My brother, Luke, came to Germany to visit during the holiday season. So after galavanting around the immediate area in which we live for a couple of days, we decided to exhaust ourselves for a straight week, and nonstop travel to Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava.
I told Greg to pack the night before we left, but he didn't listen. I said "Look pal, if you keep this up, you'll have to sleep with Luke...and the rubber sheets are packed."
When we woke up the morning of the trip, I turned to Greg and shouted "....WE DID IT AGAIN!"
Now Play This Song.
I tried to smuggle my hair spray on the plane. At security, the TSA agent opened my bag to fish through and find said hairspray, to which I exclaimed "Get outta here you nosey little pervert, or I'll slap you silly!"
When we landed in Budapest, I passed a bag down the row of my three person group, and said "Give this to Kevin"...we soon found that "Kevin's not here." We freaked.
I forget what the caves were called, but we Mario Brothered our way through this place with a tour group. We had to crawl and climb and squeeze ourselves through small cracks. Toward the end, the guide had everyone turn their lights out...and we had to follow the directions of the person in front of us to get through.
The night ended with about 82 friendly rounds of fuse ball....
We had a Hungarian 4 course meal....with our favorite part being the main dish of Duck. We were entertained by a duelling piano show, and beautiful views of the city by night.
The Buda Castle
The Parliament Building
After dinner, we just goofed our way back to the hotel.
We stopped into the beautiful St. Stephen's Catholic Church:
We sat down in the pews, and to my right was a homeless man falling asleep. We were given these chocolates at dinner. I watched him to see if you would wake up so I could share a piece of candy. Yeah, I'm a creeper, I stare, but I mean well, people. He eventually did wake up (I promise I didn't wake him up), and I handed over the candy. He looked confused at me, so I whispered "for you", and made a "for you" gesture, as I'm sure he wasn't understanding English. He half smiled and gave a "thank you" gesture back.
Our generous Christmas Eve hearts didn't stop there. We stopped at a convenient store, and Luke bought a few goodies to pass out to the homeless people on the same street as our hotel. I feel like there are two separate worlds living right next to each other. The homeless world, and the not homeless world. So when we approached this group with gifts, they all stopped talking and looked a little thrown off. We didn't speak their language, and they didn't speak ours. So no one knew what to say. They did say Thank You in Hungarian, and I just did my default happy gesture, which is a thumbs up. I really hope this isn't some offensive gesture in the places I've been, because I really do it a lot. I said "Merry Christmas!" Whether or not they understood, I'm not sure. But I hope they enjoyed their treats!
The next day was Christmas Day! A lot of places were closed, but that was ok! We needed a day to sleep in and relax. Santa must have known we were in Budapest, because he left presents at our door! He gave each of us a pack of toe warmers to use in our travels. Our hotel had a kitchen, so we made our own Christmas dinner, with Luke being the head chef.
After dinner was in the oven, Greg and I hit the spa/pool, while Luke hit the gym.
The sunset view was beautiful from our room at dinner:
After dinner, we spiffied up once again, and headed to the Pesti Vigado Concert Hall, for a Christmas Day Symphony:
The next day was an early morning, as we had a train to catch to Vienna, where we could bust out our lousy German speaking skills, once again!
Everyone was tired on the train.
Hungary must always have grey clouds over it...literally as we crossed the border, the fog went away, and the sun came out! It was a beautiful day in Vienna.
Greg and I loved Vienna. Hungary was super cheap compared to Vienna, and "the Pap" in Luke and me gave us sticker shock upon our arrival to the city. It took Luke a few mugs of gluhwein to warm up to the prices in Vienna.
To describe Vienna in one word, I would say "Grand". Luke would say "Cinderella" Greg would say "elephant", I mean "elegant".
The Hofburg Palace
You see this horse? Remember his face, and stay away. He tried to eat me. Luke told me to pet it, and he would take my picture. So as I gently caressed his face, he turned on me! His teeth touched my fist as I pulled away. He could've taken a finger off! Don't worry, I survived..with horse slobber on my coat.
We visited an Imperial Crypt. A bunch of old rulers/Kings/Queens/etc are layed to rest here:
We also visited the Natural History Museum, which was awesome. I would go back to Vienna just to go here again. We only saw a fraction of it.
Polar Bear, alpaca which Greg wants now as a pet, Dodo bird
Venus, Lucy, 250 lb clump of Topaz
Dinosaur bones found in the US, a meteorite, mammoth
We took the train back to Budapest that night, and we had yet another early morning, to catch a train to Bratislava, Slovakia!
