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My Adventures in...Budapest

I love traveling.  I'm so-so on taking pictures - usually I'm too busy absorbing the scenery to remember to pull my camera out.  But on this past trip, I tried my best to capture some random shots of our time in Europe.  The problem is then that we end up with a million photos, and it takes forever to weed through to find the best.  And be warned, I don't know the names of the buildings that I took pictures of - I just liked the way they looked.

And that is the reason I haven't posted any photos yet - I needed to find the time to sort, organize, and condense.  And what better time than when Thanksgiving dinner is being prepared, and my child (and husband) are both napping!

For now, here are the photos from our time in Budapest.  I'll post the other cities later...and no worries, I'll have many more posts about Ava to come in the near future!

Saturday, November 6: We arrived after a full day of traveling from Minneapolis to Budapest, via Amsterdam.  We wisely took the option to upgrade to the Executive Level at our hotel - giving us free food, beverages, and internet access.  And a beautiful view of the Danube! 

Our view from the rooftop terrace at the hotel - overlooking the Danube and Buda.



Sunday, November 7: After washing all of the travel grime off, and trying to beat jet lag, we were up, and over the river to explore Buda.



This just made me smile.  And miss Ava.


Interesting place to lose one's head...


Creepy little windows, right at eye level on one of the buildings.



Admist all of the fallen leaves, a little flower was poking through.








Lots of dogs in this one.



One of the bridges to get back to Pest



And the sun came out...what an amazing difference it made to bring out the colors in the buildings.


Tired, and working our way back to Pest.





Finally back to the hotel, and enjoying the amenities. 



The nice thing about vacation - we could take a break on eating well.  5 desserts and beer - sounds like a great dinner to me!


Another night on the terrace




And we brought snacks to bed with us.  Why not?  We're on vacation!


Monday, November 8: We wanted to explore more of the Pest side, so we walked. Somewhere. Not really sure where.  It rained a little this day, but that's ok, we were prepared for that!

Something about this building caught my eye - not sure why.  The darkness of it, perhaps?

We saw a lot of beagles in Budapest, but they were much bigger than ours!


Heroes Square



My newest Hungarian friend - a pigeon.  It came right at me, and just hovered...  Once it realized I didn't have any food, it settled down for a bit.


But it had friends.  More pigeons and ducks!


One of the cities baths...I wanted to go in and try it out, but we weren't prepared for that experience, unfortunately.


Our adventure to Margaret Island - advertised as having medieval ruins, spas, and beer gardens. The perfect combination!  Except for the fact that the bridge was under massive construction and it took us an hour to figure out how to cross it.  We also noticed that the bridge workers did a lot of standing, and not a whole lot of working...


When we finally made it across, we sadly noticed everything was closed.  Luckily, this dog with the huge stick made us laugh.  It took a lady out behind her knees with the stick when she passed by it.


Again, back at the hotel, ready to go out and have fun on our last night.  This is what happens when a self-portrait goes awry.


Much better.


We ventured down to the hotel bar, looking for drinks, and suggestions on where to go!



The young bartender suggested we go to Szimpla...just a short 20 minute walk through the deserted streets of Budapest.  Nothing to be worried about...


And we made it!  Cheap beer, friendly people, and lots of graffiti. 





We left our own little mark - hard to do without a knife.  But our new Moroccan friend lent us a pen.


This was just odd - and I loved it.  A blue squid.  Really?


After we shook Em's new admirer (the Moroccan, not the squid), we walked back to the hotel and crashed.  The next morning, we packed up, and left for our next stop...Vienna.

More to come in the next post!

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