On to Budapest!

Our ferry to Athens left at 11:00pm and we had booked a four-berth cabin for the overnight trip. As usual, Geoff slept all the way and did not notice the big swell on the open sea (as reported to him by Deb the next morning). Alex, as per form, loved the ferry trip and enjoyed the exciting and new experience of the cabin. On arrival in Piraeus at 6:30 the next morning, we caught the x96 to the airport (E. Venizelos) where we spent the day wandering about waiting for our Malev flight to Budapest that afternoon.

Malev airlines were very pleasant, with most of the passengers seeming to be students making their way home after a trip to Greece, with many tearful farewells at Ferihegy airport. After retrieving our bags, we got in line for the very organised (so it seemed) taxi booking process where lined up at a kiosk an got a ticket which we would then use to get the correct cab for the correct fare to the correct destination. Well, at the least the destination and fare was correct. Our taxi driver described this process as "a misery", but he proved far from it and proved quite entertaining as we looked up the directions for how to get to our apartment on Ulazlo utca. On arrival, we weren't sure of the building since it looked quite drab and run down from the outside (chez eastern bloc), but our host, Dorka was waiting and we made our way up the shaky lift to the 7th floor to our "Design Apartment". We were pleasantly surprised at the modern and fully renovated top floor flat, roomy and completely renovated with a terrace! And with high speed wi-fi, just doesn't get any better than that.

Budapest was the antithesis of Greece - cold, rainy and well, not Greece. But frankly, we welcomed the new look and feel, and felt quite at home in our new digs.