Di imbarcarsi sull'aereo per Londra!

Translation: Boarding the plane for London!

When we knew we were moving to Italy, my #1 destination for a visit (besides seeing ALL of Italy) was London. Unfortunately, the day before we flew out, I had to make a run to the ER here (you go to the ER when there are no more doctors appointments available on base) and was diagnosed with Strep Throat. I didn't care what I had, we were going to LONDON the next day, please oh please, just let me feel better!!

We arrived in 2 short hours to London via the Southwest of Europe: RyanAir. Jamie did a case study on RyanAir while working on his Masters, I recall the day he came home and told me all about the terrible customer service but cheap, cheap tickets. I also recall thinking, and probably saying "We will never, ever fly RyanAir!!!"
Never say never, right??
Even RyanAir exceeded my expectations, there was no "standing room only" as I had imagined, both engines worked, the flight attendants were really nice... What was all the fuss about??

First London experiences: riding the Gatwick Express from the airport to the middle of London and then we piled all four of us and all of our luggage into their adorable black taxis and headed to our flat. It was late, so dinner was a must; a terribly expensive night out for burgers, about $65, but Mmmmmm, burgers!! and a huge variety of burgers, such a heavenly treat.


























We had 4 more full days in London, so we tried to see and do as much as possible.

Our first day, Saturday April 16 - We took advantage of the easy mass transit, mostly the double decker buses, but also the Underground (subway system). We visited the Tower of London,









enjoyed the Crown Jewels more than one would think - they were actually quite unbelievable! Then we began our "Rick Steves" recommended "The City" walk: we checked out St. Paul's Cathedral in The City (downtown), worked our way toward Westminster and Central London stopping at a favorite restaurant of Charles Dickens': Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Tavern




which was rebuilt in 1667 after The Great Fire, but it has existed as Tavern since 1538. And of course, we indulged in a British favorite: Fish & Chips.
We stopped in for some tea in Twinings, a super cute, super narrow tea shop dating back to 1706. We had to experience Leicester Square and Covent Garden Market, landed ourselves in Soho where we stumbled upon more beautiful gardens - so many gorgeous, colorful flowers throughout London!!!
Like all trips, we had a bribe or two for Riann and Lincoln, and on this first full day in London, we walked down Regent Street and let them explore Hamley's toy store. Of all things they could have chosen, Riann picked a doll and Lincoln picked out a helicopter. They were happy, and that was all that mattered!

The new toys bought us a little more time, so we walked to Piccadilly Circus. Unfortunately there was a lot of construction going on and it wasn't really all that impressive to us.
After a quick rest at our flat, we boarded another double decker and headed to the Marble Arch, we saw the Horse Head where Riann and Linc took their turns standing in the nostril of the massive structure.

Day two, we took a ride on over to Paddington Station and took a train to Bath.

Bath was really pretty, very quaint, really cool and not very touristy, we loved it and we were so glad we decided to do a side day trip there! I would definitely recommend going to check out the Roman Baths, the Pump Room for a snack and tea, and The Royal Crescent. We also walked along the River Avon, saw a game of Cricket in full swing, and even peaked into the Bath Rugby stadium. Somehow the main memory Jamie holds of Bath is of a conversation he overheard in the park in front of the Royal Crescent: A man talking to his friend (?) (and you have to read it in your best British accent)
"Yea, that sandwich... It looks a bit mangey, but it tastes bloody good."

Something I did not expect to find in the London area: over crowded trains INTO London in the mid-afternoon. The train we boarded back to Paddington Station had no seats left, I'm not sure how they allowed us to board. So until the first stop, Jamie and I each kept one of the kids as close to us as possible. At the second stop, a woman removed her bags from the luggage rack that we were standing right next to. Instead of having any more near-misses of the kids getting bonked in their heads, we let them ride as luggage in the rack. A few minutes after finding their new "seats", one of the train stewards moved us up from luggage to First Class. Nice!

