One week to go

In one week's time I'll be leaving for Budapest, Hungary for two weeks.  My traveling companions, Allen, my husband, and our friend, Marilyn, will be staying in an apartment there as we explore the city and the towns nearby.  If you've read my travel blogs before you'll know the three of us travel together often.

We decided upon Budapest about six months ago when we were looking to where our next trip would be.  We thought we'd consider some out of the way places--places we hadn't thought about going to before.  We quickly landed on Budapest as our destination.  It was relatively inexpensive and came well recommended.  In fact, after we had chosen it, a friend of ours told us that it is his favorite city.  So we felt like we had chosen well.

Being a city that isn't always on everyone's radar (one person needed to ask me what country it's in) had some positive aspects to it.  We researched ahead of time in relative quiet--since few people have been there, there weren't many with opinions about it (except of course the friend who declared it his favorite city).  We read our tour books without the usual "you have to see this" that comes when you travel to more usual destinations.

We've spent time watching Hungarian movies (some of which are admittedly pretty darn depressing) and trying our best to learn a little of the Hungarian language.  Hungarian isn't really related, at least not closely, to any other language.  And it's true, it sounds very different.  In the past few months, we've picked up a few phrases and words to help us get by but understanding the grammatical makeup of the language is next to impossible!  But we shall survive.

So here we are, with a week until departure.  I'm really ready to go and happy to have a vacation.  The apartment where we're staying has wifi so I'm hoping I'll easily be able to get online and keep these posts up.  So check back, especially after 12 October. 

Vislat!