The Buda-Post (Budapest, Hungary trip)

Never in my life did I imagine going to Hungary. Why would I? I'm not even sure I knew where it was on a map. But Mark's sister Kristi and her lovely husband Cade decided to live there for a few months (semester abroad) so we found ourselves knee deep in Buda land. I will have to say we are glad we had this opportunity because I'm not sure we would have ventured there with out their influence and hospitality. In November we stayed with the Buck's in their interesting apartment for 5 spectacular, fun-filled days. We tasted the local fares, sampled the regional customs, and partook of the cultural heritage. ...In other words we toured around Budapest like the tourists that we are. Kristi and Cade were such magnificent tour guides; you would have thought they were Hungarian by the way they maneuvered the streets and subways. So, enough jibber jabber; on with the goods...

Kristi and Cade warned us that Budapest was much prettier by night. I would have to agree. We loved our night strolls.

Fisherman's Bastion 

Now Rick Steves is usually a pretty good source when it comes to steering you in the right direction, but he owes us some money. Seriously this place was the pits. We took a long bus ride to the outskirts of town where they moved all the old communist statues after it all ended.  It was probably like 9 Euros a ticket or something to see a pile of old Lenin statues.  But we made the best of it and still had a fine time. Of course Mark was in heaven because it was just like Russia.  And as you can see Sadie spent the afternoon lurking about in the background...

They were pretty interesting statues though.

 This was at the bus stop on the way home.  When you go further from the city center, it looks more and more Russian according to Mark.  The more Russian it looked, the less anyone wanted to travel to Russia.

The girls had lots of fun at the local parks.

and so did Mark.

Meditating is a great way to refresh and renew according to Rick Steves. You might find this picture on a travel brochure for Budapest. 

Dined on the famous Hungarian Goulash

 Ice cream break, I love that Sadie was sharing. Such a good big sister.

Sadie tends to get really curious with all the artful statues around Europe. You should have seen her in the Louvre. This is Kristi and Ash at some fancy opera house 

Helping Auntie and Unkie make pizza. Sorry Kristi but you slightly resemble alien in the first picture. I think it's the silver eyes.

Outside the Bucks apartment. Pretty cool, huh? Living the high life...

This time we decided to throw the kids a bone and do something fun (we usually just drag them around the freezing cold), so we took them to the ZOOOOOO!!! They both loved the wide variety of Central European zoo animals.

Three sloths if you count London.  Do they let these monsters run wild? Is that legal?

Plus we had some close calls with the leopard:

Would an airline called WizzAir make you suspicious? They were pretty good and the girls liked the pink planes at least.  Eventually we got home safe and sound. Kristi came home with us for a fabulous Thanksgiving. We took her to some German Christmas markets and had fun cooking up a storm. Thanks Bucks for a great trip. We miss you guys. Come back.