Vacation: Budapest, Bratislava & Prague
April 19, 2006 - May 1, 2006

Please excuse the tardiness of this vacation review. Lady Awesome and I spent our honeymoon in Eastern Europe six months ago, and I've just now gotten around to transcribing my journal. I don't even remember a third of these events so it's a good thing I wrote this shit down. Now without further ado, let's jog my memory! Who knows, there may even be a ding-dong or two. You've been warned.

Day Zero – April 19, 2006

5:00 p.m. - Lord, hang on a second. I need another bite of tuna salad. -- So much has happened and we haven't even boarded the plane yet. A "suspicious package" shut down Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Lady Awesome and I stood around with ten thousand of our closest friends, not knowing anything other than we were most likely not going to make our 4:30 flight. After an hour and a half, a guy riding a hilarious Segway told us via bullhorn that the airport was again fully operational. Lufthansa was nice enough to push the flight back to 5:30, which gave me enough time to eat tuna salad from a kiosk and visit the duty-free shop. I may be thirsty for a drink, but I refuse to pay twenty dollars for a fifth of Smirnoff. However, I'll gladly pay five dollars for a mini during the flight because logic goes out the window when I'm flying in a metal can 30,000 miles above the hard ground. Whatever. I've got my puzzle magazine and my iPod and Lady Awesome, so let's do this. Let's leave this God forsaken "suspicious package" country and fly for nine hours on a plane where everyone speaks German.

5:45 p.m. - We're moving. It may be one mile per hour, but we're moving. I just saw an outline of Germany on the safety video. It looks like every bird crap on my car. Ooh, this just in: the cocktails are free! Retribution! Heil Germany! -- P.S. Our flight attendant has the most amazing glasses.

8:15 p.m. EST (1:00 a.m. wherever we are?) - I'm bad with time zone math, perhaps due to the numerous free cocktails. The meal was quite amazing, complete with Camembert cheese. The guy behind me is a hick and opened his salad dressing with his teeth. -- I'm watching the in-flight movie, Dreamer (the horse movie starring Dakota Fanning). I'd like it a lot better if I had another free whiskey, but then, I also might cry. Lady Awesome and I agree that Lufthansa is so awesome that we could spend our two weeks on this plane as long as nobody watches when we inevitably have a genital party.

Day Zero (sort of) – April 19, 2006

No Idea a.m. Dark o'clock - I've always taken it on blind faith that the earth was round, but I guess Copernicus was right. We travelled east and saw the sun go down. Nearly eight hours later, the sun is rising. Ooh, breakfast is being served even though dinner was served four hours ago. It's a nice perk, I suppose; one that Copernicus never knew.

11:00 a.m.-ish - We landed. Feeling a little frazzled. Underslept. Judging from the passengers, apparently old people visit Budapest.

Day One – April 20, 2006

1:00 p.m. - I've been awake for twenty-four hours, but here's my first impression of Budapest. It's like Atlanta. We've got cool vandalism. They've got cool vandalism. We've got Bon Jovi on the radio (probably). They've got Bon Jovi on the radio (definitely). Budapest is clean and open and the billboards are close-ups of people's faces. The minibus driver from the the airport is my new hero. A car almost hit us and the minibus driver stared into his soul. Equal parts mind-blowing and creepy. Our accommodation is on the fourth floor of an old building with a cafe and clothing boutique hidden in its alcove. It's all so very cute. My only concern is that we share a wall with our accommodation's old lady owner and a sign in our room says, "Keep quiet after 22:00." Sorry to break this to you, sign, but we're on our honeymoon.

10:10 p.m. - My throat is sore again. I guess this means I'll have to be drunk for the next two weeks so I won't notice. We ate our first dinner at a cute diner called Pado's. Lady Awesome ordered some kind of cheesy chicken and a beer. I got a wok-vegetable pancake and half a liter of Gosser (beer). Total bill, 2,680 Forint ($11 USD). I love Budapest. The city is so old world and yet metropolitan, like a statue of a naked man with nipples five times larger than they should be. The news of the hour, though, is that Lufthansa delivered our lost luggage. Lady Awesome is ecstatic to wear clean clothes again and I'm ecstatic that she has access to her sexy honeymoon lingerie again. This trip is getting more amazing by the minute. What a seriously gorgeous city. I'm smitten. Three people asked us for directions yesterday in Hungarian, so it's a relief to know we don't look like the tourists that we are.

Read Days Two & Three of Sir Awesome's Eastern Europe Review