Budapest, continued

The next day we started out by heading up to the citadel and visiting the Catholic Cave Church on the way. It was closed off during the communist years.
We then hiked up to the top of the citadel.


Daniel showing off his "gland" on our way up to Castle Hill.
Enjoying some "turdelnik" (in Czech terminology) on Castle Hill.

From Castle Hill we headed to the Hospital in a Rock museum, the hospital that was used during WWII and the 1958 uprising. From the way that they described the conditions (three patients sharing a bed, temperatures around 90 degrees, and reusing gauze cut off of dead patients) it seems as if you would not want to spend much time there as a patient. Daniel thought it was the perfect setting for a horror film.



And we followed that up with, well, dinner. It was still delicious!

Judge me if you will, the kid still loves his binkie.

After that we headed over to Margaret island for some frog spotting...

and some huge cotton candy. It was kiwi flavored. In case anyone is wondering, cotton candy always tastes like cotton candy, no matter what they say the flavor is.









Invisible Jonas.
The musical fountain on Margaret Island.




Fun on the way back to the apartment.

Budapest, Hungary

The day after my mother and father-in-law headed back to the U.S., my sister, Tracey, came to visit us with my nephews, Alex and Nate. They spent five weeks with us, so part of that time we took off on a trip to hit the three capitals closest in proximity in the world (unvalidated): Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. Jaxon and Nate are in the airport ready to leave Switzerland behind.
Arriving in Budapest, this was one of the first things that stuck out to me: graffiti on the escalator. Although it isn't very good, it's a creative idea!
Our apartment accommodations.

Although I briefly visited Budapest about 12 years ago, my biggest regret was missing the thermal baths that the country is so famous for, so he first thing we did the morning after we arrived was hit the Gellert thermal baths. It was absolutely amazing! Pools of all temperatures, saunas, steam rooms. This place was plush.




After the baths we headed to the Great Market Hall. We picked up some delicious goulash and browsed the souvenirs, but the kids were most excited about the fountain that they discovered out front...


We then took off an a long walk along the river and through the water district to get to our next activity.


Finding cool statues along the way.And cool hats.
We arrived just in time to get to our seats to watch a traditional Hungarian dance troop.


We all enjoyed it, but I think Jonas was the most inspired and started showing us his Hungarian dance moves as soon as we hit the sidewalk outside



And after a wonderful and exhausting day we headed back to the apartment.

Swimming to the island

This is a picture of Mom the Explorer.

Perhaps one of the most memorable moments of our Corsican adventures was the swim to a little island off the coast. A sand bar spread from the mainland to a small island about a kilometer away. In order to get to the sand bar we had to swim about 100 meters until we were able to walk the rest of the way. Once we got out a little way, Mom, who was excited to go decided to turn back. I did not want to pressure her to do something she was not comfortable doing so after some encouragement I listened to her and went on with Janet, Jaxon and Jonas.

When I arrived at the island with Janet and the kids I turned around to see how far we had come and noticed a woman with two blue noodles walking on the sandbar. I was shocked, it was Mom! I quickly got up and ran across the sandbar in the surf to meet Mom laughing the whole way. I will always remember her big smile as we met on a sandbar with waves crashing all around us in between two islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We walked the rest of the was together hand in hand and I even took one of her blue noodles. We relaxed on the little island for a few minutes before heading back as the afternoon wind was picking up and the waves were getting bigger. Last year Mom climbed the stairs of the Eiffel Tower even though she was very scared of the height and the stability of the tower and this year she swam and walked across a sandbar to a remote island in the Mediterranean Sea even though she was a little scared at the beginning. I will always cherish the special moments and adventures I shared with my Mom!

We also enjoyed a short visit to a beautiful beach before getting banished thanks to Jonas’ little “accident”. As there are almost no public bathrooms in Corsica and Jonas has only been potty trained for a few months we had to improvise to find “potties” everywhere we went. A tree, a wall, a drain, a street, a little flower that looks thirsty… you name it and it probably was one of Jonas’ potties during the trip. Before going he would look at me, turn his head to the side and say in his sweet, innocent voice, “dada, is dis a potty?” to which I would reply “yes Jonas” . He would then say “ok dada, dis is a potty” and take care of business. Unfortunately for unsuspecting neighbor on the beach that day Jonas did not think to ask me if the little orange beach tent was indeed a potty. I was talking when I heard the sound of tinkling on a tarp. I turned around just in time to see Jonas as he finished. No Jonas this is not a potty! I tried to clean it with water which attracted the attention of the owner of the tent who was an Italian guy who did not speak much English or French. He came up to me to see what I was doing to his tent. I tried to explain that Jonas had gone pee in his tent and he first looked confused then angry. He pointed at me and said “you?” in serious tone. I replied "no not me the baby" and pointed at Jonas. He then nodded and said, “baby…baby.. it’s ok…” Luckily I was able to help him understand what happened because he thought it was me! We moved away from the beach but got a picture of the little orange tent which you can see in the background.

Our spot after being banished...

The color of the water was amazing.
Jaxon sure loved the little hike with Grandma and Grandpa to the beach.