Last week I was in Budapest!

When I interviewed for my job earlier in the year, during the very first phone interview it was mentioned that I would be traveling for this position. Actually, more than that, I would be in a "global client facing role." Um.. it's me you guys, I'm from North Carolina. I'm that girl who's worked in non-profits since forever. When  I got the job they said I would go to Budapest... honestly... I had to google it (It's in Hungary, just FYI).

In accepting the position, from day one, I was busy. Busy planning the weekly or even 3 events a week schedule of conferences. So busy I didn't have time to think about, let alone plan anything for my trip to Budapest. All I knew was that I'd be putting on a conference there. Lucky for me, putting on conferences is what I know how to do best. I've done event planning for over a decade... stick me in a room with some people and I'll get everyone organized. And happy. And make sure their belly's are full.

So when it was time for me to actually travel abroad to Budapest I honestly didn't know what to expect. I knew nothing about the food, language or culture. Something about it being in Eastern Europe but to be honest, I only even looked at it on a map the week before. Sometimes having super low expectations is the best, because you can't be let down. And I for sure was not let down traveling to Budapest. It's actually one of the top 10 cities in Europe to visit, right up there with London, Venice, Paris... you get the idea. Budapest is awesome. And I recommend everyone going there. Yup, it's that awesome.

I am breaking up this post into three parts. There will be the hotel, the food, and the fashion. Yes, me Leah the non-fashionista scored big on shopping over there. Not cheap stuff either. After I get these three posts out, I'll do a travel post. Like you know, how to pack, what to pack, and what luggage / packing style actually works (yes, I made a $300 investment in one piece of fancy luggage that was a dud. Live and learn). And I probably owe it to you all to give a little bit more of a 'How Leah Got to Be an International Event Planner" post. I get questions about it all the time. It's pretty much every girl (or guy)'s dream job, right?

But first... back to Budapest. The post today will be about the hotels where I stayed. I don't know about you, but for me the hotel makes or brakes a trip. It's where you rest your head, relax, unwind.

The Kempinski Hotel was my first hotel experience in Budapest. I arrived before my conference began and there was not room at the host hotel so I stayed next door. I'm a self-admitted hotel snob and was actually super thrilled to get to stay at multiple hotels while in Budapest. The first night I was in a suite overlooking the Fashion Avenue area of Budapest. The Kempinski hotel chain is NIICCEEE!  It was a super fabulous hotel and they thought of every detail.

Check this out - you go into your room and you have to put your key card into that little slot inside the room for the lights to turn on (ok this was new to me, but apparently this is the norm in fancy hotels). Well as soon as the key was in the little holder this soft classical music would come on and appropriate lighting for that time of day would come on.  There was even music in the bathroom! Of course it was all marble and a zillion mirrors and huge tub with jets and more exciting stuff I of course didn't take pictures of because I was too busy. But trust me when I say it was crazy nice and I had a super nice suite overlooking their Fashion Ave.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's like Park Ave in NYC. I mean there was high-end shopping, but it's a very touristy area so no need to dress up to go to any of the stores.  And they speak okay english over there. Most people spoke Hungarian (duh I was in Hungary), and the other language they all seemed to know (except me) was French. But I was fine, I didn't run into any issues, and I just smiled and pointed and usually got what I needed.

The money over there is the HUF or hungarian forent. I had exchanged my dollars for euros and forents in DC during my layover, but really all I used was my credit card and it was fine. SOmetimes they would even show me the exchange rate in dollars.

Anyway, this is the street view below my window at Kempinski. It was under a huge umbrella when I hung out with some coworkers, but we'll get to that in a moment....

So as I mentioned, I work for a global company aka there are people all over the world who work with me. It was really cool getting to meet so many of them at this conference, because I had only emailed them or had conference calls where I would try to figure out their accents (Czech? German? British? Dutch?) We all met and it was really cool! I hadn't showered in 2 days (crazy overnight flights), and I looked a mess, but they didn't seem to care and were all sooo kind! 

We ended up taking a walk to the Danube river (which was very close to overflowing onto the city streets) and had dinner at a lovely place right by the water. There were live musicians and we ordered just about everything on the menu. When the sun set, we found outself overlooking the palace in the photo above. It's actually where their royal family lives. Impressive stuff.

I will just tell you now I got zero sleep in Budapest. Not because I was jet lagged, but sorta. The deal is I had 7am meetings each day. Um.. 7am = 1am North Carolina time. Pretty much the time I was getting to sleep, it was time for me to wake up. I was fine, I mean I was downing coffee and the event kept me on my toes. But because this wasn't an actual vacation I didn't get to sleep in or enjoy my room as much as I could have.

Anyway, the next day I had a FABULOUS Breakfast at the hotel. I can't wait for the food post. Seriously. And omg can we just discuss the 'European Plan" for breakfast. That means they include this crazy huge and amazing breakfast with the room. No continental breakfast Holiday Inn  continental breakfast crap. Like for real good breakfast stuff artfully displayed. 

