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. 🫤