December 2006 - London / Budapest / Timisoara
The end of the 1st year in which I decided to have New Year Resolutions - even though they weren't in a normal sequence. I decided what they would be either a month before the New Year or a month after the New Year. This year there will be more, a combination of old and new (still a work in progress).
To go over December - the holiday and Christmas party haven. Christmas was spent here in London with Nic and Christine and their relatives. Not having any relatives here I was "invited" to spend Christmas with them, or was it me inviting myself along ; ). It was the first time that I had a proper English Christmas lunch, delicious food and like in all other cultures it was too much food, if you attempted to eat it all it would have been hard to move a muscle hours afterwards (isn't this right Nic?).
We flew to Budapest early on the 26th - there could have been a few problems as Nic decided to turn my alarm off (not snooze but off) and if it wasn't for a distant voice (Christine) which asked "was that the alarm?" that came to me like in a dream and made me wake up we could have continued sleeping. We all slept on the plane to Budapest and when we exited out of the airport we took the exit which was less crowded and tried to find our Regina car hire desk. There was no desk.. go to the information desk where the lady is on the phone.. ask "Can you" and get an answer of "No" even before finishing the sentence. In the end Regina car hire was found (two persons with a sign containing Nic's name on it, but because my great idea of taking the exit which wasn't as crowded we didn't pass them). We exit the airport and make our way to the car park, the Regina employees walk over to a cute Mercedes, open the doors and take out paperwork. It is a beautiful car, but it must surely be his personal car? Nope, it was our car, a delight to be a passenger in (car mirrors that folded inwards when you locked the car / seat warmers for those -5'C days).
Budapest is a beautiful city with delicious food and mixed people, friendly to completely unfriendly. The accommodation that we found was reasonable too, an apartment which could have housed 6 or 7 people instead of 3. The next day we did some more sightseeing, Nic helping to fund the lifestyle of two illegal gamblers at one of the sights that we visited. The drive to Timisoara was pleasant with a side stop at the Kora store (Christine and I wanted to stop at Metro but Nic made the executive decision and took us next door to Kora).