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
I've been back for a week now, and I've been really busy. I bought a new scanner over the last weekend because the old one just wasn't cutting it. The new one does a much better job with film and will take medium format negatives as well. I've been scanning like crazy and have four rolls from the trip done. There's no game tonight (Game 4 tomorrow), and Liz won't be home, so I will start posting stuff tonight. Once I finish there, I will probably re-start the California trip stuff. I was never really happy with the results I was getting, which is much of the reason I never finished scanning those.
I'm posting from Zagreb, Croatia. Yesterday was another day chock full of walking, eating and drinking. We arrived late Tuesday night by train and made our way on the tram to the hostel, which is out in the suburbs a bit. There's a cake factory up the street, which makes the neighborhood smell nice.
Yesterday, we took the bus to the airport to meet Timika, then spent the rest of the day wandering Old Town. We had lunch at a place near the hostel, drinks at Tolkien's House and dinner at some pizzeria. Today, we're headed to Rijeka, although we have no place to stay and we don't know where we're going or what we're doing once we get there. We'll probably be headed for some islands and maybe Ljubljana and/or Trieste.
It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in an internet café in Budapest. Flyers are down 1-0, One of our two missing bags has turned up (I'm the one who got to wear clean clothes today), and I'm having trouble finding the Y and Z keys on this keyboard.
In short, Delta bites, I forgot three rolls of film, everything is closed on Sunday in Budapest, but otherwise everything is quite lovely. We walked the length of Andrássy útca yesterday. I'm two and a half rolls into my film stash, but since I left two rolls of 400 home, I'm probably going to need to stop at a store to get more. Hopefully, I will have time tomorrow before we head to Tokaj. There are two stores by our hostel. We walked by one of them and I saw Kodak Professional film in the fridge, so I should be in good shape if I can get there before opening.
A couple from New Mexico.
Bertram at Rest Stop, Butterfield Station, NM, October 9, 2007, Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/16, Y2 Yellow filter, Kodak BW 400CN
Outside Nellie's, 6th & W. Hadley, Las Cruces, NM, October 9, 2007,
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/16, Kodak BW 400CN
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