Bratislava is like Budapest's cousin, as in, it was perpetually foggy as well. I believe this fog actually was all due to the Danube river being warmer than the air...? Anyway, Bratislava gave us more of a medieval feel than Vienna did.
Two minutes out of the train, Greg had already stepped in dog crap twice.
This church is where coronations were held from the the 1500s-1800s. Bratislava was part of Austro-Hungary for much of history.
I'm in love with streets like these...
So like every European city, there is a castle. We couldn't see it from below in the town, so we had to climb to get up close and personal to the Bratislava Castle.
When we finally got there, I said "Harry, I've reached the top!" Then I proceeded to clumsily step into a giant hole in the floor, which led me back down to the town. After a fall like that though, I definitely survived.
The castle was renovated around 2009. There were only parts of the original.
Looks spooky, huh? Can you imagine an enemy coming from the distance in this fog?? You'd never see them coming!
Painting and an organ in the concert hall...and Greg in the renovated entrance...
King Stephen's crown...
Inside the castle was an art gallery, and some history exhibits, as well as original parts of the castle we could climb to.
After touring around, we ate at a little restaurant down in the town...where the waiter corrected the way I said "thank you" in Slovakian. This is after I'd been pronouncing it the way they do in Czech all day, which is similar, but not the same as in Slovakian. It was nice of him to correct me, everyone else just laughed at me all day. But I thought it was because of the funny faces I was making.
So we left Bratislava in the evening, and had one more day left in Budapest before we headed back to Germany.
On our last day, we took the hop on hop off bus tour. We were staying on the Pest side of the city, and from the bus tour, spent most of the day on the Buda side. Back in the day, the Buda side was for the aristocrats and fancy people. Pest was for the peasants.
Here is our last day, which actually gave us some sun for an hour:
This church is St. Mathias
View from Castle Hill
Buda Castle
The castle, and some ruins:
We soon needed to leave castle hill, and head back to the hotel, so we could gather our belongings, and catch our flight. But we didn't leave until Luke made us do this:
...top deck of the hop on hop off bus...in 30 degree weather. (Fahrenheit) My nose and toes are still frozen. Thanks, Luke.
Well, that was it for our Christmas Trip! I had big plans to take Luke to France today, or the Black Forest tomorrow...but we are all so exhausted. So instead of doing anything that requires moving, this is what the three of us did today:
Total veg day. Best part is, we're doing this again tomorrow. Resting up before our New Year's Trip!
Gina: Luke, you want to do a face mask?
Luke: Yeah. Wait! Can I still eat food with it on?!
...if you needed more of an idea of what our veg day is like.
-Gina
I told Greg to pack the night before we left, but he didn't listen. I said "Look pal, if you keep this up, you'll have to sleep with Luke...and the rubber sheets are packed."
When we woke up the morning of the trip, I turned to Greg and shouted "....WE DID IT AGAIN!"
Now Play This Song.
Greg and Luke didn't pack until 15 minutes before we left for the airport. This is when it really hit me that I would be the only girl wrangling these boys on the trip. I foresaw that mornings would be the most challenging.
I tried to smuggle my hair spray on the plane. At security, the TSA agent opened my bag to fish through and find said hairspray, to which I exclaimed "Get outta here you nosey little pervert, or I'll slap you silly!"
When we landed in Budapest, I passed a bag down the row of my three person group, and said "Give this to Kevin"...we soon found that "Kevin's not here." We freaked.
KEVIN!
By the time we found (Greg found, Greg the navigator, Gina and Luke just lolligagged along) our hotel, it was about 10 PM. Being so close to a holiday, and so late on a week night, our options for dinner were limited. We were so excited to find a little hole in the wall restaurant...where got a soup and a meal...for the equivalent of $5 per person.
Then we saw the microwaves that they put our food in.
Then we smelled the meat they served us.
Then we tasted the meat they served us. And realized..."This sh#% smells like @%it!"
It was the worst meat I've ever had. It tasted like old lipstick. No one could finish it without the threat of potentially projectile vomiting across the restaurant. We suspected that they over-doused the dish with caraway seeds. Like they wanted to get rid of the jar of seasonings, so they dumped all of it on our meat in one glop.
But the soup was good. 5 bucks well spent.
Maybe the meat was an acquired taste which we were not yet acquired to...but the locals were? We felt bad about not eating the food that the nice Hungarian women served us, so we put them in to go boxes, and dropped it off with a sleeping homeless man. Maybe he'd like it. When we passed by the same man a little later, it appeared someone else had stolen his food!
The amount of homeless people I have seen in Budapest, was the most I've seen in a long time. Probably since Moscow.
On our first full day in Budapest (Wednesday), we started out at the Terror Museum.
