Leaving Budapest

Leaving Budapest is going to kill me one of these days. It seems I am unable to have an uneventful departure via airplane from the city. Last time, I accidentally left my passport at our appartment, so when I got to the airport I had to take a taxi home, wake up my roommates (it was very early in the morning) and take a taxi back - very stressful. Yesterday, the airport Minibus service called me at 7:35 (They were scheduled to pick me up at 7:40) to ask what my street name was. After a couple minutes on hold, the woman from the serivice informed me that her colleague had written my address down wrong and they would not be able to pick me up. Instead I should call a taxi. Of course it was rush hour, and my host family lives in a suburb of Budapest so I had no idea how long it would take a taxi to arrive. Thankfully, Agi´s mom was home and she called the taxi for me. It arrived at 7:55 - within 15 minutes of calling, and once we made it across the river into pest, which took about 45 min (My flight was at 9:50) the traffic abated and we actually got to the airport with enough time for me to complain to the minibus service and at least get a refund for my return ticket. (Although the taxi was 6000 forints and the refund was less than 2000, plus I tipped the taxi driver 1000 forints because he really seemed concerned that I get there on time. He drove in the bus only lane whenever possible, and he capped the fare at 6000, although it would have been more if he hadn´t turned off the meter.) But it was a much more stressful airport arrival than I would have liked. At least it wasn´t my own fault this time. Of course my luggage was 13 kilos overweight (apparently the limits for flights within Europe are much lower than the transcontinental ones) so I had to pay about 200 dollars extra to ship it. Even if I had removed all the liquor from my bags, though (2 bottles of wine from Agi and Zsolt, and 1 liter and 2 half liters of Unicum,) I think they still would have been overweight. I guess I should stop packing shampoo?

But I arrived safely in Malaga eventually, found my hotel with only slight difficulty, and did a bit of wandering around before having some tapas for dinner. The wind is crazy here right now - the landing and take off in Madrid and the landing in Malaga were unpleasant. (In Madrid the plane was actually rocking back and forth quite a bit due to wind while we were waiting on the runway) But there are flowering plants and it´s warm enough that this morning I am wearing only a long sleeved shirt and a vest, no coat, hat, gloves, etc. Now I am waiting for my parents to arrive. Apparently their flight from Madrid is delayed 90 minutes, although the Iberia website is still claiming it left at 9:50.