Budapest, Hungary

The flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt, Germany was going along smoothly, we had great seats, we are taxing out on the runway and then the dreaded announcement...."do we have a doctor on board or anyone with medical training"...well shit, 2 guys go to the rear of the plane and tend to some guy for a few minutes while we are still taxying...(is that a word)- anyway, we then turn around and head back to the terminal, long story short airport paramedics came onboard, wheeled the guy out, sorta was slumped over, perhaps a stroke since it was kinda on the left side...we had to sit while they removed his baggage from the belly of the plane..so after 65 mins, we are now back on the runway toward Frankfort and hoping and praying we dont miss our connecting flight from Frankfurt to Budapest.

We had a row to ourselves which was great. Dinner was pasta with tomato sauce for me and for jules it was some kind of chicken and rice, we both also had a salad, roll with butter and a teeny piece of chocolate bliss...i realize chocolate and bliss is redundant but that is what it was- dark choc cake with light choc mousssy kinda frosting with shaved choc on top...oooh yeah oh and when we were getting ready to land they brought us some german cheese pastry. hot out of the warmer,,,OMG it was delicious


we mostly watched videos for the 7 hour flight and ate crap we had brought on the plane. it was a long ass flight and we arrived in Frankfort around 0100 hrs our time (local time was 0700 hrs) we had to haul ass prob about 2 miles in that airport to get to our gate, OMG, we needed Terminal A...ok, how simple is that but then they have a piece of paper at the bottom of the escalator saying there is a diversion and to follow signs to Terminal B...well we do not have much time to waste but we followed the signs to B...round and round we went and then we end up in some hella long line people cutting in front everyone speaking a foreign language, we dont know if we are in the right line or not but we do as cattle do and mooove (pun intented) with the rest of them not knowing what lies ahead, so we are in this line for fricking forever,,,time is ticking, are we going to miss our flight,,,etc,

so we get up to the head of the line and they are checking passports- cool, i get another stamp....so we get thru there no problem and then, wouldnt u know it= the 2nd worst thing to ALWAYS bring drama to the Jules and Becks adventure...the dreaded security checkpoint,,,why the hell are we having to go thru another one,,,we never left the stupid ass airport,,,OMG so we traipse up to the line...do we take out liquids? no, u dont have to...do we take off shoes? no we dont have to....we pulled out our netbooks and put them in a seperate bin and we put our other bags, jackets, etc in another bin...

so i am waiting for my bin with my passport, airline ticket and my netbook and then my 2nd bag of crap....it does not come down the shoot,.,.i wait and i wait,,,here comes julie's stuff...wait, no, her netbook comes down the shute but not her Nikon bag,,,WTF

so big old scary German guy (no exaggeration) is asking me if this is my bin,,,referring to my netbook that he had pulled off to the side without me knowing,,,i say yeah but where is my black duffel bag,,,he grabs julies green camera bag and says here,,,i say no, that's her crap, mine looks like it is still int he machine,,,,scanner lady finishes her personal converstion with other security dude and scary german guy yells at her in german, she turns around and puts my black bag thru the shute,,,well scary german guy says to me,,,,"you need to come with me while he is holding my netbook" and he says bring ur other bag,,,i remind him still in scanner,,,,julie by now comes over and says i will wait for your bag,,,he tells me no, u bring it,,,i tell him i dont have it,,,he then asks who the green camera bag belongs to, so i front julie off,. and point to her,,,oh that is hers not mine! she is always pulling some shit at the security checkpoints and maybe i need to distance myself from her,,,,so anyway, she is looking at me like i have a bomb or something and then he says YOU COME WITH ME TOO ahahahahah ok, so we are still trying to get our connecting flight, i am panicking, cuz that is what anal bitches with OCD do after all,,,

so scary german guy is holding my netbook and julies camera bag,,,he tells another sweet looking german guy to take us somewhere,,,so he takes us away from the checkpoint down the terminal and off to some out of the way room to kill us,,,,i mean check our stuff out,,, and he turns over my netbook then leaves the room,,,meanwhile some other dark haired foreign dude is saying what do u mean i cant take that into Hungary and they tell him he can have his item back when he returns to Germany and then he says he is not coming back blah blah blah,,,so now i am thinking they are confiscating my netbook and julies nikon,,,ok so for those of u who know jules, u might as well castrate her cuz she is not leaving her lover NIKKY NIKON,,,,so i ask the sweet german guy helping us (when he finally returned) and said are u taking this away? and he says no and then swabs both my laptop and all her camera stuff for explosives and tells us we can go now,,,,OMG,,,so we are now RUNNING thru the terminal trying to find our gate. we get there 10 mins before they start boarding,,,well, our plane was a few mins late so we had to wait awhile. OMG it is always some drama traveling with julie.