Day three, April 18th, we had to check off the major sights of London: Big Ben and Parliament, then Westminster Abbey. I will be a dork and gloat here: I was first in line at the Abbey!! The coolest part of waiting in line was speaking with an employee who was telling me about all the setting up for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate which was taking place the following week. The Abbey had BBC workers walking in and out with tons of equipment, the Abbey employee was telling me they had been setting up for WEEKS already. The Abbey was also closed Thursday and Friday for the Queen to do an inspection for the nuptials... I was definitely starstruck!

Westminster Abbey is beyond impressive, it is so beautiful inside and out!
More sights to be seen!! We wandered over to the Wellington Barracks where we saw the changing of the guard - recommended by friends of ours, but also by RIck Steves for families with younger children. We were up front along the fence with a perfect view, meanwhile the massive crowds were over by Buckingham Palace, everyone trying desperately to catch a glimpse of the men in uniform. The Barracks holds a practice before the changing of the guard officially takes place, the Drum Majors played songs like "What a Wonderful World". These guards that leave Wellington Barracks are the guards that relieve the guards already at Buckingham Palace. It was really cool, and it totally entertained Riann and Lincoln!

After all that entertaining, we walked through beautiful St James Park, grabbed a bite to eat which we ate on the stairs of The National Gallery, then, thanks again to Rick Steves, made a sprint version of touring the Museum to see the tops in works of art. Riann and Linc aren't exactly museum-type kids just yet...

Day four, April 19th - We got out the door first thing and got ourselves to adorable, pristine Notting Hill... SO cute!!!

We were early, so early that the Portobello Market was hardly open, few vendors were set up and the only item I picked up was a dress that was "Made in Italy"... Well, I live in Italy and was visiting England, I can always find Made in Italy at home!!
A visit to The Natural History Museum proved to be an awesome adventure for Riann and Linc as much as for Jamie and me. Dinosaurs, the Marine Life Room, rocks and gems, birds, etc... We spent several hours there, but as we were getting ready to leave we noticed the line to get in to the start of the dinosaur exhibit - it was ridiculously long and we, the early birds that we are, had walked right in earlier that morning!

We ventured through Hyde Park arriving at Kensington Garden and Kensington Palace... impressive, even under refurbishment!! The gardens were amazing, gorgeous, and perfectly picturesque!

But the main reason we arrived at Kensington Palace: high noon tea at The Orangery!!! It was overpriced and a little fancy for jeans and a t-shirt but so worth the experience! Riann and I each had tea with a variety of "crumpettes", it was a fun made memory.

Lincoln had fallen asleep but woke up just in time to enjoy a few little crumpettes as well.

We walked over to the Princess Diana of Wales Memorial Playground - a wonderful, creative, fun-filled playground but we picked the wrong day to go, it was beyond packed, only later did we find out schools were out for a 2 or 3 week vacation. I would still recommend people to go check it out, just hope for a less crowded day.

And that leaves me with our last day in London...
We packed up and headed via another big red double-decker that took us to Harrods department store. Oh my, oh my!!! If I had a million or two dollars, I mean pounds, the damage I could do!! We had lunch at a little sandwich shop across the street from Harrods, then went back in to browse a few more, non-affordable but beautiful things in the store.

We hailed another black cab and arrived back at Victoria Station, where our London adventure started, to catch our train back to Gatwick and head on home. Lincoln was sad about leaving.

London exceeded all of my expectations! London is awesome, it is a perfectly huge, fun, vibrant, friendly city. It was truly a dream for me to book the tickets, do the planning, and finally, FINALLY get to London.

Now, if we can find a way to move there for a few years...

Matera, Alberobello e Zoosafari!

I thought keeping a blog would be an easy way to keep all my stateside friends and family updated on our travels: Much easier said than done.

February 18th, we took a little road trip adventure with our friends, the Pugh's, to Matera, a quaint little town about 3.5 hours from our house. It rained cats and dogs the entire way to Matera. Matera is where Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was filmed. It is also an UNESCO World Heritage site.

