Six Days, Five Nights, and a Frivolous Amount of Walking - Day 3

Day 3 - April 21

We awaken a little earlier, so as to get the most out of the day. Issi has one of the fake coffees. I call them fake as they are a three in one job, instant coffee, milk and sugar. Now I like my coffee like my soul, dark and bitter. I think the previous day’s walking had damaged Issi’s feet, blisterific. I know she wouldn’t want me to mention feet, but alas I am a slave to my craft. My craft being using 1000 words where 1 would do.

She’s always ready before me, something I’ve learnt after all five days but it applies here. I would like to maintain it’s because she’s showers whilst I meditate but we all know why. It’s because I’m a dawdler. I’m also a doodler. I was in a bit of a state about how many coats to take with me. Issi settles on a cardie and tells me she won’t carry any of my excess coats, I go hoodie, jacket.

We venture out and are blinded by the light of day, I think this is the day we decided to Metro it. To save our feet from the endless walking of day 2. We go to Oktagon Metro station, buy tickets and I jump off when Issi tells me. We walk for a bit and inanely chat, I recognise Arany Janos Metro station, the one we arrived at a couple of days ago. We’ve somehow circled back around to the street we live on…

Now this could’ve gone one of two ways, anger or amusement. Place your bets now as to which way the reaction to this mistake went… I said place your bets… have you placed them?

Amusement, we both laugh. Lucky `n'est-ce pas? We jointly navigate to the river and the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, it’s windy. Folks be posing left right and centre. I see a dude with his leg up on the railing… I think he’s onto something. The seed has been planted.

I take my coats off, put them on, repeat. Issi sums it up as a strange day where it’s lovely in the sun but freezing in the shade. We get to the roundabout at the bottom of the of the funicular. There are men peddling their bus tours, we jointly say nah you’re alright mate. We somehow navigate around to the left hand side of the roundabout and cross over to some stairs. I climb stairs with purpose, but I remember and tell Issi to set the pace. She’s a better walker than me but she has a blister to contend with.

We pause on the bridge across the funicular, Issi mentions intrusive thoughts. I couldn’t remember a time I’d had one. I do get reckless impulses, to accelerate at full pelt in on country roads. To roundhouse any particularly irritating strangers, stuff like that. She takes a couple of snaps of the funicular. I laugh as the entire front row of the funicular is recording a video of their descent on their phones.

We walk on the path is gentle and zig zags upwards, I spot a steep slope up which some folks are scrabbling. I jokingly throw down the gauntlet “Can we conquer this slope?” Issi starts walking up it… damn my deadpan delivery. I follow awkwardly holding my two coats, my first mistake. It’s fine so long as I keep moving up, she stops dead in her tracks, there’s a people jam above us. I lose my balance, I regain it, phew. The coats try and escape, I adjust them. I lean forwards and maintain two/three points of contact. This involves grasping at roots that are protruding from the slope. We make it, my hands are muddy.

Issi immortalises the moment with this photo:

We joke about how no one will understand that photo, little did we know that I would spend many hours chronicling our adventures in Budapest. I was going to include it but I’ll let you find it on your own. If you are so inclined, you probably are as you’re my kind of weirdo, the kind who reads my blog.

Upwards and onwards, we decide to stay on the beaten track. It’s beaten for a reason, safety. I have this odd quirk of pointing out nature, birds, dogs, etc. Enroute I point out the most mundane little brown bird. There’s a narrow staircase up ahead, we spot a couple descending it, we wait. I point, somewhat frantically, at the base of the staircase, Issi asks if that means I want her to go first. I was pointing at a black and yellow snail! We laugh.

