European Adventure- Budapest, Hungary-Day 2

Scootard was sleeping away and I woke up at 6:00am starving.  I tried to wait for him to get up, but when 8:00am rolled around and he was still catching "z's", I decided I had to go it alone..  But before I go, it seems best to plug my computer into my trusty converter thingee so that I can keep it charged up. This time we purchased two so that we didn't have to share.

Breakfast was one of the better ones that I have seen at a hotel.  It was a decent size buffet with lots of variety....some of which I had no idea what it was....ha.

Now, this might look simple, but believe me....IT AIN'T.  I had the cup sitting under what I "thought" was the spout.  Yeah-no.  Anyway, after a few "stares" from those who actually knew how to work the mystery machine, I was able to get it figured out.  I just didn't get why my cup only filled half way!  UGH!  I filled the rest with milk.  It was ok.  But I was missing my French Press that we so often travel with.

So, here is the first breakfast in Hungary.  That perfectly round thing on the left side of the screen is an egg.  A very tasteless egg.  I don't know that I have ever had an egg that didn't have any taste to it..  The breakfast was scrambled eggs with "something" in them, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, some kind of sausage which tasted more like a "slim jim" if you have ever had one of those and potatoes.

this is a shot of the lobby area as you are walking toward the breakfast area....the lady at the end of the room is where the breakfast area starts.

by the way, I believe this hotel is one of the more modern ones built in the last 5-6 years or so.

I finished breakfast and made my way back upstairs to wake up the sleep Scootard.  When suddenly as I sat at the desk, there was an incredible 'POP"....Now, when you hear THAT sound and it comes from the place where your computer is plugged in, that just can't be good.  Not only did it make a horrific sound, but it smelled like burnt rubber.....  If you closely at the one on the right side, you can see what appears to be "soot" on the back side of the transformer.  These things were supposed to be good to up to 1600w.  We used then for our phones before going to bed and all was well.  And now......wellll.  It is pretty much cooked.  We pulled the back off and found that the fuse was still in tact.  ????? No idea what went wrong here, but at least we have two right///?

After I spent a good ten minutes freaking out over the near death of my computer, we started our trek toward town.  Scootard was bit more rested and ready to go.  He skipped breakfast...or rather it skipped him by the time he woke up...ha

We were going  to have to take the subway to get to the market that we wanted to visit.  Going down the steps was fine until you get on the escalator that wants to throw you across the breezeway.  Those things seem to move too fast here. Certainly not the easy moving ones at the Dallas airport!

Scootard posing for his first picture of the day....haha.....

When we emerged out of the subway, we came uopn this little street that reminded us of Vienna.  Even some of the buildings were strangely familiar.

One of the things that we noticed was that there were no single family dwellings anywhere near by.  The streets were wall to wall apartment buildings.  Most of them didn't look this elaborate.  They were only long concrete box looking things that looked more like  prison barracks than anything else.  I also noticed (having lived in Germany for 5 years), that the language was a mixture of German and what seemed to be Russian.
 Of course Russian did occupy this country for a bit.  I couldn't believe they squoze a McDonald's in here! hahaha......

some of the store fronts were interesting.  This one featured what appeared to be books on a shelf through the window, but it was actually some kind of paper with pictures of books glued to the shutters.

There was an entrance to a courtyard and we decided to go have a look.......:-)

It seems that there were several little stores in the courtyard and this bicycle rental place.  No.  We didn't...

the prices at the airport were ridiculous when it came to exchanging money, so Scootard decided to try this place.  Touchdown!!

And this seemed to be the courtyard of apartments over the stores that were there.  Seemed a bit lonely and cut off from the rest of the hustle and bustle.  Perhaps that is why the people who live here like it....:-).

I have no idea what this building is.  We didn't get close enough to tell for sure as our bus was coming.  Perhaps we can find out before we leave...?

a street view of one of the main streets......

We walked over to the bridge that separates what once was the cities of Buda and Pest.  Once they joined the two, they called it Budapest.  The Danube River runs between the two halfs.  This is our second time to visit the Danube with our first time being when we were in Vienna a couple of years ago.

this placard was on the building as we approached the bridge.  It's a bit hard to see though.  I had to back up quite a ways to get all three doors in and was in danger of stepping backward into fast moving traffic....

a clearer shot of the bridge.....

I'm sure what the crest stands for.  Scootard is more of a historian than I lend myself to be.  But I liked it...:-)

and this is a shot I took while standing "on" the bridge itself.  I got a little nauseated when I did it though...:-(

the cruise ships were docked and the tourist were everywhere along the walk way....

We decided to go and visit the large market that we saw earlier.  It is contained in the second building on the right hand side of the screen.

It was starting to warm up a bit.  Even the pigeons were feeling the difference........:-).  Some of them just lay in the water with their wings spread open.  I had never seen that before....

the closer we got to the market, the more convinced I was that I was going to need some "pick me up" before we ventured in.  AND, there was the issue of Scootard having missed breakfast.  We found this little outdoor place......:-).