Anyway, sad news I had to check out of the amazing hotel and go to my host hotel for my conference. I got to check in and get everything ready for my conference at the Le Meridien directly next door. I thought the Kempinski was nice, right? UMMM the Le Meridien was REALLY nice, like same level fancyness. EXCEPT my suite in this hotel had a terrace overlooking castles and stuff! WHat?!?!? 

I am the worst for not taking more pictures of the room. But here's the bathrobe in my room at Le Meridien. I mean of course there were two... and two sets of brand new slippers. But because they knew I was single-girl traveling it up, this is how it was set. So adorable, right?  (and no, don't freak out, they knew I was the conference planner. Not like stalked my personal history. And no, BF wasn't there he had his own event in Pennsylvania so he couldn't go to Budapest with me). 

Out the otherside of my terrace was what is called the Sziget Eye. It's like a mini London eye. You know, the Ferris wheel! I was bummed I never got to ride on it. I set it up so come attendees could go, but you know, I was there to work and didn't have time for any fun stuff.

So back to my bathroom (because I kept taking pictures in there lol) I had a fancy bathtub, steam shower, and this cool detachable shower thing in the bathtub too. I was trying to have relaxation time however the metro was like 8 floors below me in the bottom of the hotel so every 5 minutes that thing would go by and of course shake all the stone everything. 

Oh! And next to the toilet was another one of these detatchable shower things. I was like hum, maybe this is if you want to hook it up to the shower. Then I realized... it was a BIDET!  Yup, you know, one of those things to was out your undercarriage as they say. and NO I didn't use it lol.

SO I get a grade F- on taking hotel photos. Seriously... send me to Budapest and I take the most random/not showing anything photos. Oh well, good news is I kept it professional, and that was what I was there to do. I did like this thing in the picture above. It was like these weird butterflies on this tree. You pick out your favorite one and it says stuff about you. Sorta like a horoscope/personality indicator deal. 

Here's one of the few photos I took of the bedroom area of my suite. Something is seriously wrong with me... I mean I had maid service. Yet I still left crap EVERYWHERE. There's like 3 pairs of shoes on the floor, some bags, an ipad on the bed, a backpack (ruck sack as they say in Europe) on the bed, etc. Oh well, it was a nice room, you can just take my word for it. 

On the last morning I had a 4:15am wake up call and I was honestly shocked to look out my window and see that it was already light out! crazy super north sunlight all the time place!

And yes, they had the name of the hotel in the window like etched, facing me in my room. I guess so I wouldn't accidentally walk out? That's St. Stephen's cathedral with the crane and the building thing in the front was actually a stage. Trust me when I say there was music there all night everynight. I mean not a problem because I wasn't sleeping anyway. And hard to tell but there were skateboard ramps all throughout the park. Sorta different than what we are used to in the US but still really cool.

Ok tomorrow... the food!!!!!

For Work I Went to Disney!

I know, I know... when will I stop with the traveling, right? It's just busy right now at my work and in my life in general so that means tons of trips! I love to travel, even when it's for work. But who wouldn't like it when you go to cool places and meet cool people like.... Mickey and Minnie!

Yeah... so I may have screamed and grabbed my boss's phone to take my pic when Mickey and Minnie came out at the conference we were attending at Disney World a little over a week ago. 

We stayed 'on property' aka at a Disney resort. they hook you up! they even send you luggage tags ahead of time and totally take care of your luggage and deliver it directly to your hotel room. Hi Mickey!

The not so good news is that we were so super busy during the conference where my company was exhibiting, that we didn't have any time to go into the parks. This just broke my heart. I saw Mickey everywhere and wanted to go play in the parks sooo badly. 

I don't normally leave housekeepers tips at hotels. I mean... idk... I don't know the etiquette or where you put the money, or do you leave a note? ANyhow at Disney Marlaine was my housekeeper. On the first day I left her one whole dollar and a note to please make me towel animals. 

The Mickey Waffles made me so so happy. I mean Disney does it up right. And they never let you forget where you are :)

But like I said, I was there for work! We were exhibiting at a conference, but invited some of the clients and prospects out to dinner. It ended up being about 70 and I was in charge. I had reservations at Emeril's you know... BAM! over at Universal. You guys... that food was GOOD! AND they were so sweet, they made custom menus, they pre-set little gifts I sent over. They kept the wine glasses full and our bellies full too! 

I never saw Emeril, but when I got up for to go to the bathroom, I came back and Emeril must have stopped by ;)  I mean how fantastic is the napkin fold they did for me!? 

Then when I got back to my room, after delivering all the dinner guests back as well, look what I found on my bed!!!!! A Minnie towel animal!!!

The next day back at the show.. Mickey made another exciting appearance! This time as a rice krispy treat with chocolate and mickey sprinkles!!!

we were OVER our hotel's food. so when we finally had a free evening, we hopped the resort bus to epcot, but not to visit (seriously not enough time). Fro there we got on the monorail and went to the polynesian resort and had dinner at the Hawaiian place!

Here's my dinner, i got mahil and a tempura roll. I had them bring me wasabi and soy sauce because seriously it was sushi. 

We left and caught the monorail back to epcot. we saw the fireworks over the magic kingdom, ti was pretty cool. I mean not as cool as if we had been IN the magic kingdom, but still pretty awesome!

