Flying to Budapest

First of all, I apologize for my late blogging. Here is a quick overview of arriving to Budapest.
So we (four students) leave Seattle on Friday the 13th for Budapest. As we were waiting at the Seattle terminal for our flight, we saw luggage being transported to other planes. Do you wonder how your luggage gets damaged when you fly? Well, the guy that drives the luggage to the plane drives too fast while taking a turn so your luggage flies off luggage vehicle. Now you know.

We got on the plane to Frankfurt, which was very crowded and I even felt crowded at about 100 lbs. One of the students decided to get upgraded to the business class which was definitely much more comfortable. Overall, the flight to Frankfurt was great and we got there safely. I also learned that if you order you make a special food order for the plane ride (i.e. no gluten or vegetarian), you are the first to get served for all meals. Something to keep in mind the next time you have a long flight and you sit toward the end of the plane.

Our flight from Seattle landed on time in Frankfurt, but was directed to land on the wrong side of the airport. The airport was very busy, so the pilot had to parked the plane rather than take us to a terminal and we were taken by bus to the terminal. Once there, we decided to find something to eat since we had about two hour wait. We settled on some ham sandwiches. I was surprised how the sandwiches had butter on them instead of mayonnaise which gave the sandwiches a much different taste than I was used to.

We finally boarded the flight to Budapest. Again, during the boarding, we were transported to the plane with a bus. The flight was about 1 hour and 15 minutes. We arrived in Budapest and got our luggage. We also had to wait for another member who was supposed to arrive 10 minutes later. One of us decided to meet the taxi driver to let him know we were waiting for another member. So we waited… and waited…. and waited. Finally, the lights of the baggage claims for the other flight disappear from the information board, which was about 30 minutes later. We decided to walk out since we knew something did not make sense. We walked out and we saw the driver, but the member was still missing. It turned out the missing student was in the bus the entire time, and his flight arrived about 20 minutes earlier prior to our flight – our first miscommunication in a foreign country.

We leave the Budapest airport on the bus to go to the hotel. So here are some things I found interesting while leaving the airport and heading to the hotel:

1. Music – the American music we listened to was similar to KISS FM or 89.5
2. Graffiti—it was all over the buildings. I don’t know whether any parts of Seattle have that much graffiti.
3. 330 ft on the BK advertising billboard – this does not mean that Burger King is 330 feet away. The ft stand for the currency in Hungary which is forint. Silly mistake if you ask me.
4. Club names –Names such as Marilyn and Bonnie & Clyde
5. Buildings – the building on the outskirts of the city looked very poor and a lot of rubble from buildings that were at some point demolished.