Linking up with Marg at The Intrepid Reader
Nov 6 2026 - Toronto ON
BUDAPEST HUNGARY
Home!
Sunday
I actually do not mind the clocks falling back, as I get an extra hour to do stuff!!! I don't love the shorter daylight, but we can be out during the day and safely snuggled back at home once it gets dark.
Real coffee!
Both of us were up at 6AM, a combination of jetlag and time change as clocks went back an hour.
After a breakfast of my (frozen) fresh scones we puttered a bit.
View as the sun came up.
By 10 John was out the door to pick up some necessary groceries at Metro. UPDATE the raspberries he bought (US by mistake) were thrown out they were so rotten. I would have returned them if the store was closer (not worth the gas). Also UPDATE we got perfect ones at the Market for the same price.
I unpacked both suitcases and had laundry going. In all our years of travel, never have the suitcases been stored away so quickly with laundry washed and put away on the first day home!
The rest of the day was spent catching up, opening mail (junk) except for our cheque from the river cruise company, a full refund!!
I have been following the other river cruises FB pages so we can not complain at all about getting our money back. I could quibble that the front and end of our trip was already planned based on the river cruise schedule and we might have changed some things if we had known it was going to be cancelled...We had booked our own business class flights and I didn't want to get into that hassle so we worked around it.
My Christmas cactus bloomed! She does this whenever we go away!
We spent the rest of the day putting stuff away, watching shows and reading. John booked some golf games and a dinner with friends.
We had dinner an hour earlier, due to jetlag and time change. I bit the bullet at 9:30 and John followed at 10.
Monday
I'm up at 5 with John close behind. We sit and have our coffees while I work on blog posts and John catches up on some series.
I found myself telling AI "OMG you are so stupid" this morning!!!
I was on my second coffee by 6:45, I never have 2 coffees! Finally at 8 we had raspberries, yogurt, cereal, chia seeds for breakfast.
I had written to the manager of the Hilton Budapest, complaining about the rate I had paid for our additional two nights and the issue that it was a king room rate, while I had only wanted to extend our queen room for those two nights. He responded and offered me the difference in room rate! 142 euros, thank you very much!
We finished season 18 of MasterChef Australia.
We had dinner at 7 again.
Tuesday
I was up at 6:45 and John at 7. John headed out to golf around 11:30, a free game using his credits.
I took three tops and a jacket down to the charity bin. Our old pink suitcase also made it out of here.
I picked up our new bus schedule.
I did a quick run to Longo's for dinner. Then I frittered the afternoon away.
So happy to see this decision!
Wednesday
Woke up to great news!
We can be happy for the American election results but there is still a lot of work for them to do. We need to stay the course and continue to diversify.
We must also continue our fight against our own Maple MAGA.
I’m very happy with the election results but this Canadian will not be travelling to the States, or buying its goods until the orange felon and his tariffs are gone.
I found our permanent poppies to wear. As a result, I also found a bag of foreign coin and a bag I had put aside when I sold our gold in the spring. It was a couple of items the gold analyst had said might be of interest to a collector.
Royal York
Kristen Roos is a Canadian digital artist and educator whose work focuses on media archaeology, obsolete computer software, and the intersection between vintage technology and contemporary art.
His piece Paint Box City is a site-specific digital animation designed to wrap around the custom curved LED rings at Royal Bank Plaza.
The artwork explores the early history of computer graphics and "technostalgia". It unearths the era when computers were first adopted for creative, artistic purposes rather than just data processing.
The vibrant, pixelated cityscape is inspired by early digital paint programs (such as MacPaint or Quantel Paintbox) from the 1980s and 1990s. It relies on dithered patterns, bright neon grids, and geometric, retro-futuristic building blocks that form a scrolling 360-degree metropolitan skyline.
The gold Royal Bank building.
I had to deposit my river cruise cheque (yes, I could have done it online or through a ATM) but there was something satisfying about taking it to a branch.
I also had a few old Canadian 1-dollar and 2-dollar paper notes, officially known as withdrawn Bank of Canada banknotes. They lost their status as legal tender on January 1, 2021, however they still retain their full face value ($1 or $2) and never expire. You can redeem them by bringing them to a commercial bank branch so that is what I did and got $12.
I then walked over to Arcade Coins on King West. This was a very different experience from when I sold our gold in May.
