Woken up to another spectacular day in Eastern Europe.......task of the day......squeeze everything into the suitcases. We were hoping to send a parcel back home from Budapest but apparently postage costs from here are extortional, the conceirge estimated A$200, (he would have to be joking!), so we have to take it with us to London.
We are both still coughing and spluttering with this disease......i guess we will be responsible for spreading on the Budapest to London flight!
The poor Hungarians don't look very happy generally - not surprising I guess. They even have a tax on what is considered unhealthy food - fast food, coke and so on....... Not so alcohol, coke is more expensive than beer! Wine is quite cheap.
Taken to the airport in a Mercedes by our wonderful Tour Guide Kristoff - just him and us left now.......we will miss him fussing over us all.......such a sweetie.
35C but only 22% humidty. Off to London cold and wet apparently.
Hungarian currency - Florint - 280 = 1 Euro
A few observations of Eastern Europe generally-
- Being in Eastern Europe is like going back in time, 20 years in the cities we have seen, and even further in the country areas, like farming methods. Also road construction long way behind with machinery, we even saw picks and shovels being used.
- Smoking is widespread, even still accepted in many restaurants. Not sure how prices compare.
- They seem to have a love affair with ice cream, so many ice cream stores, on all the menus, people in the street always eating ice cream. Even saw a queue of about 50 people in Krakow on the street waiting for ice creams!
- Gluten free food non-existent in 99% of restaurants, coffee shops, cafes. 5 star hotels have catered with bread for breaky but most entrees and desserts have been salads and fruit salad. They have a long way to go in that department.
- No fences around the farms, obviously the crops don't wander and there are no rabbits or kangaroos.
- Paying for toilet stops gets very wearing, especially when you are snarled at by a 'Helga' because you innocently try to get in with a coin from a neighbouring currency....... All of a sudden you lose the urge!
- Almost all of the 'hot' food is only warm when you get it.
- Little to no tatoos.
- NO vegemite!!
On the British Airways flight to London - stupid idiots didn't have my gluten free lunch, had to just eat the chicken off the roll. Could easily starve to death on this trip!
Never mind, Roger has just polished off 2 bottles of wine on the flight, and now he is sleeping peacefully. Lucky we do not have to drive from Heathrow!
Wore a pair of Roger's magic earplugs because of the cold - must say they worked well, no sore ears during landing!!!!
Heck, they have just told us it is 11C in London.........just left 35C.
Yep in London now........about 0.75hr wait to get through immigration.....it is now 5pm waiting for our airport transfer to arrive. It finally arrived at 6pm, the geek hasn't spoken a word to any of us yet (8 in the bus)!
First celebrity spotted.........Dustin Hoffman walking along the street chatting on his mobile!
The geek driver (? Pakistani or Indian) still hasn't spoken a word and it is now 7.15pm.....
Incidently, love the London Taxis!
He still hasn't spoken a word it is now 7.45 pm and we have just arrived at the hotel!! Been on a Cook's tour of London, would have been nice to have some commentary.
The room in the hotel (Thistle Euston) is exceptionally small, but I would imagine space is a premium in this part of the world.
We are very tired and hungry so downstairs to the in house restaurant and a good nights sleep, then I am sure we will feel a lot better.