Budapest for Real

View from our room across the Danube to the parliament building. We are on the fourth floor of a small boutique hotel called the Victoria it is close to the chain bridge and a bunch of other sights.

The hotel has complimentary breakfast and we ride the elevator down and lo and behold there is Carroll talking with a couple from Tacoma. The breakfast offers a wide variety of meat, cheeses, breads, and

other local favorites plus they will cook eggs to order. It is not the best ever (the Crystal Palace in Barcelona or one of the Paradors in Spain was the best) but it is good and filling. We are meeting one of Shirley's Facebook/Ottumwa friends, Kay Morrow Funk and her husband Mike at 12:30. They come to Budapest for extended stays every year so they will get us started on the right foot and we will go from there. It is always nice to have input from someone familiar with the local area and sights, saves time and energy and frustration.

We meet the Funk's at 12:30 at our hotel and head right next door to a restaurant for some Hungarian food. I have a bowl of mussels with fries as does Carroll and Kay, Shirley has duck and Mike has a hamburger. Good food and not too expensive.

A decision has been made that we will take a hop-on hop-off bus tour

of Budapest. First we stop at a cash machine and get some Hungarian florents. I get a whole wad of money 170,000 florents which is about $350 US. The ladies decide they need to go to the grocery store and buy a few things and Mike and I sit on a park bench and discuss the fate of the world. After about 30 minutes in the store the babes return and we get on the bus. I took quite a few pics on the bus but most aren't very good because somebodies head or a telephone pole is in the middle of the picture. Budapest is an interesting old town with lots of history and a wide variety of architecture.

We get off the bus go to the hotel and have happy hour and then walk to a restaurant for supper. I have goulash, Shirley has a wild boar stew, Carroll has a veal chop, Mike has fried carp (a dish normally served at Christmas time in Hungary) and Kay has a tomato salad and onion soup. Good food.

It was a short night so we say our goodbyes and agree to meet them tomorrow over by the synagogue and some big marketplace.