Hungary

First of all, I forgot to share that the ward in Trieste called a new all women Sunday School Presidency on Sunday, and I was so proud I could burst. Just 4 faithful older ladies stepping into unknown territory knowing that we can do all things through Christ. They were right in front of us and I watched them as they sat down and the looks they shared. I love women and I love seeing them step up and lead with their brothers. It was all in Italian, but I sort of understood when they released the brothers from the SSP, and then when they started reading the changes from the handbook I geeked out and whispered to my crew that they were getting ladies. I was v v excited.

The out of order pictures are really annoying, and this one is 100% my fault. But anyway, we made it to Hungary! My great grandparents were born here, so outside of my revolutionary war ancestors as far back as the US goes, I’m more Hungarian than anything else. It feels a little surreal to be here. So we mismanaged our time and were set to have major traffic getting to our downtown Airbnb, so we killed time with a hike near the restaurant where we had killed time with dinner. 

I love a hike with a view!

The industrial side 👇🏻 

The prettier side. 👇🏻 

They were dancing and making me nervous on the top with a steep drop. 

We loved the wildflowers!

We finally made it to Budapest and it’s so pretty! Even though it was stressful as heck to navigate and drive through. 

Arriving at our Airbnb and the creepy sky. Photo cred - D. 

These city apartments are wild. Pedestrian walk gates with codes, main door locks with codes, and apartment door locks with codes, not to mention the parking gate. After driving by the house twice, we decided Adi and I would hoof it over to try to figure out how to get in and where to park. 

This is a cute and quirky little apartment. 

Our room faces the busy street and there’s a police station nearby so wish us luck!

We’re pretty tired, so whenever we get to where we’re going we all just veg for awhile. 

Okay, back to this morning. Somehow my walking shoes got stinky. I think it was them getting wet in Zagreb the first day and not drying properly, plus they’re several years old. So anyways, I really needed new sneaks and Frankie’s always up for shopping, so she and I packed up our stuff and left to check out Ljubljana while the crew packed their stuff and the car. Matt and the girls picked us up after our fruitless search, and off we headed to Hungary! We enjoyed these cute Easter cookie eggs. 

A bathroom near the Slovenian border. 🤣

Preparing to enter Hungary that uses a different monetary system, the Forint. I found what $100, all the way down to $1 exchanged to and sent it to everyone. 

We found an outlet mall outside of Budapest and I found some pretty good shoes for $20 and said thank you and goodbye to my old ones. They will meet their future through a textile recycling bin in Hungary. What a world.  

Adi came through with a delicious restaurant for us to wait out the traffic in and everything was so tasty! Lavender lemonade and gnocchi and chocolate cake, one of our best meals!

The manager there heard my Budapest debrief to the crew and was all, I’m happy to help if you have any questions! And then he and Matt became besties and we showed him where we’re staying after we leave Budapest and he told us he’d feel more comfortable if we were in a bigger city and he gave us his phone number. I’d really love to be invited to his moms for her famous goulash soup, but I’ve always taught my kids not to invite themselves places, so I guess I’ve got to be a good example. 

Photo cred - D

There is so much propaganda all around here! At least a dozen of these billboards. That is a very old, much thinner picture of victor Orban that says “Let’s together against war!”

And then so many of these very Harry Potter style ads that says “Dangerous!” and then “Let’s stop them! On April 12th. Share against the war!” With Zelensky and Orbans opponent Magyar Peter. As if. 

Also, we went on a little wild goose chase when we crossed into Hungary. We knew we needed to buy a vignette which covers the cost of tolls for 1-10 days (and longer), so we stopped at several gas stations, but they stopped selling them last year and we wanted to make sure it was done correctly, so we didn’t want to buy online. Anyways, we saw a road sign that said vignettes and had an arrow so we followed it, only to find that it actually meant you must have a vignette to go that way. 🤣 Then we went several miles up the freeway so we could  turn around, and by that point our 1 hour grace period was almost over, so after all that we ended up buying it online after all. Here’s hoping I did it right! 🤞🏼 

We’ve got a full few days in Budapest, so off to bed we go. After we finish helping Frankie with her educators rising essay and get her registered for her conference, that is. 🫤

Lake Bled

A - I uploaded too many pictures and the internet in Slovenia is extremely slow. And

B - the pictures are backwards. So we walked a million miles today and I closed my move ring twice. 🙌🏼 

We had just come down from Ljubljana Castle, but couldn’t help but take just one more picture. 

We think that house extends over this overpass. Wild. 

Walking down from the castle was so quaint. 

This little town is seriously cute! I had never heard of Ljubljana before (or I had actually because, come to find out it was on amazing race a few years ago) and it had delivered!

Delaney was playfully hopping over the drains.  

View from the castle grounds high atop the city. 

The grounds are all open to anyone and then you have to pay to get into the castle, so we just enjoyed the grounds. 

Okay, Matt wanted a picture in the heart. Since these are backwards it’s more awkward, but basically here’s the best one. 

Our prom picture. 

Matts got his feet hanging out, which, okay Adi could have come closer, but still. 

