Budapest Bound!

October 13^th-14^th

Well, this year is going to be a very inefficient Wanderglide.  The main focus of the trip is a month in Japan followed by some time in South Korea in January/February.  But before that, one of my nieces is getting married in Maryland and I definitely have to attend that, and I might as well be there to enjoy Christmas with my sister and her family as well. 

 

It gets too cold to stay at the flight park by mid October, so the question was what to do before going to the States?  Naomi asked if I’d come to see her in Israel and stated that I’d probably have to transit through Europe before arriving there.  She suggested Budapest as she’s been there, but I haven’t.  That planted a seed.  Why don’t I spend some time in the Balkans before heading to the Holy Land?  I figured that I should start in Hungary, check out Slovakia to the north, and then down to Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania if time allows it.

 

I flew from Kelowna to Vancouver and after a short layover I was off to Frankfurt.  I made sure to get a window seat for the long flight and although it was cloudy over BC, I was able to catch a bit of a glimpse of the Rockies as well as some of the northern part of Canada.  

Taking off from Vancouver.

First glimpses of the Rockies.

That's massive Lake Athabasca that straddles the northern bits of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

I tried to force myself to sleep for the last 2-3 hours of the flight in hopes of alleviating the jet lag once I arrived in Hungary.  I dozed on and off, but it was better than nothing.  Landing around 7 am local time, I had a 3½ hour layover in Frankfurt which went by quickly once I got through customs which chewed up more than an hour of it.

Landing in Frankfurt.

A breakfast of champions in the Frankfurt airport.

Taking off from Frankfurt, that's the airport on the left and way up on the right, hard to see, but downtown Frankfurt.

Arriving in Hungary, I easily obtained some of the local currency, Hungarian Forints (HUF), from an ATM and found my way to the express bus to downtown.  From there it was a ten-minute walk to my accommodation.  I had read on Booking.com reviews of the place that it was a non-descript and easy to miss front door, which it was.  Then I almost felt like I was in an Escape Room with having to put a code in the front door, another code to collect a key to opening the following door, a different code to get into the apartment and yet another one to access my room.  Whew, I made it.

The difficult to find entrance...which didn't exactly give me warm fuzzy feelings about the accommodations that I'd picked, but it turned out to be fine.

Flying into Hungary.

It was early evening at this point, and I knew if I just hung out in my room, which only had a basic, uncomfortable looking chair by a desk and a bed, that I would likely fall asleep early.  I took a look on Google Maps and for some reason a random attraction caught my eye, the “Flipper Muzeum”.  It was a retro pinball and video game joint, with the focus mainly being pinball.  What a perfect way to stay awake!

It was around a half hour walk from my accommodation, another good way to stay awake, and you paid an entrance fee of around $20 in order to play any of the pinball machines or retro video games for as long as you like.  Perfect!

Entering the Flipper Muzeum.

Why not be greeted by a couple of droids?!?

And a dark Sith.

Oh boy...I'm a kid in a candy store!

I was excited to see the pinball game that this guy is playing..."Attack from Mars".  I have it on my iPad and have played it a lot.  It was the only pinball machine here that I knew what you were supposed to do.

Mick and the Stones...it wasn't a very good game.

The Beatles had to get in on the action too.

Look at this place!

Budapest even has its own pinball table!

The real old school games...it had to start somewhere.

I wish there was someone to play against, although it looked like a pretty basic hockey game.

Look at the size of this pinball machine...Hercules!  The ball was almost as big as a tennis ball.  I had to give it a try, but it wasn't actually that good.

After an hour and a half, my wrists and fingers were feeling it and I’d also had enough of the cacophony of sounds from the pinball machines, plus, it was after 9 pm which had been my goal for the earliest bedtime to stave off the jetlag.  Hopefully I can sleep through the night…