Travel is always an adventure.. sometimes a frustrating one…but always an adventure

When I was a kid the biggest trip I went on was a car ride along to Chicago O’Hare Airport with my mom to drop my dad off to fly somewhere exotic for his two week annual Navy duty. I was small and this airport was “big” back then. Now it is a monster of an airport and the newest terminal above takes a half hour for me to walk from one end ( because that’s always where my plane ends up) to the other end ( where either customer service is or my next gate for departure is) 

Never Fails.

Saturday we arrived at Tucson airport and once again found that our plane would be late. Often that happens at our small airport.This of course isn’t a big deal to retired folks like us, unless it means a domino effect with the other flights of the day that will change our lives. And that’s where we ended up. One delay led to a second delay which in turn led to our gate agent trying to help us and then wiping out all our further reservations and finding out everyone in the world is traveling this weekend to Europe and theres hardly any seats available when she tried to rebook us.  We finally took what we could, knew we would spend the night in Chicago and hopefully get our flights rebooked and get on our way. . This is where that long hallway pictured above comes into focus… .we walk all they way down to the end for Customer Service only to find that there is hardly any human contact with United Airlines anymore and they want you to serve yourself with the Application they provide.  Needless to say it was a very frustrating service. A wonderfully nice woman was finally available and  able to give us vouchers for food and room reimbursement so I guess the long walk was worth it. As a Warning to All: United Airlines App is crap and their embracing of technology is not for the ease of the customer…

My voucher

My lovely traveling partner

The morning found us able to enjoy breakfast with Albert’s sister Jeanette and family before we started the rest of our journey. There are Silver linings everywhere if we look!

Monday afternoon we arrived at our destination. Along the way we met many retirees who were heading to meet their ships for tours. There must be a hundred different tour companies offering similar trips.It is exciting to see. The impact of US visitors must make a difference to the economies of all European countries. I just wish more young families could afford to travel. Perhaps if we encouraged travel amongst our population there would be more  understanding and less Nationalism in our country. Its does really help to see how we fit in a global picture. 

Driving from the airport to our downtown hotel. There’s always something different to see

 A very stylized Eagle I think

 Of course we must know where Mickey D’s is!

Just average suburbia

The view from our hotel top terrace.

We made it!!

After a nice hot shower and a restful nap it was dinner time for us. Most of Europe dines later in the evening so we headed out to grab a table early without reservations.

The inside of Porc &Predzli a Hungarian cuisine restaurant

Very cozy and comfortable. We were the first diners!

My first glass of Hungarian white wine. Our waiter helped pick it for me. It was delightful! He recommended much of our meal and every single dish was a hit!

Al and I shared most of our meal. This was the Goulash soup and it was rich and delightfully flavored with Paprika. I could have drank the entire bowl and licked it clean.

 And desert! We ate other entrees but I was so hungry and it all tasted so very good that I forgot to take pictures. This is an Apple pie with Carmel and bacon. The apples were wrapped inside a ball of pastry and the taste was out of this world! Bacon makes desert taste better!

Night time outside the restaurant

 The streets are lively and the buildings are beautiful at night. We wish we had energy to roam around more tonight but it will have to wait till tomorrow…we’re beat!