Day 6: Tuesday Aug. 6th
Tuesday morning we left the hotel for our tour of
the Parliament Building….but turned out the blue line on the subway was down
that morning for repairs….so we walked to a different line. By the time we got
to the Parliament building, there weren’t anymore spots for the English speaking
tour.
Boo.
BUT--good news.; Jess speaks Hungarian…so we signed up
for their next Hungarian tour.
While we waited, we took a little walk to try and
find an apartment that Jess lived in during his mission. We weren't 100%
successful but we did find the right street. :) I loved hearing all
about Jess’ mission days and memories he had from his mission. So
much of who he is and the way he thinks was formed during his life there.
He would get such a cute sparkle in his eyes whenever he saw something he
hadn't seen for decade.
Elder Winn
How cute is he reading these picture scriptures to this adorable little Hungarian girl!
Who, coincidentally, Jess saw and recognized, at church when he was out there!
Turns out she's not a little girl anymore.
A lot of the area was under construction...so we waited for our tour under a little white tent with the rest of the group.
Our tour of Parliament started, and Jess
translated for me….really quietly—and the best he could—she was an INSANELY
fast talker.
It was so so amazing! The ceiling work, the
architecture, all the different levels and intricacies were so elaborate! You
see, my personal creativity is…how shall we say?....limited. If I were to be
asked to build something grand, I’d build a box…and fill it up. Not. A.
Strength. SO, I LOVE to see how other’s strengths create such beauty in
the world around us.
(see that tiny domed roof in the distance? This is our fancy photo with the Parliament building.)
From there we walked to St. Stevens church.
There was a big open walking area leading up to the church. But on the left side
was a giant grey cement communist era building. Too bad. It takes away
from the grandeur of the church. ANYWAY, on the inside it was lovely like all
these places are. So much thought and creative talent went into
them. We saw some lovely sculptures of different saints and enjoyed a reverent, quiet, cool, and comfortable time together.
See how this says, "St. Joan"? We took that for my mom :)
From here I thought the Subway “blue” line was
probably fixed, so we gave it a shot and WA-BAM-it was. It was a super
hot day and we even got handed a “civil protection water” pouch.
We’d seen them being handed out all week but this was the first time we partook
J They were just plastic bags full of water that people just ripped off a corner with their teeth and drank.-HA! We drank them at the bottom
of the subway escalators so we could feel the fans while we drank. We're so smart.
Now for some shopping! Right by our hotel was the Large Market!
It was awesome. The whole bottom floor was mostly
perishables—like a produce/meat/cheese section at the grocery store. We
saw both tourists and local Hungarians doing their shopping.
Then on the
second floor was all the goods and prepared food places. It was super crowded--which Jess doesn't exactly love. So after we got our gifts, we found a cute little place to eat upstairs that was just opening, so it didn’t
have many others there.
PLUS we found ‘stacked potatoes’—which is a dish that
Jess LOVES. It’s mostly potatoes, cheese sauce, sausage, hard boiled
eggs, paprika….it was delicious!
AND---Cherry soup again! This time
it was more savory—so so good! My favorite place about here was the
entertainment though.
They had a guitarist and violinist who were
fun. See, I feel bad ignoring entertainers…and their music was so lively
that I just had to kind of bounce around in my seat J..soon he
was right by us playing and looked me in the eyes and motioned for me to not
tell Jess that he was getting closer and closer and closer….lowering the volume
somehow of his playing and then---BAM---it was louder and right by Jess. He was
surprised. They were fun and eventually we bought the violinist’s
instructor’s c.d. and he and the guitarist signed it. It was entertaining
though. Plus, if I ever need ambiance music for something like a spaghetti
dinner—I am so set!
Dessert. mmmmm. These are like scones--I totally took this picture specifically because I wanted to make each of these at home. mmmmmm.
Then came home,
packed for our trip to Sopron (a city about 2 hours west of Budapest).
Subway’ed to the train station and waited (SOOO HOT!) on a bench
(which was lucky cause I think there were like 2 benches) and people watched.
The train ride was soooooo warm. We put our hands over the air vent
and…well, it felt like someone was gently blowing semi-cool air out. Ha!
Fun fun. I was annoyed at myself
cause I was so excited to read my book on the train and I TOTALLY DIDN’T charge
it the night before and it was out of ‘umph’.
Grr. So we talked a little, but
it was so warm we both just tried to sleep it away :)—which wasn’t too hard for me
cause it was such a SMOOTH ride--and also I can sleep anywhere...so that helps
SOPRON WAS ADORABLE!
Loved it with all my heart. Where Budapest was busy, business-like,
crowded, and fast…. Sopron was—a small family town.
Because it was so much smaller, Jess got a
hotel room suite which was HUGE for practically the same price as our
‘boutique’ J With a dinning table, sitting room, giant
bathroom and balcony. It was fancy :)
I was STARVING so
we walked around a bit, but I made us bee-line to the their town square where a big restaurant
was. And would you believe it, we saw
KIDS! Tons of them! Kids playing by the statues, kids on bikes, kids with their
parents at dinner...
It was so weird not
to have noticed such an intense lack of them before. I loved seeing it and soaked it in (while I was stuffing my face).
We got sooo
much food to eat here. I fell in love with Goulash out there, so we both started with
that, then I got some duck/cabbage thing and Jess got 2 dishes that he
remembered loving back in the day. We
did horrible finishing them…FAIL. But, there were little twinkle lights up,
sounds of kids, a warm pleasant night with a breeze, and each other. It was beautiful.
Day 7: Wednesday Aug. 7th:
After breakfast, as we were wandering about, we saw this cute little
salon that advertised Gurru Rufa Fish.
