Budapest Day 4: A city stroll

Mostly just photos for you today, walking around the city has made us tired. This is what yesterday's walk looked like...

First a walk down Andrassy "ut" ending here at Heroes' Square.

Ice Skating in the park, in front of the fake 700 yr old castle (it was actually finished in 1908).

St. Stephen's Cathedral, didn't get to see the light up mummified hand. 

Then a sunset stroll over the Danube. That's the Buda castle.

Erin is looking for real estate to buy, here's one option, notice the "szex shop" on the lower floor. Due to the holes in the wall and the overall run-down look I bet it's cheap. The view of the Central Synagogue might up the price a little.

All in all it was a Beautiful day...more to come tomorrow.

Budapest Day 3: I want to go to there

Budapest is so magical...

In a few days we'll tour the Fisherman's Bastion, which is reminiscent of a real life Disney Princess Castle.  I promise LOTS of pictures.

But today, we saw something entirely different, but just as magical: the real life Disney Haunted Mansion.

Duh-Duh-DUUUUUUMMMM

You know the kids at Disneyland?  The ones screaming, stomping and wailing "I WANT IT!!!!!"?  I became one of those kids today.  The Haunted Mansion has that power over me.

Re-enactment? Why not?

Setting:  Here

Erin: (freezes, drops jaw, points) I want to go to there!

Alan: (takes more photos, ignores wife)

Erin: (Tugs on husbands sleeve) LOOOOOK! That is definitely haunted, and I definitely want to go there. 

Alan: Why am I not surprised?  (Takes another photo, starts walking.)

Erin:  But... But... I want to. Hey! I bet it's for rent! We can go to an openhouse!!!

Alan: (Keeps walking. Probably rolls his eyes.)  

Erin: (Whines.  Stamps foot.  Balls up fists. Contemplates a full-blown tantrum.  Glances at mud puddle on ground. Re-considers. Begins to gain back some semblance of adulthood. Whimpers almost unintellegably...) I never get to do what I want.

End scene. 

Old houses. They do that to me.

 

*Note:  As is always the case, this story is completely factual and, word-for-word, EXACTLY what happened.  No exaggeration or dramatization.*

Budapest Day 2: I spy

So, as it turns out, pretty much all of Budapest is closed on Sundays.  But that didn't stop us from peeking around.  What did we find...

Something tall and pointy...

Little sprinkles of left over snow...

Hilarious facial hair...

Available property...

Rainbow coloured roof-tops...

Lots of bridges over the Danube...

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Buda or Pest, either way it's cold.

We made it to Budapest. Our hotel is on Castle Hill.

We don't know what these places are but we look forward to finding out.

A New Years Naked Surprise

Don't worry this is a fully PG post. I don’t have any pictures of this event, which you should be thankful for, but it probably looked like this…

Many of you read Erin’s Post about the Turkish Baths. As she recounted we were given a warning by our old boss, an all-around great storyteller, Rick Johnson and up to this point there has been nothing to incite the type of fear that Rick relayed during his PTSD episode. As you may have read in Erin’s plethora of posts last week, Our friends Danielle and Bryan were visiting and after Erin’s post they wanted nothing more than to go to the Hamam and experience some of that inappropriate touching Erin talked about. It was a great way to relax after our death-defying hike down the hill (Buck up Danielle!!!), or at least it would have been…

In her post Erin made a little footnote about wearing a bathing suit, an important part of the experience. So we advised our guests on appropriate apparel and we were off to enjoy our final event of 2011. All was going well, we went in to the sauna, then we were ushered into the marble cleaning room to wait our turn. The ladies were first and Bryan and I relaxed as we waited. When the girls were finished we took up our positions on the slab and got started. All was going well until it happened…The man placed a towel over my mid-section and started to tug at my shorts, like he wanted to take them off!!! On top of that he was pulling the shorts off with Danielle and Bryan still in the room, in fact I think they both got a view of my fully exposed thigh. Happy New Years friends, that is my little gift to you for the year.

If you read Erin’s post you will also know that I was hesitant to venture to the hamam after Rick’s glowing endorsement, and I usually spent most massages with a quiet voice in my head saying “Weird person is rubbing me.” It definitely was never relaxing. However, now through time I have been able to relax and enjoy the experience a little more. So imagine the volume of that “quiet little voice” in my head. Now it was screaming as loud as it could “DUDE IS RUBBING ME!!!” to make it worse he seemed to enjoy my discomfort way too much, he was singing songs and whistling away. His final move, the coup de grace, if you will, was the forced stretching in which he brought my knee to my chest, a view no body wants to see. There was a towel involved, placed very strategically, but that thing had way to much freedom to move where it wanted. 

 To quote Bryan:

“Who’s the slutty tourist now”

Playing Catch-Up

For many reasons blogging about our travels, and adventures is super important.  (So that we have something to look back on when our hair is white and out memories are starting to fade, and also so that our friends and family are both in the know and jealous.)  For other reasons, the blogging doesn't happen as often as we would like (OK it's just one reason: laziness). 

Anyway.  A  lot of wonderful blog worthy things have been happening, so I'm about to inundate you with posts.  Small posts.  Picture filled posts.  Posts with very few words.  I dare you to look at them all. 

Happy reading!

New Beard's Eve

OK that was a stretch. Sorry.

Beanie Beards.  Jealous?