Budapest - day 21

Lovely and fine, over 20 degrees

This morning we had planned to meet up with my friend Anna Eiffert at 11am. But we also wanted to go to the big city market, so decided to leave as soon as we woke up and do that first. Well I woke up at around 7.45 – I am amazed at how many nights in a row I have been sleeping for longer than 8 hours. My normal is about 6.5 hours. We were pretty organised tho, and left the campground before 9am. We are good at the train system, and Jody managed us through the train network rather than having to walk 1.2 kms to the market.

The market was very interesting, and Jody and I split up as we had to leave there at 10.45. Lots of Hungarian food options – interesting meats, and loads of paprika. Upstairs were souvenirs, trinkets and clothes. I bought this wee linen jacket in white. Then I bumped into Jody and she bought one in a pinky colour. Then it was time to get another 2 trains which we did successfully, and found Anna by the big ferris wheel as arranged. Budapest is a city of 1.7m people, so we are doing pretty well getting around having been here for 2 days. I met Anna 6 years ago when she was taking an agility seminar in Texas which I attended with Clare Wellington and Allan and Elaine Rohde. Since then Anna has become a One Mind Dog coach, and is a really good teacher and handler.

Anna found a bus for us to catch to go up to the castle which overlooks Budapest. Pest is on the flat side of the river, and Buda is on the hillier side. It was very cool up the hill as we could see both sides, and the castle itself was just amazing. After the castle we took another bus and had a bit of a walk to our lunch restaurant which Anna had booked. It was called Stand 25 and is part of the same company as the one michelin star restaurant called Stand. The food was incredible, and presented extremely well. It was lovely chatting to Anna and hearing about her growing up in Budapest, and about European agility. Unfortunately she had only come home yesterday, and is leaving again in the morning, so only had a short time with us, but it was lovely to catch up with her.

After Anna left us, we made our way to the metro and took a seat working out what we were doing next. Lo and behold a sign appeared in front of us – Decathlon! Just one of my favourite European stores. So yep we just had to visit. I bought 2 pairs of togs for a total of $40 and a t shirt. Then we went to Starbucks – mainly to use the loo, but more working out of what we were going to do. We both felt a bit weary so decided that staying around for the evening river cruise was not going to happen. But looked up the market again and thought we could spend a bit more time there so took 2 more trains for that. It was good because we have now done the whole market and won’t feel like we were jmissing out on anything. I bought some wonderful large blueberries and tasty strawberries. We had been very disappointed in the strawberries in Italy, so haven’t had any for a while. After the market we walked down a road that looked like it had lots of eating places, and that was a great choice. Heaps of souvenir shops, and whatdeyeknow, some more clothes shops. Jody and I bought another linen jacket each, and a couple of other tops as well. They are so nice, and pretty cheap. We also stopped and shared a chimney cake which I had been wanting to try. Basically doughnut baked into the shape of a cone, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and filled with icrecream and cream. It was rather nice, but we won’t be needing to have another one. Then on the way to the next train station we went for a walk over the bridge to take some pics and then finally got on the train. We sort of got on a train going the wrong way, so had to get off again. That was paired with me making us get off a train which I thought was going the wrong way earlier in the day, but actually wasn’t. Lucky there are so many trains so it isn’t really an issue.

So we walked 1 km from the train station back to Nico, and by this stage Jody was re-energised and buzzing. I suggested that maybe she take the train back into town and try out the river cruise but I didn’t get a positive response.

When we got to this campground, we parked behind another motorhome, and the guy wanted us to move forward as much as we could. I was hoping he didn’t want anyone to park behind us, but at 9pm tonight that exactly what he was trying to do. We are going to leave in the morning, so don’t really want anyone behind us who might go out for the day. We managed to get him to find somewhere else to park, and will have to keep an eye on the situation in the morning. It is not the quietest campground, and we have been serenaded by someone playing some sort of horn this evening.Read more