Day 2—Budapest Part II

Lounging is exhausting!! 
(late yesterday before our flight)

Let's GO!!

Our plane landed a tad early, right about midnight.  One bag was the second one to arrive, but the other was about the 50^th.  We found our driver and made it to the hotel about 12:45.  Excited to be in our room before 1am…the guy at the desk said he wasn’t the one to check us in, and THAT guy would be back in 5-10 minutes.  ☹  Finally checked in, get situated, and off to bed by 1:30.

On arrival at the airport, we reflected back on our previous trip to Budapest in 2002 or 2003 (hence this is Part II) with Bill’s parents.  We flew to London, then had to overnight, and flew the next day to Budapest on a British Airways 767.  It’s kind of amazing thinking that was about 20 years ago! 

The view from our room.

In the morning, it was like 85F in our room.  The temp was set for 72, but…no.  Sigh.  Ok.  Well, time for a shower as we were holding up plans.  So, remember those algebra problems where they talk about water flowing into a tank and flowing out at a slower rate and how long to fill up the tank??  It was one of those.  Except, instead of a tank it was a nearly flat shower tray with ¼ inch lip.  Turns out it was full in about the time it took to wash my hair.  So, we cycled the water on and off and Theresa built a dam with her towel to keep Lake Geck from leaving the bathroom.

The road outside of our hotel.

At breakfast we met up with our friends Mike and MaryAnne, whom we’ve known since 1999 (they presented our Worldwide Marriage Encounter Weekend).  We traveled with them in 2012 to Israel and Italy, then in 2014 to China.  We had such fun we had to try again!  After breakfast and some catching up, we all got ready to leave.  But first, we stopped by the front desk to ask for someone to fix the drain and the air conditioner while we were gone.  We will come back to that!

St. Steven's Basilica

We walked to St. Steven’s Basilica (Szent Istvan Bazilika) named for King “Istvan” who died in 1038 and is credited for Christianizing Hungary.  We toured the church itself, then heard a random band outside so went to look.  It seemed like a bunch of kids playing music, so we listened a bit then headed up to the lookout around the Dome.  The climb was fun since it was iron stairs instead of tiny little stone spiral cases, and had a few well placed landings.  At the top, the view was great, and we even got to enjoy the bells at Noon.  There was a little “treasury” which was small but nice, showcasing many artifacts from a Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty who died in 1975.

Inside St. Steven's

Up up up...

Not there yet!!

C'mon, slow pokes!!  :-)

This is the top of the dome INSIDE, under the outside dome!

Theresa, Bill, MaryAnne, and Mike

View from the lookout on St. Steven's.  The long building is the Opera House.
The building in front of it with grass on the top is the 8th floor of our hotel.

Random cool looking roof!  They don't get hail here, apparently!

Down, down, down!!

The Opera House (on our way back to lunch).

Cool roofs.

Liberty Bridge, from Pest looking toward Buda.
(Budapest is two cities on different sides of the Danube.)

The ships on the Danube.

The Central Market.

After the church, we bought tickets for the subway then headed to the central market.  After looking around at a lot of “paprika”, we stopped for lunch.  Of course, remembering this amazing goulash we had last time, I HAD to get some.  Theresa and Mike had a chicken with dumplings (sort of like spätzle), and MaryAnne had the beef with dumplings (MaryAnne won!).

Theresa's and Bill's Lunch

Y'Think??

We came back to the hotel for a little break.  Our room was still hot (like 82F) so we went downstairs to figure out what happened.  It wasn’t clear if anything was done as there was no turnover from first to second shift.  But the manager assured us she would send someone right up.  We jumped on the elevator, scanned our room card, pushed “7”, and it went up… At about floor 7, it stopped.  The floor indicator flashed *9, which was curious as it was an 8 floor building.  The door wasn’t opening, and nothing was happening, so, we tried the call button.  It wasn’t working.  We pushed the alarm button, and it did nothing.  Great.  We’re stuck in an elevator, and no one knows we’re here.  We tried all of the buttons, and found one that set off a siren.  Well, it was annoying, so, we didn’t keep holding it.  We texted our friends to call downstairs, but before they answered, the speaker came on and the person said maintenance was on the way.  About 5 minutes into it a guy opened the door from the outside, right there on floor 7.  Grumble grumble grumble.  Back to our hot room.  After 30 more minutes, we called down and asked if they were going to send up someone, and she said they did but we weren’t there.  Uh, yeah.  ‘cause we were trapped in an elevator!??  They couldn’t fix the unit, so they were going to give us a new room.  And then she told us she would upgrade us.  The 8^th floor only has four rooms, so we were curious to see…

Our new room and "little" patio.

Wow!!  We had a “bedroom” with a patio overlooking the top of the Opera house, and a sitting room with a patio overlooking St. Steven’s.  And it came with AIR CONDITIONING!!!  After a quick shower and dressing up a little, we headed down to the bar to meet M&MA as we all had a drink coupon.  We ordered our beers and wine, and headed up to the big patio on the 8^th floor (a little exclusive) to enjoy the spoils and rewards.

View from the bedroom patio.  (Better than last room!)

The "sitting" room, and view of the larger patio.

A large (semiprivate) patio on the 8th floor, with limited access. 
We'll call it a "lounge".  :-) 

Oh, C'mon!!  Who needs this much shampoo?  Sasquatch?

Why not enjoy our free drinks up on the Patio "Lounge"?

We had tickets to the Opera, Simon Buccanegra.  We toured the opera house and marveled at the lavish beauty, and intricate designs, then found our way to our ‘box’.  Yes, we splurged a bit and got a box for the four of us, so it felt very fancy and spoiled!!  When the place was built in the late 1800s, these were the boxes for the aristocrats, with plebians and commoners either above us in the nosebleeds, or below on the floor.  We were on the same level as the King’s Box, and close enough to see him if there were still a King and if he were there tonight!

Kind of has an "Escher" look to it!

The cloak room was a bit under used today as it was over 80F!

OK, I had this GREAT shot and didn't see the woman until now.

THIS woman I saw!!

Vertigo anyone??

Our "box"!

Views from the Box.

Leaning around to get a picture of the neighbor's
box and pretending it is ours!

This would be the "King's Box", if he were here.  And existed.

Our basic view.

A panoramic of the opera house.

The detail is pretty incredible!

If you don’t know anything about this opera, well, neither did we.  It’s a story about a father and daughter, featuring mermaids and a lot of men in robes, all told through Italian singing (obviously).  It was the best opera we have seen all…year!  But it was a fun evening nonetheless!!

We capped off the evening by writing this blog on our patio overlooking St. Steven’s.

St. Steven's from our patio...while writing this blog.  Good Night!