HUNGARY: Part 1

Me: "Okay, now that I'm going to Hungary, I should learn how to say some basic things right?  Like how do you say 'hi'?"

Jess: "Jo napot kivanok"  (yo-naw-pote key-vah-nok)

Me: "Nevermind"

So Jess spent the summer (10 weeks: May-August) in Hungary doing an internship at the American Embassy.  (He served his mission there and LOVES the place, people, language--all of it).  

He really enjoyed his job and did all sorts of awesome 

(and the occasional less awesome pee-on type internship) work.  

He wrote reports on Hungarian constitutional issues, 

cleaned up after some 'wild' diplomat parties, 

presented policy suggestions to the Hungarian foreign ministry, 

set up chairs in conference rooms,

escorted Senators thru Budapest, 

cut "made in China" tags off 1,000 leis for a lil' Hawaiian themed shin-dig,

spent 2 days with Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, 

and even got to write a speech for the Ambassador 

(20% of which totally survived the editing process to boot!) 

So overall--he had a real nice time.

During his time away: we thought 

'Yes, Cari should totally visit'! 

Then money shouted 

"No!  Don't be silly." so we said 'okay, maybe not.'  

THEN---(and here's the great part) we said, 

"P-cha, nevermind all that--we'll probably never get this chance again--so YES IT IS!"

And--let me tell you.  IT.WAS.THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF A 

RELAXING VACATION/SIGHT-SEEING TRIP/ROMANTIC GET-AWAY!

And it all was made possible by some amazing grandparents and an aunt--without which our kids would have been really sad and hungry while I was gone.  Thank you sooo much.

It was amazing how long I was able to sustain an exceedingly high level of excitement for this.  I was even thrilled for the actual flight/airport shinanagons--all I needed to worry about for my hours of traveling was ME, to eat snacks, watch movies ('42'-awesome, Life of Pi-okay, Identity Thief---didn't get so far in that.  After the 5th F-bomb I realized it actually WASN'T edited--woops), talk to the man next to me from Sweden who owned a company in Highland and traveled home to his family every month!  Wowza!  He had a great many interesting things to say—and I was so proud of myself because I caught most of them (I’m not very stellar with strong accents...). some sleeping happened, and 10 hours later--BOOM, the Eiffle Tower:

Not like this though--smaller....and out the plane window--but I totally saw it!  And since I only had 3 hours in Paris, I got some great suggestions from my friend Val about what had to do in France :)  And I'm proud to say I ate Macaroons for the first time...and they were delicious.  

Also I had a croissant for lunch; it seemed appropriate.  The rest of the time I spent reading "Face Like Glass" (wonderful book) and trying sooooo hard to stay awake in the warm, warm airport so I wouldn't miss my 2 hour flight to Budapest.

And waiting for me at the Airport was the most adorable, amazing man ever!  It was soooo nice to see him in real life and hear his real voice instead of computer voice. 

 

 Here's a pic of our hotel...it made us laugh cause turns out "Boutique Hotel" means super teeny tiny hotel.  Those Hungarians-ha.  But--Ole Zara had an AMAZING location.

It was a 30 second walk to Vaci Street  which had all the adorable places to eat, the big market, shops....It was perfect--so we could handle 'teeny tiny'.

Day 2: 

I slept too late to get our Continental Breakfast--lame (see, I think free breakfast is a must EVERYWHERE we go :), so Jess stopped at one of the MILLIONS of bakeries down the street.  They were so so good.  And turns out, I LOVE TURO!  It's this amazing  calm, sweet curdy cheese that makes me happy just thinking about it.  mmmmm....we ate it on our bed...on account of there's no room for a table or chairs in a 'boutique hotel' silly.

We took the subway, like we did EVERYDAY. Subways are awesome.  Also they're funny things.  

ALRIGHT--so here comes my BIGGEST REGRET of the trip:

I left the hotel that morning with no ID...at first I thought--maybe?  Then--NAW, what if I got mugged!    But that was the morning that Jess needed to go to the Embassy to turn in his badge. 

I was soooo excited to see the place where he’d been working all summer and meet some of the people he’d worked with. We got there and LAME!  NO ID on me so NO ENTRANCE says the people with guns…(turns out they have tight security on places like 'The Embassy"…grrrr) so Jess, quick as a wink turned in his badge without me and came back out to start our day (for real…grrrrr.)  Lovely building though. (grrrr)

The Embassy is the building in the center. Jess worked in the corner office 4th window up. (grrrr)

Next we took the subway, and you know what, subways are funny things.  No one really talks much on them, so Jess and I talking and laughing with each other…and in English caught a bit of attention.  I tried to be a little quieter…but I’m kinda a loud person so I wasn’t successful entirely. 

 

 This was a little train ran by little kids. They took our money and …well after that they mostly just saluted each other and wore funny little hats—very official little kids though.  

We took the train through a forested area, which was real nice.  It dropped us off at the starting point for a hike to a chair lift.  It was nice and shady.  Which was great cause that week was HOT.  We got to the chair lift but decided to keep going up so we could get to the lookout point.

