Home

We are home from Budapest.  We left a week ago, about two weeks before our scheduled departure, and, against a number of odds, we made it back in one day.  I just wanted everyone who has been following our travels to know.  Also I have several Budapest posts in draft, which I will finish up and publish.  (Because there's not going to be a lot interesting going on here.)  And if you don't like reading about the travails of travel, just skip the next part.

About three weeks ago, we started hearing news about the spread of the virus in Europe, the ban (except for American nationals) for inhabitants of the Schengen zone (a group of European countries that have open borders, Hungary being one of them) to enter the US, and the cut-back on flights from Europe to the US.  On Saturday 3/14, we read that Delta was soon suspending all flights from Europe to the US.  I tried to contact Delta--by phone, twitter, and the website--about changing our tickets.  The phone immediately put me on-hold, and I waited and waited until the call dropped.  No one answered my tweets until about 10 days later, and the modify reservation option on the website didn't work (still doesn't).  So when I read that American would be flying from Europe to the US until March 18 to help Americans get home, I made a reservation and figured I would deal with Delta when I got back to the US.

The day before we left Hungary put a ban all restaurants, etc, and closed its borders.  That night the man who was taking us to the airport the next morning called and asked if we still wanted a pickup because another US client had just gotten an email that his flight was cancelled. I frantically searched the internet but couldn't find anything.  I called and back said we would take the 5:00 am pickup.

We got just a few hours of sleep before getting up at 4:00 and starting our trek.  We got to Budapest, then to Heathrow, where we had a six hour layover.  While at Heathrow, we saw flight after flight being cancelled.  Nevertheless, we took off on time and arrived at O'Hare.  We had seen pictures of the massive crowds at ORD the days before and read tales of people being crammed up together and standing on line for 7+hours. We only had a 90 minute layover in Chicago that we were so sure we would not make that I had booked us a non-refundable room at the ORD airport.

When we arrived in Chicago there were virtually no lines at all.  We got through immigration, through the mandatory health check and temperature taking, collected our bags and delivered them to the transfer point, went through security, caught a bus to take us around the airport to another terminal, found our gate, and boarded our flight.  I was astonished; 90 minutes is a tight connection at the best of times.

So we are home.  We are in a loose quarantine for two weeks (stay home, but can go to grocery store, pharmacy of walk outside, which is pretty much what all of Louisville is doing right now.).  Like everyone else we are scared: how quickly everything changed, how dire the prospects are, how terrifying it is to have a president who doesn't believe in science.

We are also worried for our friends in Budapest and are wondering what we will find if we go back next year.

Delta for all its vaunted no worries about changing or cancelling flights, will only refund us the return trip in miles, which we must use before October.  Fat chance of that happening.  And I will probably have to swallow the nonrefundable hotel.  But we are SO lucky.  We are safe, we have a safe place to live, we are vigilant about our health, we wash our hands a lot.

Spain! Travelling in Retirement II

Poster from the exhibition on the history surrounding Guernica  in the 1930s
at the Reina Elena Contemporary Art Musueum in Madrid.  

We are home from Spain, and I have lots of delights to chronicle over the next several days. But before I delve into the specific pleasures of our trip, I thought I'd do a kind of meta-reflection on travelling in retirement, as the actions of retirement are a main theme of my blog.

First, we had a wonderful  time.  We were fortunate in so many ways.  We had great weather.  We had made great choices in where to visit and  where to stay.  And none of the things we worried about (me, most specifically, what was happening in Barcelona during what seemed from the press to be the tumult of the independence movement).  And all our flights and connections went without a hitch.

But second, we learned something about our abilities to do this kind of trip: i.e., a multi-city, train-organized, tour over a relatively short period of time.  This is the kind of travel we used to do easily, but it was just a little bit harder this time. And it's very different from a month in Budapest or trips out from a European base (as we did during our Fulbrights).

The long and  the short of it, we had fun, but we arrived home exhausted.  Partly this is because Tony got bronchitis about 3 days into the trip, didn't feel very well, and hacked his way across Spain.  But it's also because we probably planned too much.  We did five days in Madrid, which felt great.  But then we did two short trips, one to Segovia and one to Toledo,  both of where we spent two nights, then went onto Barcelona for four days.  Probably next time, we will stay at least three days wherever we stop, because we felt rushed and too much on the go.  We need, or maybe better to say like, to be   more  leisurely.

I also need to try to not worry before stuff happens  (Yeah, well, that's not just a retirement thing.)  I was so worried about Catalonia, but it turned  out the only signs we saw were more flags (Spanish in Madrid, Catalonian in Barcelona).  In fact, the Saturday night we arrived in Barcelona, we walked about twenty minutes to dinner and didn't see a thing.  Later we learned that 750,000 people  had been peacefuly demonstrating in another part of the city.  I also over-worried about tight connections flyng back, but every connection was exactly on  time.  So good things happened (weather, travel, politics) and bad stuff (Tony battling it through the trip while coughing and feeling not great). Bottom line, as we move into  the next decade of our lives, we can still travel in Europe, going from one place to another via trains, wheeling our little suitcases.  But we will probably do it a little less quickly.

