Getting Out of the Bubble

When I first started writing this post midway through 2018 I started it like this "2018 has been the first year in a long time where I have really stayed still". But that wasn't really a fair assessment of my year and, in fact, just highlighted how absolutely spoilt I am when it comes to travel and holidays. How spoilt must someone be to say that x days abroad was a slow year? Usually I pack in a multitude of trips, whether they be for a couple days or a couple weeks. Usually I manage a good mix of long haul and European trips. Usually I don't plan that far in advance and travel whenever and wherever I can. And really this year was no different. The only difference was that I only had 1 non-european trip, and no long haul flights. I'll wait a moment for you to start playing the most tiny violin in the world for my hardships. What a travel brat. So instead of talking about how much I didn't see, let me focus on what I did see and do. Instead of moani...

When my American friend, Alex, came to visit the UK, I wanted to show him a little bit of another side of Europe as well. Somewhere different to London, and not too touristy. I didn’t want to go to Paris, or Rome, some places were too similar to England, and others too far afield for a couple days. Eventually we set on Lisbon, but weeks of procrastinating led to the flight prices rising to astronomical prices – one again it was back to the drawing board. Finally I went rogue and just booked Budapest. Budapest is somewhere that people have always raved about to me, my sister described it as her favourite place in Europe, and it has a reputation as being a pretty cool and vibrant city. It seemed like a good choice. Budapest may not be on everyone’s radar, but it is firmly entrenched as one of the must see cities of Eastern Europe (although the Hungarians don’t appreciate being called part of Eastern Europe). The city has a long and varied history and a lot of this is reflected in ...