Then we’re at the top, the funicular is there, there’s also a cafe. The menu doesn’t call to us. There are two guards looking suitably dapper in their uniforms and shades, I inquire as to whether Issi thinks they’d appreciate me lunging towards them? She confirms she would disavow any affiliation with me and walk away. I don’t lunge at the guards or their paunchy mate in the background. We move on to the castle. From up close it’s not all that imposing, we takes pictures from the walls, it’s superbly windy. There’s a tour guide dispensing information about the castle to a group of tourists. We listen in, and find out that castle isn’t as old as we initially thought, reconstructed in 1966. After some research, Googs + wiki, I’ve found out it’s been destroyed and rebuilt a lot. So I’m going to say it’s a mishmash of old, not as old, not quite as old as “not as old” etc. We walk on.

People are posing all over the shop. We discuss how posed photographs go against the grain. I stole my photography philosophy from an episode of Scrubs. Jordan’s brother Ben, portrayed by the excellent Brendan Fraser, says “Pictures capture moments in time”. If you pose them the moments are not true. It’s a rationalisation for me taking lots of unflattering pictures on nights out…

We seem to have exhausted what’s available outside and are in the entrance to the castle. We flounce about unsure of whether to pay for entry and spend hours inside. Pretty sure both of us didn’t want to but also did not sway the other one with our negativity. We are impossibly polite and considerate. We ask a nice lady, she’s not sure what our question is but tries to help. We thank her and ask the ticket man where the caves under the castle are. He gives us specific directions. His reply had the feeling of someone who is asked that question all day long... we thank him and leave.

There’s a slew of tourists all over the place, and a delicious smell in the air. We discover a queue, chimney cake! Kürtőskalács, there are a number of flavours. I read the first one in a number of languages before realising the lists go down and not across! We wait the pigeons gather and disperse, a child taunts them. It’s a husband and wife team by the look of it. She rolls the dough and attaches to the wooden spit. He attaches to the oven, serves customers, and dips in the flavoured sugars. Issi comments the dough job looks calmingly repetitive.

Once we get there we order our cakes and find a bit of wall in the sun to sit upon. It’s lovely, warm, bready, crispy, sweet. I throw a little to the pigeons, they are not adequately equipped for this particular food. I throw them a few more bits. A large pigeon arrives, it’s feet are deformed. I initially thought it was the usual pigeon foot problem, dunno what but there are an awful lot of pigeons with bits of foot missing all over the world.

Upon closer inspection I see some string/thread/fibre wrapped tightly around the pigeon’s feet. I feel compelled to help, I approach gingerly, I get within a foot and the pigeon takes flight. Alas I am not a pigeon whisperer… yet. Issi has saved me some of her’s so I can taste it, I apologise as I’d straight up eaten mine and/or fed it to the pigeons. Cinnamon and Vanilla, not sure who had which.

We walk and find a map, there’s a handy “you are here” sticker. Issi points out points of interest, I nod sagely. I have forgotten all of my research but luckily I can look/sound ultra convincing. A gift or a curse, you decide. We walk past a small markety bit and resolve to return on the way back. We glimpse Matthias Church roof, it’s… colourful. But in a knitted jumper kind of way. Like a robotic owl, does that make any sense? Give it a googs and see if you can find a pic with the sun glinting off it.

We take pics and circle closer, there’s a complicated looking statue, turns out it’s a representation of the holy trinity. Yesterday I met a woman whose daughter is called Trinity, I didn’t get a chance to ask if she’s named biblically or Matrix-ically. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? If you do you can choose from the usual prizes of a marriage proposal or a cookie. Tough decision I know.

We switch focus to a statue of St. Stephen on a horse, but more importantly there’s a steady tap, tap, tapping sound. A dude is carving a lion as we stare. He’s portly, bearded, and pays nay attention to the hordes of people observing him. As you may’ve guessed I have a major man crush on the aforementioned sculptor Moving onwards there’s a shiny newly minted looking thing.

I’m stopped dead in my tracks by a thick piece of.... any guesses?

Take a guess, play along please.

Cucumber, I take a photo.

I take a photo of said newly minted thing. It looks like it’s being just built. There’s a cafe at the top, it’s super cold. I get another panoramic and briefly lose Issi. I maintain it’s because she’s so dainty and not because I was “man looking” for her. I am a great many things, but I am most definitely not a man!

