One chapter closed
Monday was D-day, the day we gave our landlord back the keys to his apartment to close the door forever and travel towards the first step of our emigration process. I woke up at 7 AM this morning and in my dreams, I thought I heard our daughter making noise in the living room. I figured she could not sleep anymore as she was too excited.
After three times waking up from the noises, I decided to have a look and when I walked into the living room I found my boyfriend surrounded by piles of paperwork on the floor. He was sorting the last part which I could not finish yesterday. Apparently, he had been up for 1,5 hours already and decided to just stop staring at the ceiling and get to work.
I admit I'm glad he did because I'd probably not taken the time to do that anymore and just dumped everything in the suitcase instead. :)
I was so happy when it was time to go
Until the very last minute, we were going through smaller items that did not really belong anywhere in specific and many things (that we didn't plan on leaving behind) stayed behind or were donated to the friend that brought us to the hotel. I can't emphasize enough how happy I was when the words "shall we go" were pronounced as I was SO fed up with packing and deciding to leave things behind that I wanted to take. I should have packed them in the two boxes we sent to our friend in Spain a few days before we left. But whatever, all these "should haves, could haves, and would haves" didn't change anything so I just had to deal with it instead of feeling bumped. The good news was that our chapter was almost closing in Budapest and we were about to start a new adventure soon.
The arrival at the hotel
I booked the airport hotel to ease our travel as I already saw it long coming that the final hours of packing would be stressful as well as exhausting. The airport hotel actually cost 100 euros but upon arrival, the friendly receptionist told me that if we paid cash, it would be only 89 euros. I was happy that we had cash to get rid off as we just had enough to pay for the hotel in cash and saved ourselves a bit of money right there. We first checked into a small room but when I realized I booked a family room and showed the receptionist the booking he said he'd change it immediately and that was no problem at all. I'm glad he did because that as a big upgrade compared to our first (much smaller) room.
Our family room
We all agreed that this was a nice place to spend our final night, and were hoping for beds that were ok enough so we all could catch some rest before departure the next morning. Here are some pictures of the room, sorry for all the messy sheets but that's our daughter's fault lol, she was instantly testing them out when we came in the room.
The first bedroom:
The second bedroom:
The bathroom:
The toilet:
The hallway:
Honestly, I think this was a good room for a good price mainly because of the extra bedroom as well as the seat where I could sit a bit better for my back than sitting on the bed or a chair behind the desk. Unfortunately, the bed my boyfriend slept on was not that great, but both our daughter and I slept ok in the other room.
The last supper in Hungary
It sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? But, it is the truth, it was our final supper in Hungary and I wanted to capture it no matter how simple it was. We decided to take the safe bet and order a schnitzel with fries as not many places in Budapest have managed to impress us with their food and schnitzels are too easy to mess up as well as something that our daughter eats, no matter where we order it. It was huge, as it often is, nothing fancy but good enough and not that expensive either for a hotel dinner, at least when you pay in Hungarian forints because in Euros it's all more expensive. Thankfully, Revolut metal has got me covered on exchange fees (free, lol) so I can pay in whatever currency available to avoid shitty exchange fees that are adding to the costs.
We were tired after dinner and headed to the room to change into something more comfortable as well as just watch some tv and check some online stuff. When our daughter fell asleep, we decided to have a drink to close this chapter and hopefully fall asleep soon, which worked for me but not for my boyfriend, he really had some stomach trouble again, even with this simple food and I heard him walk around for quite some time before he could finally lay down and try to sleep. I hope Spain offers a better quality of food and wish for him to have less trouble after eating there.
Our evening topped off with a sunset seen from our balcony:
Breakfast in the hotel
For our daughter the breakfast was a no-brainer: she wanted pancakes as there was a pancake machine.
Some maple syrup and she was good to go.
For me it was a bit of a challenge as I really dislike most breads served in Hungary, I rarely visited a place where I fancied the bread offered in a hotel or even in restaurants unless it was a bit of a more expensive place to have breakfast. I did not expect anything better than what I ate:
The seemed to be fresh bread slice was my own bad, I already knew this bread is quite dry and mission impossible to add butter to it without ruining the bread. I just decided to eat the "kifli" which is a croissant but from bread and this one was at least fresh and good enough for breakfast. I did not eat any fruit as it was all still hard and not the fruit I consider ready to be eaten. I decided not to drink any coffee before departure as it would probably not meet my coffee standards, lol. Just water will do.
Previous parts of The Expat Diaries
- The final countdown - It will never fit!
- The sound of an almost empty home
- Narrowing down our life to 5 suitcases
- When the universe aligns everything perfectly
- Catching up and saying goodbyes
- We're closing the kindergarten chapter sooner than expected
- Finding a place to live in Spain
- The countdown is real - The last times in Budapest
- Our life in 6 suitcases - sorting, selling & giving away our belongings
- Moving back to Spain very soon!
Credits
- All images in this post are my own.
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