He decided to get a platter that was supposed to be for ONE person.  They eat like Americans here! haha
It was larger than it looked on the menu.....:-)

I decided to get their version of a pancake.....

The pancake thingees were filled with some kind of cheese that had the texture of.......hummmm. Well, I don't know exactly...ha. And the little cup on the right was filled with what seemed to be some kind of custard that more like tapioca without the "oca" part.  It was "different"....

Poor Scootard, was struggling to finish his platter, so I helped a little bit.  But I was trying to get him to finish my tapi that was missing the "oca". The sausage that he had in the middle of his platter was the same "slim Jim" style stuff that I had for breakfast.  It was rich with paprika!

We finally made it to the market after filling our bellies with the needed energy to walk through it.....

We ventured upstairs to see what was there.  This is the view from the second floor......It had a feel of Pike Place in Seattle and Redding Terminal in Philadelphia.

Here are a few shots of some of the vendors that keep shop there.......

We debated as to whether we should get some fruit to take back with us, but decided against it.  Neither of us wanted to carry the bag all day and we already had a full backpack with us......too bad.

Now, you gotta love this.....The picked veggies were glad we didn't eat them....hahaha

I had noticed earlier that my glasses were quite loose and I was concerned that I might lose a lense.  We got on the bus and rode up and down the streets almost to the end of the line and back in search of an eyeglass store.  We saw one that was going to require us to walk a bit of a ways back as the bus didn't stop there.  But we find this little whole in the wall place first.  I figure when you see the word "Optika"...sounded pretty eyeballish to me!  I don't think that's a word though....

The shop keeper spoke fairly decent English.  I showed him the loose screw and he said "ah! This is easy to fix".  Then he said no charge which was fine by me.  We asked him about a few words in Hungarian that we wanted to learn and he wrote one of them down for us.  It was in HUNGARIAN.....so we couldn't read it.....hahaha.  But the word was supposed to me "you are welcome".  We had learned from the train ticket agent how to say "thanks" and "thank you" already.

Well, what ya know!  coffee.......:-)
Might as well.........

Scootard getting ready to secure our bags while we sit for a bit......

the coffee was not bad although I did find it a bit sweet.  Since my breakfast coffee seemed a bit sweet as well, I wondered if it was coming out of the machine already sweetened...??  And the sugar although white tasted like brown sugar and was large granules.

But I suppose I could get used to it over the next day or so........

I know, random shot.  I like his feathers! .....:-)

We got on the bus and I noticed that they even provided a place for passengers that had baby carriages with them.  I had never seen that before anywhere else.  the seat had been removed for that very purpose.

After riding the rails clear to the end of the line to Buda and back to Pest, we disembarked and started out on foot again.

couldn't help but notice this flower grouping nestled in between some vendor booths.....

another street shot of a building I hope to find the origin of before we leave......

I'm pretty sure its a church of some sort......

Well, it was getting close to dinner and we had to decide what to do about it.  We got back on the bus and headed toward downtown.  When we got off the train, we decided to get some pastry to take back to the room and some bottled water.

We still had to get on a train to get back near the hotel.  It came in a flash and was quite the "blurr" coming into the station.

We finally got back to town and decided that both of us where too tired to make the trek from the train station back to the hotel.  We took our chances on a cab having heard horror stories of "price jacking".  Scootard starting sinking into "food coma" after having had to much to eat earlier and being just plain tired from all of the walking we did. This is him in the lobby.....hahaha

We got back to the room after having dinner in the hotel restaurant and decided to try Scootard's transformer on my computer cord by it self.  My thought was perhaps it was just my cord that had blown??  yeah.  No.

after less than five minutes of plugging in my computer, there was that familiar POP....Now, they are BOTH blown.....:-(.  No way to charge anything else.

Scootard went down to the hotel manager and explained the situation and asked about another transformer or maybe trying to reset the circuit board thingee in our room.  Come to find out that because I have a a Dell with a cord that can hold larger watts of power, we could plug directly into the wall.  YEAH, RIGHT!  I'm thinking I made it through this one twice by the skin of my teeth!  But the guy said that he had a Dell as well, checked my cord, read the wording and said it would work.  He left the room and went and got this little gizmo for us that was his personal adapter that he uses when he goes to the States....haha.  How ironic is that??  

I decided to give it a try......

and low and behold, we were both able to charge our computers without a hitch!  AND he said we could keep it as long as we were here and simply asked that we return it to him before we check out.  However, we cannot charge our phones with it.  No problem, we will plug the phone into the computers and let them charge that way.  Thank you, Mr. Manager.....:-). We are going to try to find two of our own before we continue on to Slovakia.  

Time to chill out and get ready for the next days adventure.  What a busy day....:-)
Stay tuned!!