But this evening it all got interesting. They were on the 18:15 BA flight to Heathrow. They left the office just after 15:00. An hour to the airport, through security and on the plane. No problems.
Except there is a strike at Budapest airport, and the security people aren't turning up to work. So it took them almost four hours to get through passport control and the xray machine. So they missed their flight and have to stay the night and get the first flight home tomorrow.
So now I'm worried about getting home on the 18:15 flight tomorrow. I even looked into hiring a car and driving to Vienna, and flying home from there. That's not a cheap option, but at least I might get home tomorrow...
But I checked in for the BA flight tomorrow anyway. I'm planning on getting to the airport for 1pm, and trying to convince BA to take my suitcase stupidly early, then getting in the security queue. Who knows. I might still be here on Saturday. Or Sunday...
So take my mind of that, I went for another stroll up and down the banks of the Danube. This time I walked North from the hotel, over the Bridge at the end of Margaret Island, back down the Pest side past parliament and then over the Chain Bridge and back up the Buda side.
A few things to mention about the photos:
1) It's quite cold. By the time I was half way round this trip I was starting to lose feeling in my fingers.
2) As previously mentioned, I don't have a tripod with me, so these are all hand held
3) My work laptop has The GIMP installed, but I only have a trackpad, so there is no trickery going on here. All the long exposures are "in camera", and it's a compact so they aren't RAW conversions. The only manipulation is resizing, crop and straightening. (So don't tell me about the lights being burnt out and needing to be dodge/burned - I can't do that with a trackpad!)
So here goes...
I left my hotel (the Novotel Danube) and walked North to the bridge. Crossing over the bridge and looking South looked like this:
This is the same view but moved right a bit. The Novotel is the blue building on the far right.
See what I mean about the graffitti thing? This is part of the bridge:
I was quite chuffed with the long exposure plus flash method on these photos to get the foreground but also the context of the background.
This is the Pest side of the bridge. Reflections in the Danube and streaky cars on the road.
Then turning onto a (deserted and a little spooky) sidestreet brought me to the back of the Parliament building, where there was a closed Christmas market (it closed at 8pm and I got there at about ten past)
Fantastic tree!Then a tram went past:
Continuing South I got back to the Chain Bridge. By this point I was starting to get cold, and I really needed the toilet, so they blurriness probably gets worse from here on...)
Someone had put flags on the bridge tonight. Here's my attempt at getting a photo of a fluttering flag in the dark...
On the other end of the bridge is a tunnel which runs under the palace. Apparently when they did last years Red Bull air race, some crazy pilot wanted to fly through it in a plane..
Underneath the end of the Chain Bridge is another fine example of some graffitti:
Walking back up the Pest side there is a nice church, with two random chairs outside it:
And finally, peering through a glass door I saw this:
The photo hasn't really come out very well. I loved this doorway because it reminds me of a cross between the Chernobyl level of Call of Duty 4, the Matrix (the de ja vu scene) and the film Nightwatch. I really wanted to go in and take some more pictures, but the gate was locked...
So then I came back to the hotel, and have spent a long long time writing this post. :)
And now I'm chatting to people on Skype, and trying not to worry about getting home tomorow.
G'night.
