What a busy past few weeks we have had!! Riann and Lincoln both had their little Christmas programs at preschool. Riann's class did a wonderful job singing their little hearts out with several different Christmas carols.
Lincoln's class, however, didn't quite have the same happiness. The domino effect - one sad little kid sees their mom or dad and begins crying even harder, the other kids hear the crying and start crying themselves for no other reason than they think there is something to be sad about. Then those kids see their parents and Miss Echo, their teacher, is trying to get them to sing... But one little girl, our friend Kaelin, she did sing her little heart out with a HUGE smile on her face as she twirled around in her little red Christmas dress and made it totally worth seeing.
Riann turned 5 on December 16th.
It is hard to believe she is 5 but she is so excited!! She had school on her birthday so she took in Tinkerbell cupcakes to share with her class. She requested a special birthday dinner of macaroni & cheese and chicken fingers followed by a coconut cake - some big requests of a 5 year old!!
Riann and I worked on baking about a million Christmas cookies - our old family favorites: animal cut out cookies and pudding cookies. After seeing some tasty Germany treats here in the Commissary, I got an inkling to made an old, long forgotten family German Christmas cookie: Lebkuchen. I can remember making Lebkuchen with my mom, sister and my Grammy in our kitchen. So I did a little research online, found several German Lebkuchen recipes, read reviews, etc and decided on one to try. Grammy always liked her Lebkuchen and her animal cut out cookies crispy and paper thin. I didn't make Grammy too happy, I'm sure, because mine were soft and plump and about 3/4" thick. But they were good and I passed on the "new" recipe on to my mom and my sister all the way across the pond to make this past weekend together. Sounds like they liked them a lot too!!
We're freshly back from a long weekend in Budapest, Hungary - what a fabulous city, even in the frigid wintertime!
Our adventure began Saturday, December 19th. We heard of a few weather delays before heading to the airport, but nothing major. Good thing our original idea to go to Paris didn't work out because they, along with so many other Western European countries were socked by snow. We didn't think anything of it when our flight was delayed a bit over an hour but close to landing time, the Captain came on to tell us in his very strong accent that Budapest's airport was supposed to reopen at 4pm after being closed due to the weather, however while we were flying, the weather did not improve enough to lift that closure and we may have to be rerouted to... yea, I'm not really sure where he said but it sounded something like Yugoslavia. We circled the air around Budapest for over an hour before the Captain finally came back on with the news that we would be landing shortly and we would be arriving into Budapest as planned. Thank goodness!! By the time we got our taxi and checked into our hotel, it was nearly 6pm, a few hours later than expected. With hungry kids in tow, we made a beeline for whatever we could find first - Burger King. Not really what I had hoped for our first meal in Hungary, but with kids sometimes you just make it work. It was pretty hilarious to order our food only for the register to read to us "3349.00" Ummm, excuse me?? That would be in HUF, Hungarian Forint, roughly $5 equals 1000 HUF. Happy kids with full bellies, we were off to the Vorosmarty Christmas Market!!
It was frigid, almost bitter cold walking around Sunday morning. Our first few stops were kind of a bust since things were closed. We also ran into a small problem - our ATM cards were not working. That turned into a big problem very quickly because we didn't have much Euro on us to begin with - you usually don't because of pickpocketing here - and what we did have and exchanged for HUF was almost gone, and our bank isn't open on Sundays, and then there is always the time difference. So we made the best of it, we made the little bit of HUF we did have go as far as it could stretch. We walked to the southern end of Vaci Utca to Central Market Hall (which was closed), Riann and Lincoln played in the snow a bit there while Jamie tried another ATM. We strolled up through Vorosmarty Christmas Market that was just opening, and took the Metro to Hosok Tere to see Heroes Square which has the Millennium Monument in the middle of the square. Heroes Square is at the end of Andrassy Street which runs from the Pest city center, considered the most exclusive address in Budapest. From there we went to Varosliget, City Park. There was a small Christmas market here with Santa's workshop, a big bubble like structure where "elves" were at work, we think they had toys being donated and going to the less fortunate. Then we walked in a loop to Vajvahunyad Castle, which now houses the Museum of Agriculture, the only part open to the public - we did not go inside. The castle, from the exterior, was pretty cool looking, especially with everything being snow-covered.
We continued walking our loop and came upon one of the many natural hot springs that Budapest is so well-known for. There were hundreds of ducks hanging out in this steaming "pond", and I just had to stick my hand in to see just how warm it was - ahhh! Like bathwater! There is also a zoo, a circus, an art gallery, a museum of fine art and the famous Szechenyi Baths, which opened in 1913 near this thermal spring. We probably should have walked over to see even just for the photos but Riann and Lincoln were getting cold. We took the Metro back and headed to the hotel for a warm-up break. Jamie went out to get Riann and Lincoln lunch which ended up being McDonald's, or "Old McDonald's", as Riann called it, then we made a few phone calls regarding our ATM situation...
