My 'Proper' British dinner of fish, chips, peas, and Rose Wine.
The flight from Sky Harbor landed at London Heathrow's Terminal 5 at 1:30 PM UTC, 8 hours ahead of Mountain Time, where I was coming from. Suddenly it was midday and the last time I was on land it was the evening. Essentially I lost my Wednesday night, and now I had a seven-hour layover in London to plow through before getting on my plane to Budapest and getting to my much-anticipated final destination. The nerves and jitters from the day before were virtually gone by the time I hit Heathrow and replaced with adrenaline and excitement. I met a Bulgarian woman on this day on her way to Bucharest, who asked me if I knew the way to Terminal 3. I explained to her that both our flights are leaving from that Terminal and to follow me after we go through Security because I've done this route before. We took the connecting train to the terminal connecting stop and headed for Terminal 3. We shared a coffee at Starbucks before heading our separate ways, I to charge my electronics, her to catch some shut-eye before her 6PM flight to Bucharest. I had a good six hours to go before my flight took off.
Knowing my way around Terminal 3, I hit all the 'hot spots' I went to the last time I was at Terminal 3 in June, picking up delicious, pink champagne and vanilla truffles for 20 GBP apiece and charging my desperately low on charge iPod, phone, and laptop. I anxiously watched the clock tick as I knew Cousin Cini would be waiting for me at Ferihegy Airport in Budapest once I landed there! I grabbed a typical British dinner of Fish and Chips with a clean and crisp Rose wine before heading for my gate. We were bused out onto the tarmac and loaded onto our flying tube in the sky. Two and a half hours later, I touched down in Budapest, and met a fellow student studying abroad coming from Glasgow, who was also studying at Corvinus that season. 'What were the odds?" I thought. I was so tired due to my long haul trip I had to ask where the exit was even though it was clearly marked on the ground. Cini came to greet me and take me to her flat. It was a rough night as far as sleep went, as I watched the Redskins' preseason finale in the middle of the night before finally catching shuteye at 5AM. But, I was in Budapest, the place I'd be calling home for the next four months.
This was a fun day by all accounts, and the first true day of travel, even if it was spent in an airport. I was overjoyed to see Cini that night, and we made some small plans for the weekend, although she had to work, so there wasn't much. I knew I would spend the weekend trying to adjust to the time difference, as I knew to start with coming from nine hours behind would be rough, but I was in a place I knew, and a place I loved. That 'girl' in the airport wound up being Ayla Bergen, who turned into a good friend of mine while I was there! You never know who you're going to meet, and when you're going to meet them. More details on that will come when it's appropriate for the "One Year Ago Today" blog. For now, I'm just excited that I'm writing this reflective open diary to the world.
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