Buda and Pest

Drum roll please...

Our favorite city of the Christmas trip was:

 Budapest used to be two different smaller cities on opposite sides of the river Danube, one called Buda and one called Pest.  Your useless factoid for the day;)  The old town of Buda might be one of the most magical places in Europe.  

 My favorite spot was the Fishermans Bastion:

 I won't try to describe it.  You just have to go and experience it.  Especially at night and look across the Danube 

This lovely place is called Heroes Square.  It is a monument to the heroes and founders of Hungary.  On both sides of the square are beautiful art museums.  The statues are really cool to look at in detail below.   You can see a little bit of the arched wall of columns and statues behind the Obelisk too.  There are probably 35 statues here.  

Here's a closer shot of a few of them.  The coolest thing about the square itself, really, was watching a few local families roller blading and riding their bikes here.  It is a HUGE paved area so perfect for that kind of activity.  It was just cool to think that local hungarians play here.  

Behind Heroes square is a large park and pond (skating rink in the winter), a small courtyard, this castle and the following church.  I hate to throw around the word "favorite" too much but my Mom and I loved this castle, called Valdahunyad Castle.  Sadly it's not a real castle in the sense that royalty lived here.  It was built in late 1890-1905 as a millenial celebration of the country of Hungary.  It was designed to feature several copies of different landmark buildings from all over the kindgdom of Hungary, especially the Hunyad Castle in Transylvania (now Romania).  Whatever, it was cool;)

This church was right across the square from it.

In the square we got ripped of by a man selling Marzipan candies.  But they were worth it;)

The House of Terror Museum:

The House of Terror Museum was like a fire hydrant of Eastern Europe history being blown at you except cool.  It's more about their communist history with Hitler and then Russia (more Russia)...not much about the Holocaust as we expected.  However, the things non jews went through under communist Russia was pretty dang appalling.  If I could do anything again I would read more Easter Europe History before I came to Budapest.  To understand a lot of what you're seeing and not feel overwhelmed with "what's" and "why's" the whole time it would be nice to have the general idea of what happened here.  And this museum helped.

Aren't we creative..."behind the iron curtain":)

As I emphatically recommend visiting Budapest with people I give them a caveat that we might have liked it 50% more than we otherwise would have because the Christmas Market was so fun.  We kept making jokes about ourselves because as we traveled these cities we'd have a plan of things to do that day and then we'd see a Christmas Market (this time of year there are big ones and little ones dotted everywhere in Europe).  We'd get delayed there for 2 hours, eating!!  In this particular photo we're eating this typical Hungarian fried bread scone like thing that Joey hasn't stopped talking about.  

It was pretty incredible in a very indulgent kind of way.

Here's one of the cute food booths in the Christmas Market in front of St Stephens Cathedral.

Two different kinds of stuffed cabbage and cooked cabbage in the middle...lots of cabbage!  If you're not drooling it's because you've never had European cabbage before!!

Sausage, Cheese, anti pasta and more cheese.

Here's St. Stephans, the ice skating rink and the Christmas market where we spent most of our time.  At night they had a big light show on the front of the church and Joey spent two nights watching it with Juliet in between bites;)

Ju-B's face;)

After stuffing our faces on the first day we finally made it over to Buda. 

 We wondered around the old town, saw the castle ruins and then made it over to the Hungarian History Museum which was cool but not necessarily a must see.  Outside of the museum is this statue of hunters, a slain elk and hunting dogs.  We all thought of Pop Pop, so Kerry, this shot was taken for you;)  Joey wanted one in front of it to show to his Dad:)  It was really beautiful.

Uncle Bryant and Georgie liked it too;)

All the statues in Buda were really cool.  In Europe you pass by statues EVERYWHERE but several of these in old town Buda stop you.  You want to preserve them in a picture so you can show them off and remember them.  They're just cool. 

Here's another one we really liked of children playing and catching a fish.

We almost left the area when Bryant and I remembered that we'd wanted to see the Fisherman's Bastion.  If we hadn't gone back for it we would have missed the coolest sight in Budapest.  I highly recommend going in the evening because the lights are amazing...both at the Bastion and the view all along the river.  

The church across from the Bastion.  I wish I'd gotten a better picture of this church.  It was really beautiful.  During the Russian/Communist rule of Hungary it was the only church that was allowed to remain active and Catholic.  One of the Hapsburg Queens, I think Marie Antoninettes mother, this was her favorite church to visit in her kingdom.  Did you know Hungary was part of the Hapsburg empire before it became its own independent country?  I didn't know that before. 

The Bastion from the street side.

