October 18, 2015

October 18, 2015

                    

We were up by 7 a.m. in Budapest (or midnight at home).  We joined the remaining American couple and the other Canadian couple from our evening dining companions, for breakfast.  After breakfast good-byes, we got our jackets, and walked about two km on the dewy sun deck.  The sun was peeking through some cloud and the temperature was 4 C, we could see our breath. The sun was shining on the only statue in Budapest erected during the Russian occupation, a bronze statue of a woman raising a palm leave to the sky. It had been commissioned before the Russians arrived and was allowed to be erected with a slight change.  After the Russians left Budapest, the citizens voted on which Russian statues to keep and this was the only one selected. As we walked our laps on the walking track, it was interesting watching the crew load the colour coded tagged luggage on a baggage cart and three people were needed to haul the cart up a 20 meter ramp and along a 40 meter walkway and load the luggage onto a 10 meter conveyor belt. The luggage was then lined up on the sidewalk by the buses, so that people could identify their suitcases and see them loaded onto the proper bus with them to go to the airport.  Budapest has a lovely modern airport.  At one of the coffee places we noticed that slices of Dobos Torte, which was a menu item on the ship on dinnertime.   We left Budapest today, departing from the ship by 10:15 a.m. for the 30 minutes drive to the airport for the 1 p.m. departure of our to two hour flight to Amsterdam. The 737 plane did not have any television and the safety presentation was done by the cabin crew.  We walked a bit at the Amsterdam airport before boarding the next plane for a little over eight hour flight to Toronto. The step count was 15,107. The plane departed 30 minutes late, at 6 p.m., but there was a good cushion of time in Toronto. We were served a meal about two hours into the flight. There was chicken and rice, a zesty salad of peppers, corn and tomato, a fresh bun, a half litre bottle of water, a light foamy dessert mousse with a berry topping. wine, a piece of beemister cheese and two crackers.  About two hours after dinner was finished, the cabin stewards offered a 250 ml carton of vanilla cream and a 250 ml container of water to those people not sleeping. About an hour before landing, we were served a cinnamon bun and coffee, tea, juice or water.  We had lots of time to make all of the connections. Neither of us slept on the 8 hour trip from Amsterdam.  We had to go through Canada Customs and pickup our luggage before leaving the customs area, then, we needed to recheck our suitcases again and pass through security in order to get to the departure area. We hadn’t even, between the two of us, purchased the duty free allowance for a weekend away.  Once on the departure side, we paused for an Iced Cappuccino at the Tim Hortons booth.  It was another 15 minutes before we arrived at the gate.  We needed to descend two flights of stairs and go under the tarmac where the planes unloaded their passengers, then ascend two more flights of stairs (Escalators were available, as were moving walkways, but we did not use them, unless given no choice.) Then we arrived at the glistening new Westjet Gates B1 to B5 and had walked over 2,500 steps since arriving in Toronto!  The final flight home left a few minutes late, about 10:30, since the plane needed to be de-iced, and we landed just after midnight and took a taxi home.  The lawn had been nicely raked and all four trees had dropped their leaves in our absence.

Final steps total = 18,753, over 17 km.