Andrássy Ut, 118

When we lived in Budapest from winter 2006 to spring 2009 we were lucky enough to live on the top floor of this villa on Andrássy Ut, which is seen as the Champs-Élysées in Paris.  I remember when we were looking for a flat and we say this one, one of my concerns was feeling safe at night coming home in the dark and with Bb sometimes out of the country for work.  Little did I know it was one of the safest and probably the best street in the city! My other concern was making it feel like home as it was rather grand and huge!  However, when all our things arrived that we'd accumulated from staying in Sao Paulo and London, it soon felt very much like home. In the living room I remember we created four different areas - one corner had my desk, another two big sofas, another the open fire, a sofa and two big chairs and the last had the TV and another two chairs.   We'll never live in a grander place!  We had a fantastic landlady Marian and with the flat came Marian's even more fantastic cleaning lady (but oh so much more than a cleaning lady!) Eva!  We lived very happily here for 3 and a half years.  

Special memories there include: a 50th birthday we hosted for a friend and colleague Mike Catlin which went on well into the night and when Bb and I got up in the morning there were beer bottles lined up on the balcony. When we went to bring them in, tourists were taking photos of them!;  a work event of Bb's when we had live music in the corner;  an art exhibition for a friend who took all the paintings down which were in the flat and put up his own work!; a Burns Supper;  and a dinner party in which we served up dinner that we'd ordered from the French restaurant where we'd eaten the night before.....we were eating at the restaurant and we both suddenly had the idea at the same time - let's not bother cooking, we'll just get it delivered half an hour before from here!!  We didn't tell our guests and we had to make sure we knew what the ingredients were (and in Hungarian) in the venison dish in case anyone asked!;  a time when we left the keys in the door in the inside and then couldn't get the keys in from the outside.  Marian called the fire brigade and said she thought we'd left the gas turned on and a big fire engine turned up and the officers got in through an open window.  We had to give a big donation to their charity of the year!   Happy memories!

Have added a few extras: another of Andrassy 118, one of the avenue, the front of our old food market, Cafe Kara - conveniently situated at the exit to our local metro station.