First Thoughts: Budapest

Greetings from a cold Budapest, where the outside temparature is about 2 degrees Celcius. Budapest lies almost directly northwards of Cape Town, but due to the lack of a direct flight, I had to take a detour through a surprisingly warm London (was about 9 degrees at 6am ... substantially warmer than the last time I was there in November when it was about 1 degree at noon).

On first impressions, Budapest has a strange mix of modern, ancient and the really ugly (most possibly soviet era) buildings all seemingly next to each other. The picture is the view from my hotel room, showing one of the many bridges across the Duna river, and some of the older parts of Budapest. Anyway, I am off to explore around the hotel, and check out the distance to the conference venue.