I inquire about where the Fisherman’s Bastion is, Issi points to the newly minted thing we’ve just been up. Ah, I feel every bit the buffoon. I adopt a lunging stance towards a suit of armour and request a photo. It’s ok but I think I can lunge deeper. Issi demonstrates several poses a dude was busting, I am struck by her innate ability to strike/emulate a pose.

We walk on, as we stroll we notice that the hordes of tourists are no longer present. We may’ve wandered into a tourist-less wasteland. We spot at tower and navigate towards it. It’s old and pretty. But we are not convinced it’s the same tower as the map.

Oh the map, we nabbed it from tourist information. They don’t have them on display, you have to ask!

I take a couple of pics, Issi storms off, she doesn’t really but it does look that way in the photos. There’s a large semicircular copper thing. I read the plaque explaining it but alas I do not recall what it is. Googs tells me the tower is the tower we were looking for, Mary Magdalene tower.

We get a little lost and find some cannons, I lunge low to be amongst them, Issi takes a pic.

Issi remember a blog that detailed good places to eat. We find two cafes that are relatively close by. We want to sit outside in the sunshine but so did everyone else. We resolve to find somewhere warm to sit and eat, a simple desire if ever there was one. We walk past the labyrinth and decide to circle back, Issi grabs a leaflet. We find Var Bistro and sit in the sun, The leaflet claims that the labyrinth is Europe’s 8th most popular tourist attraction, a lofty claim as it’s not very well sign posted. To secure our seats whilst we grab sum grub I deposit my two coats. There’s a lot to choose from, we opt for goose leg with red cabbage. Bossman is generous with his red cabbage, I snap a pic of a water without gas label. I get some processed juice, Issi goes for the homemade citrus stuff. We sit outside for a bit, then the sun gets too low in the sky. We flee indoors.

I finish first and store my tray as requested by the establishment. Whilst waiting I fetch Issi’s from outside, she’d left it there like the surly hooligan she is. They’ve got some fancy looking pastries and there’s Irish coffee! When ordering the lady behind the counter warns Issi that it’s alcoholic, Issi gives me a look. I get a pastry to accompany my alcoholic coffee. The pastry is style over substance, not too much flavour. The coffee is mind blowingly strong, on the alcohol front, hence the warning.

We decide to use the facilities before vacating Var Bistro. Upon closer inspection one must pay to use Var Bistro’s toilets, Issi fiddles with her handbag and gives the signal to exit. We are too frugal for such nonsense.

We loop back to Europe’s 8th largest tourist attraction, the staircase is steep and there’s an instant drop in temperature. I’m not sure about the price of entry, as it looks to be not so large. Issi manages to convince me with a series of facial expressions and basic questions. We pay up and enter the labyrinth. It’s low and carved out of rock. There are eerie mannequins, we conclude the must come alive at night and have inane conversations about all the tourists they’ve seen. We go deeper.

There’s a bit that’s got zero light, you follow the handrail, and in theory you come out the other side. I can just about see Issi, because of my superhuman vision, we slowly get around a couple of corners and bottle it. I unleash the light from my powerpack, a thing you use to charge your phone on the go. This one has a handy torch. We find our way back. Onwards into the labyrinth. There’s historical spiel all over the place about Dracula. We occasionally come across other people, it’s always startling. It get’s mistier, dustier, eerier, and scarier.

We go deeper, remove your minds from the gutter, as it goes on further than we thought. There’s a whole section dedicated to other caves all over the world, we discuss the likelihood of there being many bats. There’s a staircase, as we ascend we are faced with row upon row of chairs. They are facing a projection screen, upon which an opera is being projected. We sit down. We are the only two in this underground cinema being serenaded by a Hungarian legend, quite cliche n'est-ce pas.