It felt like we were much further from (our current) home, trying to find our way around the ancient town, on the narrow, curvy, one-way, hairpin roads to our hotel, Hotel Caveoso . It was a pretty cool place to stay but our friends Scott & Suzanne and their boys definitely got the much cooler room: a cave, or sassi which is a room or home dug into the calcareous rock of Matera.

We were all pretty hungry and thanks to the rain, we found a restaurant nearby and enjoyed a great meal and wine.
We decided the hotel was great and all, but we should get started and check out the cave town. We didn't get very far before the kids were wet, grumpy, cold and our umbrellas were whipped inside out and broken by the wind.
Of course, that is easily fixed by gelato, so the four kids enjoyed some cold gelato and the guys ended up warming up with some liquor spiked caffe.

The Sassi part of town itself was pretty amazing to see. It is a small town, and truly, NOTHING was open to eat until 7:30 or 8:00pm, so only some of us ventured back out for dinner, Lincoln ended up falling asleep as I carried him, he never woke up during dinner or on the way back to the hotel. He was out for the night. Jamie and Scott took the opportunity to walk around and take some photos of Matera at night, the caves lit up at night give the town a completely different look.

Mother Nature cooperated with us the next day at least, we headed out to take some pictures of the Sassi side of Matera, explored some of the cave homes, what a cool city!
We headed to the new side of Matera where we tried to visit the Tramantano Castle but it was closed for renovations. We walked through some of the new town, found ourselves in a Saturday morning market, bought some fresh produce and enjoyed some lunch where we were, of course, the only patrons.
We had the next portion of our road trip on our agenda, so we left the new side of Matera, and headed across the Gravina river to get a good view of the Sassi side of Matera once again, to see all caves from a distance.

On the road again, we let Scott lead the way with their GPS, and they choose to take the more scenic route. We came upon a flock of sheep, the sheep dogs and the herder. I'm sure to him, we looked like the silly Americans because we were taking photos and staring.
After only about an hour in the car, we arrived in Alberobello, another UNESCO site. Alberobello is such a unique town, the homes are constructed from the local limestone with conical roofs and all were painted white. We had the luxury in staying in a pretty awesome one, I think I would be happy with it as my vacation home someday.
We walked around the trulli homes, many of which are now various shops, but our kids were getting tired, it was getting cold and we were all hungry, and once again we found ourselves with very limited places to eat. However, we did stumble upon a crepe eatery, they had a ton of different types of crepes - some like pizza, some like sandwiches, and of course the sweet variety. The kids were happy, the adults were happy and so we called it a night.

The grand finale of our weekend was a visit to Zoosafari - a drive through zoo near Bari. I had heard it was cool but we didn't think it could be THAT spectacular.
It. Was. Awesome!!!
We first had deer, rams, donkeys, llamas and goats walking along the side of our car as we fed them peanuts and carrots, then we drove through the lions den (with our windows up!!!) where lions play, fight and walk along near your car - there was also a man in a truck who would drive toward the lions if they started acting up or getting too close, and I'm sure (or I hope!!) with a tranquilizer gun within reach. This was a similar set up for the tigers and bears too. Then we arrived at the giraffes... what gentle giants! We had SO much fun feeding the giraffes, Lincoln was a bit nervous and Riann was a little freaked out at first, she even made a beeline for the back dashboard. The giraffes cleaned us out of carrots, left plenty of drool, but we got so up close and personal and had a ton of photos, fun and video of them. It was too cool to hang out with the giraffes!!
We were also able to chill with some zebras, Jamie even got his photo taken with a super friendly one. And then we got to the end, where the enormous camels were unfriendly, stood in the middle of the road, they would look at us every now and then out of the corner of their eye, and not budge, not even an inch. I think we were stuck behind a camel for a good 10 or 15 minutes. Zoosafari was fabulous, we laughed so much and had a ton of fun, it is definitely something you HAVE to do!

On our way home, we stopped along the Adriatic Sea for some nice picturesque photos, ate a pretty amazing meal at a really nice (almost too nice for little kids!) restaurant. We headed home, back to Gricignano di Aversa...