And again from the river side:

The Bastion takes its name from the guild of fisherman that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages. But the wall didn't look like this back then.  It was initially designed and built for the millennial celebration at the turn of the century (the same time as Heroes Square and Valdahunyad Castle).  It was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt again in the late 1940's.  That was one amazing thing about this city.  It was destroyed at least 4 different times and just as soon as the people would get it all rebuilt and their feet back under them it would all be destroyed again.  I can only imagine there's evidence in their culture of this resiliency. 

On our way home we stuck our toes over the border of Croatia just to say we did.  Then we traveled to Ljubljana for dinner and to show them around briefly.  Here's a photo of the Christmas Fairy Square where children walk under the magical wand to be touched with her blessing at Christmas time.  You can barely see the line of people waiting their turn below.

It was sad to leave this place knowing we will probably never go back again.  It wouldn't take too much persuasion but with so many other great places to see and Budapest not being extremely close it just isn't likely.  Thanks for the great Christmas Budapest!  And thanks to Mom, Dad and Bryant for being with us.  It made it at least 10X more fun.  We really missed Adam and his family though.  It would have been great to have cousins!  Love you guys!

xoxo

Vienna

VIENNA:

Vienna is an absolutely breathtaking, pristinely clean city.  Every building looks like it is brand new and most of them are over 2-300 years old.  The sidewalks are swept, the streets are clean and the architecture just blows you away.  

The night we arrived we went to a concert at St Stephens Cathedral, one of my favorites (the church) so far.  The Vienna Boys choir and an orchestra played traditional Christmas Carols and classical songs by MOzart,  Bach, and a few others.  It was really really cool.  Isaac didn't care for it at all but Georgie seemed to enjoy herself, especially when I read her the stories of each composer in the program.  The cathedral provided a perfect echo for the music.  

We spent the rest of our time in Vienna at the Christmas Market enjoying the food and the festive atmosphere.  We are officially in love with Christmas Markets.  They are more fun than I ever imagined and I'm not quite sure why...It's just a bunch of booth, yummy food, music and happy people but somehow all of it really puts a smile on your face.

 We rode the Christmas train

 and Georgie smiled and waved at everyone we passed;)  I fell a little bit more in love with her then;)

 Isaac bought a Santa hat with his own money.  I was surprised that he wanted one that badly but he saw it, thought it was cool and festive and bought it without any angst. 

 He looked pretty cool sporting it too;)

 ON Christmas Day the Schonbrunn Palace (home of the Hapsburg dynasty) was open so we toured it. The history was fun to learn about.  We all, especially the women, were fascinated by "Sissy", one of the Queens of the dynasty pictured everywhere and spent the next few nights reading about her on Wikipedia.  The "backyard" of the palace was enormous.  It contains a zoo, a pond, a garden maze, a park and more.  

 Funny Story:  A long time ago someone gave our family the nickname of The Griswalds because we're always losing things, spacey, unorganized etc.  So we joked about that most of the trip.  When we were in line to enter Schonbrunn after passing through security and walking through a long hallway we hear a woman in German calling out, "I have some gloves, is anyone missing some gloves."  Bryant said, what do you bet that's us!  And we all laughed at the unlikely hood.  Sure enough, MOm double checked for her gloves and they were missing..the gloves were hers;)  I was so glad too!  SUch a good story to tell that of all the hundreds of people in that castle, we are the most likely to lose our gloves!

 With Daddy at the back of the palace...Georgie ALwAYS makes wierd faces.  It was actually kind of annoying that she couldn't just be normal!!

 In front of the fountain

 Juliets turn for a wierd face!

Outside of Schonbrunn Palace was yet another Christmas Market with some really pretty things for sale and the best Spetzle we had all week:

 Here's the stand where we bought it...just for fun!:

Joey had the wierd idea to re-enact the statue.  We're wierd.

Dad in front of a building who's name I cant remember;)

We'll definitely have fond memories of Vienna and a few extra rolls to remember it by too;)  Hopefully those will be gone in a few weeks!

xoxo

Ash

Christmas, Christmas, Oh Christmas!

Here are a few photos of the parts of our gift opening Christmas:

The night before we left the kids opened their handmade gifts from each other and their presents from Gaga and Papa.

 Georgie got a knitting loom from Gaga.

 Isaacs gift wasn't wrapped yet so instead of wrapping it in paper, Gaga zipped it up in her jacket;)  

It was a Lego Ninjago dictionary book that he'd been waiting for!  

It was such a treat to have Gaga and Papa here!

