Budapest Day One

I'd booked the Radisson on points, knowing I was arriving in the middle of the night and not wanting to risk booking somewhere with no reception staff at night.

I caught a shuttle from the Budapest airport, and straggled into a dimly lit lobby after midnight.

The clerk had one receipt and one key in his hand. "You must be Marie," he said.

I confirmed that I was, ordered room service (which was sad and pricey), and went up to my room. The hotel was funny, a bit worn but reasonable.

In the morning, I argued with the buffet manager. "17 euros is a lot of money for breakfast!" "But it has pastries ands eggs and bacon and cereal and you can eat all you want."

I ended up at McDonald's, sorry to say. Don't mock me. It wasn't 17 euros for eggs and coffee.

I headed out for a walk after breakfast, and saw all kinds of interesting buildings in Budapest. I turned out to be close to the center, so walking was easy. And eventually I realized I could walk to something strange.

The bus-boat.

Yes, I went on a bus that turned into a boat. The gimmick is pretty funny, but swimming back upstream took forever and was kind of excruciating. Turns out buses don't have a lot of horsepower in the Danube.

After the bus-boat, I headed to the train station to pick up my train ticket for the day after tomorrow, then caught the metro back not to my hotel, but to somewhere sort of close. I'd work it out tomorrow. For tonight, I just grabbed some noodles and went back to the hotel to collapse.

Yes, noodles. My "no sugar no wheat" eating has completely fallen apart under the pressure of eating on the road. I can't wait to get home to some broccoli.