 It was so pretty to see all the Buda Hills with house tops just popping out of the trees.  We bought some water (we bought soooo much water.  I don't love paying for water).... 

and hiked back down to the chair lift....It was super pretty...unfortunately I forgot to take any picture...until we were almost done--see the ending spot up ahead--ANYWAY--it was super pretty :)

When we got off we saw the Ambassadors House—which was lovely and also guarded so I couldn’t get too close.  But Jess has been there before and said it was a nice place.

I just want to interject here that ALL the toilets out there were so weird. (especially the one at the chair lift place)  I never saw the same type of flusher twice.  I swear I took a full extra minute in every bathroom just trying to figure out the fun and exciting puzzle of 'how to flush'.  Sometimes they look like a light switch, sometimes they’re a peddle on the floor, one was on a pipe one the wall, and you have to turn it like a faucet ----then turn it back so it doesn’t keep filling and filling with water, some are buttons on top of the tank, some on the wall behind it (and a lot have 2 buttons a big and a small one next to each other--small button for #1, bigger one for #2-ha!  

Way to conserve Europeans!!  Good job.)  

“Where’s the flusher” my favorite international game!

After the chair lift, we did some light shopping at the mall, had a turkish 'plate' lunch with Cherry soup mmm, and came home to relax...BECAUSE WE COULD.   Just relax! 

Try to imagine this:

No texts

No emails

No English television

No computer

No kids to take care of

No deadlines to worry about

No schedules to keep

No diapers to change

NOTHING, NO DISRACTIONS

It was AMAZING to be able to lay next to Jess and just read our books together till we didn’t want to anymore!  I can’t remember the last time I read a book and didn’t feel bad about not doing something more productive.

 IT.WAS.AMAZING.

We chatted with the boys (hangouts on Google+) and then went to dinner.  That night we had LEGIT Hungarian Food on Vaci Street

I had Hungarian Goulash, and this cabbage lasagna thing.  It was awesome.  

Jess had Paprika Chicken and Dumplings. His favorite

 (I should insert here that I’m a big fan of food, I really will talk about it a lot.….I love the way it creates memories and envelopes you in culture.  The end.)

Since most places you go over there don’t have air conditioning, they have their seating either partially or completely outside.  It’s so romantic to walk around hearing all the live music, seeing all the happy couples (I’m pretty sure I saw like 3 kids the whole time we were in Budapest), little lights and candles on every table,, and just holding hands and feeling so so so happy and love-y the whole time.

Day 3:

Slept in till 10:00 again--mission breakfast, so we stopped at Fronetti (baker in the subway--not scary--delicious--we got a pastry with a ham center-sooo...droool, good) 

And off to start an Awesome Tourism Day!

St. Matthias Church

We had a great discussion while touring about the sincerity that others live their religion—I've often felt sad in the face of other religions because they don't having the whole truth—but instead of feeling pity, I need to do a better job at focusing on the beautiful reverent way that they live SO FULLY what truth they DO know.  

The church was such a quiet/reverent place I felt strange smiling for a picture...but what do you do.  We loved the stain glass windows, and the sculpture of Queen Elizabeth was lovely---real top notch work.

 Then Fishermen’s Bastion.  

(named this because of the medieval guild of fishermen who were 

responsible for defending this stretch of castle wall.) 

The view of Budapest was AMAZING from here.   We bought some pictures here that were painted by a jolly older gentleman. He wore a nice big hat and gloves with no fingers on them.  The man took a crumpled up plastic bag out of his pocket to put the pictures in.  That's not an unusual thing either.  Hungarians don't live in excess--there are sooo many things we do, have, overlook here in the land of plenty.  I've been given sooo much and take so much of it for granted. 

Next we walked over to the Royal Palace/Buda Castle.  Turns out this place has been through a Lot of different regimes/razed/rebuilt…rough. But also AMAZING and had wonderful statues!  We both love statues.  

They had the cutest statue of kids wrestling with a giant fish.  Isn't childhood so extreme and magical and wonderful!

We discussed this statue of a women holding a plate over her head that was overflowing with water.  They’re all naked over there ya know.  And the human body is such a beautiful thing too.  I liked this one in particular because she had good birthing hips, a little tiny belly pouch and really—a very realistic beautiful interpretation of the womans body---only one thing that holds true in ALL art that I've see up to this point in my life, is that NONE celebrate post-pregnancy chest. HA!  Lame.  But I loved that statue. 

Changing of the Guard at their "White House" ish place.

Then off for another mid-day relaxing nap---Awesome.

Then for dinner we took the subway to Liszt Ferenc Utca.  We found a place that was packed, and thought--this place is probably delicious then--and it was..but it was also slow...go figure.   It took like 3 years-. HA! I guess going to a busy restaurant + the fact that Hungarians are big on slow service on purpose, because they talk and really enjoy their meals together= a lengthy meal.  We joked about how great it was that we didn’t have to pay a babysitter that night…and how ironic it was that we have to pay sitters for a few hours out, but that our families took them for over a week for free….they’re so nice.