Traveling to Budapest was fairly traumatic. First, we had problems checking in. We were a few minutes late, so Liz went alone to check in. They wouldn't help her at all until I finished parking the car. Once I arrived, the ticketing agent couldn't figure out the system. She gate checked our bags, and then spent five minutes printing the wrong boarding passes. We noticed on the way to security and returned to the ticketing counter. She spent a couple more minutes fighting with the computer, then gave us another person's boarding passes. She finally called for assistance and a second person managed to tell her how to print the right passes, once they scanned our passports again.

Upon arriving at the gate, we saw the last people boarding. Another 20 minutes later, we were seated waiting for some other seat assignments to be sorted out. Delta had canceled our flight, then reinstated it, losing everyone's seating assignments. We ultimately took off an hour late, with me losing my window seat to an aisle at the back of the plane where I was continually hit by flight attendants and people walking to and from the lavatory.

Upon arriving in New York, we claimed our baggage and re-checked it, then went back through security and waited. And waited. As we were waiting on the transport to board, the first officer announced that one of the ground crew had hit the wing of the plane with the portable ladder and broken it. They would have to find another plane. Amazingly enough, they did and we were off only three-and-a-half hours late.

We landed at Ferihegy Airport, breezed through Customs and waited 30 minutes for our luggage, which never came. We filed a claim with the airport baggage service. They very nicely called our hostel, as we were going to lose our reservation if we weren't there by 14:00. We were scheduled at 10:30, so I didn't give a credit card to hold the reservation, but between the delay and the luggage fiasco, we had about ten minutes before we lost the room. The hostel agreed to hold the room for an hour and we made our way to the taxi stand.

The drive out to Red Bus Hostel took about 40 minutes as The airport is out on the edge of the suburbs. We checked in and waited for James to arrive. Once he did, we set out to explore the neighborhood.


Building on the corner of Muzeum korut & Rackoczi ut, Budapest, Hungary, 9 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4, 1/250, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

We wandered down toward the river, stopping for gelato. After much debate, we took dinner at the Corso Etterem. We had our first taste of Hungarian beer, Soproni, which is quite good. James had his chicken paprikash. After dinner, we wandered toward the Erszabet hid (Elizabeth Bridge), and took some pictures of the Danube.


Danube River, by Erszebet Hid, Budapest, Hungary, 9 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/250, f/11, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400