This museum was very informative about Hungary's situations throughout the 1900s. In a nutshell: WWI, WWII/Nazi occupied, post WWII/Soviet occupied. This building was the Hungarian Nazi Headquarters. Obviously, much more detail than that, thats why I said "in a nutshell". Walking around Budapest, there was always a sense of recent history oppression in the air. Not just because it was perpetually foggy, but also the general demeanor of the people, and very high population of homeless people.
So now that we had a morning filled with history, we set out for a caving expedition.
I forget what the caves were called, but we Mario Brothered our way through this place with a tour group. We had to crawl and climb and squeeze ourselves through small cracks. Toward the end, the guide had everyone turn their lights out...and we had to follow the directions of the person in front of us to get through. 
We were thankful to be vertically challenged, compact people on this day. Though, this wasn't the first time on the trip we realized that we were the 3 muske-shorties of Hungary. The night before, we wanted the wine on the top shelf. No one could reach it alone. We literally had to stack on top of one another to retrieve it. Luke picked me up, while Greg stood guard. But instead of helping us out, the giants in the store just smirked at us.
The cave tour actually was quite physically exhausted. My muscles would then hurt for the following three-four days of the trip. Afterwards, we showered, and still being in taste-bud shock from the vile meat, we stuck to Thai food for dinner.
After dinner we found ourselves at a bar that was showing a Lumberjack competition on their televisions...The US, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia all were taking part.
The night ended with about 82 friendly rounds of fuse ball....
Luke won.
Day 2 of our trip was Christmas Eve. This was a day reserved to relaxation. After a rough go trying to get everyone out of bed and rolling, we started the morning at the Szechenyi Bath...the largest bath in Europe. After our massages in the spa, we hung out here for 3 hours:
Before getting in the steaming hot water, I kindly said to everyone "Excuse me, does anyone mind if I work on my cannonball?"
While in the bath, we overhead a slew of English. So Luke approached them and inquired about where they were from. Once a couple mentioned mentioned "New Zealand" and "Australia", Luke exclaimed "GINA, GREG, GET OVER HERE! They're from New Zealand!!" Then he turned to them and asked "Did you guys watch the lumberjack competition last night?!" They, like us before we stumbled upon it the night before, had never heard of it. We then proceeded to do what you always do when you run into kind folk from another English speaking country...exchange slang terms from our respective areas of the world...and make the other guess what we are talking about.
Here are some photos from the walk from the spa, to our hotel:
Heroes Square. Some of the statues are of the original founders of Hungary. Others are some war heroes throughout the years.
Once back at the hotel after the spa/bath visit, we had a couple hours to chill out before we needed to set out for out Christmas Eve Dinner Cruise on the Danube River.
The past day and a half had really worn us out. The bath, though the most relaxing experience in the world, really zapped our energy. There were some moments with complete catatonic states. I fought the urge to fall asleep..as I knew we had to get ready. After I got out of the shower, here is how I found the boys:
And I had my work out for me.
After many-a "shut up, Gina, let me keep sleeping, Gina" grumbles from someone in particular, Luke (because Greg knows better ;), everyone cleaned up nice, and we were going to have a lovely dinner.
We had a Hungarian 4 course meal....with our favorite part being the main dish of Duck. We were entertained by a duelling piano show, and beautiful views of the city by night.
The Buda Castle
The Parliament Building
After dinner, we just goofed our way back to the hotel.
We stopped into the beautiful St. Stephen's Catholic Church:
We sat down in the pews, and to my right was a homeless man falling asleep. We were given these chocolates at dinner. I watched him to see if you would wake up so I could share a piece of candy. Yeah, I'm a creeper, I stare, but I mean well, people. He eventually did wake up (I promise I didn't wake him up), and I handed over the candy. He looked confused at me, so I whispered "for you", and made a "for you" gesture, as I'm sure he wasn't understanding English. He half smiled and gave a "thank you" gesture back.
Our generous Christmas Eve hearts didn't stop there. We stopped at a convenient store, and Luke bought a few goodies to pass out to the homeless people on the same street as our hotel. I feel like there are two separate worlds living right next to each other. The homeless world, and the not homeless world. So when we approached this group with gifts, they all stopped talking and looked a little thrown off. We didn't speak their language, and they didn't speak ours. So no one knew what to say. They did say Thank You in Hungarian, and I just did my default happy gesture, which is a thumbs up. I really hope this isn't some offensive gesture in the places I've been, because I really do it a lot. I said "Merry Christmas!" Whether or not they understood, I'm not sure. But I hope they enjoyed their treats!
