After my marathon session of updating my last posting I wasn't up to much else as you can imagine so I headed back to the hotel and Jancis and I later went out for dinner of Koshary yet again. Later that night in my hotel room Jancis listed out about 40 things that we would remember of the tour. She sent it out in an email and for those of you who weren't on the tour it isn't worth sharing since its definitely inside jokes. After Jancis left I tried to get to sleep since I was due to be woken up at 12.30am to catch the cab out to the airport. As usual the Faulty Towers aspect of the hotel didn't do their job and luckily I had set my alarm anyway and they were the backup.

The cabbie on the way out did the usual thing and tried to charge me extra but since I was subsisting on a few hours sleep I wasn't in any mood to take that garbage and gave him the fixed price and told him to go away. I went to pick up my ticket and the ticket office hadn't heard anything about this so had another 15 minutes of hanging around while they sorted it out. The lady finally sent me up the steps into a dodgy part of the airport to look for the Malev air office to collect my ticket. Once I got up there I asked the question could I go up and use the lounge so I could get a cup of tea since Malev is part of One World the same as Qantas. The guy in the office didn't even know Qantas was part of One World so I thought here goes since all he said was I needed to let the desk know (I thought he meant the lounge desk).... Picked up the ticket and went through scanning, checked in the bags, went through passport control then went up to the lounge and showed my Qantas Club card and was told I had to go back to the information desk to get a voucher. I told them they could do it (was feeling a bit tired by this stage) so they did and 10 minutes later was told that Malev would not give me a voucher - mum you can hear me grinding my teeth about now..... So I went to the information desk downstairs who told me that I needed to go up to the lounge - weeeelllll I lost it and said that I wasn't going anywhere until someone could give me a straight answer and luckily one guy came up to me took me back through passport control and back to the Malev baggage check in desk where the guy from the office was who promptly accused me of not listening to what he was saying earlier. I walked away because by that stage I wanted to leave the country and if I had of stayed I probably would have committed murder.

Finally got the lounge and had my cup of tea - thank god. Any future travellers to Cairo airport the lounge (only one and its run by Egypt air) is crap.

Got into Budapest and even managed to have a few hours sleep on the plane and decided to follow the instructions to the hostel that had been posted on the web and see where I would end up. Surprisingly enough I got here OK - only made one mistake and went down the street parallel to the hostel's street. I quickly realised this and got here OK. I checked in about 8am and was asleep again by about 8.30 for another few hours. Once up and going again I had a chat with a Kiwi girl called Delia and we ended up going to see Buda (Budapest is actually two cities i.e. Buda and Pest - didn't realise this until I started reading about it before coming over). We didn't see much but both of us were happy to sit in the park and chill out in the sun. Later that afternoon I cooked for the first time in months - Delia was craving omelets and I thought why not and we bought the ingredients and I cooked. From there Delia was going out to the see the Opera since its the done thing to do here in Budapest and its really cheap - it cost me about $3 aussie. I saw Tosca and struggled to stay awake for the entire performance since I was feeling very tired and just wanted to sleep.

The next day I decided to see some of Pest and set out to the markets up the road to buy some fruit for the day. I got to the market and made a decision that I was still too tired to do anything and would go to the thermal spa instead. I hung out there for about 2 hours and had a massage as well (it wasn't worth it at all). I then went back to the hostel for another nap - thinking that Egypt really has done me in.

Finally got out and saw more of Pest yesterday and found the architecture beautiful. Saw the highlights including the Terror museum which is the museum in the same place where the Nazi's and Soviets set up shop to terrorise the Hungarians. It was disturbing to say the least. Had a quiet night in at the hostel then was up again this morning to see the rest of Buda. I walked around for a few hours but apart from the palace and the Fishermans Bastion there isn't alot over on the Buda side of the Danube.

For those of you interested I have made a decision on when I will be heading back to London. I have booked a flight from Berlin on 5 June and will be making my way overland there in the coming weeks eg I travel to Vienna for a few days tomorrow. Since I landed in Budapest I debated with myself what I wanted to do and figured that three months on the road is enough for the time being and I can always go back to it later if I want. In the meantime I will probably see Vienna, Salzburg (do the sound of music tour), head up to Prague then be in Berlin on 31 May (I have already booked the hostel). Am looking forward to watching some English TV, going to bookshops, having steamed veggies for dinner and understanding the language. I will also use the time to get my resume organised and start applying for jobs. Back in the workforce - oh my god I am not sure whats worse....travelling or work.

That'll do for now - will give another update soon.
Cheers
Toni