Thanks to Jamie's mom who (probably took a phone call from us, wondered if the call was a scam, scurried about to find Western Union and) was able to wire us some money, we finally had cash in hand and had a way to use public transportation, get around without the kids freezing their little noses and toes off and enjoy Budapest... or Pest anyway, since we were on that side of the Danube River.
Jamie felt a little nervous walking around with 5,000, 10,000, and 50,000 (HUF) bills in his wallet, but quickly got over it knowing that even with such large looking bills, it was only a total of $250 (US Dollars).
After everyone was warmed up, we took the tram along the Danube River to the Hungarian Parliament for a little sightseeing. The building is absolutely beautiful! We tried to find a "Fairy Tale" Christmas Market near the Parliament but we did not have success. Instead, we did a little more walking toward the city center, found St. Stephen's Basilica - we did not go inside this either, which Jamie is now disappointed we didn't go in. Next time...
We found ourselves back in Vorosmarty Christmas Market in perfect time for the 5:00pm opening of the Advent Calendar window. Everyday they open another window after they play Christmas carols in a balcony above Gerbeaud Cukraszda (Confectionery).
After, we found a restaurant on the way to drop off some things at our hotel, a wine cellar where the man working out front was chatting to us about American football. It was a little early for dinner, so we continued to our hotel, dropped off our things and headed back to the wine cellar only to find it closed. As in no lights were on, the guy was gone, it was like it was never open. We were really puzzled, was it a scam, did we almost get mugged... weird! We found somewhere else to eat, ordered delicious Hungarian food - some things I never thought I'd picture myself ordering, let alone eating like pink duck filet, goose liver pate and veal stew - but it was all so yummy, and what's better on a cold night than hot, delicious Hungarian food?? Bellies full, we called it a night.
Monday we had quite the adventure planned out. We took the metro from Deke Tere in Pest to Buda, walked along the western bank of the semi-frozen Danube River, took in some beautiful sights of the Parliament, and made our way to the Funicular that was unfortunately closed until 2:30pm... so much for getting an early start! We ended up getting a great workout walking up a very long, winding hill and up several cases of stairs. We saw the Office of the President of Hungary, walked along the outside of Buda Palace / Buda Castle - most of the existing castle was built in the 18th century but it was preceded by a palace and two castles, one built around 1255, then rebuilt in 1458. The castle was damaged during WWII, some parts needed to be entirely rebuilt. Since 1945 it has housed several museums including the Hungarian National Gallery which houses more than 40,000 works - something not great for taking kids to see. The sights of Pest from Buda were pretty amazing, we really enjoyed checking it all out!
We took a little break at a Confectionery, rested our feet, warmed up and enjoyed some wonderful Cherry and Apple Strudels along with hot chocolate for the kids and cappuccino for Jamie and myself. Rested up, we took off to the Labyrinth of Budavar - an underground maze of tunnels - once a refuge for hunters and gatherers from about 10,000BC, then it served as a bomb shelter during WWII, kind of bizarre but overall pretty cool! Riann and Linc are both going through the "scared" phase lately so they didn't enjoy it as much as Jamie and I did, but I think we all loved finding the wine fountain.
We passed Matyas Church where we found several huge bells on display in front then headed to Fishermen's Bastion, where some of the best views of Pest are, not to mention some pretty fun picture taking. Fishermen's Bastion was built in 1895 as a monument to the Guild of Fishermen. We walked back down the hill and stairs back to catch the Metro, had lunch at one of the vendors near the Christmas Market before we went back to the hotel for another little break. Jamie and Riann and Linc stayed at the hotel for a movie while I headed back to Vorosmarty to have a better, non-distracted, non-rushed look at the Christmas Market. I met Jamie and the kids back at the hotel, then we left and took a walk along the eastern bank of the Danube to get some photos of the sights lit up, including one of the trams decked out in blue and white lights and the Chain Bridge that made for pretty pictures as well.
We tried our luck finding a place to eat along a roundabout way to Vorosmarty but decided to enjoy dinner Hungarian Christmas Market style outside at the Market. We ate a variety of things - sausage, a potato-pancake type thing, cabbage rolled up beef - none of which we actually got a name for but I did take pictures, of course!
Our visit to Budapest was coming to an end, the sun had set long ago and it was getting cold again, so we went back to the hotel to put the kids to sleep and pack up to head home the next morning.
Our flight was delayed once again, but not for very long. We were lucky we didn't have some of the crazy weather that the rest of Western Europe was having.
We left the snow behind to find ourselves back in 60-degree weather in Naples. It doesn't feel much like Christmas at all here besides the decor on most apartments and inside our own of course.
Where will our next adventure be? We're not quite sure but it will be a little while before we have something big planned. For now we'll take a little hiatus, save up for our next adventure. I can't complain, we have been here for 6 months and have already been to Stuttgart, Munich and Kaiserslautern, Germany; Innsbruck, Austria; Florence, Lucca, Cinque Terre, Venice, Sorrento, Napoli, Livorno, Pisa, Viertri sul Mare, Positano, Salerno and Rome (twice), Italy. Still, so many more places to see and we only have 2.5 more years here.
Buon Natale!!
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