More lovely than I could have imagined.

 

We've been watching the weather, our European destinations are under heat advisories, with weather warmer than Fair New Mexico. Looking out the window as we arrived in Budapest, it did look hot and dusty like home.

Except. Their river has water in it. We got a good glimpse as we entered our room. Our blessedly cold, air conditioned room. 

Also, check out the twin beds with nothing but a duvet. No top sheet. I might have to explore individual duvets on our king bed at home.

We did paper rock scissors to see who showered first, took a one hour power nap, and went for dinner and a walk. 

Nothing says Hungary like a pizza and Caeser salad for dinner, ha!

All of this is within view of our hotel. After a giant beer and pizza, I wasn't in any shape to go much further. But look!

 This is the Buda Building, the Danube in front. It was stripped to the plaster walls by Nazi's and later the Russians after WWII. It's directly across the river from our hotel.

Below are views from the Chain Bridge which was the first permanent bridge to span the Danube and connect Buda to Pest. It was considered an engineering marvel at the time it was built, destroyed by the Nazis and rebuilt in the 1940's. It's a mighty fine bridge and was full of young things tonight having a good time taking pics of themselves.

 Viking Ships, no idea if one is the Jarl as they are parked so close together we can't read the names. So glad I paid for a balcony room with a view! Will be able to see right into our neighbor's room. They are long, aren't they?

 

Stoke is high for tomorrow, but this girl needs some shut eye.

Whew! We made it!

 There were no hiccups with any of the flights: Abq to Chicago to Zurich to Budapest. We spent our layovers wondering which couples might be on our boat and what conversations we might have.

Chicago airport is something else again. We had a 4 hour layover, and were not concerned about time. At all. Even with a terminal change and a dinner plan. Ev was frothing to eat at a Rick Bayless restaurant called Torta Frontera. He got our lovely stewardess hyped to go on her break and was pretty much touting it to every best friend he made in the airplane and at the airport. 

Aaaall before we ate there. 

It was bad. So bad, didn't get a picture. Oh well, sorry new friends. 

We landed in Terminal 2, walked to Terminal 3 to try to meet  Robert and Joy and get them to go with us to Torta. Once we saw the teeming masses, we abandoned the plan and set ourselves to figuring out how to get to Terminal 5. 

It was the sketchiest thing I've ever encountered in an American airport. We were made to show documents (already in the secure area), hustled into a dirty hot little hallway crowded with other confused passengers and finally hustled down some dirty steps into the bowels of the airport and onto a filthy packed bus. Lawd! we drove around on the RUNWAYS with AIRPLANES taking off and landing for a good FIFTEEN minutes. 

"No turns, Active taxiway" How about heeding the "No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Point" sign I saw earlier?

Planes whooshing by, close enough to feel. Stuff my nightmares are made of.

 We made our flight in good time, boarded, settled into our pods for the next 10 hours. Easy flight. Tata did tray table and other miscellaneous airplane maintenance to pass the time.

Meanwhile, the Semrads were winding their way to London. JoyK discovers "My ass was made for business class!" Yes, girl, it was, all along.