The End of This story! Flying Home!

One week ago today we got up before our alarms even rang at 2:30 in the morning!  By three our bags were out and at 3:15 we double checked our room and went to the Viking Lounge to prepare to end this amazing journey.  We were checked off the list, give Breakfast ‘Grab and Go’ bags and had a cup of coffee or tea.  The bags had orange juice, a water bottle, an unusual ham and cheese sandwich, a granola bar, a cookie, and an apple and a banana!  I had a cup of hot tea, second one since the first was in the room. I drank the juice and ate the banana.  

We then boarded a 15 passenger van that had a caboose with our suitcases in it. The Viking Rep had verified that all the right suitcases had been collected.  The ride to the airport took about 40 minutes in the pre- dawn darkness.  When we got there we found another Viking Rep who directed us to the right line for the flight bag drop.  I asked, if like in Madrid, we could take water through security.  The answer is no so I gifted her my full untouched water bottle.  

We had checked in on line the night before and texted us our boarding passes.  The line seemed long but moved quickly.  It was nice to be able to check the bags all the way to Atlanta so we would have an easily plane change in Frankfurt.  Flying on Lufthansa means the hub stop is there.  Viking booked the air for us but I was a little annoyed that people on American Air had non-stop from Budapest to Philadelphia!  You would think it would have been easy for them to have us on air travel that goes non-stop to Atlanta!  Everything goes through Atlanta!

We went to the security line and luckily before I scanned my QR code Elva realized that she could not find her text from the night before.  After a brief search I took us back to the nearby first class check in line and told the young man that she did not have a paper boarding pass and couldn’t find the text.  He put us right to the front.  It was no problem to issue Elva a boarding card. 

We are spoiled by TSA Pre-Chek which does not apply in Europe but they do have something called BUD.  We noticed too late but perhaps it is a reciprocal service.  I will have to find out before next trip. But security was relatively quick. Elva threw out her untouched juice and water.  For a change Elva got pulled aside instead of me. Soon we were at our gate and settled in for a fair amount of time.  We ate our breakfast.

A lot of our tour group was on the same flight but no one was very chatty.  Boarding was quick and the flight was a smooth two hours. We were given a pre-packaged cherry strudel and hot drinks. Frankfurt was a breeze!  We deplaned in an area within security so quickly showed our second boarding pass and passport and went right through. No hassle.  We settled into the waiting area and I went to the restroom and spent my last Euros, since I won’t be back any time soon, for a Coke light.

Elva texted me that the gate had changed so we did do that and then waited.  I was not excited that the bay that I had heard screeching at the first gate was apparently on out flight with us.  The screeching followed us!  I was also not happy to hear that although we were flying non-stop from Frankfurt to Atlanta it was going to be a 10 hour and 20 minute flight!  I was not mentally prepared for that!

Once we boarded we did have good seats.  It was a 2-5-2 configuration so Elva and I only had ourselves to contend with.  But unhappiness continues when it was announced that we were fully boarded but that there would be a 30 minute delay after pushback! Our travel time now is nearly 11 hours and the screeching had indeed followed us aboard!

Once we took to the skies and leveled off beverage service was begun.  We had great seats, only three rows back from where service for our section began.  Hot towels and food followed immediately.  The dinner was pretty good but it was just about noontime when it was served.  Then nothing.  The next service was going to be about 45 minutes prior to landing!  On a scheduled 10 hour plus flight!  After the coffee service which began before we could even finish eating there was nothing.  About every hour and a half they came by with water.

I did enjoy five movies on board!  The Mule, I actually cried. A Dog’s Way Home, very sweet.  Vice, an interesting take on the Joe Biden story. I don’t sleep on planes so in-seat video streaming is great.  And you had to keep the ear plugs in because the screeching continued FOR THE WHOLE FLIGHT!  About every two minutes there would be a loud shriek.  One of the crew members made a balloon toy out of a rubber glove but that was about it in the calming down effort. TEN HOURS of screaming.  Other than that it was a good flight at least until we were over the USA.  