We realise that this is not a single opera but an incoherent loop of a man’s career in opera. Issi questions me as to why we’ve watched it more than once, I say nothing, she speculates it’s because we’re just happy to find somewhere to sit down. I nod sagely, at least I hope it was sagely. Something I’ve become aware of since meeting Issi is that I rarely express my emotional state with my posture. For example, I don’t look relaxed when sat on a couch, even if I am in fact exceptionally relaxed. So my sagely intentions may’ve manifested as mild irritation, comical confusion, impatience etc.

We hear voices and briefly entertain the idea of sneaking into the darkness and leaping out at the approaching strangers. We temper our urges, as the potential ensuing scuffle would require Issi to defend me, something these unsuspecting strangers most definitely do not deserve. Though she be but little, she is… surly.

That’s a quote I feel like Issi’s shared before, but I can’t be sure. Because my memory, ain’t what she used to be… I say she because I get this odd recollective ability from my teeny tiny mother. Names, faces, life events, the mundane, she remembers it all in crisp 4K HD… it’s late whilst I’m writing this so I am more prone to meandering divergences from the central narrative.

We both need to use the facilities, they appear to be as eerie as the rest of the labyrinth. We promptly chicken out and stride ferociously into the daylight. Somewhere in the labyrinth Issi told me she’d pulled/tweaked a muscle in her inner thigh. My immediate impulse was to reassure her that I could sort it no problem, but then I weighed up what that may sound like. So I said something along the lines of “I can demonstrate, on myself, how you could stretch + release any tension in the region” Ah forever awkward.

We wander around and see a sign for toilets, turns out you have to pay to use these too, gwah. Our level of desperation trumped our frugal tendencies. We wander around the undercover market bit, Issi informs me of the ongoing tacky souvenir contest with her sis. There are mugs, hats, bags etc. Nothing really calls out.

We walk back past all the stuff we saw earlier today. People still be posing, forever posing. Urgh tourists. As we descend we come upon a slope we scrambled up, down is definitely a nay nay. We find an odd terrace to nowhere, an old couple let us pass. We somehow manage to navigate the roundabout at the base of the funicular. As we are crossing back to Pest Issi plans our next move, wine cruise enquiries.

The leafleters are out in force, we politely decline them all. We spot some young men manning a tourist info station. We ask after the wine cruise, they can do better than pointing us in the right direction, they can book us in! We ask to be on the 1900, but it’s fully booked. They say the can do tomorrow, but tomorrow is opera day! There is one at 2100, we look at each other, shrug and book the tickets. They tell us to be at a opera house, the group will be led to the boat en masse from there. They have, seats, toilets, and wifi!

What happened between is a bit of a blur. Back home, yup we’re both calling it home and it’s only day three. Soak, sore feet, change, hit the street to find somewhere to eat. Oh and I think we briefly researched operas…

Wandering down bajcsy-zsilinszky street we see many a thing we’d like to eat. Ones that stands out is Meatology and Deep Burger based solely on the names. We spot Gringos  Amigos and I express my recently discovered love of burritos. We go in, it looks to be a self seating, tray based, confusing place. We make a swift exit, and mosey on down the street. We spot what appears to be a butchers shop… Belvárosi Disznótoros on Király utca.

Upon entering we hang back and consult each other on whether this is the place, does it call to you?! I think this was yet another case of both of us liking the place but not wanting to strong arm the other with our enthusiasm. We settle on yes but have no idea what to order, there’s a lot of marinating meat to choose from. I consult the man behind the counter, he says “Our English menu is just over there, please check it out”. We check it out. They have three types of sausage that sound and look delish. The sausages are already cooked and Issi thinks you order precooked food from the other counter, I think it’s from the dude we spoke with before who is handling the marinating meat. Turns out she was right, again... when will I learn.

Issi asks for blood sausage and salad, I opt for blood + liver sausage and a cheese salad. We sit upstairs and get on with the serious business of eating dinner. It’s delicious, and exceptionally good value, I think it was about £4 per head. I go get coke, the beverage, not the illicit white powder, and an espresso. Turns out my salad is mostly cheese. Issi’s been given a regular sausage, we mix and match a bit. It was today that I discover my extreme sensitivity to caffeine. We all know the stereotype of sleepy to frantic after a cup of coffee. I wasn’t sleepy but I was low energy, half an espresso and it’s as  if I’ve been shot full of speed. The amphetamine, not the 1994 film starring Keanu Reeves. We finish up and head off to shake down the opera for tickets tomorrow.

