Budapest

Budapest and the Danube River - from
the "Buda" (west) side.

Today we visited Budapest, the largest city in Hungary. It was established over 1000 years ago, so there's plenty to see.  The country has been conquered several times, so there's a pretty diverse architecture and history to the place.  We didn't use the excellent parking facility reference in the previous post, but we did tour much of the "Pest side" (east of the Danube river) and some of the "Buda side" (west of the river).  After the balloon event is over we'll have a half day to kill before our flight leaves, so we'll almost certainly spend some additional time there.  Probably the most noteworthy of the sites we saw was St. Stephen's Basilica.  The building is "only" about 100 years old, but is nonetheless beautiful.  Stephen I was the founder of Hungary, ruling from about 997 - 1038.  But the real charm of the Basilica is that his mummified fist is on display there.  It's from about the wrist down, and you can still very much make out the fingers and such.  It was very interesting, but I still don't have any idea why they "kept" just the fist.  At any rate, over the last 1000 years the appendage has moved from country-to-country as various wars and such have taken place.  One interesting note:  The room in which the fist is on display is labeled "No Flash Photography", which you presume is for some sort of preservative reason.  However, when you get close to the display you see the sign that says "200 HUF to turn light on for 2 minutes".  In reality they just want you to pay to take photos.  And of course there's someone stationed there to enforce the rule.
   

Of course we had to eat something in Budapest, and that's where things got really fun.  You might remember that in 2006 we at tacos in Tokyo (click here).  Then in 2008 we made our own Mexican food in Austria (click here).  Today the tradition continued when we found Iguana - La Cantina de Budapest.  Located very near the US Embassy on the Pest side of the river, I think it's the closest thing to Albuquerque we're going to find for a couple weeks. The salsa was quite tasty (spicy!) and my combination plate (Carne Asada Burrito, Carne Asada Enchilada, Carne Asada Taco) was as good as any we've found in Michigan.  Erica had an excellent quesadilla with homemade chorizo (sausage), and Bruce was even able to find a hamburger that was to his liking. Plus there was free WiFi, so we could quickly touch base (via Internet-based text message) with those at home. I know, we haven't even eaten real Hungarian food yet, which we're very much looking forward to. But really, how many times do you have the opportunity to get tacos in Eastern Europe?
  

And here's a video of Paul and Erica trying out a really cool fountain in Budapest:

If the video doesn't play well, click where it says 720p above and change it to 360p.  That will switch from high-def to standard-def, but will help it load faster and play smoother on some computers.

It costs about $100 USD in gas to drive to make the 5-hour round-trip Debrecen to Budapest drive.  That's with a car getting about 23 MPG.  Gas near Budapest is approximately $6.20/gallon USD.

Tomorrow we'll start getting the balloon equipment ready.  We need to wire power inverters and mobile radios into the van, along with getting GPS and radio antennas mounted.  The balloon envelope will be removed from the basket and we'll re-arrange that equipment in the back of the van.  Several of those same tasks need to be performed on the lead-vehicle, which Larry will be arriving with tomorrow afternoon.  It won't be the most interesting day, especially for those not particularly keen on ballooning.  But I'll take some photos anyway.

If you want a great story, ask Owen or Brian Keown about the time they transported an entire gas-powered inflation fan to Europe in their checked baggage.

A practice flight on Friday morning is a definite possibility.

And of course everyone here is thinking about Richard Abruzzo and Carol Rymer-Davis, the two American gas balloon pilots that are currently missing, presumably off the east coast of Italy in the Adriatic Sea. More details are available by clicking here. Please keep them in your prayers.

Tourists

The view out my hotel room window.

After a full 8 hours of sleep and a some showers, today we're going to play tourists. No ballooning, but if you suffer from that ailment you definitely need to be following what's happening elsewhere in Europe.

We'll hop into our shiny Ford S-MAX and drive the 2½ hours back to Budapest.  The train would cost the US equivalent of $50 per person round-trip, so with five of us it will be much cheaper to drive.  The speed limit is 130kph on the highways, which works out to about 81mph.  However we're not interested in getting pulled over (with foreign licenses and non-standard "rental" cars).  It's an very rural drive, as once you leave Debrecen you don't pass through any cities the entire way.  And although there are some 2000'-3000' hills in the distance, the highway itself runs through land that's completely flat - Rantoul flat, for those in ballooning.  In Hungary you drive on the same side of the road and the same side of the vehicle as in the US, so no problems there.  You just have to get used to the different signs.  And our GPS navigators (Garmin Nuvi's) work awesome once the European map cards were installed.  They drove us right to the front door of the hotel.

