Arrival in Budapest

So its late morning in Budapest and we just woke up in our perfect studio apartment on Thursday morning. Though we thought last night would consist of us wandering through Pest searching out our first night dinner, things did not go as planned. It started on the runway in SF where we sat for 45 minutes before they finally told us that "someone is sick and we have to let them off." We were on our second glass of wine at that point and were having a grand old time despite the waiting, and so Jonny just shrugged it off and asserted with certainty that " they can easily make up an hour on a long flight like this. No problem." Needless to say he was unfortunately wrong. After a nice long 6 hour slumber we awoke just over Ireland with the captain telling us we will be arriving one hour last-- exactly at the moment our flight to Budapest was taking off.





SIX hours later we had exhausted all there is to do in Terminal 5 of Heathrow, including but not limited to the following: trying unsuccessfully to lie our way into the first class lounge, shopping at all the fancy English men's clothing designer stores of Jon's dreams (no purchases), eating a meal at an English pub, and taking a nap on one of the highly sought after big red couches next to the gate.

We arrived in Budapest at midnight, captured our bags from a tour group who almost stole them, and found a very welcoming fat Hungarian man holding up a LAUREN BOWNE sign. Our host, Tomas Sipavicius met us in front of the apartment to greet us. He was not fat. He is an artist who rents out three apartments in the city and has an art studio in Buda which we hope to visit. The apartment is perfect; clean, comfortable and styled in familiar Ikea fashions. Though it was almost 2 am Tomas walked us through a map of Budapest, talked to us about our plans for the week and told us that we HAVE to go to the Italian style food market/cafe for breakfast down the block. We are smack dab in the middle of the design district and so there are lots of antique and furniture stores all around us. This makes us happy. We are also across the street from the Danube which also makes us happy.

We are off to get some breakfast and then will wander along the river on our way to the International Wine Festival which is happening this week at the Buda Castle. We may hit us a series of caves that lie beneath the castle. Or we may just eat sausages and sheep cheese and drink wine.