...and now I have to sit in Ferehegy airport and wait for 4 hours for my onward flight. I have only visited Budapest once before - spent a weekend here when I had a different job and loved it. The airport users here seem to consist of equal parts of dark-suited businessmen and gorgeous women. Perhaps I just don't notice anyone else any more...

The airport is quite nice - clean and in good shape. Had a great view of Budapest as I came in to land - so near and yet so far!!! Perhaps I should jack in the Chisinau thing and just spend the weekend in Budapest!

As if...the old sense of duty soon puts paid to those sorts of inklings.

Mind you, it does look warm, sunny and generally really nice outside - it's really very tempting! I have a Hungarian colleague at work - Agnes. I never quite worked out why she wanted to get away from here really but I suppose there are always people who want to escape and one man's meat is another man's poison...or perhaps "familiarity breeds contempt" works better in this instance. I grew up in such an idyllic place to many - it became the place to retire to for lots of better-off middle class folk who reached early-retirement age and needed something to spend their investment dividends on. But we were pretty blind to it - we knew we were supposed to think it was pretty and naturally stunning, but we didn't really notice it from day to day and the gushings of guests and tourists were always met with wry smiles...you can't eat a view etc... Not to say we didn't enjoy it - we used our surroundings all the time - day-long treks and playing in the woods near our home, discovering, adventuring, stirring up the poor old gamekeepers (who were certain we were all evil poachers - we wouldn't have had the guts or the desire to kill their precious pheasants).

The only thing travel really does, at least for me, is to bring you to a point where you really want to be at home somewhere. The true gypsy, I think, perhaps doesn't have this need. The constant travel like me is always thinking about what it might be like to settle down in one of the places he or she visits. Or maybe it really is just me. After all, I went to Russia initially to see what the place was like and ended up staying for three years, marrying into the place and then going back there on a regular basis ever since.

If I stayed at home for any length, I'd be happy enough with my wonderful wife and child, home, garden and all the rest of it, but I would always have that feeling at the back of my mind...what is it like elsewhere, I want to see. Perhaps I'm just a nosey bastard and like to pry into other people's cultures!

My younger brother is different in some ways - or maybe he's just the same. He does everything for himself - I'd love to do this but I am constantly worried about what othere people think about my actions. Perhaps I'm givng too much away here. Better to upload a load of pretty photos and not get too self-analytical. After all, who gives a monkey's toss anyway!