And we've finally got the hang of the local currency.  Any time I travel internationally I like to come up with a quick way to figure out how expensive something is relative to US currency.  For example, Austria uses the Euro, so in 2008 we multiplied the prices we saw by 1.5 ( €2 = $3 USD).  I don't remember exactly what we did in Japan in 2006. We're not looking for precision, just something to figure out whether you're buying a $2 bottle of water or a $10 bottle of liquid diamonds.  Here the unit of currency is the Hungarian Forint (abbreviated HUF), and the rough conversion formula is to divide by 2, then move the decimal 2 spots left.  So for example, if something costs 300 HUF, that's $1.50 USD.  In general the exchange rate is much more favorable than it was in 2008, so hopefully no more $6 Big Macs and $7.50 gallons of gas.

So here's a very interesting story:  Right after we left Belgium yesterday the country's air traffic controllers walked out - a surprise strike.  All flight operations within the country were suspended - nothing coming or going.  The good news is that by 10:00pm it looked like the issue had been resolved and things should be getting back to normal.  I have no idea what caused the whole thing, and right now it looks like Larry's flights (the same ones we took, just two days later) should be fine.  It's possible other Americans coming over had their itineraries disrupted, but in the end it should all work out fine.

With the absence of Verizon 3G service in Europe I probably be able to update this while we're away from the hotel.  If we come across a free WiFi hotspot in Budapest I may be able to use my phone to post a photo and a little text, but another major update won't happen until we get back (probably no earlier than 2:00pm Michigan time).  However, in the meantime you should click here to watch this video from Budapest, as I can only hope to find something that cool to share.  See it all the way through, it doesn't get really good until about 90 seconds in.

One Long Day

Everything today went according to plan.

We left Chicago on time, and landed in Belgium as expected. The highlight of flight was a double-feature, Just Wright and The Devil Wears Prada.  You walk away from those two movies feeling like you should have been paid for sitting through them.  The clouds in Brussels were less than 500 feet above the ground, so as you looked out the window all of a sudden you saw the aiport and were on the ground 20 seconds later. The airport is fairly big, and they don't make gate assignments until 45 minutes before departure. So you end up sitting around waiting in the middle of the terminal, going to your gate only a few minutes before the flight boards. The 2-hour Malev Hungarian flight from Belgium to Budapest was uneventful, and like Austria customs in Hungary was non-existent.

Upon exiting baggage claim we were immediately greeted by employees from Ford of Hungary holding signs with each of our names. Remember when I said it was important that Larry Coan is a Ford employee? I'll go into more detail later this week, but in short Ford has provided the entirety of Team USA with some very nice vehicles, 12 in total.  After a 30 minute drive to a suburb north of Budapest we were presented with our very own Ford Transit (for transporting the balloon) and Ford S-Max.  Neither is available in the US, but nonetheless both will serve us very nicely during our visit.


After that we drove back down to Budapest airport to retrieve the balloon from air cargo.


Then came a 2½-hour drive to Debrecen, the site of the event.  We checked into our hotel at about 6:15pm local time, then had some dinner.


I tried to call my family from the hotel, but the Internet connection isn't the best.  The audio was spotty at best, and a video call is out of the question.  It's frustrating - I'll need to come up with some other way to talk with them.  Uploading photos to this site works, but it takes a long time (3-4 minutes per picture).  Video clips may be sparse again this year.

As I write this at 10:30pm local time (4:30pm Michigan time) we've now been awake for 34+ hours without sleep.  So a nap is probably in order.  Tomorrow we're planning to drive the 2½  hours back to Budapest to be tourists.  On Thursday we'll assemble the vehicles and start getting ready to fly, with morning and evening practice flights (hopefully) on Friday and Saturday.  The weather here is very much like Michigan - 50's and 60's during the day, 40's at night.

Joe Heartsill and Steve Jones have their teams in Debrecen already, with Owen Keown, Nick Donner, and Johnny Petrehn scheduled to arrive tomorrow.  On Thursday the last batch of Americans, including Larry Coan, will show up.

Almost Gone

Boarding begins in 10 minutes, so this will be the last post for about 24 hours.

Done Driving

We've arrived at the super-long-term lot at O'Hare with three hours until our flight leaves.

And We're Off!

