I am terrible at math but I think I calculated that it has taken me 38 hours to get from Honolulu to Budapest. On Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm, Joey Fala’s parents were gracious enough to take me to the airport and in exchange, I gave them the keys to my life: my condo, my car, and the keys to the church as Joey will be teaching my organ students while I am away.

My itinerary started with a direct flight to Newark with a two hour layover. I got pretty excited when they closed the door to the airplane on my next flight to London and I found an empty seat next to me. Unfortunately the excitement didn’t last long because a flight attendant came to ask whether I would give up my seat for a couple who wanted to sit together. Sure, no problem. And wouldn’t you know it, the single seat was next to a couple with a baby. The flight attendant assured me that it was a nice baby!

Anticipating an uncomfortable flight, I gave up my seat. In exchange I was brought an amenity kit from first class, a real pillow of standard size and a Saks Fifth Avenue comforter which made a huge difference! I was very cozy indeed and the 5 month old baby girl did not make a single peep throughout the entire flight! Yes, she slept some and was awake and playing the rest of the 7 hour flight to London. What a miracle!

I arrived at my London Heathrow hotel at 9:30 pm local time, anticipating a short night because my flight to Munich was scheduled for 7:25 am. So I set my alarm for 4:15 am only to wake up every two hours because of my jet lag. At 3:30 am I just gave up on sleeping and got ready to go to the airport.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that being a United Premier Gold member I was eligible to enter the Lufthansa lounge, in which I got a free buffet breakfast! It sure beat what I was carrying in my suitcase—cheese and crackers! So you can see I indulged myself with typical English breakfast fare: ham, scrambled eggs, a French roll, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes. (I passed on the baked beans!)

I arrived without incident to my next stop, Munich, but I inadvertently left my phone on Airplane mode which meant it didn’t update to local time! I almost missed my flight because I couldn’t figure out why there was such a big crowd going onto the plane when it was seemingly an hour early! As it was, our flight was delayed for about half an hour as we sat on the tarmac.

When I finally arrived at the Budapest airport on Monday afternoon and found my shuttle, we were delayed by about half an hour because of a bomb threat, and the police closed the airport to incoming vehicular traffic. 

It wasn’t until 3:30 pm that I got into my hotel room and found a welcome message on the TV.

We met our tour guide, Paul, who told us he has directed this tour, Highlights of Eastern Europe, for over 200 times since 1989—about 9-10 times per year for over 25 years and he considers it his “baby!”

P.S. It’s 2:30 am as I’m writing this. Can’t sleep!

https://youtu.be/gBvNwdqlUaM