Budapest 2023 Chapter 3 - Period Drama

Jó estét Assholes. Translation: Good evening Readers.

Another good night's sleep for me. Lisa says she was awake until 3am. The sleepy feeling did not come, she says.

The first thing I have to do this morning is phone reception to report a crime. To be more precise a hate crime, against the English 😲. Details:

I look in the cupboard for black tea and all I see is two bags of herbal and one green. Not even any coffee. I am incandescent with rage. Why are they doing this to us? I call reception and speak to Monica who listens to my passive aggressive request. I hang up and notice coffee on the table top, and 2 little milk capsules. Didn't see those. Anyway, no tea tho, I am vindicated. About 5 mins later a lady, maybe Monica, is there with a paltry 2 black tea bags and 2 coffee. It'll have to do. I will leave a note for the housekeeping people to remind them WE LIVE ON BLACK TEA YOU PRICKS.

You can see the rage

We were ready on the milk front, thanks to the last minute Lidl dash. Milk is called Tej.

We head to VAJ for breakfast, just past the sex shop. I've already caned some crisps so just fruit juice for me. VAJ juice is excellent btw. The young'uns have cheese toasties and us parents fed off the scraps. VAJ cheese is tasty btw. At the end of brekky it turns out that we have 2 of our party getting the painters and decorators in, starting today, and one other that has just sent them home. This could present a problem for the steam baths, unless we can plug the issue, so to speak. Such an appropriate place to eat brekky, the convo has been all about VAJ and periods. Clive would hate this.

Sexy sex shop

VAJ in a photo

We leave VAJ and pop back into hotel for Els to change then head for our closest bus stop, no.11 by the "most beautiful café in the world" - the New York Palace. So beautiful I've not taken a picture (yet) because we're normally jumping straight on a bus. Today's plan is to head to the Great Market Hall, but on the way pop into the Zoo Café to book a timeslot.

Our hotel lobby

On the bus Lisa nearly goes flying when we move seats. We pull up alongside another bus, and there are kids waving at us. We wave back and Lizzie holds up a picture of a mouse in a hat on her phone. We're then talking about how long Els fingers are, and the girls are flipping the bird to Lisa and me to further demonstrate. A man sitting near us says "do you know what that means?" to which they say yes.

We jump out at stop 13, and head for the Zoo Cafe. The streets are quiet, tree lined, and clean. Seems a pretty affluent area. The ZC is open but inaccessible - open by reservation only. I try calling from the street but no answer. Will try later.

The clean streets of Budapest

Zoo Cafe

We walk to the towards the Great Market Hall, and Lizzie spots a pub that she heard about and wants to go to. It's called the "For Sale" pub and you write notes then tack them to a wall, pillar, etc. We have a drink, write our notes and leave. Photo gallery below, you can click on these to expand them and swipe thru if you hadn't realised already.

Onto the Market. It's big, has 2 floors, and we head up to 1st floor where the souvenir seekers are. I get Hannah's fridge magnet, plus some playing cards. Els is feeling rough so we head out in search of ice cream. I find a place but not enough seating for us. Lisa finds another vendor and we can sit in the street plus it's in the shade. It's as hot as balls today, and everything is hard work. We plan to get the bus from stop 5 and get back to hotel to chill for a bit.

Great Market Hall

Beauty and the Beast

Váci Area

Statue

We walk to the bus stop and wait in a shady area for the bus. It's really hot, and it is hitting us hard. The first bus that turns up says that we need a "Pest side" bus. Another bus pulls up right behind, we get on that. It's enclosed and air conditioned - lovely jubbly. We ride it to stop 9 where they announce they'll stop for half an hour but we can switch to another bus at the front of the queue. We do, it's hot on there, but thankfully fairly empty. We ride it to our stop (11). Then we head straight to hotel, girls go up, me & Lis hang about in lobby for a drink. I blog the day.

The note I left did the trick

I've still had no Goulash, Apple Strudel, or Chimney Cake (Lisa calls this funnel/cone cake).

I go on a side mission for snacks. The Fam are in the rooms and I head to a little supermarket for snacks. I grab what I think will go down well and head back.

Snack haul

I announce snacks to girls and Els is knocking on door within seconds. She grabs a load and scurries off.

We book an Indian restaurant called Pesti Chutney for an hours time. It's a 6min walk away, past sex shop and VAJ. We arrive and pick a table for 4, smells good in there. The waiter is nice, it's pretty warm and the drinks take a little while to come. Els says this is the best curry she's ever had. She has Matar Paneer. I really enjoy my Paneer TM too. Lisa's happy, Liz struggles with her biryani because of heat. We play guess the amount and Liz wins. On the way back I am full of fart gas and it's painful. The others say just do it so I wait for a quiet stretch and let rip. Lizzie is filming this 😞. A jogger comes through, I note with no earphones, he must have got the full sound wave plus toxins.

Curry

More curry

We're back at hotel by 20:20 and decide to hit the sky bar for the last hour (21:00-22:00). Els chills out in room, and the rest of us go play cards. It's beautiful up there, we have a drink, Lisa wins cards, then we chill on the comfy seats. There's a few other people up there. We have a mini chat with barman, he was in UK for 8 years in some random places - Inverness, Llandudno and Farnham. Nice guy though. Told us to try Goulash and drink Palinka. Believe me I want to.

Plan tomorrow was to all go to stream baths but we need to rethink this. A plan has hatched so let's see.

Sky bar view

Sky barstards

Comfy seat area

Rude girl