Budapest so far

We made it.  Our flight out of Vancouver left 20 minutes late, add in the border control when we landed in Frankfort, and we JUST missed our connection.  No worries, Lufthansa sorted us out right quick and we were rebooked for a new flight a few hours later.  We were getting pretty tired but that didn't stop us from partaking in some good German pastry.  

We got to Budapest and I used my Bolt ride share app.  Bolt and Uber here are just taxis.  Fine, whatever, our driver got us to our 'hotel/hostel' and our vacation was officially on.  So, we promptly went to bed at 9 pm.  And we were both awake at 4 am.  So, some jet leg.  

We had grabbed a couple of tourist maps at the airport so once it was light out, we headed out to find some breakfast.  We are right in old town, one block off a main street. We found a nice little restaurant that had some interesting dishes. I had french toast with salami, cheese and paprika sauce.  Mom had Hungarian scrambled eggs.  Which may have just been scrambled eggs with different stuff in them.  It was big, whatever it was. 

Then we did a wander along the river while we waited for the tourist office to open.  I may have mentioned in my previous post that the Danube is flooding.  It is super high!  All of the river cruises are cancelled.  The floating restaurants are out there, detached from civilization.  It all looks quite calm until you see this ticket office and realize, it's deep!  

Here are some random photos 

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Once we made it to the tourist office, we had decided to do the hop on-hop off bus.  It is supposed to come with a river cruise, but...  see above.  So, we got an extra day for free.  Then we 'hopped on'.  

Terrible bus photos of places I can't remember, beautiful city and lovely old buildings all around.

We did the whole route and 'hopped off' at the huge synagogue which happens to be very close to our hotel.  Funny story, not about the history of the Jews in Hungary, that is very not funny, but about how dopey I am.  There are free tours of the synagogue.  There is a vague arrow sort of pointing in the general direction of where these tours should meet.  Mom and I vaguely stood in that vague area but nary a tour guide or tour to be detected. So, we left and went up to the museum.  We found a tour in progress so we just joined them.  Kind of interesting but we had missed the synagogue bit.  After that the guide led the group out of the garden and said she was taking us to the Ghetto from WW2.  So, off we go, happily following along until the guide finally said 'so, you are not in my group.  This is a paid guided tour'.  Oops.  So, not only did we get kicked out of the tour, we had left the synagogue grounds and couldn't re-enter.  But there are still pictures. 

Back to our room to rehydrate and as it turns out, have a three hour nap.  

We eventually roused ourselves enough to get up and go back out.  I found an electronics store were I could buy a SIM card for my phone because my phone is too old and/or crappy to use an e-Sim.   Then a pop into a grocery store for some yogurt.  We have a fridge and dammit, if I have to buy yogurt to use it, then I will buy yogurt! And just to show that fridge who's boss, some cheese too.   

Then dinner at a lovely little Ukrainian place, a bit of planning for the next couple of days, and this post.  It's almost time for bed (in jet leg land).  

and this extra, super random photo that amused me.