** Don’t forget about my contest that is running thru August 28th! Have a chance to win a trinket from my trip and framed photograph! http://bit.ly/a8urok **

A thing to note with pictures posted on these posts is that they’re SOOC (straight out of camera) from my old Panasonic. My “better” shots will be posted when I’m back state-side with time to process and make them gorgeous.

Wednesday morning came rather “early” for me. You see, this weekend before this trip the crazy notion got into my head that if I stayed up most of Tuesday night I could perhaps have a chance of actually sleeping on the plane. I’m by no means an easy flyer thus I figured if I was to the point of pure absolute exhaustion it would be a good thing for both my Mom and my sanity. That said Mack and I made it until about 3am watching the mini-series “The Pillars of Earth” before I got extra whiny having been up almost 21 hours at that point.

I know, I’m such a pleasure to be around sometimes.

Before heading to the airport I stopped by the bank to pick up some American currency so I could hit yet another bank to get some Euros. The day before I had had Mack call around to various banks (having run out of luck at my bank since their policy is they special order foreign currency) and found that Wells Fargo actually has Euros on hand. When I went into Wells Fargo they remembered my boyfriend had called and said they were “expecting me.”

Not creepy at all, really.

After those last errands Mack dropped me off at the airport where I met up with my Mom at the Air France counter. After checking in and going thru security we went to find out gate at the other terminal and determined that specific terminal kind of had no real food selection available. Back tracking we went back to Seateac’s main terminal and were both able to get food (and snacks for the plain ride) before going back with about half an hour to spare before our flight.

I guess since it has been nine years since my last International trip I had forgotten the sheer size and mass of those airplanes used. I felt my legs had plenty of room for the 10-hour flight… until the guy in front of me leaned back all the way and the woman behind me started playing knee hockey with the back of my seat. I was, though, in heaven since Air France has quite the selection of movies available to watch which I did almost the whole flight.

Yes, I attempted to sleep but as you all probably know well enough: airplanes are not comfortable to sleep on.

Finally, almost ten hours later, we flew into France and I was blown away by a) how beautiful the country was and b) how rural a lot of it still was.

I know this paragraph might sound a little narrow minded but realize these thoughts came when I was severely tired and confused. The Paris airport we went into was a little confusing in the way that it was marked. Also? It smelled heavily of body odor. And, silly American, I forgot about the squatter toilets that is a main feature of bathrooms in here. Although I became really well versed in squatting in Japan it was still, er, a surprise to discover when we took a pit stop after the flight.

When we went through passport inspection for some reason they lingered on mine for the longest time. There was a whole lot of looking from my passport to me and back again with rapid French spoken in the meantime. Now, my passport picture is a few years old and the difference between passport picture Anne and traveled jetlagged Anne is a) Glasses b) hair pulled back and not as beautiful as picture and c) I was smirking in real life. Eventually they decided that, indeed, I was the girl from the picture and we were let thru to find out way to the different terminal for our flight.

This sign amused me too much not to take a picture.

Our flight to Budapest was delayed by an hour so when we finally got on the flight both Mom and myself were past the point of exhaustion and ready for a nap. I think the flight had hardly taken off before both she and I were passed out.

I remember at one point during the two hour flight we hit turbulence and I thought to myself “This airplane isn’t like the Air France one and is held together by popsicle sticks.”

I think next time I’ll sleep the night before a flight…

We were met at the airport by a representative from the cruise and were taken to the hotel here in Budapest. First thing I did was try to figure out the wireless Internet situation since I had promised Mack that I would skype him to let him know that we were safely in Budapest. An hour later I got it figured out and was able to let Mack know we were here safely and had a kick ass view from our hotel room.

The Hilton is on the site of a 13th-century convent in the heart of the Castle district. This, of course, means there is lots of interesting stuff close to our hotel that we were able to check out without having to walk that far.

And of course, to wind down the long and busy day, we stopped by and had a traditional dish of beef goulash with dumplings and Hungarian beer.

Afterwards, after a long day of travel, we went back to our hotel room and we both asleep by 7PM.

We are such party animals it hurts.