Budapest - a great place to meet up with friends

We arrive Budapest by overnight train from Krakow.  All our gear (16 saddlebags and 4 bagged bikes) and the five McFerrins fit into one 6-bed train compartment laid out for sleeping.  The beds were 3 bunks high with a foot-wide aisle between them.  Good thing a sixth ticket holder and the possible inhabitant of one of the beds didn't show!

Our first night in Budapest was spectacular.  The monumental architecture built between 1850 and 1900 was showcased in lights.  Here is the Chain Bridge linking the past towns of Buda and Pest into the modern day city of Budapest.

Jackie, Jonny and Buckshot (others know him as Aspen), friends from Calgary met us in Budapest.  We spent the week loving a 8 month old baby and seeing the sights.  Self-guided walking tours, museums, mineral baths...Buckshot did it all.

Jackie, Buckshot, Tarn, Markos, Rick, Tanya and Ronald Reagan???  Hungary existed behind the Iron Curtain following World War II.  In 1956 a people's revolution was squashed and not until 1990 was the country released to independence from the Soviet rule.  In the 1980's Ronald Reagan spoke strongly for the freedom of Hungary which is why his statue is here in Budapest.  If you are ever in Budapest check out the House of Terror...a grim museum detailing the life of the Hungarian people under Nazi and Communist control.  The last Hungarian sentenced to  imprisonment in Siberia was finally released in the year 2000.

Some Hungarian fare.  Delicious, yet a practice in patience and diplomacy.  The five meals we purchased equaled 24 items on our receipt.  Do you see 5 items on each of these two plates?  Turns out they charged us separate for the paper plate, the dressing on the salad, the sprinkle of parsley on the dressing....and had added five items they could not identify when we went over the receipt with them.  We don't like to make an issue  but when our bill totaled 24,000 Hungarian Forint (about $100 Canadian) at a supposedly "economical" food market, it's time to check the numbers!!!

Maisy, Elsie, Sampson, Tarn, Markos and Jordi.  We got connected to a New Zealand family of five, kids 12, 10 and 8 who were backpacking for a year.  It was great to spend the day with them hiking up to the Citadel, sharing a picnic, and exploring Budapest through younger eyes. 

Square donuts...they completely fulfilled exceptional expectations!

Sampson and Timo.  Timo drove with his dad Andreas and brother Kai from Stuttgart to Budapest to meet us for the week end.  Sampson and Timo became great friends this past Spring when Timo attended Western Canadian High School as an exchange student for three months.

And so, we say goodbye to Europe.  It's been three months of autumn, kind people, and cultures that form the base of our culture in North America.  Our experience has been foundational for the great unknown in the countries new-to-us that lie ahead. Tomorrow morning we travel to Mumbai, India.  A modern mega-city of 18 million and a culture that Sampson, Markos and Tarn are only familiar with through movies and the people from India that they have met.  Rick and I traveled Rajasthan and the area between Delhi and Nepal by bicycle in 1999.  We are now headed to the more tropical regions of India.  The states of Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.  We are excited for the adventure that lies ahead!!!