Part 6: Final Stop: Budapest

Since we already spent a week in Budapest, I booked a later bus that left Bratislava at noon instead of earlier in the morning.  We ate breakfast, packed our bags, and walked over to the bus depot.  The bus was almost 20 minutes late since it was coming from Prague, and they were still doing construction there.  We got on the bus, and I watched almost 10 episodes of The Big Bang Theory.  We arrived in Budapest around 3pm.  We got off the bus and went to the Metro station to buy some food.  I honestly have no idea what I bought-- it was some sort of sandwich.  We sat at an open green area until we decided to finally head to the Airbnb.

Stairs to Airbnb

We went back to the Metro and bought a 24 hour pass, since we weren't sure what we wanted to do.  We caught the train and rode it to the end of the line.  We then went to the adjacent bus station to catch the local bus that took us near the Airbnb.  This airbnb was almost an hour from the downtown center via public transit.  It was in a very suburban area, and really close to the airport which was something that I wanted for our early morning flight.

We finally arrived to the Airbnb, and our host was super friendly.  We were in an extended part of the house -- it must of been an old loft, but renovated for guests.  We had to climb the stairs, which was almost like climbing a ladder, to the loft.  The loft had a bathroom with a shower, mini fridge, kitchen, tv, and dvd collection.  It was a very unique set up.

Park we had dinner at

After we were settled, we walked to a Burger place that was about a 25 minute walk away.  Of course, it was closed when we got there, and it was only 5pm at night on a Friday.  We went to a bakery next door that had hot dogs and pizza.  We took our food to a park that we passed on the way to the burger place.  We enjoyed the quiet park and ate our dinner.  It began to sprinkle, so we went back to the Airbnb.  We relaxed for the rest of the evening since we were going to leave a 5:30 am to head to the airport.

We met our host at 5:30am to get a ride to the bus stop.  It was something that she wanted to do-- I think it was on her way to work.  Anyways, she drove us to the bus stop and we catch the bus that took us to the airport.  We got to the airport around 6am, but had to wait in line at the check in counter since the self-automated machines for British Airways weren't working.  After we were checked in and went through security, we used the rest of our HUF to get Burger King for breakfast. We caught our flight and made it to London safely.

Since we were riding with American Airlines on the way back, we had to go through the security checkpoint, where we were asked what we did, why we were in Europe, where we work in the States, etc.  It was a little odd, and by far the strictest security we came across.  We were approved, and we caught out flight to Chicago!

The flight back to the States was really nice.  We were in the back of the plane, so we had a lot of leg room.  The movie selection was alright, but we had to wait for the movie to start, and we couldn't pause the movie.  We eventually made it to Chicago, where the security checkpoint was once again really long.  Luckily, our line moved pretty fast, and we made our connection to Phoenix.

I tried my best to not sleep on the way to Phoenix, but I did.  After our 3 hour flight, we caught the Arizona Shuttle that drove us 2.5 hours up the mountain to Flagstaff.

Kodak was very excited to see us, and we quickly fell asleep.  Getting back to Arizona Time wasn't that bad.

Overall, I had a great time abroad.  I cannot wait to go back!  Just need to save my money :)