The next day was Christmas Day! A lot of places were closed, but that was ok! We needed a day to sleep in and relax. Santa must have known we were in Budapest, because he left presents at our door! He gave each of us a pack of toe warmers to use in our travels. Our hotel had a kitchen, so we made our own Christmas dinner, with Luke being the head chef.
After dinner was in the oven, Greg and I hit the spa/pool, while Luke hit the gym.
The sunset view was beautiful from our room at dinner:
After dinner, we spiffied up once again, and headed to the Pesti Vigado Concert Hall, for a Christmas Day Symphony:
The next day was an early morning, as we had a train to catch to Vienna, where we could bust out our lousy German speaking skills, once again!
Everyone was tired on the train.
Hungary must always have grey clouds over it...literally as we crossed the border, the fog went away, and the sun came out! It was a beautiful day in Vienna.
Greg and I loved Vienna. Hungary was super cheap compared to Vienna, and "the Pap" in Luke and me gave us sticker shock upon our arrival to the city. It took Luke a few mugs of gluhwein to warm up to the prices in Vienna.
To describe Vienna in one word, I would say "Grand". Luke would say "Cinderella" Greg would say "elephant", I mean "elegant".
The Hofburg Palace
You see this horse? Remember his face, and stay away. He tried to eat me. Luke told me to pet it, and he would take my picture. So as I gently caressed his face, he turned on me! His teeth touched my fist as I pulled away. He could've taken a finger off! Don't worry, I survived..with horse slobber on my coat.
We visited an Imperial Crypt. A bunch of old rulers/Kings/Queens/etc are layed to rest here:
We also visited the Natural History Museum, which was awesome. I would go back to Vienna just to go here again. We only saw a fraction of it.
Polar Bear, alpaca which Greg wants now as a pet, Dodo bird
Venus, Lucy, 250 lb clump of Topaz
Dinosaur bones found in the US, a meteorite, mammoth
We took the train back to Budapest that night, and we had yet another early morning, to catch a train to Bratislava, Slovakia!
Bratislava is like Budapest's cousin, as in, it was perpetually foggy as well. I believe this fog actually was all due to the Danube river being warmer than the air...? Anyway, Bratislava gave us more of a medieval feel than Vienna did.
Two minutes out of the train, Greg had already stepped in dog crap twice.
This church is where coronations were held from the the 1500s-1800s. Bratislava was part of Austro-Hungary for much of history.
I'm in love with streets like these...
So like every European city, there is a castle. We couldn't see it from below in the town, so we had to climb to get up close and personal to the Bratislava Castle.
When we finally got there, I said "Harry, I've reached the top!" Then I proceeded to clumsily step into a giant hole in the floor, which led me back down to the town. After a fall like that though, I definitely survived.
The castle was renovated around 2009. There were only parts of the original.
Looks spooky, huh? Can you imagine an enemy coming from the distance in this fog?? You'd never see them coming!
Painting and an organ in the concert hall...and Greg in the renovated entrance...
King Stephen's crown...
Inside the castle was an art gallery, and some history exhibits, as well as original parts of the castle we could climb to.
After touring around, we ate at a little restaurant down in the town...where the waiter corrected the way I said "thank you" in Slovakian. This is after I'd been pronouncing it the way they do in Czech all day, which is similar, but not the same as in Slovakian. It was nice of him to correct me, everyone else just laughed at me all day. But I thought it was because of the funny faces I was making.
So we left Bratislava in the evening, and had one more day left in Budapest before we headed back to Germany.
On our last day, we took the hop on hop off bus tour. We were staying on the Pest side of the city, and from the bus tour, spent most of the day on the Buda side. Back in the day, the Buda side was for the aristocrats and fancy people. Pest was for the peasants.
Here is our last day, which actually gave us some sun for an hour:
This church is St. Mathias
View from Castle Hill
Buda Castle
The castle, and some ruins:
We soon needed to leave castle hill, and head back to the hotel, so we could gather our belongings, and catch our flight. But we didn't leave until Luke made us do this:
...top deck of the hop on hop off bus...in 30 degree weather. (Fahrenheit) My nose and toes are still frozen. Thanks, Luke.
Well, that was it for our Christmas Trip! I had big plans to take Luke to France today, or the Black Forest tomorrow...but we are all so exhausted. So instead of doing anything that requires moving, this is what the three of us did today:
Total veg day. Best part is, we're doing this again tomorrow. Resting up before our New Year's Trip!
Gina: Luke, you want to do a face mask?
Luke: Yeah. Wait! Can I still eat food with it on?!
...if you needed more of an idea of what our veg day is like.
-Gina
"Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal. And a happy New Year"