Our travels to Hungary have begun.  Bonnie, Bruce, Erica, Paul, and I are currently driving to O'Hare Airport in Chicago for a 4:45pm CDT flight to Brussels, Belgium.  It's 8 hours in the air, so when we land it will feel like 2:00am to us.  Unfortunately it will be 8:00am there, and we'll have just under 2 hours before our flight to Budapest leaves.  At around noon Europe time on Tuesday we should arrive in Hungary.  We then need to pick up vehicles, take delivery of the balloon (which was shipped via air cargo on a pallet last week), and make the 2½ hour drive to Debrecen.  My guess would be that we'll arrive sometime around 7:00pm (Hungary time) on Tuesday, which would mean we've been up about 36 hours straight.  Unfortunately, even though we're driving right through downtown we probably won't have time for the best meal in the Windy City before departing, so somewhere in there we'll need to get something to eat.

You can track our Chicago-to-Brussels flight by clicking here.  It's already schedule to arrive in Belgium 18 minutes late.  And I think the Brussels-to-Budapest flight can be followed by clicking here.

Larry and Andrew will leave later this week.

We're booked on Malev Hungarian Airlines, which is 95% owned by the Hungarian government.  By booking with them through Orbitz we saved several hundred dollars over any other options.  Our flight to Brussels with be on a 767-300ER operated by American Airlines under a code-share agreement (American Airlines 88 / Malev Hungarian 4041) so it should be very much like any other international flight.  The second flight, Brussels to Budapest, is operated by Malev itself on a 737-700.  Unfortunately, the code-share arrangement means that although we're confirmed for our flights, we can't check in online and we haven't been assigned seats yet.  Can you say "middle seat in the back of the plane"?

O'Hare Airport charges for Internet access, so the only posts I'll be able to make between now and when we leave will be from my phone.  I have service through Verizon, so my cell won't work in Europe.  That means that unless we come across a free WiFi hotspot, my first post from overseas probably won't happen until sometime on Tuesday afternoon (US time).  Our hotel in Debrecen advertises free wireless, so it looks like updates will come easier than they did in Austria.

One important technical note:  The time you see at the bottom of each post is Hungary time.  So it's not really afternoon yet, but because it is in Europe, that's what shows up.

Here We Go Again

Thanks for joining me for a personal account of my trip to the 2010 World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Debrecen, Hungary.

As the title of this blog suggests, this will be my own personal postings of events over the next 16 days, both balloon and non-balloon related.  Obviously I'll have updates on the event, but hopefully the official website will be on top of such things.  I'm optimistic that Internet access in Debrecen will be easier to come across than it was in Austria, allowing me to post more photos and video than I was able to in 2008.

As in 2006 and 2008, I'll be leaving my own balloon at home and helping out Paul Petrehn, one of the 6 Americans that qualified for the event.  The rest of the team consists of his girlfriend Erica Hahn (the famous balloonist, not the fake doctor), her parents Bruce and Bonnie Hahn, champion balloonist/Ford employee Larry Coan (the "Ford employee" part is important - more in a future post), and Paul's brother Andrew Petrehn. With the other five US teams and a handful of event officials there should be about 40 Americans in Hungary for the competition.

Like my 2008 blog, you can leave your own remarks by clicking on the red comments link at the bottom of any post. I've tried to make that as easy as possible, so right now you don't need to enter any passwords or decrypt any graphics to do so.  However if we get too many spam-posts I may have to change that.  Also, check out the space on the right for the option to get email updates anytime I make a new post.

For those interested in ballooning, you can get ready for the event by checking out the following sites:

• Official event website : The list of competitors and rules are posted here.  An electronic copy of the map is supposed to be there as well, but it's not yet.
• Event Director's (Mathijs de Bruijn) page of notes : This is a somewhat haphazard "dialogue" on topics related to the competition.  From a preparation standpoint, the most notable is the Austrian/German Nationals Aug 2010 link at the very bottom.  Those are the task sheets from an event run recently by this same director.  It's probably safe to assume we'll see some of those same tactics in Hungary.

For those less interested in ballooning, you can click here to check out my family's website.

And lest anyone think competitive hot air ballooning is extreme, click here to follow along with what's going on right now elsewhere in Europe.

Once again, thanks for checking in and following along.  There will be a few posts as we leave the US, with more frequent updates after we arrive in Europe on Tuesday afternoon.

Coming Soon!

Regular updates will start on September 27, the day we leave for Hungary.  In the meantime you can relive our previous trips:

2008 World Championship Blog (Austria)

2006 World Championship Blog (Japan)