Budapest Day 4 : Bust and window

Once again I was up and out and about around 10:30 am.

Once again I began with what had quickly become my regular breakfast of hot chocolate and orange juice, after which I tootled about for a bit until eventually deciding (having first been in a 'been there; done that' frame of mind) to visit the Citadel on the Buda side of the river. Yesterday's haze had totally disappeared, though at first it felt noticeably chillier. As the day progressed, though, the temperature once again found its way into the high 20's. I got the Metro up to Moscow Square and walked from there up to the citadel gate. I did the tourist thing just like four years ago, but thoroughly enjoyed it all again, soaking u the atmosphere around St Matthias cathedral and the royal palace and the President's residence. There's very much an old-town feel to the streets immediately inside the main gate and near the citadel walls, and that's where this blip comes from, taken very early on in my wander. This is the wall of the Király Étterem (King restaurant), looking gloriously vibrant in the bright sunshine.

After a very leisurely stroll which also included a few pit stops for refreshment, suddenly the time had made its way on to 3:30 pm and I needed to think about lunch and a return to the apartment for a final drink with Michael and David and the trip to the airport for my flight home. One of the things I'd planned was a bit of shopping, both for myself in a CD shop I'd spotted on Tuesday and for friends of mine back home whose house-warming dinner party Carl and I are going to on Saturday. I was due to meet up with David so he could bring me to a likely shop where I might find a suitable house-warming present, but we ended up with him giving me directions to get there while I was finishing my 'lunch' at yet another tourist-trap restaurant on Vaci. His directions were spot on, and I found the place without any problem and also got just the very thing in terms of a something-different gift.

Back at the apartment I threw my stuff into the case and we three went to a little bar in the Central Market for a final chat and a drink together. Michael was still feeling unwell, so it just David and myself who went to the airport (Metro first, then bus the rest of the way). We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, I had time for a bit of a splurge in Duty Free, and then almost before I knew it, we were boarding the flight back home.

Stupid Dublin bloody airport! I'd reminded Carl that he would be picking me up at Terminal 2, and expected to get through quickly since I only had a carry-on bag. It was reasonably quick, but it would have been better still if we hadn't parked at Terminal 1 instead of Terminal 2, which meant there was an interminable walk before we got out at Arrivals (I'd already heard stories of flights checked in at T2 actually leaving from T1, but this was my first experience of this short-sighted stupidity). I somehow managed to calm down by the time Carl welcomed me back, dropped me off home, and patiently waited while I nattered on and on about my fabulous few days in Budapest.

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I've managed to upload, sort through, and choose my blips from my trip to Budapest. quicker and sooner than expected. The adventure begins here.

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It was only after uploading this that I spotted the uncanny resemblance between today's blip and that from a year ago. Weird or what?