A car we saw on the street that we had to take a photo of! Looks as though this guy was living in his car as he had absolutely everything piled in and on top of it :)
Well there was definitely no sign of winter during our weekend in Budapest. I think we all underestimated how hot it would be in Hungary! Was about 25 degrees every day.
We left London Gatwick on Friday evening after work, and flew Malev Hungarian Airlines into Budapest to meet our fine young friend Simon Dixie. I must say, Malev was one hell of a step up from our usual EasyJet :)
Arrived in Budapest to find out we didn't really know how to get into the city. The bus we thought we had to catch wasn't anywhere to be seen... So, I asked "English?" to a few people, and we got more directions about where to go. Then one of the guys I asked which bus to catch, came up to Simon and asked if we wanted a lift in his car to the city. So, we thought, "yeah, why not". Well, what a ride that ended up to be! Hopping into strange peoples cars in the middle of Hungary probably isn't something I'd recommend to everyone. There were five of us that jumped into this little two-door car. Driving into the city was my first time seeing real poverty. The streets were run-down, the houses not finished and just general poor-ness to be seen. Turns out, our driver was a security officer for the United Nations and was currently working in Kosovo. He had plenty of disturbing stories to tell no doubt....
Overall Budapest was an amazingly peaceful city. We felt safe walking everywhere at any time of day. And... I have never been to a city where they leave the tables and chairs from a restaurant out over night. But they do, because no-one steals them! Never felt like anyone was eyeing up my bag and the people were very friendly. Budapest reminded me a lot of Prague, but without the tourism and English stag do's. So, if you are ever deciding between Prague or Budapest, take Budapest!
Who are these people?
Well this is as close as we got to the memorial. I tried my very hardest to talk our way into the ceremony, but the London policemen were not having a bar of me. We got up early (well for us on a weekend), stormed onto the tube and arrived at Hyde Park corner shortly after 11am to find that you needed a ticket. Only 1500 were allocated, and as we didn't have one, this was as close as we got. The top shot is as far as our lens (fully zoomed in) would take us. Couldn't see Clarke there though... Hope all of you guys back home watched it on TV. We'll have to visit the memorial another day.
