Hi all!  Coming to ya from beautiful Budapest!  I can’t stay too long.  Still need to get some breakfast.

I wanted to let you know that my fear of coming to Budapest was completely irrational.  I got all freaked out when I read the travel.gov website about it.  I mean…why do they post stuff like that?  I know that they want to keep you informed about stuff, but putting stuff like that out there can cause people to think the wrong way about traveling to certain places!

We arrived at noon on Friday and then we headed to the hotel.  We’re staying at the Cornitha Grand Hotel Royal.  It’s really, really nice.  It’s a 5 star hotel.  If you’ve never had the opportunity to stay at a five star, I recommend this place.  We paid an addition 50-60 per night, but we get executive treatment.  We walked up to the registration counter and she said that we had to go the Executive lounge where they would check us in.  We didn’t have to do anything and they offered a glass of wine while we were being checked in.  We made it up to our room and it’s just lovely.  There’s a shower AND a bathtub (extremely rare in Europe) and a king sized bed.  In the Executive lounge, we are offered breakfast until 11:30 and free drinks all day long.  There’s a small computer lab (where I’m at) to access email for free.  In this room, there is also a plasma TV and 3 couches.

Yesterday, we decided to go down to the heated pool, jacuzzi and sauna.  After the sauna, we each took a sensory shower.  There was some scent, lights and a variation of hot and cold water.  After we did that, we went and lounged by the indoor pool where Rob read a magazine and I was reading a book.  After about 15 minutes, I walked upstairs to the Spa reception and scheduled a massage.  It was a mistake to do it before we made it around town.

After that, we came up to the lounge again and had a light lunch.  Then, we headed downtown to find our Hop-on, Hop-off bus.  We took a 2 hour tour of the city and I got some pretty neat pictures.  I can’t wait to get home and see if I can get a panorama or two put together 🙂  We went to St. Stephens Basilica and we witnessed a wedding and got to hear for the first time since we’ve been in Europe, the pipe organs in use.  It was magnificent!

After the tour, we came back to the Hotel and got dressed because we were headed to the Danube Symphony Orchestra.  We were, of course, the youngest people there.  We tend to be the youngest couple most places that we go.  We have older tastes, I guess.  We both love plays and symphonies and other cultural things.  We were talking about how all the people that were in attendance were our parents age.  I’ve always been interested in stuff like that, but my parents never really were.  They took us to those places, but I think it was just to give us (my brother and I) a taste (to pretend that we’re cultured–yah, know what I mean?)  The concert was AMAZING.  At the end, they got a standing ovation and they gave us an encore!  It was an interactive encore!  The conductor was telling us how to clap, when to clap and he even cut us off.  There were a few people who didn’t follow his lead very well and continued to clap and he gave the audience a crazy look.  During the performance, there was this Viola player who seldomly looked at his music and he was very animated.  He was fun to watch.  He most certainly was playing to the audience.  It was obvious that he loved his job.

During the intermission, I went and got a glass of wine and downstairs from the symphony, there was a wedding reception.  The Mother of the Bride came and interrupted the dance that she and her husband were having in order to fix her dress.  The bride stopped dancing, the groom did not.  This act did not please her, either.  She grabbed her husband’s shirt and made a gesture for him to stop.  He did momentarily.  He started again.  I chuckled.  She just kept giving him looks! 🙂

Well, I’ve just been warned that I need to get something to eat, if I’m going to.  So I will bid you fair ado and I look forward to telling you about the rest of the trip!  Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Oh, and HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!