Last airport for a while, thank fuck. For some reason we didn’t have a bottle opener this time so Tub was unable to perform her test of security which they have now passed 3 times.
Budapest is another winner. It looks a little like Sofia as you come in from the airport but then it gets all posh. I think their secret is that they sweep away all of the rubble and build something new. I hope you are listening Greece.
The only things it doesn’t have is sunlight.
Sunlight was abolished by the Soviets who took over after “liberating” the country from the Nazis in the Second World War and hung around for the next 20 years to make sure everything was alright.
As we were coming in we were starting to think it might be a bit too posh for us. Thankfully the Hungarian Tourist Board are aware of this and employ this fella to piss in a bush at 11am on a Monday morning at a major junction, just to relax the tourists a bit. The Tesco’s and Subway signs help too.
We did a walking tour in the afternoon.
The guide explained at the beginning that he doesn’t get paid for this and if we liked the tour he would appreciate a tip. At the end of the 3 hours the Chinese woman who asked the most questions and her husband gave him a pound. If he can get through 8 tours a day he might be able to afford to eat. We didn’t give him anything but we are unemployed so I don’t think he should have really expected much.
Last Night in the Middle of Town
You need sound for this.
The food here is great. Actually all of the food in Europe has been really good. Today was a fairly lazy day.
We went to the Laundrette in the rain. Tub carried all of the washing.
The laundrette was one of those Internet cafe’s that is full of gamers. There was a large backroom that the owner must have decided would make a good laundrette and he had the vaguely autistic bloke who loves the computer room also running the laundrette. Think jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. He was pretty anal about everyone checking there were no tissues in the pockets and insisted on introducing everyone who came in to everyone else. Still for a bloke who’s mum does his washing I have to say he was very good and like pretty much everyone we’ve met in Europe so far couldn’t do enough for us (so yes I do feel a bit bad taking the piss out of him on the blog but it was what they call a slow news day).
Combining the Internet Cafe with the Laundrette is an example of what they call in the car industry a “cut and shut” which is where they take two different cars and weld them together. Tub likes this term a lot especially when describing two single beds which have been pushed together to make a double bed. However Tub initially misheard the expression. I can’t tell you what she calls it but just try adding an N to the words that don’t already have one and you should get it.
After the excitement of the washing we…
Found another dog, this one looks like a sheep taking a shit.
We didn’t go to Tesco’s.
Had a curry but Tub couldn’t fit the curry or half of my head in the picture.
Then we did another bus tour. I slept through most of it but Tub said it was good.
After that we found another model village for lazy tourists.
But that shit wasn’t even funny the first time so lets move on.
Time for some culture.
Yes, we went to the Hungarian Opera.
But nobody has time for that shit so we just did the half hour tour.
They do about 6 different tours at the same time in different languages. Tub was struggling with the humiliation of having to go in the English group with all of the dickhead countries plus a few that didn’t have a special tour for their own language. Tub overhead a Latvian couple talking to each other. “Oi! That’s not fooking English!” You can’t take her anywhere.
Finally the next door neighbour nobody wants to have came out.
So we are well in to the European tour now, lets have a quick look at the map.
We’ve done Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary. Interestingly Greece looks like rubble even from space.
Still to go: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and France. Even Hitler would consider this tour challenging.
Tub found a week of bridge in Italy after Christmas which is run by Fulvio Fantoni.
He’s the best bridge player in the world and you get a chance to play with him. I think we’ll be adding another away leg with Italy to the tour.
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