In the first shot we were standing but were directed to climb atop the old well, which we obviously did. 

More castle from the top. 

I’m loving all the Easter decorations!

Dr. Rat at the Michelin star restaurant atop the castle hill. 

We love it here. 

Delaney’s been complaining about her knee all week, so we let her and Adi ride the funicular and the rest of us wanted to walk up. 

We got pictures of them coming up. Anda video if you’re dying to see. 😉 

We explored all around and I’m a sucker for local pride like this! 

We had the best dinner! Half of us had Bureks and half had donor kebobs and it costs €15 for all of us and was so delicious!

Adi loves Wiki-Voyages, and this was a super good one! After this stop we walked over to Abi Falafel and got a small sampler platter and the best baklava I’ve ever had. Both Adi and I had read about the falafel place and it also was so good! I don’t usually like baklava because it’s so honey sweet, but this one wasn’t overpowering. It was a good eating evening. 

A burek is like a cross between a calzone and a stuffed pretzel, but with flaky crust. A new tasty treat for us. 

We passed by a whole slew of young’ish adults in matching coats from Deutschland and D whipped around and sniped a pic. We still wonder who they were. 

After our adventure earlier in the day, Matt dropped us off near the US Embassy and we walked to the square and riverfront and did a lil shopping. A couple fun clothing items and a few species. We unfortunately did not see the adorable nativity that we didn’t buy in Lake Bled because we thought we’d find it cheaper in the city. 😭 

So to our adventure. We drove 45 minutes out to Lake Bled and the last thing we did out there was share a few pieces of their famous Lake Bled Slovenian Cream Cake. 

It was delicious and tastes exactly how you’d imagine it to taste. 

Lake Bled has a tiny island in the middle with a tiny church on it. It’s so beautiful!

We decided not to pay the €15-€20 each to take a piloted boat out, but to pay €35 for us to row ourselves. Adi and I took a turn at rowing and considering we do not have our rowing merit badge like some people, we did great. 

It was a little scary! We really didn’t want to capsize!!

I’ve been collecting pictures from everyone each night so I know there are duplicates because we were all taking loads of pictures!

The back of the boat was the best place to be because it had a nice back support. 

Hey hey, check out the rowing queen!

Took a little bit to get my groove, but I got this. 

After touring the island on our own, we carefully loaded back into our boat. 

The kid that helped us said (because we asked) that people fall in all the time so he doesn’t even laugh anymore. So not helpful. 

I was surprised how built up it was out there. Hotels and campgrounds and mini golf and restaurants. The pictures made it seem like it was out by itself. 

❤️

We opted not to pay for the church/castle tour because A - castles aren’t that interesting, B - it was expensive and we’re spending more €€€ than we expected, and C - Frankie had a zoom meeting for her teacher program conference scholarship. I really tried to get that done before we left, but alas. 

We’re getting good at propping phones on tables of ledges or fences. 

Sometimes our first tries don’t work though. 

Their gift shop was amazing too. Sometimes little gift shops are poopy, but I wanted one of everything here and I already wrote about my wise shoppers remorse. 

Walking around the beautiful island. 

Phot cried and choosing to send it to me as “one of the bests!” like I asked for  - delaney

Just two adventurers figuring out how to pilot a rowboat. 

I mean, not Matt, he already knew how on account of the merit badge. 

Here we go! Praying to stay dry!

Such cute tourists. 

Another of Delaney’s bests. 

Listen, I don’t know. 

Another thing we did when we first got out to Lake Bled was take a hike to a lookout. And Frankie practiced some beer moves. 

It was a bit scary and precarious at times, but so worth it!

How could you not want to get right out on that island?

We found some love Spanish friends up there and grabbed some pictures from them. 

And the side opposite of Lake Bled. 

Delaney’s knee hurt too bad to walk up to the viewpoint. Bummer because I think she would have loved the second half that she skipped. 

Hiking up, out of breath, 

This morning Matt, Frankie, and I were up fist so we went to grab brekkie, but the donut place we were planning to hit up for A and D’s brekkie was closed. So we had our bi-daily stop at Lidl. And one of Adi’s lucky friends is getting a tube of ketchup and mayo.  Fry sauce is delicious. 

We usually hit up their bakeries in the evening after they’ve been picked over and are a little old, and never have any problems with it, but smelling the fresh baked goods and seeing the full cases made me really wish I was hungry! 

This country is so cute. 

Just checking to see if Alli might want to transfer here. Doesn’t hurt to ask. 

❤️

After brekkie walk back. I had read they had an Easter market that would be running all of Holy Week, but we saw mainly fruit and old lady clothing stalls. 

Easter market?

Dragon Bridge - possible site of Amazing Race challenge. I don’t really remember and it was tough figuring it out at breakfast. 

I had seen on a travel vlog that all the locals go to EK Bistro and order truffled eggs. So that wasn’t on the menu an our server didn’t even know what they were. So plan B I got satsuka and it was just ok. Pretty underwhelming for a must see site. 

And finally, on our walk this morning we passed right by the US Embassy. We love the USA.