The next several weeks were busy, but not really all that blogworthy.
We attended an Asian Auction on the Navy Base here, yes, Asian Auction, even though we are in Italy. There were some really fabulous pieces of furniture, gorgeous Tiffany lamps, and smaller things like jewelry and glassware. We came home with two new pieces of furniture, an Asian "Wedding Cabinet" and an antique hand painted trunk. It was a fun event that I'll look forward to attending again next year.


Jamie and I had the Supply Corps Ball which was held in Monte di Procida, but it was scaled way back from the original few hundred that were supposed to attend due to the events in the world (Libya), and many people being shipped out.








March 12th, my friend Tina and I went on a wine tour in Avellino to Cantine Antonio Caggiano. Avellino was a wonderful, adorable little town about an hour from here. We enjoyed tasting some fantastic wine, then ended our tour with a pretty amazing lunch and a bunch of fun people who also attended the tour. This is a picture of Tina and me with the owner, Antonio of Cantine Antonio Caggiano.











March 18th, Jamie was able to escape to Bormio, Italy to meet his mother and uncle for some skiing in the Italian Alps. Unfortunately, again due to current events at the time, he almost didn't make it, and his trip was still abbreviated to only allow him one day of skiing. He had a great time regardless, he even took a video of skiing down the mountain... probably not the smartest thing and hopefully he'll never do that again, but he had a much-needed fun time.








Riann had a kind of unexpected surgery - she had bilateral trigger thumbs that needed to be surgically corrected. Lucky for us, there was a wonderful visiting surgeon from the states that became her doctor, and she had an awesome group of doctors that took amazing care of her. Riann was even taken down the hallway to surgery while the surgeon, orthopedists and other doctors let her bed be the train and "chugga-chugga-choo-chooed" all the way down, you would have thought she was going to a party, not surgery! After only a week of soft casts and bandages that didn't slow her down much at all, she was back to fully functioning, happy, straight thumbs.









March 27th, we took a little half day trip and visited Ercolano, a town that sits below Mt. Vesuvius. Ercolano is a town that was completely covered in volcanic ash during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. Citizens of Herculaneum died of thermal shock from the extremely hot pyroclastic surges. In 1709, Ercolano was rediscovered and has since been partially excavated. It is better preserved than Pompeii and much smaller, easy and fun to do with Riann and Lincoln and visitors.







That brings me up to one of our BIG trips of 2011: LONDON!!! But I'll have to find more time to write about that...

Da Natale a lezione di cucina

Translation: From Christmas to cooking class

Here it is, the end of February and I haven't posted a thing since December. We have been busy despite the lack of blog entries. Now, where to begin...

We spent our first Christmas in Italy with a good group of friends, as our friends John and Suzanne hosted a Christmas party. 13 adults and 11 kids (hopefully I didn't miss anyone) for dinner in our rather small apartments, it was a lot of fun!! Everyone brought a dish or two to share along with wine - lots and lots of wine.


Jamie and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary on December 30th. We celebrated by first taking Riann and Lincoln to Vietri sul Mare with some friends to look for sea glass. It was a wonderfully warm, sunny day and being in such a picturesque place was so relaxing! Jamie and I also had date night planned so we continued our 10 year celebration walking through part of downtown Napoli for a little while before we headed to a restaurant, Kukai, for sushi followed by a stop at Caffe Gambrinus - a 150-year old cafe that just also happens to serve gelato. Driving in Napoli is always an adventure, but en route home we came to a T-intersection where we had a green light to go right... or did we?? Jamie and I wondered as we turned and he said "Wait, How is it we have a green light AND they have a green light??" as the traffic from the left proceeded. Well, this is Napoli and the driving here is definitely different!!






We rang in the New Year with our friends Glenn & Tina down in Monte di Procida, a perfect little part of Napoli. They live in a pretty amazing house with an even more amazing view of Napoli. They were gracious enough to invite all 4 of us to their place over night where we indulged in some delicious pizza followed by some not-so-Italian appetizers - you know, crab dip with Old Bay, guacamole with tortilla chips, the not-so-good-for-you stuff but hey, it was a holiday! We woke Lincoln and Riann up a few minutes before midnight as the fireworks began, walked up on a path with olive and lemon trees, and vines, making our way to the roof for the insane displays of fireworks. It blew any 4th of July display out of the water, even the Independence Day views from Kate Sessions Park in beautiful San Diego.




