Just Landed

Wow. What a trip. We have finally made it!

I'll start at the beginning and try to remember all of the highlights:

After a few last minute details were taken care of (can you say stressful?), we got to Regan Airport just after 2:00 for our flight. We checked in our bags (which were enormous!) and headed to the terminal. The first flight was to Philadelphia. It was rainy and cloudy outside, and once on the plane, we waited for about 45 minutes to finally get off the ground. Once in the air, the total flight time was only 25 minutes. The next flight from Philadelphia was delayed about 15 minutes. We piled onto the plane (huge!) with everyone else around 6:30 and again had to wait in line to get off the ground.

We flew from Philly to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, and all I can say is amazing! The flight attendants were so friendly and kept our glasses full sparkling wine! About 8 hours later we landed in Frankfurt, full of wine from the night before, hungry, tired, dirty ... ETC. We had planned to take a trip into Frankfurt to get some food and then come back, but our plane was delayed a bit and we did not want to be stressed about making it back in time. Our layover was about 4.5 hours, and we tooled around the airport, people-watching - so pretty much just staring at everyone.

We went through customs to get back on the plane in Frankfurt, Lufthansa, and then flew to Budapest for another 2 hours. I sat next to an older Hungarian couple (who unfortunately did not smell very pleasant ... or was that me?). Finally! We made it after 19 hours of flying and airports! We were soooooo exhausted and hungry. We got off the plane, and took the public bus to another part of the airport. From there we got on a train which took us 30 minutes into the city. From there (West station) we took the tram to the stop where our hostel is. And finally from there we were supposed to walk about 2 blocks (but we actually walked about 5 trying to find someone who spoke Magyar to tell us which direction to go) to our building, and then up 2 flights of stairs! Whew! That took about 2 hours. By the time we got to the hostel it was already 6:00 pm. Olivia and I decided we had to make it until at least 10:00 before we would go to bed so that we would wake up on the right schedule. Ugh!

So that was tricky. We left the hostel in search of food with a little bit of guidance (most of which we could not understand) from our super nice hostel Hostel and headed out. We stumbled past a Citibank (amazing!) Only a few blocks from there. Then we got to the area we that heard was great for food. We chose a restaurant called Bohemia Cavern / tavern / cafe ... something. It was delicious. Great atmosphere, food, beer. Everything and for a good price. More than we will be spending for food regularly, but much cheaper than a comparable meal in DC. When we finally finished, and took the walk back to the hostel we passed out!

There are plenty of other stories to tell but they will have to wait until I have some more time. Our plan is to explore the city to find potential apartments that we want to rent, look at them, and then explore the area surrounding each apartment. This way we will be able to get a feel for different parts of the city. We will probably save the more "touristy" stuff for later. We did see a posting in Hungarian near our hostel for someone letting a room in a pretty big apartment in the city center, right near the metro. Ready for the price? About $ 340/month.

I'm sooo excited! :)