Paris!

We planned a trip to Paris as a late birthday trip for K, her choice. We went over winter break so the kids wouldn't miss any school, and we always hope that the cooler temps will keep all the other tourists away. We figured out into the trip that doing one big thing each day as early as we could, following by eating then some relaxing in our hotel rooms, then dinner out. 

Trying to hit up another tourist destination in the afternoons proved to be too much work for the kids, and nobody enjoyed so we didn't bother. That said, we still saw a lot in our 5 days there. 

First day we dropped our bags quickly at the hotel & ran to the Eiffel Tower where we had a reservation. After going up in the tower, I will say I find it much more majestic from the ground. 

The rest of the week we went to the Christmas market along Champs-Elysees, visited The Louvre, the Catacombs, The Musee Picasso, the Arc de Triomph (just from the ground), ate along Rue Cler, bought a beret, and a few more trips back to the Tower to see it again.

We have far too many pictures to post them here, I think we'll need a 'Paris' album. This trip helped me plan an upcoming trip to Rome knowing how much touristing the kids could handle in one day.

Parliament Tour

We have monthly activities for Fulbright, and December's activity was a tour of the 

Hungarian Parliament building & surrounding area.

The building is gorgeous on the outside, a definite landmark of the city along the Danube. Some pictures from our tour inside. 

One highlight was definitely seeing the crown jewels, complete with the crooked cross, though no pictures are allowed in that area which is guarded by two soldiers. After our tour indoors, we went outside with a Hungarian scholar who explained the significance of the various statues that surround the Parliament building. We weren't able to stay for the entire tour before heading to the Fulbright Christmas party later that evening, because kids get cranky after a certain amount of touring... (as evidenced by pictures)...

 

Christmas Markets

This is what happens when people get blogs! They forget to post at some point..

We spent Christmas in Budapest and took advantage of the many Christmas markets around the city to keep ourselves entertained throughout the season.
We also had a white elephant brunch with fellow Fulbrighters.

The big Christmas market in front of Cafe Gerbeaud near Vörösmarty tér had a wooden train the kids could play in and a giant lit up tree down Fashion Avenue.

The arch in front of the market in front of St. Stephen's Basilica.

 

The Museum of Applied Arts has an annual market indoors where the artisans sell their work. We spent one day here with the kids who needed to pick out gifts for their secret santa exchanges at school. 

The kids even enjoyed a cup of mulled wine, or forralt bor. 

 

 

Some of the artwork on the walls of Bonnie Restro, where we had our white elephant party. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caving

I got an email a little while ago that a Hungarian Fulbrighter wanted to organize a Fulbright caving trip. We want to do everything we can to see Hungary and surrounding countries while we're here, so of course we said yes! One reason this was the best trip ever was that I didn't have to plan a single thing - it was entirely planned by Adam, a Hungarian who spent some time in the US last year. The other group of people met us there and included Adam's wife, a couple of their friends who were also into caving and another former Hungarian Fulbrighter.

We got picked up early on a Saturday by Adam, he had room for all 6 of us in his car! We drove a few hours to Jósvafő. Along the way we stopped for snacks (and a new shirt for J who had already puked by this point - carsickness for the win :-/). 

We then drove to Baradla cave (a couple more sick kids along the way), which really looked a lot like caves/caverns we've been to in the US (Carlsbad, Lost World, Laurel). Stalagmites & stalactites & about a hundred other people with us. 

After that cave, we checked into our hotel, the Tengerszem Szálló  in the tiny village of Jósvafő, which is literally right next to the cave exit we came out of.  The caves are part of of Aggtelek National Park. After checking into our hotel we explored the grounds a bit.

 

We had the top two rooms at the peak - one with 4 beds one with 3. 

 View from our rooms

 The salamander is the symbol for this national park, and we saw a few while we were walking around. One in the water on a log (hard to see) and one on a bridge.

After our outing we hung out in our room (the adults may have fallen asleep) 

and the kids read books and played on their ipods.

Then we all drove to dinner at a little tiny restaurant (we must've been the biggest group they'd had in a while). We had some traditional Hungarian/Slovakian foods. J's schnitzel was as big as he was, and he impressed us all by eating most of it. 

The next morning we woke up and went to the same restaurant for breakfast (TONS of food). We walked around the village which only took about 15 minutes & fed the horses we saw. They are a Hungarian breed, and common in the part of the country we were in. 

 

Then we went to Rákóczi Cave 1. This cave was much more adventurous. We climbed up & down tons of stairs in there, holding onto the railings of course, because there were lots of drops and two large lakes at the bottom. The kids borrowed head lamps from our traveling companions and they all played with some of the mining equipment at the end. On the way out, we could see Slovakia across the road, but weren't close enough to cross easily by foot, so we didn't. We saw some bats in there too but didn't get any good pics of them.

Slovakia across the fields.

Group photo since we all survived it!

When it was over, Adam drove us all home and dropped us off. Easiest trip ever for us! We definitely would not have planned all this on our own and having the translators there for us was great! So glad this happened!