I didn’t think it was a possibility that I would end up being one of those fortunate people who went abroad on a conference trip. But here I am, in Budapest with my coworkers.

We arrived late last night at Continental Hotel Budapest. We were delayed but the flight here were not too bad and went by very fast and we were extremely lucky with the transfer in Frankfurt. I don’t think we waited more than 2 minutes after arriving at the new gate before we could board. I have never been that lucky!

But when we got here, I was surprised to find that I wasn’t staying with Caroline, a girl who I am in a couple of projects with and whom I had very much looked forward to sharing a room with. It feels wrong to say that I was disappointed when I got a whole room all to myself, a full 180 bed instead of a 90, but I was.

After lots of trouble getting in to my room I could finally lay down and sleep at around 1am, so much later than I am used to now with my new routines.

Today was the first real day here and it was a very good one. It started with a decent breakfast followed by three hours of the conference-part of this trip. Some questions we discussed I had input to, but some I was too new for so I just listened. Very interesting stuff though!

For lunch all 37 of us were divided into six groups and we went out into the city to find some place to eat. Everywhere we went it was full, until we found a basement restaurant that was empty. Sceptical, but it was not too bad. It was a nice room and atmosphere.

What’s funny here is the currency. They don’t use Euro but something else. And today’s lunch was 33000 of it. Crazy!

The rest of the afternoon we walked around and met up with everyone else at Mathias Church (which has a crazy and colorful roof, I might have to check if it is supposed to be the original roof. We watched the city from the hill and it was pretty.

On the way back to the hotel after the church (we didn’t go in), I spent a little time in the hotel pool and sauna. As a small preparation for the thermal baths tomorrow.

Dinner was served at a medieval restaurant called Sir Lancelot where we drank out of pottery urns, where food was served on a huge platter in the middle of the long table and a group of performers entertained us. It was a fun experience!

After dinner we went to a salsa club and I had such a great time! For the first time since Caribbean, I have had a piña colada that was really good. We danced and all of us occupied the dance floor with our typical circle dancing and scared away all the real salsa dancers. But it was great, I don’t think that place usually has that many guests. I feel like I need to find their social media or something because they took endless of photos and videos and they might post something about us crazy swedes! Fun place!

More pictures from the evening can be found here on their Facebook page.

Then we wanted to go to Szimpla Kert, a ruin bar and the most famous one in Budapest. The line said as much and we decided to go there tomorrow instead. So the description of what it is comes tomorrow.

I am writing this on my phone and the pictures I took today are on my work phone so I will add them to this post when I have access to a computer.

After 27k steps I am so ready to sleep. Goodnight! A fun day is waiting for us tomorrow again!