 This was a My Neighbor TOtoro Christmas for Juliet;)  Here's her first incling of all the Totoro stuff to come, a Totoro picture book!  She didn't put it down for days and it kept her quite entertained in the car on all of our Christmas Market road trips!

 This year Isaac made Georgie a snow globe because she specifically asked for one.  It had it's struggles (the snow globe) because the tree we put in it died the water green but it is still cute and Georgie likes it.  I don't have a picture of it...oops;)

Georgie made Isaac a balance board.  I cut the pieces, she painted it herself and even helped me drill in the rod on the bottom.

The kids received stocking from Santa on Christmas morning and the hotel delivered gifts to our breakfast table...nice ones too;)  But the highlight of our Christmas day was talking with family across the ocean and being with family at Christmas Markets here in Vienna.

We celebrated our more traditional Christmas Morning the morning we got back from traveling.  Some of my pictures, again, went missing but here's what Santa brought Juliet:

That's Totoro the giant pillow and a Kitchen, refrigerator and microwave.  Georgie got an easel, and a Brave dress (yes, she still loves to dress up;) and Isaac got, of course, legos.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!  We missed being at home this Christmas and seeing all of our Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents and Cousins quite a lot.  Thanks for taking some time to chat with us on Christmas Day!

xoxo

Ash

Bratislava

 Bratislava, Slovakia

This Christmas we touched down in 6 different countries.  We started in Italy, stopped for a night in Vienna and spent our first day Christmas Marketing in Bratislava, Slovakia.  

 

This Christmas Market was the smallest of all that we visited and the country the most underdeveloped (at least from what we could see).  The city of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was relatively unimpressive but still cool because it felt very much like an eastern, former Communist block country.  And of course Christmas Markets, no matter how small, make for a really good time.  This was also the coldest day of our trip with temperatures definitely below freezing and some of our toes hitting almost the same temperatures.  In fact we spent half of our day hunting down an open shoe store with affordable snow boots for mom who's UGGS were soaked with wet snow.  OUCH!! (FYI, UGGS, even when sprayed with water proofing material are still not waterproof.  But when dry there is nothing more warm and snuggly then those gloriously ugly boots!! )

Here's Bryant (who looks so much like Dad to me in this picture!!) and Joey eating a bowl of Goulash, a typical Beef stew.  I will forever remember the huge Potato Pancake/Giant Hash Brown/Swiss Rosti JOey bought at a booth here. (I don't know how else to describe it..we only saw them at this Christmas Market so I believe it's something uniquely Slovakian).  It might have been my favorite thing we had the entire trip.  I wish I had taken a picture of all it's greasy gloriousness.  

This was the typical dessert that we saw everywhere here:

 These were basically crepes filled with different things and rolled up, sometimes sprinkled with more toppings.

ANd this is a round of Camembert Cheese that he's grilling up to melt between two slices of white Ciabatta bread then to be slathered with carmelized onions and peppers to be eaten by mua.  But I don't think any of us ever ate an entire thing ourselves.  We were like a little pack of generous wolves, huddling and passing, eating and praising everything that we all discovered from different booths within the Christmas Market...it was sooo fun!!

These giant gingerbread cookies are sold at every Christmas Market (and Oktoberfest).  We bought one for Isaac and Georgie for the fun of it here in Bratislava.  

Despite the city of Bratislava not being anything seemingly special we all had a great time and were glad we went if for nothing else than to say that we'd been to Slovakia.  It's a good thing it was our first Christmas Market, however, because Vienna and Budapest, (oooh glorious Budapest), blew it out of the water:)

xoxo

The A Poop: A Juliet Story

A Never To Be Forgotten Juliet Story

      A few days ago Joey was sitting with Juliet while she was going to the bathroom.  She has been a beast to potty train and just when we thought we were in the clear she began regressing and pooping in her pants again (while traveling...fun!)   She finished pooping, waited with a big grin while we all cheered her on from the living room and then stood up from the toilet.  She walked over to Joey where he was washing his hands or something, pointed at the toilet and said, "That's an A right there."  A bit puzzled, JOey walked over to the toilet to see what in the heck she was talking about.  As he peered into her miniature potty training potty she said, "That's an A poop."  Sure enough, in the potty was a poop that looked just like the letter A.   

...TEARS!  We are still laughing about this.  And for the record, if she is subconciously trying to convince us that she gets an A in the subject of potty training, we're not convinced.  But we are convinced that this little cookie is about as cute and smart as 2 year olds come;)  

xoxo

Ashley

p.s. if you'd like to see a picture of the "A" poop rest assured that we took one;)  just let me know and I"ll email it to you;)