We had the nasty stomach bug go through our house for nearly two weeks in mid-January (something I actually did not take photos of), so once we were all healthy again, we started planning some day trips and some other longer trips we'll be taking in the near future.

Napoli is only about a 25-minute drive from where we live, so we figured we should cross off some of the great sights Napoli offers.
We had a really fantastic weather forecast one weekend, so we headed to Capodimonte, a Central Park-type area of Napoli where people go to run, walk, bike, play futbol, and my favorite - people watch. We must have had the same idea as many Italians because the park was packed!! It was the first real day of spring-like weather and a Sunday, we should have known.













I went with my friend Katie to Vomero for a girls day out one Thursday while Riann and Lincoln were both in school. The other Katie had been a few times already, and finally our schedules synced up enough for her to show me around. Ahh, Vomero! Another really beautiful part of Napoli that has a fabulous view, an amazing market, great eateries and a gorgeous park, La Floridiana. I fell in LOVE!! I think Vomero might be one of my very favorite places in Napoli to go, so if you come visit, don't be surprised if I offer to take you!







I kept Riann home from school one Friday to tag along with my friend Suzi and her two boys, and my friend Cydney and her two girls to Vietri sul Mare for some sea glass hunting. The kids had a blast collecting sea glass and ceramic tile pieces, then playing in the sand and running around. They worked up great appetites, so we headed to a local pizzeria for some really wonderful pizza. Riann ate an entire half of a 12" pizza - granted, the pizza crust here is extremely thin and she only had cheese, but she was one hungry little lady!!




We've had a lot of great weather that we did not anticipate since everyone here that has been here for more than a year warned us "It rains from November to March". We have tried to take advantage of the awesome weather, and though it isn't true beach weather, we headed up to Gaeta to the beach anyway. We packed a lunch and snacks, sand toys and extra clothes of course and drove the hour to Gaeta. An easy drive, and so worth the trip to be at such a beautiful place! Of course, we looked like the crazy Americans, only in sweatshirts and jeans, and *GASP* both of our kids ended up down to even less clothing and wading in the water. We got plenty of "looks". The Italians dress for the season, unlike Americans who seem to dress for the weather. The Italians are bundled with winter parkas, scarves, hats, furs, whatever they feel necessary to keep warm. So I had to take photos of the unknowing Italian's and their kids to compare...








After our day in Gaeta, the kids had a sitter so Jamie and I could go to Cantina del Mare, a winery near our friends Glenn & Tina's house in Monte di again. SO MUCH FUN!! We went with three other couples, and our host Genarro told us all about the history of his family's winery, his wife whipped up some traditional Italian appetizers that were mighty delicious and helped us taste more of the wines Genarro was offering us. It was a terrific evening with great people, great food and great wine!





And then to bring you just about up to date, I ventured off with some friends to a different cooking class last week, this time with Mariella. What an amazing lady who cooks amazing food! I've been to her restaurant on a few occasions just to eat - and boy, did I eat!! But to have the opportunity to join in on one of her classes was such a treat! We made pizza dough - surely a recipe I will be using a LOT!!! - and then pizza marinara and pizza margherita but with Fior di Latte, a cheese similar to Mozzarella di Bufala. We also made Neapolitan Lasagna which included the traditional mini meatballs within - holy deliciousness!! I mean really, this woman can cook and if I can learn just a few things from Mariella, I will be on cloud nine in my kitchen. I hope to be joining her on many other occasions, if not to eat at her restaurant, then definitely for her cooking classes!!










That leaves me with this past weekend's trip to Matera, Alberobello and Zoosafari to blog about... I will work on that and hopefully have it posted soon, some pictures too of course!

Fuori fa freddo!!

Translation: It's cold outside!!

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!!