Spring storms were busy over the Northeast. The crew managed to make several trips and pass out some sort of a chicken curry pita bread taco fold thing.  Turbulence started.  Beverage service was cancelled and when there was a calm moment the crew went by with water.  I told you we had a good seat.  They made it only to our row and then retreated. Not the best flight ever for service.  The worst flight ever for uncontrollable children. But we did land safe and sound but it was a bone jarring, hard landing. 

I breezed through passport control with my Global Entry card.  Baggage claim was the longest part of the exit process.  I waited at the curb for Christine and got a nice ride to her house to pick up my card.  I did get the chance to get a hug from Christian, home from his first year of college.  Driving home I called Katie for a brief chat and also Karen, who had dropped off Wonton Noodle already.  

At home an unending supply of post–Easter Peeps awaited me.  Like, way too many!  I was so happy to open windows and get comfortable.  Bags unpacked and laundry started I settled in to sort and deal with mail.  And then to actually see what was on my DVR and watched a couple of things.  It is so nice to have my daughters, and a neighbor to keep an eye on the house and the dog so that when I return home I can ease back into my real life.  I took a hot bath and just about 27 hours after I got out of bed in Budapest this morning I tucked myself in.

I thought you might be interested in my Trip Tab.  This is the list I keep on my phone of things to look up or do when I get home.

In a Cardboard belt – book translated into Albanian by our guides father
Hoxha (hoja)~
Onufri - icon~
Dobro Vodo - good water~
Peljeshac Peninsula ~
Croatia California ~
Battle for the Wounded - Richard Burton  - movie
Cevapi~ - sausage and pita like wrap
The People of the Book - Generaldine Brooks –novel about the people who had the Sarajevo Haggadah
Cellist of Sarajevo - movie
Tunnel of Hope (Life)~Blood and Honey -
Tattoos on the Heart
Vince Flynn
A Gentleman from Moscow- a man under house arrest in the Metropol Hotel, really the Hotel Moscow
Republic of Srpska
The Curious  Man - The Life and Works of Dr. Hans Nieper
Idica Todoric -Richest man owner of Konsum
Medvednica Bear Mountain treasure of the black queen 1500~
Goldsmiths Treasure (Gold)~ book
Cathedral chandeliers from Vegas Gold Coast Casino ~
A Hard Case in Holiday City
Cody McClain Brown – author of Chasing a Croatian Girl, not in library so order from Amazon
Ucka Mountain
Triglav~

Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoyed the varied and unique journey. It was at times a trial of patience and a battle against exhaustion but it was at all time a journey into another kind of world and a trip I would not have wanted to miss!

Please note:  If on the right side of this page you choose to follow you will be notified when the next adventure begins - in August!

A Rainy Goodbye!

And now the end is near.  Seemed like the trip was too long on some days but now it isn’t long enough! Our last day dawned cold and rainy.  The weather has been erratic this whole trip but I think we had more sunny days than rainy ones.  But the rainy days were memorable because traipsing around in cold rain to see things that should be beautiful dampened my enthusiasm for them.  They were beautiful and amazing.  Most importantly they were unique. And today would be great also.  I convinced myself.  But perhaps the best thing is that we planned two tours today.  Otherwise we would have wandered around in the rain or perhaps opted out of touring altogether and have wasted our last day.  And it was all good!

This morning we went out for our first excursion of the day.  It was to Szentendre, or St. Andrew, which is an arts community set alongside the river.  We chose it because it is considered an ‘open air museum’ with cobbled streets and pastel colored buildings.   We thought it would be nice to see something other than the big city.  

Granted that the rain was miserable but not freezing cold like in Ljubljana. Our guide talked on the way out more about past history than what we were seeing out the window and she definitely did not the Communist era even though she was not in Hungary for most of it.  Her parents immigrated to the States at the time of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.  Her name was Victoria, Vicky.  She was able to come visit with her parents most every other summer.  They felt safe to do so once they had a US passport.  They would come to visit her grandparents on their farm.  They held tight to the property and refused to turn it over to the state.  They still had to work in a factory but somehow cheated the system and kept the land.  This was a rare ability as we have learned.

