The Ray's Days: Boldog HúsvétiÜnnepeket

***Happy Easter in Hungarian

Matt got some beautiful pictures of the sunrise this fine Easter morning.

Matt and I got up early and went for a walk. We found these cute little wine cellars all down the street by our house.

I love love all the little churches. ❤️

Sometimes Lidl brekkies look like donuts and sometimes they look like gazpacho.

We walked all around the cemetery by our Airbnb. We looked for family names and found several Takacs, but that branch of my family is from a few hours away. We found some Kovacs variations of spelling, but also my family was from another village about 15 minutes away, so I didn’t really expect to find anything.

We met one lady that tried to talk to us, but unfortunately no matter how many times she said the same thing in Hungarian, we still couldn’t understand her. We translated a few things with our phone, but she still seemed a little confused. And happy Easter in Hungarian is way longer than I thought it would be.

The cute part of the wine cellar street.

Our fun Airbnb. This was a nice one. Which was especially nice because tonight’s is simple and small.

We got the girls packed up and they had a few Easter treats. “Fun eggs” (generic kinder eggs) which they decided don’t taste as good as KE, but have better toys, and then also chocolate lollys. *Adi & Frankie packing the car

Photo cred- frankie

We drove up Matra again and did the smaller of the 2 bikes up to the highest point in Hungary. It was up a ski run, and fairly steep, so not the easiest hike.

Matt climbed the ski lift tower to take this shot.

Matt making me nervous. And look! The girls taking pictures on their own! Photo cred - Frankie. Used her 2 contributions today. Also, I love the pockets in my leggins, but putting them in the biggest part of my leg is not nice.

He’s kind of camouflaged in with the trees, but there’s Matt being a bozo. Thankfully he didn’t get hurt.

Highest point! 1014 meters/3327 feet.

Remember how we thought nothing would be open on Easter? We were very very wrong. Everyone and their brother was out at the parks, riding the train, shopping the cute tourist shops, and eating at restaurants. And most places were very open.

Old communist looking tv tower. We didn’t go in, though we did see some people do that.

It was beautiful up top. Matt found a nice sunny spot facing Gyöngyös and we donated our Maryland rocks (since we often bring rocks home with us, we figured we’d share the wealth) and some of my mom’s ashes. We passed our rocks and the jar with nanny around and prayed and infused them with love and good vibes and then had a group prayer and Adi scattered her ashes. It was lovely and I believe my mom, my papa, and my great grandma (at least) were there with us.

We talked about how my mom loved road trips and hiking and nature and sunshine, and she never made it to Hungary because it wasn’t safe when we lived in Germany, (for military families at least) so i know she’d have loved everything about today.

Let’s all get a pic! Wait… where’s the child?

There she is! Silly child.

We spent some time on a bench and soaked in the sun and the beauty.

I love this sweet dedicated time with my crew. Especially since I started my period a few days ago, suddenly I don’t want to claw peoples eyes out at least once a day. It really is so hard. And it’s like the puberties all over again too because I didn’t even know to expect my period, I thought it was just traveling stress.

Matts doing a free water closet tour and paying himself €1 everytime he finds a free restroom. 🤣 And of all places we were surprised to find one at the top of the mountain. Paying for bathrooms is seriously 👎🏼

Going down is almost always easier, especially if you’ve got good knees.

Ski hangout?

Adi and Delaney have really buddied up lately so Frankie’s hung out with Matt and I a lot. She’s good stuff.

Next we got our church clothes on and headed to St. Bartholomews. D has wanted a vest and trousers and I’m down for the vest and white shirt - we got them at H&M in Slovenia, but I’m not a huge fan of the trousers. I much prefer it paired with a skirt. Photo cred - Adi

She loved her new duds! And the slides. 😩 I have offered to buy her cool new European slides everywhere we’ve seen them and she’s so stubborn. Photo cred - D

There was no information about times for the church services online. In fact, online they said there’s no way to know a time, you’ve just got to go to the church. 🤷‍♀️

So the church was open and we were able to walk around for a few minutes before a nice lady came by with her giant key and that was our cue that it was time to lock up and for us to leave. So no service there which was a little bummer, but then again maybe not. Photo cred - Delaney, and I am loving my cameo.

Catholic services can be confusing for those not of the faith, and in Hungarian we probably would have been a scene. So I asked Adi to grab a few covert shots because a) I wasn’t sure photography was allowrd and b) we didn’t get to stay long enough to appreciate everything.

Photo cred - a very proud of herself Delaney

Selfies and big buildings are hard.

But people were hightailing out of there. There was no one to ask.

So we found a statue to put Matt’s phone on and the first one was pretty good.

The second one seemed to catch people by surprise, like they thought the pic had been taken a second before.

Then the phone fell. 🤣 Thank goodness for his heavy duty otterbox.

And finally, I think the best one.

What a beautiful Easter to spend in a place so rich in my family history. Photo credit - Adi.

And then it was time to road trip. We munched on our grocery store food, happy as can be.

We all needed water closet and Matt remembered we had some Hungarian money to spend, so we found a langos stand and Matt got a goulash soup and the girls got crepes. And that spent all our Hungarian cash but I didn’t get anything so then I got lured by McCrispy from McDonald’s and it was really good and had delicious fresh veg on it but the sauce was too spicy for me so I donated it to Frankie. Whomp whomp.

Cute hobbit house restaurant.

It was a 4 hour drive to Zagreb and we couldn’t check in till 5, which ended up being perfect. It looks like this is an operation run by an older woman capitalizing on living close to the airport and renting out units all around her house. We’re in the back on the house unit, 2 separate small apartments again, but not shared space between us. Adi and Delaney swung on the swingset And Frankie, Matt, and I went for a walk. Photo cred - Delane

Matt found a spot for his second Maryland sticker.

Kind of a quiet spot, so hopefully she lasts.

Simple tiny room. We’ve rearranged everything to hopefully make our long days of traveling easier and we’ve got a plan for the airport, a plan for returning the car, a plan for the public transport in Vienna and a loose plan for things to do.