Budapest Day 1 - Taking off!

Not that we flew Air New Zealand...but look, The Hobbit!

10/9/2014

After months of planning, we're finally off to Europe for Angel's 8 week sabbatical (technically 7 weeks, since she spent a week lounging about). It comes along once every 7 years, so I really wanted to make this special for her. Courtesy of free miles, I was able to get 2 free tickets from United, and so we flew United. Parents flew Lufthansa, which they really enjoyed. The service was great, free coffee machines in the waiting areas...and we got dinky United. They don't even have individual TVs on the back of every chair--what is this, 1991?! They have a tiny, tiny TV in the middle of the aisle...and they showed The Heat. What is this, 2013?! Good grief. Starting to really appreciate China Airlines now. The seats were tiny, which was ok for us but unbearable for tall people (the guy sitting next to Angel had his knees over on her spot). We connected via Frankfurt with a Lufthansa flight and they gave a delicious (seriously!) Chicken and Feta sandwich. I was trying to read the ingredients but my German sucks, so I couldn't understand what was in the sandwich in order to replicate it at home. All I know is whole wheat seed bread, chicken, feta (duh), thyme, mustard, sugar, olive oil. Damn, it's good stuff.

The ride was pretty smooth over--United was delayed, and we were nervous when we landed because our transfer was only 1 hour. But Frankfurt's a pretty easy airport to figure out, though it did suck for the people who had 20 minute transfers. A bus took us to the airplane and Angel and I weren't able to get seats next to each other (you would think United would let us chart the seats, but they said it's a Lufthansa flight so they're not able to reserve the seats and Lufthansa said it's a United ticket, so they couldn't let us reserve the seats either. Gah! It's like hot potato!). We got into Budapest Liszt Ferenz airport BUD at 6:30pm, and we waited in baggage claim for the parents to arrive (waited about an hour), as they weren't comfortable going from shuttle to hotel by themselves. I reserved the shuttle in advance, based on online reports that taxis will rip you off. The shuttle Airport-Shuttle Minibusz is cheaper the more people you have, and it's very reliable. Just walk off the plane, see the shuttle desk in baggage claim, get your receipt. The receipt will have your bus number on it, and you just wait for your bus to arrive. Tipping is 10% here, so all in all, it was a breeze (and cheap) to get to our hotel.