This means a trip back to Andrassy, the Champs-Élysées of Budapest. Walking through it the shops are definitely aimed at upper/upper middle class folks, confirming this is where would be kidnappers would scope out potential kidnapees. We get to the opera house and enter, it’s quiet and grandiose. I am dressed like a bouncer… turns out the ticket office is open earlier in the day and shut in the evening. We resolve to return upon the morrow to inquire and/or purchase tickets. To the other opera house!

We walk arbitrarily in the direction of the other opera house, where we are supposed to rendezvous with the other wine cruise folks. My main concern is that we’ll be seated with strangers and expected to talk. This was based on a single review of the cruise by a single middle aged woman, she was expecting it to be a social thing, it was very couply. Enroute we spot a large churchy building, turns out to be St. Stephen's Basilica, we’ve chanced upon yet another tourist must see. We take pics, I figure how the exposure setting on my phone works.

We walk on down Zrínyi street and spot Hotdogs Cold Beer, they have a signature tornado chip that we must eat once we’ve completed the cruise.

We walk past the opera house and loop back. Upon entering there is a guy, we ask, he says something. We go find the bathrooms, Aladdin is playing, a different kind of opera house. We reconvene downstairs and hang on the sofas. I ask Issi if I look relaxed, she says yes, I don’t buy it. She explains that she’s come to understand what “relaxed” looks like for me! Some official looking folks set up a table and chairs. We theorise it’s for ticket checking and any last minute cruise purchases.

There’s an influx of people, they must’ve been congregating outside and have been let in en masse. Two men take the seats at the table, I ask if we should go check in with them. Issi suspects they may be just two dudes who saw two empty chairs and sat down. The more I look at them, the more I too suspect the same! Turns out that’s exactly what they’d done, I think they were duly asked to vacate their seats.

Some youths enter and sit near us, a dude turns up in tracky bottoms, brandishing a cocktail in a plastic cup. He is now my yardstick for couthness. We are summoned outside by a girl who looks too young to be out at this time of night, it’s either 20:30 or 21:30, I forget which. She delivers the news that there are several cruise groups here, beer, wine, dinner, and cocktails. We set off towards the water like a group of school kids, it’s ever so nostalgic.

Upon reaching the boat we realise there’s a bottleneck, the ramp onto the boat is only wide enough for single file, we wait and joke. It turns out there are two boats, we’re ushered onto the first and then swiftly onto the second. It’s a big step up, I turn to offer Issi a hand, she’s already on board. We get seated but are not offered a glass of wine like everyone else, I blame racism. The racism against petite, pretty, caucasian girls. The table has more breadsticks than I think are necessary, I take a picture, and unintentionally capture Issi’s elbow.

We are seated on separate tables, looks like it is rather couply. The boat casts off, our wine guide introduces herself and explains we’ll be having 7 wines to try. Two red, two white, rose, and a dessert wine. By this point I’ve explained I know nothing about wine and hope this tasting helps me develop some sort of appreciation. We’re sat at a four person table, across from each other, in the seats furthest from the window.  We spot a photographer… he’s capturing images of the people. When he gets to us he requests we sit together, we’re too polite to refuse, Issi moves to the window seat and I sit in the seat she was in. Savvy?

Now I’ll ask you why was this a bad move? It was a bad move because of the position of the photographer. But why specifically? Have a guess and in a few hundred words I’ll come back to it. I know she’s not a fan of having her photo taken, I’m not either. Not with posed pics. So I start running mouth to, hopefully, make her laugh. The photographer thanks us and move on, we exhale and carry on eating breadsticks. The wine is poured, we get some spiel and had a drink. I inhale deeply, Issi captures this moment. I attempt the Oz Clarke across the palate aeration thing, I inhale some wine, splutter, Issi laughs. Tastes like wine, that appreciation still seems a long way off.