so we get on board Lufthansa (wonderful) and they seperate Julie and i by a couple rows- i get the woman who blows her nose constantly and her male companion who was quite impressed by the nipples on a german biker chick in some slutty magazine, and tells his female companion she should get an outfit like that,,,um, it is called a birthday suit, and i am pretty sure she already has one,,, so i crawl over them to go find another seat...only one by the window so i can get video is by some old hungarian woman,,,ok, she wasnt too happy to let me in, but she did,. WTH did she do the rest of the flight,,,cough up one lung after another- so i will probably be sick when i come back awesome,

we get to Budapest around 1045 ish (local time) and get our luggage. as we are waiting there is a big poster warning tourists about illegal taxi operators. i dont think too much of it but as we exit the terminal, some guy comes over and asks if we need a taxi julie just says no and keeps walking and then another one comes up and says the same thing,,,then another,,,the 3rd one is one of the LEGAL ones so we are standing there thinking one of the taxis will come get us...then another guy comes over and according to julie nodded to yet another guy like hey these are suckers, lets get them,,,so julie stands up and says no we are going only with this taxi company and well, we finally get the right one,

taxi driver was having none of our stupid small talk,,,whatever, Budapest from the car, looks like south sacramento and it has graffiti on almost every building but not near as bad as Venice, Italy did. the area has a pungent smell of "something" dont quite know yet what it is,,,not so sure i like it or not, will have to let u know,

ahhahaha OMG,,,so i am standing by the luggage in the lobby of the Ramada Budapest while julie gets our room,. hahahaha this american (i presume since i could understand him) watches me take a photo of julies luggage,,,ahhahah and he notices the taxi driver is standing outside smoking,,,he takes one look at her luggage and says "oh my gosh did the taxi driver drag it behind his car???" ahhahaah i said no, she has 2 cats who have been using it as a scratchingpost...is it torn to shit,,,photo coming.. ahahhaha

ok, so this is how stupid julie and i really are,,,,we get in the elevator or lift or whatever these people call it,,,get to our floor,,,they do not have the room number on the door or walls anywhere,,,they are printed on the carpet in front of the door,,,um we did not look there right away,,,so we go inside and it is the typical european room,,,,very small, no frills except a righteous TV and 2 twin beds,,,these beds at least dont touch like all the others did,,,so it is impossible for julie to try and dutch-oven me...

so we are turning on all the light switches,,,,they are not switches per se, but more like toggle buttons on the walls. none of them work AND we cant close the door...so a super sweet american (again i presume) tourist is walking by, she sees me trying to slam the door shut and says u have to jiggle the handle, well, i did that and it did not work,,,so i ask her if she knows how to turn on the lights,,,OMG it is like those hoity toity hotels that try to save electricity by making u instert your hotel key and leave it in there as long as u need electricity,,,when u leave the room, off it goes unless u have 2 keys like we do and can leave one on for the air conditioner,,,,holy crap, did i say air conditioner,,,remember the last time someone whispered in your ear,,,that is exaclty the force of the lukewarm "air" coming from the "air conditioner" turned on FULL blast. oh and the door does not sit in the door frame like in the USA it is about an inch from the door frame, really bizzare.

oh and i forgot to mention it is fucking hot here! when they say 50 i think they mean celcius which makes farenheit hella hot- like 80... our window faces a restaurant and they must me opening up for lunch because music is blaring, gonna be a fun 3 nights,

we may not end up going to romania tomorrow since it is easter and not sure if things close around here or not, hungary has a tourist warning about skin heads and women should not go out at night so i am not sure what we will do, watching TV in a foreign language is only fun to a point but we are hella tired so we might just crash tonight.

julie has been asleep since we got to the room - i cannot sleep because i am pissed that T-mobile charged me for international access and i have NOTHING...

well, we have been wearing the same clothes since friday,,,it is now saturday afternoon and we reek so i am hitting the shower if i can figure out how to use it, i thought the metal thing on the wall was for toilet seat covers but it actually only flushes the toilet,,,so it will take some experimenting,,,,

talk to u guys soon and will follow up with photos= becks HAPPY EASTER