Gettin' 'Donked in Budapest

We arrived in Budapest on Saturday morning and did a bunch of touring both morning and afternoon.  This morning, we debarked from MS Avalon Tranquility and played tourist again, spending the morning in the "Secret Hospital and Nuclear Bunker."  Cool place, very dank Cold War-ish, very eerie.

After heading back to the hotel to check into our room (Jeannie did an amazing job, we're in a room on the "Executive Floor" of the Budapest Hilton with a majestic ... no other word will suffice ... view of the Danube), we headed out to check out the old city of Buda.  Jeannie had this great idea about touring the Budavári Palota, or Royal Palace.

Hah!!

Little did she know (well, neither did I) that the Budapest Sörfesztival, or Beer Festival, was in its fourth and final day on the palace grounds.  Tell me, dear readers, where else could you attend a beer festival in a palace built on top of Roman ruins?  In Budapest on the last weekend of August, that's where!

Okay, short story long, we spent a few hours at the festival, first off listening to a Joe Cocker cover band (yeah, go figure, a Hungarian Joe Cocker, but it worked) while drinking pints of local brew.  We strolled the castle/museum grounds a bit, then sat to listen to more Joe Cocker.  They closed their set, natch, with A Little Help From My Friends.  And during this set, I switched from Hungarian lager to Delirium Tremens, a très potent Belgian ale, aptly symbolized by a pink elephant.  Jeannie stuck with Hungarian brews as I resisted the ale-inspired urge to do a really bad air guitar while, in my mind, reliving Joe's Woodstock performance.  After they wrapped up their set, I moved on to Corsendonk, another fine Belgian ale, although not quite as ass-kicking as the Delirium Tremens.  What's wrong with me, I asked, as I went through a Hungarian beerfest drinking Belgian brews.

Caution, cheesy product placement follows:

Oh well, not a problem, as the next band took up the stage.  Mild local headbangers with sax and violin thrown in for good measure.  After a few of their tunes, we popped smoke and headed for the gate, before I did more Belgians and needed to be carried back to the hotel.  We did, however, escape with some cool souvenir mugs.

I should note at this point that I'm ecstatic to be back in an Internet-friendly zone.  For seven days, although we had a marvelous cruise on the Avalon Tranquility, the connectivity, in a word, sucked,  I can now do more than glare at the laptop as an e-mail takes forever to load.