The Bakers Grand European Vacation

How many Air Baltic engine pics can I take? A lot apparently.

One of my favorite things to do despite never having actually purchased a single thing.

I’m finding all the perfect Christmas gifts for Brooks (sorry to ruin the surprises Brooks except I probably won’t actually follow through on this shopping since my track record for airline shopping is zero.)

Our flight to Budapest leaves at 6:45am so our meeting time this morning was 5:30am. We have to check our bags (backpacks are too large for European carry on) which I’m not mad about. We just aren’t sure how much time to allow so we are erring on the early side.

Everyone slept well, likely because we were all just completely spent.

We are all through and headed to the gate.

We made it to the hotel easily, grabbed our bags from the concierge and waited for Greg to get us checked in. After waiting in basically a non moving line he was told he needed our passports which were still in his bag. After retrieving those quickly and basically telling the front desk clerk that she wasn’t going to help the Americans directly behind him who also didn’t have their passports ready we finally had the keys to our two rooms and were headed up to the rooms.

We were both on the second floor but located as far apart as we possibly could be. I’m pretty sure that was the front desk’s gift to Greg after he literally told her “no” to I’m going to help these people.

Our rooms are both super nice so they were worth the wait.

The plan was to decompress a little bit and then meet back up for dinner. Greg and I worked a little bit and then we were all off in search of food.

Airport restaurants are our only option. We checked out a few places and ended up at a restaurant we ate at on our last trip. It has a ski chalet vibe. I was so tired I literally took no pics.

We made it back to our rooms. Completely exhausted but all in agreement that we had a successful first day. We assume that was our hardest day powering through with essentially zero sleep.

The good news is that we all had a great day and we will actually like each other! Maybe the beer helped.

We decide to leisurely make our way out into the city from the pagoda to begin our trip back to the hotel. The weather has been close to perfect. There were times when we were slightly chilly with a breeze but overall we really lucked out.

The surfing occurs on the outer edge of an English park that contains a pagoda. Weirdest sentence ever but it’s accurate. Greg is obsessed with the pagoda and is convinced Louisville needs one.

We walked along the paths making our way to the mother land. Or pagoda.

It’s been over an hour since our last meal so feels right to eat again. This time we got random things and split them. Or rather Greg and I got random things and Linda and Carry nibbled with us.

Before trying to eke out one more hour of walking we stopped at the restroom.

Cigs anyone?

We strolled for approximately 20 minutes towards the raging water in the middle of the city where people surf. It’s crazy how much water there is as well as the number of surfers in the middle of what should be the work day.

We decided to stroll through an outdoor market that was close. Brooks and I had been here before and enjoyed it.

Next up….surfing! Watching. Not participating.

It’s now 11:15. Time for a beer. Better head to the Hofbraus house where we know we can count on the beer to be good, cold and plentiful.

After our snack and drinks we decide to head to the next stop.

We walked to the Marienplatz with about ten mins to spare. Initially there weren’t a ton of people there waiting.

Greg’s parents walked in after us and when they met us Linda said did you get a pic with the lion? I said no, did you?

We made our way back to the glockenspiel and it’s getting really crowded now. We chose a nice spot in the sun to watch the show.

Greg somehow remembered mostly all the details from the first time we saw it. I didn’t remember much of anything. Once the show was over, as noted by the giant gold bird singing, we made our way to the next stop.