To summarize yesterday in Budapest, we spent the morning killing time until we could board our ship. Coffee and cake were the order of business at Cafe Anna. We caught the bus from our hotel to the ship at 1:30 and discovered that the ship was docked two blocks away from the hotel. We could have walked. Once on the ship, we had a "light" buffet lunch of sandwiches and salads. We got into our very nice stateroom after lunch.
The Rinda is a new ship so our stateroom has all of the convenient features built in. One of the things that I really like are the doors, drawers and toilet seats that close slowly and so not slam. No cursing our neighbors in the middle of the night. We have a king sized bed and a veranda with a door that we can open for ventilation. We do not have to use the air conditioning.
We had a reception at 6:00 where the captain and main crew members were introduced. The welcome toast was champagne. An orientation talk came next and then it was time for dinner. We ate with a couple from Park City/Ft Lauderdale and another from the Canadian Rockies. Philippe was a touring cyclist in his past so we had a lot to talk about. He had a French accent so I had trouble understanding some of the things he said. The dinner was good. Ann had Chateaubriand with a real nice bernaisse sauce. I had a light lobster salad and prawns. Wine flowed freely.
Entertainment was a folk group which played, sang and danced. We did not last very long.
Today after breakfast, we were transported on buses or a church in Kalocsa where we listened to an excellent organ concert. Then we went to a horse farm where we were entertained by the horsemen of Puszta in their traditional costumes. We were served some local refreshments and were given a ride around the farm in a horse cart.
We have had an opportunity to see some of the countryside. Instead of trying to explain what it looks like, here is a quote from our daily information packet:
"This part of Hungary, to the east of the Danube and south of the mountains, is also home to Europe's largest continuous area of grassland, the Great Plains. It is an area of rivers and national parka, home to a huge variety of wildlife and vast expanses of land where native grey-horned cattle roam and seemingly endless horizons beckon. It's also the driest and sunniest part of the country.....".
We found it to be very flat. The only hills, if you can call them that, are the river banks. The fast current of the Danube flows past them and we can see a continuous row of deciduous trees with short breaks for sandy beaches. Small villages, vacation houses and some small industries dot the landscape. Looking toward the river's horizon, the Danube is indeed blue. A closer inspection shows a greenish brown color with a lot of cottonwood fuzz floating by.
Back on board, we had lunch. I was happy to get a BLT with real chips. Ann had veal. We had an interesting conversation with a retired dentist from Missouri who knows where the weapons of mass destruction are stored in Syria after they were moved out of Iraq. I told Ann that he must be referring to nitrous oxide which destroys the will of the masses to resist the pain of the dentist's drill. At least this conversation was more stimulating than one at another where a man fell asleep in his soup. Just kidding - he missed the soup.
Late in the afternoon, we docked in Mohacs for the Hungarian border control agents to do a face check with our passports. We were entering Croatia.
Dinner was very good. We both had halibut which was cooked perfectly - moist and tasty. I started with a crab cake while Ann had a small portion roasted duck. She had walnut ice cream with chocolate sauce for desert while I had tiramisu. Wine and conversation went smoothly. Our dinner companions were from Walnut Creek and Minnisota.
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