I really don't like eggs, so I would have never gotten this. But my boss got a mini Minnie waffle and it was sooo cute!

So I totally didn't take many pictures around the resort. But they did have some gorgeous flowers. I love these, they looked so tropical!

So the next night we went to Universal City Walk. No not Universal Studios... ugh... still not going to parks. We went right outside, actually back to where Emeril's was. But this time it was like a huge block party thing for the conference. I guess they figured we were sick of Disney.

This was seriously the closest I had to going into the parks. 

And of course i went to the Billabong store haha. 

I took a quick shot of the actual event. They gave us full access to like 4 clubs and all the bars and restauraunts. Full open bar everywhere. Food everywhere. It was fun, but again... it's still me at work with work people, you know? I mean not really a vacay. 

BUT....I did find the Hello Kitty!!!! like an oasis! 

I always bring gav and bf gifts when I travel. SOmetime I'll be able to bring them with me, but until then I bring them fun things instead! here are the Vinylmation gifts I got this time. If you don't know, Vinylmation is like a mickey shape, but different artists make surprise figurines. So its not going to look like Mickey. Like BF's was a Luke Skywalker, Gav's was a zombie pig, and mine was a poodle lol.

When I travel I always get myself a magnet souvener. I found these mickey shaped food magnets at Disney, so fab, right? 

Philadelphia!

Is it just me or when you hear 'Philadelphia' you think about the Tom Hanks AIDS movie? Ok probably just me...

Anyway! last Friday my dad, step-mom, sister, Gav and I flew to Philadelphia for my cousin's wedding! Catch up on the wedding post here.

I haven't traveled with my family in a while, and this is the first time Gav has gotten to fly with them. It was cute! My dad brought science game cards to the airport (he's an Elementary educator). It was super adorable to see them all together.

I got new expensive luggage for my job, and I went back and got a backpack like my sister's (above) because it's huge but also fits under the seat. Planes suck, they make you gate check everything.... unless it fits under the seat! more on my packing in another post. 

Gav was going to sit with my dad on the plane, but at the last second, he sat in the seat with my sister Sarah instead!

My step-mom had to go down to Wilmington, DE (just a few minutes outside of Philadelphia), so she rented a car for the evening and my dad, sarah, gav and I took a cab to the hotel!

We stayed at the Best Western Independence which sounds not exciting, but it was absolutely adorable! They bumped up my/sarah/gav's room and we had a big tv as well as a microwave and mini fridge which came in handy because....

We had indian food for dinner! It was from a good place called Karma in Old Town right by our hotel.

But before that, we walked around the city some, went to the pier, and of course posed by the hilarious historic statues

A good thing about staying at Best Westerns is that they have a really exciting continental breakfast. You know, european style!

Anyhow, at this property, we were all shocked and excited to see our waffles were... wait for it... in the shape of the Liberty Bell!!!!

We set out and saw Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell for real!

AND.... here's Gav next to the Liberty Bell 

I had the hotel make us lunch reservations at Max Brenner's (more on that in a minute), but we had some time before that in the morning. My dad and Gav discovered the Ride The Duck tour!!!

It's a world war II boat (seriously) on wheels (for real) and it's a land and sea tour, where it drives on the road, then goes into the water. Pretty awesome, right? 

So honestly, we went on this tour for fun, just for something silly. But the tour was actually AMAZING! We saw so much awesome stuff in Philadelphia! And I learned a ton about the city. The tour guide aka Nana Duck was really silly and told some bad jokes. It was entertaining and informative! Notice the life jackets on the ceiling as we drove through town.

We went by Chinatown

And real life Monopoly locations... like the Pennsylvania Railroad. Super cool art deco!

Of course the Rocky steps

And okay, did you know that the statue in Love Park is tiny? I swore it was huge like the Love statue in NYC. SOOO glad we went by this on the bus, because Sarah and I were going to walk all the way over there to see it. 

Do you watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? BF gets me to watch it sometimes. ANyhow, this is Paddy's Bar where they all go. 

And then.... hands up because SPLASH the driver drove us into the Delaware River!

Gav was unimpressed by most of the tour. But whatever, it was really good!

I really like our family photo, and my dad went back and bought it! (I had tried to go back but they couldn't find it... it's because my dad already had it! We are tricksters!)

So then it was time to go to Max Brenner! I actually only have heard about it because of other bloggers going there. Basically, it's a restaurant where everything is made of chocolate... yum!

Gav had a chocolate 'hamburger' with strawberry 'katsup' and marshmallow cream 'mustard.' 

All served on plate that looked like graph paper. so awesome. 

I got the s'mores concoction. This was a mason jar with the best chocolate pudding ever, then a layer of graham crackers and whipped cream. The little vial is of caramel. in the bowl is tiny bananas in caramel. Then there is a real s'more with nutella and mini marshmallows! 

Then we had lunch 2nd after dessert... and we heated up the leftover Indian food as we got ready for the wedding. Totally a good plan!

And this Friday, I'm going to Budapest. Yup, it's crazy you guys. 

Straight up Jet Set Leah!