As we go a band fires up and start playing classical music. The leader is a violinist, with a glint in his eye and showmanship to spare. The order of events is a little mixed up, probably because of all the wine. They bust out some classics, film scores etc. We briefly go upstairs to capture parliament all lit up, I mess around with exposure and get some stellar pics.

Indoors it hot, super hot. The wine keeps coming, it’s every 5-7 minutes. Seven glasses of wine in 35 - 49 minutes… too fast? Too furious? The boat turns, we notice the tilt. Then it’s time to photograph buda castle, it’s lines are not as crisp as parliament. The band starts approaching tables, taking requests. I know what I want, they’d played If I Was a Rich Man, from Fiddler on the Roof. I wanted L’chaim, alas I asked for more fiddler, before I could specify the dude starts playing If I was a Rich Man again, he does throw in some impressive flourishes and tricks. I tip him despite not getting the song I wanted... something, something, social expectation.

I rush outside to photograph an unidentified red building, Issi stays put.

We discuss the violinist, Issi points out he spent most of his performances staring at his own reflection in the window... self absorbed, clearly. But then we twist it around and assume that intimate performances in such close quarters can/are awkward. To gauge reaction without staring he may’ve been observing his customers via their reflections, or he’s just really into himself.

Now we come to realise we’re not sure which way the boat is heading, we had hoped to see Margaret Island, but we’ve just been going back and forth between two bridges. The disorientation is not helped by the temperature in the boat, super warm. The photographer has printed out his photos from earlier and mounted them in a card. I am dreading this. As you may’ve gathered, Issi, despite what she says is a dainty, photogenic girl. I am neither dainty nor photogenic. He presents the best pic he’s got of us, she bursts out laughing, I manage to stifle my laughter and, hopefully, politely tell him we’ll pass.

Now do you remember what I asked you to guess about 400ish words ago? Well it was why my moving to that particular seat for a pic, was a bad idea, just in case you couldn’t remember. The answer is perspective. On a good day I am twice Issi’s size, that’s a combination of her being dainty/petite and me being the opposite of dainty/petite. The photographer is not square on to us, he’s stood in the aisle between the tables. So the person closer to the camera appears larger, I am already significantly larger, with the added perspective warp… I look like a veritable giant. Not a problem but I was also talking to try and make Issi laugh, which worked, she looks genuinely amused, but I’m between words… let’s move on.

I think that’s all of the noteworthy things that happened on the wine tasting cruise, but alas my memory is not what it once was. Upon disembarking we decide to see if we can find the Shoes on the Danube. Someone else had had the same idea…

We find them, there are more than I thought there would be. It’s quiet, the weight of what the memorial represents is powerful. I’m tearing up a little remembering it now.

We need to source and consume some tornado chips. But first, we need to source a bathroom, the first place we go says it’s out of order, a likely story. The second place is closing. We resort to Subway, I purchase a coke, and chug it. We wander around a little as we’ve become a little disorientated whilst searching for somewhere with a bathroom.

At some point we’d disagreed on what tornado chips actually were. Now I maintained that they were a spiral cut potato stretched on a skewer and then deep fried. Issi was sure that it was thinly sliced potato, skewered and then fried. We find our way back to Hotdogs and Cold Beer. We get tornado chips, deep fried Mars bar, and a deep fried pottyos. I subtly wave the tornado chip skewer at Issi, my way of offering her some. I’m pretty sure these chips form a spiral, which I point out. She denies it, she denied it with such force of will that I began to doubt what I had seen and begin concur. But then I spot the spiral, aha! I’ll leave it there.

Now that we’ve refueled with sugar and starch, what now? We could head home, it’s  midnightish.

