Budapest - the return

 So all week in Budapest I had a heavy cold. The kind that makes you very unpleasant to sit next to. Or anywhere near. Our colleagues, being mainly Americans, were tolerant and sympathetic. One chap probably caught my cold. One lady confessed that she had probably given it to me. Another lady went home feeling unwell but tested positive for covid-19. I'm not getting tested. My hugs are always slightly distanced anyway - I like the side-hug.

Highlight of the week : The prayer conference. Of course. This was our official reason for going to Budapest. We also tagged on a long weekend beforehand to celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary, due in mid-March.

Next best thing : The Terror Museum. This is the old headquarters of the Fascist, then the Communist secret police that were in operation from 1944 to 1991. The story was told with directness, honesty and restraint. Unforgettable.

Goulash : A total winner. I must get a good recipe.

Biggest regret : I should have eaten more cake.

Our AirBnB was a little apartment set in a traditional apartment block - a courtyard surrounded by doors and windows opening out onto walkways along which the neighbours all passed to get in ana out. There was a delightfully clanky old lift, but we were only on the second floor, so we sometimes walked down and occasionally even up the stairs. Next-door but one was a cake shop that did wonderful red-fruit-filled croissants and every kind of cake you can imagine. They also did rather lacklustre coffees and better hot chocolate. The cakes were very good indeed.

We ate in the evening a couple times with our more US-based colleagues, once in a Greek restaurant and once in, I think, a traditional Hungarian one, but mostly we skipped evening meals for the sake of our diet and our budget. We also found a splendidly cute Hungarian restaurant near our place, where we ate our first meal in Hungary, and a very good coffee shop called Double-Shot, where the salads were excellent and the coffee very good indeed.

We were near the Central Market and were glad to find a Tesco (yes!) and a Aldi nearby, too. We took some scenic tram rides - but we had to work out our own. Basically down one side of the river and up the other.

When we arrived neither of us knew any words of Hungarian at all. We quickly found some YouTube videos so that we could at least say hello, thank-you and goodbye. Everyone we met spoke English readily and happily, but our köszönöm thank-you always got a smile.

Pat's highlight may have been the zoo cafe that we went to for lunch one day. Sharing our table were, in order, Pascal the chameleon, Lucifer the rabbit and Arthur the guinea-pig. We were sat next to two charming toucans and there were lots of lizards, snakes and tortoises. We would have bene introduced to other animals but when my mouth started swelling up I thought it was probably time we left. The lunch was nice, too.