These little fish eat the dead skin off your feet. Gross right? But also
awesome! So in we go! The girl who owned it talked Jess into doing it too. I was so awesome at it J It just felt like vibrations all over my feet. It takes like 20 minutes during which we looked thru magazines, and drank carbonated water (Hungarians love carbonated water--I think it's gross but wanted to be polite)
and then it was
Jess’ turn. He was HIL.ARIOUS.
He’s so ticklish! He laughed and giggled the whole time.
People were walking by and staring in at him from the window. HA! It was awesome.
It had a list of amazing things that we would feel as a result of this ORGANIC experience (including not being afraid of the sea…)—meh. But it was fun!
Then we climbed the Fire Tower in their town square. From there was such an amazingly adorable view. Almost every home/business was built touching 3 others to form a courtyard in the center—and with all the red roofs everywhere it was awesome. Loved. It.
Waiting in the train station (MUCH nicer, smaller, and cooler-temperature-then the one in Budapest) Jess ran to a little store to get some water for our trip back. He found some Turo Rudi’s! YAY! He’d been looking for the raspberry filled ones and they were a refrigerated treat with turo curd in the middle, and chocolate covering. I love me some of those! Mmmm…turo.
Jess opted to pay the extra 3 whole dollars for 1st class on the train….which proved to be AMAZING. The air conditioning was amazing and we had a super pleasant ride.
That night we went to the mall to see Wolverine J. Great Great.
Day 8: Thursday Aug. 8th:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Woo woo.
It was also our last day and we had had SOOOO much fun! I was so excited for
Jess to be able to see the boys the next day and we’d done so much fun
stuff!
We weren’t sure what to do with our morning. Jess had mentioned that he’d thought the
Hungarian National Museum would be cool at one point and I thought-hey! I like
museums…He tried to talk me out of it cause he didn’t think I WOULD like
it.
ANYWAY—turns out I was thinking more ART, and IT
was thinking more HISTORY
—(enter ‘snoring sounds’)
Now Hungary has been
around for awhile right—so it had to cover like 1,000 years. We got little headsets to explain the museum
and got started.
(see...we're in the back of this random photo with our fancy headsets on...)
The museum was…full...of.... information….and I’m sure it is of interest to so many well educated people on Hungary…. I learned lots about kings, border changes, revolts, wars, invaders…oooh so so much. But don’t ask me about what I remember because there was so much Hungarian mixed in that I really just looked at old stuff.
The museum was…full...of.... information….and I’m sure it is of interest to so many well educated people on Hungary…. I learned lots about kings, border changes, revolts, wars, invaders…oooh so so much. But don’t ask me about what I remember because there was so much Hungarian mixed in that I really just looked at old stuff.
When we were getting closer to the stuff that I actually had interest
in (the past 60 years—communism in Hungary…) we realized we had to leave cause
we were going to be late for our massages. (I know, I just lost any ounce of
pity felt by anyone). So we ran thru the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (finally one that I actually knew about!) and out
the door.
On our way out, I was telling Jess that ---apparently, I don’t LOVE History museums…he said ‘maybe if it were a…candy museum’?
YES! ‘and if it had samples?’
YES!!! He knows me so well.
And to be fair—I would LOVE to
go to a condensed/cliff notes type History museum….maybe one that was written
for kids…with pictures and hands on experiences—maybe some movies or samples of
things they ate? I’d like THAT History
museum for SURE. That would be nice.
So…off to our massages! They were at the Szechanyi Baths and were
special cause it was my birthday J We swam for a bit, then went
with our escort to were we were supposed to be.
It was great. And their music made me laugh. It was from a
little radio and it was such a random mix of mid-90’s American/Hungarian music.
After dinner that night we both got delicious Gelato and walked home.
This isn't the best picture...cause we'd already devoured lots..They look more like this...mmmmm.
Departure Day: Friday Aug. 9th:
Our day of travel was easy-peasy. We went to Amsterdam (got some chocolates), to Detroit, to home. We got in late--but it was soooooo fun the next morning when the boys woke up and charged in with
hugs and kisses. Then we got to give them their gifts and just play! They had been counting down the days till dad got home and they could wrestle with him again---and wrestle they did.
FAVORITE Memories from Hungary
·
Having
the time to have amazing
conversations with each other over and over and over again
·
Gelato. Mmmmm.
·
Laughing…a
lot!
·
Recognizing
and building the strength in our relationship
·
While
leaving the National Hungarian Museum—I realized that I really don’t like
history museums. BORING. Jess suggested
I ask this next time, “Is it a candy
museum? With samples? DONE!” he’s so smart. Next time J
·
RELAXING
·
Say we
were mugged, it’d be a good story right?
And if Jess was killed during it, this is what Jess said would be a good
response. J “You can’t always judge a
vacation by who you bring back with you.” So true.
·
Jess
giving dinner to the homeless man outside the grocery store.
·
Playing
TRAP!
·
Watching
Jess speak Hungarian was so awesome—he’s great at it.
·
Our
conversation about love in the middle of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. That Jess is a romantic and I LOVE that about
him.
·
Jess
saving me from Malaria with a violent slap to the forehead. J (mesquito…) He’s sweet like
that.
·
Smiling,
Loving, Talking, Laughing, Surprise Kisses, Holding Hands…
·
Crossing
Freedom Bridge at Sunset and taking in: the sun disappearing behind the lush
Buda Hills, the Pest side with all their amazing giant buildings and activity,
the gorgeous Danube river, and being there taking it all in with the man I want
to be with for Eternity.