I suggest we walk to the giant BUDAPEST sign, no tourists so we can take clean pics. Issi agrees. This isn’t how I remember it, but Issi is a bastion of honesty so I’ll go with it. We set off down Andrassy, we walk, and walk, and walk. We spot a couple of Hummers, we conclude, new money or drug dealers. There’s a dude walking his sausage dog, Issi feels sorry for him as he looks bereft. I suggest Issi takes him for a drink and I hang with the dog, the comeback made me snigger for a solid minute.

Issi resorts to walking on the grassy, muddy, sides of the pavement, less impact on her feet. And we’re there! Woohoo. But there’s someone with a tripod taking pics of the sign, we wait and theorise about who they are and what their relationship is to the dude they are with. I’m sure it’s mum and son, Issi thinks they’re partners. No idea how long we waited. I wander off to answer the call of nature, an act I am not proud of but I was super paranoid the whole time.

Walking back I concoct a plan to sneak up on Issi and tap her on the shoulder. As I get closer my heart is pounding in my chest, she turns to face me before I get the chance to shoulder tap. My squeaky shoe had betrayed me! We lose patience with the tripod wielding photography duo. I take Issi’s pic, she’s peeking through the P. Issi takes my pic, I’m boldly lunging underneath the same P.

We set off back, it’s at least 30 minutes back. We’d planned to purchase pastries and some form of alcohol for opera cocktails tomorrow. En route we forget why we were planning to pay a visit to the lady with the gravely voice in the 24 hour store. Pastries! It seems to take forever to find our way to the shop, we get there, they are throwing away yesterday’s pastry… we loiter, they understand our intent. We pick two sour cherry pastries and peruse the alcohol, we can’t purchase any at this time of night. The gravely voiced lady informs us only tobacco shops sell alcohol 24/7. Pastried up we head home.

We also throw around a few ideas about how we’d want the gravely voiced lady to be the godmother of the children neither of us have. She’d also be Issi’s maid of honour and my best man, she’s the best.

I think it was at this time we realised that there was a short cut to the shop… ah we could’ve saved so much walking. We get home, Issi soaks her feet, we eat pastries. They are ok, day old and about to thrown out so they were quite astonishing really. With that we hit the hay, actually I think I insisted on playing Issi a  Mr. Sunday Movies coriander rant. She has a level of patience that boggles my usually unboggleable mind. We go to sleep.

That’s day 3 folks, but I feel I should add a little from day 2. We’d been to ruin bars, had langos burgers, and I’d been mistaken for a bouncer several times. Remember now? We’d navigated back to a taxi rank, near Deak Ferenc Ter. Both our phones had died… we were lost in a foreign land! So we decide to bite the bullet and get a taxi, our host had told us to only trust fototaxi, they were accredited and regulated etc. We look for a taxi bearing the branding, none are to be found.

So we opt for what’s at hand. There’s a senior looking taxi man, I approach and open with “I’m not sure where we’re going…” He replies with “The tobacco shop is over there, take a left etc.” I look to Issi, she shrugs. I tell him we need a taxi to Zichy Jeno, he seems to be a little reluctant to pull the trigger on the transaction. But he summons another taxi dude. We get in and he drives. He stops and says, “here’s the tobacco shop.” I repeat we don’t want a tobacco shop we need to get to Zichy Jeno. He drives on and a couple of minutes later he announces where we are. We pay 1000 HUF.

We were confused by their reluctance and the insistence we go visit a tobacco shop. Well we realised that the taxi rank was about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying, hence their confusion. And they’d assumed we would want to keep the party going with a few beverages from the tobacco shop.

The Other Days...😖
Day 1: Backstory, Burgers, Airport, Arrival, Bus, Metro, Unicum
Day 2: Builders,Terror Haza, Andrassy, Hosok Tere, Danube, Ruin Bars, Karavan
Day 3: Signature Stance, Buda Castle, Chimney Cake, Labyrinth, Wine Cruise
Day 4: Central Market, Columbo, Symphony, Araz Etterem, Giero, Martini
Day 5: Thermal Baths, Souvenir, Langos, Packing
Day 6: Bus, Plane, Pizza, EMA, Embarrassment, Yes