I don't plan to do a chronological recap of our trip.  Instead,  I have several thematic posts in mind.  But just to give  an overview;

Madrid:  Four days (not counting the arrival day).  Spent mostly in Madrid's magnificent museums: the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemizsa, and the Reina Sophia (contemporary).

Segovia.  Beautiful small city.  Relatively untouristed.  Unexpected grandeur of the Acqueduct.  Gorgeous views.

Toledo.  Also beautiful small city, but many more tourists.  Beautiful synagogue and cathedral.  Chasing the El Grecos (many in Toledo but spread out so it's hard to get to all of them).

Barcelona:  Modernisme architecture (the main draw for me).  Catalonian enthusiasm with Catalonian flags everywhere.  Fewer toursits than usual.

Everywhere: the food.  Tapas, tapas, tapas, and an occasional wonderful  sit-down meal.  Spanish ham (jambon Iberico) sandwich on crispy baguette-like bread with beer (I never thought I would like beer again but it goes  perfectly with these amazing ham bocadillas.).  Spanish wine.  Cava.  Well, you get my drift. . . .

If you are interested, stay tuned for some more detailed posts about our trip.

#Spain
#TravellinginRetirement

Spain! Travelling in Retirement I

This summer Tony and  I decided  to maximize the (somewhat waning) abilities of our bodies for strenuous travel and to do two trips  a year.  We decided to go to Spain this fall.  Next year we hope to go to Budapest in February and to the Baltic states in autumn.

Our itinerary:  November 1:  Fly to Madrid, five nights; train  to Segovia, two nights; train  to Toledo, two nights; train to Barcelona, 4 nights. November 15: Fly home from Barcelona.  It seemed a great plan when we made the reservations.

Since then, Catalonia (Barcelona) has declared independence, and Spain has entered into its most serious constitutional crisis since 1978.  We are watching the news with care.  We still plan to go to Barcelona at the end, as we have  to fly home from there.  But whether we will spend four days there or go somewhere else and  then get to Barcelona the night before leaving depends on what's going on.  We are pretty hopeful at this point we will be able to enjoy Barcelona, so fingers crossed for an easy trip.

Still it will  be strenuous.  Not just the overseas flights, but  also all the to-ing and fro-ing of three train trips (with connections), the wheeling of luggage, the getting  to various hotels, etc.  It's not an endurance trial, of course, but it does take energy.  How many more years can we wheel our luggage around Europe?  I  hope a lot, but just in case, we are going to do as much travel as our bodies and budget can afford.

All my life I said I would travel in retirement.  I love to travel and traveled a lot when I was working.  But now the impetus is stronger. Next year both Tony and I will  turn 70.  Who knows what will happen. Of course whoever knows what will happen.  But this seems to be the kairotic moment:  carpe diem.

Travelling light, I'm  taking an ipad not a computer.  So I won't be blogging from Spain, though I will be on the internet.  I hope to do some Spain  posts when I return.

Hasta luego!

#Spain
#TravelInRetirement
#CarpeDiem

Here We Are--Somewhere in Budapest!

Here we are, just about five whole days somewhere in Budapest.  Of course, I know physically where we are right now.  But I haven't yet gotten a sense of here.  We are still settling in, finding our feet, orienting ourselves.  These feelings of "where exactly are we?" are produced partly because we had to stay at another apartment the first night, partly because we are not living in the part of the city we usually inhabit, partly because we haven't figured out a rhythm of days for living in Budapest rather than visiting Budapest, and partly because we arrived thoroughly disoriented from jet lag.  It is all coming together, but it's surprised us how complicated a trip like this is.

We have done lots of travelling before.  But every time we went somewhere to live, as opposed to visit, we were travelling professionally and had a whole professional identity to fit into.  Now we are living in this city in a very different way.

It took me a while to compose this post, because I just wasn't sure what the theme of Budapest no. 1 should be, and then I decided I would write about that.  Just like I don't really have an image to capture our first week--just one of the many new faces I discovered.

We have had (and are continuing to have) a lot of fun.  We have walked several times over to the center of Budapest and up Andrassy Avenue (our old stomping grounds).  We've visited the market and purchased cheese and salami and bread for our string bags.  We have eaten dinner in our most favorite Budapest restaurant from all our trips here, the Café Kor (where the hostess actually remembered us!).  And last night (courtesy of our generous landlord John Farago who gave us his tickets), we went to hear one of the many Budapest orchestras play a fascinating program of Bach and Villas-Lobos in the (relatively new and (completely) beautiful Bela Bartok Concert Hall at the Palace of Music.  Tonight we are going to a café down the street for jazz. 

So it all wonderful, but it just feels a little bit like we're somewhere in Oz.   

We Are Off!

Hapsburg Gates at Buda Castle
Statue of Prince Eugene de Savoy who liberated Hungary from the Ottomans in 1697

Tomorrow we fly to Budapest.

Bags packed, weighed, re-packed, re-weighed.  Check.

Reading material chosen and assembled.  Check.

Electronic devices and all their plugs and cables sorted and packed. Check.

House-sitter ready; tax extension signed; 3 month supply of meds acquired; hair cut; opera tickets bought; I could go on.  Check

Next time I blog I should be jet-lagged but happy.