She shared a lot of personal stories with us during the course of the day.  Viking discourages political talk but she did to hesitate to comment more than once that she worries about the direction that some Americans are trying to take our own country.  She said people just don’t know what and how it happens and how so many years later the overtaken countries can still not recover from the devastation of the society and property.

As we walked through the village different reliable shops were stopped at while our Vicky chatted in a personal and friendly way with the owners/artisans.  This was to assure us of the quality of the products and their authenticity.  Good to know.  Some items, like ‘silk’ scarves were labeled PROC.  Peoples Republic of China!

Eastern Orthodox Church.

The blue re-dye work is something that a century ago came from Holland.

Hand decorated puzzle boxes.  He impressed us with his knife skills to remove the glaze to expose the wood underneath.

Personally this display of goods in the rain and an open window did not inspire me to be interested.  I bet on a sunny day it would.  The shirt has classic embroidery for this country. Lace overlays are nice but, yucky in the rain.

Funny that this village uses lamp shades but today they could have used the umbrellas that so many other towns use to brighten things up with. Catholic Church.  There are so  many churches in this small town.

We made our way to a modern museum.  It was stark and plain but set off Margit Kovacs sculptures very well.  I liked that many of them you could see not only from the front but all the way around.  Again on this trip I am meeting an artist I had never heard of.  The style and colors reminded me of Native American pottery.  We did also watch a movie of her at work, ashes dangling from her cigarette ala Jackson Pollack. 

The movie was on a bigger screen in the final room.

She made a several versions of Madonna with Child. Her method was always to make a miniature first.  These will be on display in the new part of the museum when it is finished.

 

Front and back.  The statues in some areas were in open display cases like simple white bookshelves that you could walk behind.  Lots of natural light made the work seem homey and friendly.

Some of the religious pieces were set into the walls as the niches they were when used in a church.

Christ and six apostles at a modified Last Supper!

A painted ceramic tile map of old Hungary.

Pitchers and bowls of decorated and glazed ceramics.

Margit learned the skill of ceramics when she worked as a young girl in a tile stove factory.

The museum visit was interesting, and warm, and dry!  A good choice for this day but soon we walked out and all the way up the road to a café where we had our choice of cakes from an included menu.  No black tea so green had to do but it was hot and the fruited cheesecake I chose was delicious.

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Carol, Elva, and I then walked back to the bus.  Now that was a trip in more ways than one!  The rain got harder and the Victoria got emotional while she continued to talk about her family and Communism.  More than once she broke down and was crying.  It must have been an anniversary of some family event.  I do like when those showing you the sites share personal stories, but I have never had one in tears before.

It was raining harder or we might have walked along the bank of the Danube on the way to the bus.

Photo of remains of the Roman Aqueduct is taken on the way back and through the bus window~

Then there was the timing issue! We had two lovely ladies on our tour who were traveling on to Amsterdam but had signed up for this tour before the trip.  It had not been clear that it was for those at the hotel.  When they asked about it, since it wasn’t mentioned in the briefing on board last night.  This morning they arrived at the Hilton in a taxi.  They understood that they were to return to the hotel at the end and return by taxi but the plan had been changed.  The Vicky had gotten a text from her local boss to drive past the ship on the return and drop them off.

This was not a big issue, really.  But two couples were not happy.  They were very vocal about being delayed getting back to the hotel because they had a second tour booked for the afternoon, as did we.  When would they eat lunch!  They would miss lunch!  Of course, less than an hour ago we were eating the biggest pieces of cake I have ever been served! Why didn’t we all go to the hotel and then the bus could take them to the boat or they could just get a cab.  Seriously, we are passing just a few streets over from the boat!  And really, now you have a chance to see the memorial about the shoes.  This is an important and moving site that most people demand to see.  I was surprised it wasn’t pointed out on our tour yesterday. 

Once we got to the dock of the Embla, a couple of blocks from the shoes, we stopped in the middle of the road since there was no parking available by the boat, their tours were returning.  The two ladies said thank you and got off but the complaining continued.  Seriously, are we not all in this together?  And wow!  We were a whole one minute late to the hotel but those two couples wouldn’t let it go!

