muffins went in our bags, the coffee went straight in the bin…. And we were off!!! But we hadn’t had the time to check out the distance to the boarding point…. OMG… it was so far away!!!! We had to speed up, then had to break out into a jog….?night mate…. We made it just n time, but it looked like we were about the last to make. It was a very small queue of people left to board. Then as we were climbing the stairs, we noticed a slow, but steady stream of stragglers…. Just like us. We spoke to a few people on the plane, there were quite a few who had the same carry on as we did!
The flight was fine, it’s only about two and a half hours, so that’s soon over with.

Both Kerry and I have had a great time, lots of laughs, definitely lots of walking, and also many new experiences for us both. Thanks for your company Kerry. It’s been great xx

Until next time xxxx

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Comments

[Angela]

Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. You know I love following you. Trust you are home safe....with lots of lovely memories. Hope to see you soon. xx

[Angela]

Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. You know I love following you. Trust you are home safe....with lots of lovely memories. Hope to see you soon. xx