Wednesday, July 13, 2011

European Chronicles June 24, 2011

First of all, I'd like to give a shout out to my cousin Christen Drexler because it's her bday today. Happy Birthday, T!
Ok, on to my day....man I'll try to keep this short. Perhaps bullet points will work well...

* Woke up to Hungarian homeboys working on the street below...at like 7am. Really? Really? I stayed in bed until about 7:45 when I couldn't take it anymore.
* Ate some Hungarian version of Frosted Mini Wheats with milk from a box. Delicious!
* Got my little self ready for the day of sighseeing--hair dryer and straightener still working like a charm.
* Dad drove to some undisclosed (ok, he knew where it was, but we didn't and undiscosed is a cool word) location to catch public into the city.
* Said some prayers and held a map that my dad's language teacher created for us.
* Bought day passes for public (thanks Dad) and caught the tram into town. Sam did wonderfully on her first public transportation experience.
* Took the tram to the Metro and I literally CHOKED with delight when we decended down the stairs. Standing there in front of me in ALL its glory was FORNETTI!!! Oh my gosh!!! Anyone who's ever been to Romania knows what I'm talking about. Fornetti is a pastery stand that makes amazing pastries (we probably stopped there at least once a day in RO and I thought I'd never get it again). Who knew I'd find it in HU?? I coughed and tried to explain myself. We purchased some deliciousness. I reveled in it, and we went on our way.... ahhh....

* We took the metro to Octogon where we exited for the Terror Museum. Amazing. It's a museum to display the terror (literally) of communism. It was a bit tough to understand being mostly in Hungarian and all, but the displays were fascinating and there were 8.5 by 11 sheets printed in Eng in each room--a LOT of reading!
* Back to the metro we went--but we weren't quite sure where to get off for Hero's Square (I guess Dad hasn't gotten to those words yet in language class). We went to the end of the line--ooops--and tried to look at a map to figure out where we missed it. We got back on going the other way, hopped off a few stops later, and lo and behold, Hero's Square stood before us.
* It's a pretty amazing place--Hero's Square--commemorating all of the Hero's in Hungarian history, but almost as equally amazing were the many tourists around. I won't lie--I'm pretty sure I took as many candid shots of people today as I did scenery. I'll give you a sneek peek below, but "someone's" team cannot be fully disclosed until later.
* From Hero's Square we meandered through a park to a small castly where we happened Bishop Anonymous (you know, that guy that wrote ALL kinds of stuff?!?). We took some pics with his statue, took some pics of people, and made our way back to the metro--oh! Did I mention that in the little lake/pond thing there there were floating cars, a small house, and a porta potty? Curious!

* We found the metro and rode it to the end of the line (hoping to find the river). Success! We found a quaint little pizza place for lunch. I ordered a Four Seasons pizza, as did Sam, but they only brought one. They doubled up on dad's order. Instead of sending it back, Sam graciously took it--good thing too because it was spicy! I would have died.
* After lunch it was back to the tram/trolly which we rode to the Parliament building (MY FAVORITE BUILDING). We tried to get a tour, but they were all sold out--perhaps tomorrow. :)

* At this point, we were quite tired, so we decided to head home and conquer the other side of the river tomorrow. But, before we went home, we stopped at a huge open air market. It's one of the first places I ever went in Hungary (about 9 years ago--wow--and I still remember it vividly--strange because I blocked a lot of that trip out, haha). We shopped some--I bought a beautiful water color picture of the Parliament building--and headed back.
* OH! And there is apparently some really important Chinese dude in town because there are Chinese flags and folks everywhere! Maybe he came to learn about the fall of communism..
* And I hear Brad and Angelini are in town--maybe I'll run into them like I did Kelsey Grammer in 2004...
* And...As if we hadn't done enough yet, we decided to stop at Tesco on the way home. I couldn't stop thinking about Nicole the entire time! I did sneek in my camera to snap a few random shots, but I didn't get as many as I would have liked. I found something amazing that a few of my friends would enjoy (teaser--I'll post pictures after I get home) and chocolate crossants for Jessie (pretty funny because as I was there she wrote chocolate crossants on my FB wall and I didn't see it until I got home). :)
* Finally home, Sam and I CRASHED for a couple of hours while Dad made dinner. Any guesses on what we had?? TACOS AND BURRITOS! I brought some taco seasoning and we found some refried beans in the "international" section at Tesco. Delicious! We had some Joes knockoffs for dessert (again, you RO people know what I'm talking about) and Cheescake flavored pudding that I brought.
***THANKS FOR HANGING ON--I KNOW THIS IS LOOONG***
* After dinner we stopped by Mike and Nancy's because Dad had to sign some papers. We took them some Dewars chews and chatted for a bit. Hopefully they'll enjoy a piece of Bako history.
* AND THEN THE CRAZINESS BEGAN....we drove to some little villiage-y place wth small winding streets to pick up yet ANOTHER dog! I'm not sure if I mentioned it yet, but my dad is already house sitting TWO dogs, so this little beast makes it THREE. The two are roudy enough (and get hair EVERYWHERE), but well enough behaved. We had no idea what this dog would do....
* We get it home, the two other dogs (Lucy and Sky) about attack it to death, and the new one (not sure his name, so I call him white boy) starts peeing on things! My dad is too nice, so he justs cleans it up, but I throw the sucker outside for a bit. When we let him back in, he starts humping Sky like there's no tomorrow (sorry if that's TMI, but it went on ALL night).
* We played Dutch Blitz and Uno and Scrabble card game while the dogs did their thing (fought and humped and tried to claim dominance and peed--white boy). Before my dad went to bed, we played fetch with the dogs. White boy just tagged along as the others played until he POOPED on my dad's floor. Yup, AWESOME. I threw him outside while we played with the other dogs and decided that he'd be crated for bed--him no likey that!
* Sky sleeps in his crate like a champ. Lucy sleeps free and has no problems. White boy gets put in the crate and starts pounding and scratching and barking--so we take him out of dad's room and lock him up in the bathroom so he'll calm down. He barked and pounded and acting like a crazy man in a padded room the entire time I worked on this note. He's just finally calmed down. Hopefully that crate isn't a mess....

Needless to say, we've had quite the day! There is never a dull moment here in Hungary. I don't know what my dad was thinking taking on three dogs--I guess it's part of his ministry. I hope they don't all kill each other tomorrow when we're gone again all day! :)

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