A Travel Night/Day

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 Our trip got underway with an uneventful ride to Pearson.  Thanks Chris for your Whitfield Limo Service.  As I always say, that is when the 'hurry up and wait' got underway.  A 7:00 pm drop off for a 10:10 flight.  A 7 hour flight to Amsterdam felt an awful lot like 70 hours despite KLM's efforts.  Speaking of KLM, we were impressed.  The service was top notch, the food was 'semi' palatable, and the leg room was quite a bit better than anything Air Canada or West Jet provides.  No extra charges for checked luggage and no extra charges for carry on luggage.  We really are getting screwed in Canada.  That was not really a rant...well, maybe it was!

With the 6 hour time change and the 7 hour flight we were starting to get a little groggy to put it mildly.  Sue got a little 'shut eye' but as per usual in my case, '20 winks' were not even achievable.  Can you say 'Red Eye'?  We also experienced the easiest customs check in ever.  They never even asked us the reason for our visit.

Amsterdam Airport is a fairly large airport that is built in a horse shoe shape.  And wouldn't you know it we landed in the terminal at one end and our connection flight was at entirely the other end of the terminal.  The first sign that we saw said that it would be a 28 minute walk.  I think that was using the flat escalator sections.  Walking the whole thing as we chose to do, took a little bit longer.  I guess we were using it to continue our training for the upcoming excursions.  

That, of course, began our 2nd 'hurry up and wait' session.  We were to have had a 3 hour layover but at the time when our boarding was scheduled to take place we figured out that our airplane coming in from Budapest was just arriving.  That delay was partly made up for by our pilots 'putting the hammer down' making up about 15 minutes of the 40 minute delay.  We were glad that our baggage arrived without delay and in one piece.  We did not have to clear customs (an advantage of flying from one EU country to another) and found our Viking Rep waiting with placard in hand.  So far our entry to Hungary was going flawlessly.  We jumped into a provided van and started our 40 minute ride to the hotel.  We moved about 200 feet and our Van driver jammed on the brakes coming within inches of sideswiping another vehicle that had pulled out in front of him.  It was a quiet ride to the Budapest Hilton.  Our driver's English was only marginally better than our Hungarian!

A short meeting with our Hotel Viking Rep, a quick check into the hotel, and we were off to our room.  I will let you judge the surprise and delight at the view from our room.  By this time we were running on fumes alone.  It did not, however, stop us from getting acquainted with a pretty tasty Hungarian Pilsner and an even better 'Cuvee" red wine.  By 9:00 pm we were toast!

Parliament Building from our room.

View across the Danube.

After dark.


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