Budapest: Day 1

What seems like an eternity ago, we went to Budapest for Easter!  We've never gone any further east in Europe than Prague so we were pumped about checking out a brand new place.  I knew little about Budapest or Hungary before I went but had an amazing time exploring the city and learning about their really sad history.  I'd highly recommend this historic city!

We got in on Friday night and made our way to our perfectly-located hotel near the stunning Opera House, and then headed to dinner at Cafe Vian, a happening little wine bar with traditional Hungarian dishes.  

Opera House, lit up at night.

Chicken Paprikash and Wiener Schnitzel!  Yummmm.

 On Saturday, we headed over to the Parliament Building, hailed as one of the most beautiful buildings in the country (if not eastern Europe), and waited in line for an English tour.  Sold out for the day.  Awesome.  So what do we do?  Utilize Lauren's Spanish skills and take the Spanish tour instead!  That was interesting/funny/odd/confusing.  I tried to translate as best I could but I don't really know Spanish vocabulary for Hungarian governmental things.  But this is a building you'll definitely want to check out as it's one of the main tourist attractions in Budapest and one of the most beautiful!

Spanish tour ticket!  Ha.

Front of Parliament

A pretty replica of the entire building!

Beautiful grand staircase in the entryway.

Domed ceiling.  Prertttty.

Ornateness.

The Old Upper House Hall.  One of the two rooms where the bigwigs meet.

Every inch of this place is covered in elaborate design and decoration!  Pretty impressive.

Then...we just wandered around the city, checked out some random buildings, statues, and sights across the river.

Statue of  Jozsef Attila, a deeply depressed poet who eventually hurled himself in front of a train in the 1930s.  Yikes.

View across the river of the Palace.

More spires and old buildings across the Danube.

Ronald Reagan and I.  They really like him - anticommunist and what not.

Drew and a statue of Imre Nagy, a man who was elected to be the new Prime Minister during the uprising against the Soviets in 1956.  Things didn't end well for him, unfortunately.  I'm telling you - this city and it's history is not for the faint of heart.  Which I am.  Dangit.

Snowball fight!  (We were hoping for warmer weather but they'd just had the worst week of the year with snow and everything.  Cool!)

Money shot.

After aimlessly wandering, we stumbled upon another main attraction and impressive church, St. Stephen's Basilica.  It was constructed (between 1851 and 1905) in honor of Stephen, the first king of Hungary, and now houses his right hand!  It's a huge, beautiful building and it's definitely a must-see.

Again, everything in this building is insanely ornate and detailed.  Which I loved.

There's his decrepit right hand!  Kinda crazy.

Because it was Easter weekend, there was a huge Easter market in the middle of the city with delish Hungarian food and lots of knick-knacks for sale.

We were told by a friend that we HAD to try Langos (pronounced LANG-osh), a kind of fried dough with sour cream and cheese on it.  (Maybe a savory version of funnel cake?)  It wasn't something I'd typically pair but it was yum!

These are bottles of Palinka, Hungarian "traditional fruit brandy" that's been made since the Middle Ages.  It basically tastes like a fruity vodka, but worse, and they have different flavors like walnut, pear, plum (their favorite), and grape.  We bought a little bottle of pear to enjoy later.

Sweet treats.

Polka dot tea pots!

More wandering...through a huge food market (that was closing down for the day, so no pictures) that I suspected would be cooler at the right time of day, and over to the Jewish Quarter, which houses a large temple and has become home to a bunch of hip new bars and restaurants.

Heritage.

We rested, had a drink at a fab wine bar in the shadow of St. Stephen's Basilica, grabbed dinner at another recommended restaurant, Cafe Kor, and met a friend of a friend (who lives in Budapest) for a drink at a "ruin bar" called Szimpla Kert.  Ruin bars are a relatively new concept in Budapest, where bars literally spring up in old condemned buildings in small neighborhoods (mostly on Kazinczy Street) - there are several floors and huge rooms throughout the building, covered in graffiti, plants, old cars, bathtubs, weird portraits, and other strange things.  It's very trippy and odd but definitely needs to be experienced!

Wine and the Basilica.

Ruin bar.

Just...odd.

 Our friend made us take shots of Palinka as it's "what you do in Budapest!" and...that was interesting.  Yikes.  We headed home around midnight and hit the hay.  More tomorrow on the rest of our trip and Hungarian history!

Dallas: Babies Part 3 or 4 (who can remember?)

While our trip to Dallas was for a very sad reason, it was still really great to be home with family, friends, and all of their newborn babies that I've been missing :)

We spent a great deal of time with our families, but I still managed to squeeze in a couple of happy hours with my best pals and a fun wedding (which I have no pictures of)!

This post is basically a collection of cuties that I love.  So sue me.

Nell's little Walkman (Walker), sleeping on my chest!  I wanted to cry when I first met him.

Uncle Drew with Walkman, at The Lot.

Beautiful [skinny] mama and Walkman!  Cute cute cuties.

Smoochies with a cutie!

Toooooo cute.
(How many times can I say "cute" in this post?)

Now THIS (below) is a little nugget that you're gonna wanna get to know.  This is Tyce, cutie patootie extraodinaire, son of Drew's cousins Zach and Melissa, who got the best features of both of his parents (his cuteness has been discussed at length by Drew and I), who Susan happily watches every Monday, who is responsible for Susan laying off the baby comments to Drew and I, except for when she said "You know, you could make the whole family feel better this week if you announced you were pregnant."  Awesome.

Cutie. Nugget. Baby face.  

Me and my love!

Then we had happy hour at Mi Cocina cause I was in desperate need of a Mambo Taxi or two.  And Walkman was there along with Lil' Peanut, who I met in December!  She's grown so big and has the cutest little tongue/mouth action you've ever seen!

Smoochies with Peanut.

Walkman's making all of us giggle.

My b-fri Moll, tag teaming these babes with me.

Sillies.

And this guy isn't technically a baby but he's MY baby whom I love and adore so I took a picture of him when he was sitting by my chair at the dinner table.

Love.

THEN, the most exciting news of all...was that John and Lauren brought my bebe Annie to Dallas to see us!  Drew and I were thrilled because we only see her via Skype and this was a chance to solidify our bond.  And spend time with her.  And love her and kiss her and play with her and go on and on about her forever.

We took her to Kyle Warren Park!  She's playing on the mini-merry-go-round here.

Her sun hat that she REFUSED to wear!

Here's Gigi (my mother), hogging the baby as usual.  I guess I should be thrilled that my mom's granddaughter adores her so much but mostly I was just annoyed.  Sorry not sorry, Mom.
Annie's still cute though.  

Mommy and bebe playing the piano!
(Lauren is an accomplished pianist and will teach Annie how to read music one day soon.)

Me and my love!

THEN we got to take Bebe to the park, all by ourselves!  Annie and Uncle Drew are swinging and playing.

Kisses!

Fun on the slide!
I can't stop using exclamation points!

This is Bebe blowing air out through her lips, a favorite past time.

"I love my Aunt Lauren!  She makes me laugh!"
Never mind that her parents were behind the camera or that John was probably doing the Running Man, which thrills her.

Heheheeeee giggles.

Here's all of us together, after the park, before a lengthy but fun cocktail hour that lasted into the evening.
I love my fam.

This may be boring to readers that don't know our families that well (are there even any of you out there?) but these bebes have my heart.  So happy I got to spend time with them, and with our families.

We're back in Dublin now, adjusted from jet lag due to us staying up ALL DAY on Monday (which was hellacious), and back in the swing of things.  It's hard coming back from a week filled with loved ones but we're making it work.  I still have to post about Budapest and that will hopefully come tomorrow!