Being Hungry
in Hungary...
in Hungary...
The outside of Barokko.
Liszt Ferenc street.
June 27, 2006
I have to first give credit where credit is due. I would like to take a moment to thank the low-cost airlines of the world. What
used to take hours and hours to get to by train now takes a mere hour on an airplane. And what makes this even better is that
fact that these flights are cheaper than the train tickets. Unbelievable.
We arrived into Budapest on Sky Europe. This was the second time I flew them on this trip and everything was completely
seamless both times. They have a perfect record in my book. While I am talking about the airline I must also mention that I
thoroughly enjoyed their in-flight magazine. The only thing I would have changed slightly was the flight pattern out of Split. I
think they should have flown along the Croatian coastline a bit longer before turning east. Everybody would benefit from this,
including the pilots. What a waste of beautiful scenery.
When we arrive at our hotel in Budapest, I came to a conclusion. I have extremely lackluster skills when it comes to booking a
hotel on Orbitz. I think I was swayed by the 4-star rating it had. I swore I knew the location it was in. I mean doesn’t
everybody look into that when booking a hotel room online? Either Orbitz was wrong with where it said the location was or I
was the pathetic loser who didn’t really pay much attention. Sadly, I am pretty sure it was the latter. To be honest though, I
don’t know which was worse: the hotel’s location or the clientele. This hotel had the market share when it came to providing
lodging for tour groups. I still don’t know if it was more painful or entertaining seeing our daily hotel-mates at breakfast.
Everyday it was a new group – these buses brought them in and out in a matter of a day. One day there were mostly Italians
and English. The next day they were Japanese. And the next they were German. I guess the good part about this was that
there was no desire whatsoever to linger around the hotel or breakfast room longer than necessary—not even by a minute.
Michelle was extremely forgiving as I kept beating myself up for the first hour over the hotel choice. I had been to Budapest
before…I should have known better.
We had other things to worry about. It was now dinner-time and we needed to find a place to eat. It turned out Orbitz isn’t the
only thing I demonstrate poor skills at. My sister was less-than-impressed with my memory of the locations of things in
Budapest. She wanted to know where things were and I had no clue. I knew I had been but just had no idea how to get there.
She was the one who ended up leading the way with her exemplary map-reading skills. We headed to Liszt Ferenc Street right
off of Andrassy to go to dinner. Man, this place was hopping! I remembered from last time that it was a great place to grab a
meal but I had no idea how busy it gets with locals and non-locals alike. Every restaurant option is absolutely amazing. Every
menu was so darn creative…it was hard to choose just one restaurant. So we didn’t. We went to one for food and another for
dessert.
All in all, we ended up getting a great first ‘taste’ of Budapest…
I have to first give credit where credit is due. I would like to take a moment to thank the low-cost airlines of the world. What
used to take hours and hours to get to by train now takes a mere hour on an airplane. And what makes this even better is that
fact that these flights are cheaper than the train tickets. Unbelievable.
We arrived into Budapest on Sky Europe. This was the second time I flew them on this trip and everything was completely
seamless both times. They have a perfect record in my book. While I am talking about the airline I must also mention that I
thoroughly enjoyed their in-flight magazine. The only thing I would have changed slightly was the flight pattern out of Split. I
think they should have flown along the Croatian coastline a bit longer before turning east. Everybody would benefit from this,
including the pilots. What a waste of beautiful scenery.
When we arrive at our hotel in Budapest, I came to a conclusion. I have extremely lackluster skills when it comes to booking a
hotel on Orbitz. I think I was swayed by the 4-star rating it had. I swore I knew the location it was in. I mean doesn’t
everybody look into that when booking a hotel room online? Either Orbitz was wrong with where it said the location was or I
was the pathetic loser who didn’t really pay much attention. Sadly, I am pretty sure it was the latter. To be honest though, I
don’t know which was worse: the hotel’s location or the clientele. This hotel had the market share when it came to providing
lodging for tour groups. I still don’t know if it was more painful or entertaining seeing our daily hotel-mates at breakfast.
Everyday it was a new group – these buses brought them in and out in a matter of a day. One day there were mostly Italians
and English. The next day they were Japanese. And the next they were German. I guess the good part about this was that
there was no desire whatsoever to linger around the hotel or breakfast room longer than necessary—not even by a minute.
Michelle was extremely forgiving as I kept beating myself up for the first hour over the hotel choice. I had been to Budapest
before…I should have known better.
We had other things to worry about. It was now dinner-time and we needed to find a place to eat. It turned out Orbitz isn’t the
only thing I demonstrate poor skills at. My sister was less-than-impressed with my memory of the locations of things in
Budapest. She wanted to know where things were and I had no clue. I knew I had been but just had no idea how to get there.
She was the one who ended up leading the way with her exemplary map-reading skills. We headed to Liszt Ferenc Street right
off of Andrassy to go to dinner. Man, this place was hopping! I remembered from last time that it was a great place to grab a
meal but I had no idea how busy it gets with locals and non-locals alike. Every restaurant option is absolutely amazing. Every
menu was so darn creative…it was hard to choose just one restaurant. So we didn’t. We went to one for food and another for
dessert.
All in all, we ended up getting a great first ‘taste’ of Budapest…
Back to Hungary.
