Rudi and I like to go abroad every few years.

Let me rephrase that: Rudi and I like to go abroad often, but we can only afford to go every few years, and sometimes life conspires to make it more than a few. We’ve been to Canada, England, France, and, most recently (6 3 years ago now!), Iceland together.

Next up on our itinerary: Hungary.

We bought the tickets back in the spring, when an airline glitch caused the fuel surcharge to be left off the ticket prices temporarily. We’d never considered Hungary as a vacation destination before, but we’d never not considered it either, and our Iceland trip had been made with a similar amount of consideration and we really enjoyed that. So, within an hour of seeing the price come across Twitter, we’d booked our flight. But the trip was so far in the future — nine months at that time — that it didn’t seem especially real, to me at least.

Now, though, it’s less than four months away and it occurs to me that I should probably start doing some research. Iceland was easy to wing, because Icelanders nearly all speak perfect English and because those tickets included a hotel and several activities. With this upcoming trip, we’ve just got a ride to Budapest.

But, honestly, I like researching a vacation nearly as much as I like taking one, so now that the timeline seems more realistic, I’m getting ready to investigate our options. We have friends who’ve been, so I’ll probably pick their brains, but not until after I’ve done some internet and guide book reading of my own.

Rudi would like to maybe jaunt into Slovakia and/or Austria, since those neighboring countries are so near Budapest, but we’re only gone a week total, so we’ll have to weigh the costs and how much we want to see of Hungary before we expand outwards.

In the meantime, though, I’ve downloaded a language guide audiobook to my phone (thanks, D.C. Public Library and Overdrive!) and intend to devote some time to learning basic Hungarian terms and phrases.