Just read Angus' blog who managed to summarise the weekend better than I could so I stole his words and changed them to explain the trip from my world.

 

 

Skipped work early(ish) and in to Terminal building. Fall asleep on plane. Awake to very dodgy landing. Plane lands to cheers from passengers and sighs of relief from me.
Minibus takes us to hotel in Pest. Hotel very nice. Package on bed for Angus from NATO delegate. Odd. Contains CD of Hungarian music and a bottle of Unicum (Hungarian national drink) - tastes better than it sounds, cue Angus and friend Bob to become spies for the rest of the weekend.

Very late so nowhere open for food...except restaurant called Fatâl. Ordered very nice food, can't remember what it was as distracted by Angus's giant breadcrumbed steamrolled pig. 

2 pints beer.

1 shot Pálinka.

Pálinka worse than Unicum. Sit and drink at Fat Mo's club admiring bar girls breasts with Paul.

Lose 2 people and leave Angus and fellow spy to crawl onto floating bar / club to experience Hungarian / Europop music.  I return to hotel propositioned along the way by several large Hungarian women for sex.
Bed by 2:30am. Sleep by 2:31am.

 

Saturday:
Awake at 8am, for run but decide against it due to weather being cold and wet.
Find cafe to have breakfast. 1 cappucino. 1 ham and cheese panini.
Cross Danube into Buda. 2 climb hill. 3 take funicular. Hill climb quicker (damm them) as funicular decided to hide the exit and took twenty tourists 5 minutes to find the door marked exit (written in English and in plain view).
Aimless wanderings around the castle district and Fisherman's Bastion. Nice buildings. Good views. Very cold.
Warm up in Belgian Brasserie. Many fine flavoured beers all good and very strong.
wander back to hotel. 2 go to bed, Myself and the rest of the non-sleepers check out the hotel baths and sauna where we make friends with 1 special effects guy called Toddy working on Hellboy 2.
Meet up in bar (nowhere local to watch England match) with others for beer and meet two more effects guys with strange names such as Stretch.  Drink beers (find out another 0-0 result in Israel, glad I didn't watch game)
Find food. End up in Karma restaurant (only place with seats available and on recommendation - looks like scene from Crouching Tiger). Food great. Had very nice leg of lamb. 1 beer. 2 bottles of wine (shared).
Next: everyone else goes clubbing but I return home (should have slept earlier and not swam), too early for large hungarian women tonight.  Nothing on tv so fall asleep.
Sleep by 1am

 

Sunday:
Out of hotel by 8am for a run up to the Liberty statue and amazing views of Budapest. Weather excellent.  Return via cave church to find Angus still in bed.
Ate breakfast in market square. Shared Spicy sausage with bread. Does not repeat as much as eating whole one, greatful for sharing.
Wander along Danube past parliament building. Big.  Random iron shoes on shoreline, no idea what they were there for. 
Up to another cafe for beer and manky fruit salad missing avacado as promised.  Not fun.
Then on to the House Of Terror. Not fun. Decidedly un-fun. Quite distressing really.  Nothing can prepare you for being confined to an elevator watching a video of the cellar you about to visit and the torture that happened there. But one of the highlights of the weekend.
Wander up Andrássy út to Heroes Square, past castle and back to the hotel. Bar.  Say goodbye to Paul.
Finally get to drink unicum which is actually quite nice.
Great food at Avocado (tuna and orange jam and some other stuff). A number of cocktails ad random party games. Wander back to the hotel. Bar.
Latish night. Bed by 02:00am.

 

Monday:
Leave hotel by 10ish. More good weather.
Breakfast in cake shop. 1 apple strudel. 1 cappucino.
Over bridge to Buda.
Spa in Gellert Hotel. 30 mins to work key system i changing room and realise I have no idea what my number is.  Must not get lost. 1hr to find the thermal baths. 30 minutes to realise these are not the thermal baths.  30 minutes to find actual thermal baths.
Very relaxing, almost to much for Angus who nearly got hit by a car.
Goulash soup in covered market place.
10 mile hike around rest of Pest to find the seediest park in Pest as recommended by the 2 spys.
Back to hotel. 18 seater mini-coach arrives to transfer us back to airport.
Budapest airport not very exciting. Miss disgusting plate of cold chips and wait for hot slightly less disgusting chips.
Event-free flight back to Luton.
Home by 11pm.
Download Battlestar final episode.
Sleep by 11:30pm.

 

Tuesday:
Watch new Battlestar episode before work, last in series and everything is completely tripped out, no idea what is happening. 

Try to buy tyres on route to work, find out they will cost £200 more than quoted.  No new tyres and back to work.

Finally got to see a band I really love last week at the height of their powers at Brixton which is an amazing venue and one I have never been to before but had witnessed on several music vids and in 9 Songs.  The venue is cool and what it doesn't show on vids is the amazing fake Romeo and Julliet style surround to the stage which is amazing!  Anyway the band i saw was Arcade Fire and this was the review http://www.xfm.co.uk/Article.asp?id=372271

 

Need to see some more bands, might cheer me up.... 

There are days when you wish that you could go back 6 months and change a decision to have the door stay open and for everything to be ok.  I woke up today to Steph leaving this house and my life and in many ways I wish she wasn't.  At this moment if I could turn back the clock I would do.  We shared so many good times together and I always thought we would be together forever.  To sit here now and write this it all seems very wrong. 

I have been in conversation with ATP again in the hope of them moving the concert to the following weekend to allow me to go with Angus and co to the Lake District (see the attached newspaper article sent by ATP).

 

ATP replied today and had gone to the great lengths of trying to postpone the concert!  Unfortunately Butlins had another event on!  I really really did not write this and is a genunine response from ATP.

 

 

Dear Rob,

Thanks for your email, we spoke to Butlins and unfortunately they have something else scheduled in for the weekend following 27 - 29 April and thus we will not be able to move the event. It is a shame, because practically every band and supplier had agreed to postpone their plans and tours to the following weekend. It's not that they know Angus, but everyone understood what it was like to have a friend like that.

Perhaps you could both attend another event together, when you are both available.

ATP