Elva and I returned to the room but first we said a fond farewell to Carol.  She felt she was coming down with a cold and was glad she didn’t have a second tour.  We had a sandwich, used the bathroom and in 45 minutes were back in the lobby ready to go again.  The rain continued.

Rita, from yesterday was our guide again.  Some of her information repeated. She did add new things as we drove out of the city in a different direction from the morning tour.  When we got to Godollo Palace.  It is subdued by comparison to Versailles.  The story of the Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, Empress of Austria, was born in Munich. The tale is one that recognizes that all of Europe is one big family.  She was a favorite niece of the Empress Maria Theresa.  The Empress made sure all the countries had royalty that were inter-married to secure their loyalty to her. 

The beloved Queen, Sissi, got her nickname because as a child she was called Lizzie.  People speaking Hungarian couldn’t pronounce the Z that way and it morphed into Sissi!  She was considered to be the most beautiful woman in Europe but like other beauties it seemed to work against her. She constantly dieted and had a strict regimen of beauty.  In the end it killed her.

Sissi didn’t like crowds and would avoid being where her husband and the courtier’s were.  In 1898 she was stabbed by an anarchist while visiting Geneva, Switzerland.  She was traveling to be unknown but a hotel clerk had let the newspapers know where she was staying.  The assassin really just wanted to kill her because he wanted the fame of slaying someone famous.

How does this mean her vanity killed her?  Sissi was so tightly corseted that when she was stabbed she was able to brush it off and continue to the ship she was boarding. It was some 2 or 3 hours later, when she was changing that the blood could be seen.  The file had stabbed her in the heart and basically she bled to death.  Had she been dressed less elaborately the injury would have been immediately evident and perhaps she could have survived!

The palace was crowded with tours so we had our included cake, no choice this time, and tea before our tour in the elegant café.  Although we had hoped to see the French gardens the rain prevented that.  So lots of eating and waiting and browsing the gift shop.

Most of the furnishings are not original but a few pieces, like Franz Joseph’s desk and other items in his office and dressing room have been returned from other collections.  Many of the portraits are original although I suspect that on display are the copies and them more valuable things are in storage under lock and key.

The Palace was pretty well gutted of valuables by the Soviets who used it as a barracks.  The exterior was stripped and the papers and walls were painted over.  Funny how that works.  Very opposed to grandeur they destroyed it in place but didn’t hesitate to steal the valuables and either sell or retain them for their own use.  I suspect much can be found in museums in Moscow or St. Petersburg even now.

I left my phone/camera on the bus but pictures weren’t really allowed anyway.  The above link has a short video of the restoration project which is still under way.  Here is a link to some https://www.google.com/search?q=godolo+images&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjuhvmc1JviAhUhgK0KHSdQD94Q_AUIDygC&biw=992&bih=485 images you may enjoy.

Back again on the bus we returned to the Castle Hilton.  We took a little time to take some photos and went up to see what the dinner plans were.  I was looking forward to a farewell dinner with Allan, Mary, Virginia, and Don.  Elva was for sure.  There was a message that they were meeting at 5:50 for a six o’clock reservation.  We didn’t get the message until ten after six!  Elva called Allan’s room but no answer.  We had not been scheduled to return until six but I guess they forgot about that.  I suggested that Carol, Elva and I go out together one last time but Carol wasn’t up for it.  Elva and I ended up have another ham and cheese sandwich in the room that I had been saving for the flight day.  

 

Our Castle Hilton is built right into the rocks of the Buda Castle Hill.

This is the view from the back door.  The front is up two levels and on the main street right next to the St. Matthias Church.

Yes, our room is in this part of the modern hotel.

View from the elevator!  Notice the line of the glass.

Entrance to the old cloister.

I regretted I hadn’t joined them the night before but I was all packed up.  Took a shower and at eight the guys came to say they had been worried when we didn’t answer although since they never checked back I don’t know.  Anyway, I think they knew we were fine.  Hugs all around.  Elva and I fly home tomorrow and they go to Prague.

I was in bed by 8:30 and will have to sleep pretty good and fast.  Our alarms were set for 2:30.  We have to have bags out at 3 a.m. and on the shuttle by 3:30!