It is on the third floor and features a highly secure, controlled double-entry system designed to ensure safety and security. The entrance area is heavily monitored by high-definition, live-monitored surveillance cameras that record directly to the cloud.
I got $60 for this and more junk out of our place.
I had time to kill until the next bus so I wandered into McEwan's, a local celebrity chef's store. I would never buy anything here, I can't stand him. But seriously, who on Gawd's green earth would pay $13.50 for egg fingers??????????? An egg costs 30 cents! You don't even get a full slice of bread! It is the same price as the tuna, at least tuna can be bought for around a dollar.
John golfed on Wednesday and the plan was to take one of the guys (he's having major surgery next week) to dinner. But the plans were never finalized?? He even made sure he had cash to chip in for the guy's dinner, brought a clean shirt etc.
He played his best round of the season, even with a 7 on one hole. Congrats!!
I had picked up a Jersey Mike's sub for dinner so I ate it for my lunch.
Thursday
Up at 6, John 6:30.
I hate waking at 4 or 5 and finally dozing off before (usually) getting up at 7. Waking at 6 is great, then my brain is abuzz with plans for the day, menu ideas, blog posts, things to do!
My morning routine is, get breakfast items ready, put away any items left in the draining rack, make my breakfast. Then John makes the coffees.
I haven't mentioned how warm it's been this week, around 20C!! And it looks like it is continuing into next week, John booked golf for Tuesday.
I finished off our trip's daily posts and started on a recap.
After lunch we did a quick (1 hour) trip to the market. We stocked up on 4 steaks at my favourite butcher who also does a seniors' discount of 20% on Thursdays, nothing to sniff at.
Then 1 asparagus (2 for $10), 2 raspberries $4 each, scallions, broccolini, heirloom tomato.
The dog fountain has been closed up for winter, but this guy was sitting there.
John made us flat whites with these.
Tim Tam is a brand of chocolate biscuit introduced by the Australian biscuit company Arnott's Biscuits Holdings in 1964. It consists of two malted biscuits separated by a light hard chocolate cream filling and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate.
The biscuit was created by Ian Norris. During 1958 he took a world trip looking for inspiration for new products. While visiting Britain, he found the Penguin biscuit and decided to try to "make a better one".
Tim Tam went on the market on 10 September 1964. They were named by Ross Arnott, who attended the 1958 Kentucky Derby and decided that the name of the winning horse, Tim Tam, was perfect for a planned new line of biscuits.
I became obsessed with the fate of the residential cruise ship, Odyssey, when I came across a blog written by one of the passengers. This was by fluke, reading a local Ontario blogger's side bar and getting hooked by the title Geeks. John had mentioned the news story in passing this week.
Here are a couple of bloggers Abandon Ship and Geeks on Tour if you are interested.
We finished watching Dark Matter and I admit it grew on me and I did enjoy it.
Friday
It was supposed to rain but we went out anyway and got 10.5K steps in!
I had heard that Bloor St. W had lined the planters with poppies so off we went to St. George subway to walk to Yonge.
Last year we went to see Manulife's Remembrance Day display and there was snow on the ground.
John took this trying to capture the rows of poppies on both sides of the street.
Then we went to the Reference Library for a new display. I'm not a ballet fan but do enjoy see sketches.
We decided to walk back to the bus along Yonge St. We found more of the 11 new murals on utility boxes. This makes six.
Gimun Ryu (as signed on the bottom right corner of the box itself) "City of Dreams"
Emily May Rose and her beloved raccoons.
City Hall
They are getting ready to put the skating rink in.
COOKING
John bought these at Metro, we were not impressed.
So excited to get some vegetables!
Saturday - in transit
Sunday - steak (Metro) and sauteed mushrooms, green peppers and onions
Monday - spaghetti and meat sauce (homemade, frozen)
Tuesday - chicken quarters roast potatoes broccoli
Wednesday - John out burgers
Thursday - curry chicken. I made extra rice as I have an urge to make fried rice.
Friday - steak (market) fully loaded potato (broccoli, bacon, cheese) asparagus
BOOKS
I'm still in airplane mode reading, mindless. Big Little Truths by Liliane Moriarty, however I didn't finish it within the 7- day loan period so I put a hold on it.
I started In the Dark and am enjoying it.
