European Adventure Part VI: Day 1
After months of planning it was finally time to pack my bags and hit the road! I can admit to you guys that I came into this vacation much more stressed than I usually am. I was so ready to take a break and go explore! This year we're going to three countries I've been to before: Hungary, France, and the United Kingdom, and I'm visiting a new one - Denmark! First stop: Hungary!
LONGEST. LINE. EVER. What a long day yesterday was! After putting in a half day of work, I hauled it home to gather my things and head to the airport. For once I didn't get to the airport late! In fact, I got there mad early, by no choice of my own, but that's a whole other story. I decided to go and grab a drink, and start to decompress a little bit before boarding the plane. Soon my friend Kristin was with me, and we were sharing our excitement for this upcoming adventure.We boarded the plane with no issues and before I knew it we were landing into Heathrow! The view outside the window was dreary and I must say that I'm glad we weren't heading into the city today. Instead we made our connection to Hungary!I was knocked out on that flight and opened my eyes to sunshine! It was a beautiful, and warm day in Budapest! We hopped off the airplane ready to grab our baggage, get into the central part of the city and start exploring! Alas, that is not in fact, what we would do because we ran into a line of a few hundred people waiting to go through passport control. We stood in that line for over a long, exhausted, frustrating hour. There were five border control agents for ALL of the flights coming in. I could have gotten upset, but I just decided to relax, put my planned schedule aside, and just get through it. Soon enough we were in the car headed to our apartment.
LANGOS!! After taking some time to freshen up, we grabbed the trolley and rolled our way to the Central Market. This is the beautiful market that I went to last time, but my sole goal in going was to get some langos. It's a Hungarian dish and it's deep fried dough with whatever toppings you want. I just got cheese on cheese on cheese. YUM!After that meal, we needed to walk off the langos, so we walked across the Danube river to Buda and walked along the river. It's about 70 degrees here and my body was not ready for that. It was lovely though, and the Hungarians were out enjoying the weather.
DINNER & BILLIE HOLIDAYNext we headed to the ruinpub Mazel Tov. It was such a fun atmosphere and the food was delicious. I knew it was going to be a good place when we hear Billie Holiday over the speakers. The drink menu looked amazing. Yes, I flew all the way to Hungary to have a drink with bourbon in it, but it was so, so good! Ruinpubs are basically old warehouse or building, likely from the USSR days, that they’ve turned into a kind of night club or restaurant. The ruinpubs that I went to last time were much more lounge-like than Mazel Tov, but I like the vibe a little bit more.Then we closed out the day by walking back to our flat, completely exhausted, but satisfied, and so ready to take on the following day.
UP NEXT: Free walking tour and exploring Buda!