Buda and Pesht

Or, better known as Budapest, Hungary.  However, the city is actually two towns, separated by the Danube River, and people put an "sh" in the Pest when they say it.

When Bethanne and I were thinking of ideas for a trip together this Spring, Budapest and Prague popped into my head.  We didn't really toy around with too many other ideas- we just went for it.  I cannot believe how much I LOVED Budapest.  And for the first time in I don't know how many vacations, we had nice weather.

We rented an apartment that was within walking distance of almost everything.  However, by day three we figured out the Metro because we were both really sick of walking.  I was so tired by the end of each day that we never really even went out and saw the nightlife, other than dinner.  To me that's not what traveling is all about anyway.  A vacation on a beach, bring the beers on.  However as I'm sure you have seen from this blog over the years, a trip to Europe turns me into Super Tourist, and Bethanne is the same way. 

The first day we stumbled upon Margaret Island (which I don't have photos of).  It was a huge park with families everywhere, flowers, fountains, etc.  We rented pink bikes for about an hour which was hilarious because I'm not so good at turning.  Then we just walked around, checked out the cit(ies), and found a place to eat some goulash for dinner.  After the first day, we had our bearings as to where things generally were.  And I say generally because even with BA being a great map reader, we looked for a restaurant that we heard about for like 30 minutes, and still never found it.  Examples of names of streets are Klauzal and Berkocsis- not easy to remember.

The second day we decided to hike it up to Buda (we were staying in Pest) to check out Castle Hill.  And by hike it up, I mean take a funicular.  We walked across the Chain Bridge to get there, which was very cool.  We checked out the Royal Palace, a church, and got a way overpriced lunch on the Hill that was totally fat free (right).  The view was so beautiful, and it wasn't too overcrowded.  Our favorite building in Budapest was definitely the Parliament.  I wanted to take this train I read about into the Buda Hills, so we tried that.  Not the most memorable afternoon, but oh well.  We had dinner at an awesome Mexican restaurant that night called Iguana and I think we in bed before 10:00.  I bet we walked over 10 miles that day, on cobblestones.

One thing of note in Budapest is that they love Italian food.  It was almost difficult for us to find good restaurants that were not Italian.  We ate it two out of the four nights that we were there!  Another thing to point out is how affordable it is.  We each took out the equivalent of $100 USD, and we both still had cash on the third day. 

Day three was day trip day- more on that in the next blog. 

The fourth day, BA felt like we had missed out on a lot of things we should see, so we covered a ridiculous amount of ground.  We went to the Opera House in the Terezvaros area and did a tour.  It was beautiful, but I have honestly seen so many theatres that unfortunately I'm a little over that whole thing.  But it was next to a Louis Vuitton so that made it okay.  Then we went to the most famous dessert and coffee place in Budapest (and may I add, the most expensive) called Gerbeaud.  It was SO GOOD.  Until BA spilled her million dollar coffee all over the table and the floor.  The one thing that I think both of us will remember is that on the plate with the apple pie was something that looked like a green cherry.  Neither of us really wanted to try it, but I finally gave in.  It was soft like a cherry, but tasted like an apple.... so strange, and so good.

The last thing that we did that day was something that Budapest is known for- their baths!  We took a train to the Szechenyi Spa Baths.  The first half hour we were there was a joke.  We had no idea what we were doing, and nothing was written in English.  Unlike the baths we have both experienced in Germany, this was more like a public pool bath, not numbered stations that you follow.  We eventually figured it out, and spent a few hours there.  They had the hottest sauna I have ever felt in my life.  Why would I want to steam burn myself?  I am so happy that we did this at night and got to see the structure lit up.  So beautiful. 

I would recommend Budapest to anyone.  The people, the food, the sights, the architecture- there are unlimited things to do there.  Loved it!

BA and I with Buda in the background.

The Chain Bridge, connecting Buda to Pest.

Headed up to Castle Hill in Buda.

A view of Pest from Buda.

This was soooo good.  Hungary's version of street meat!

Oddly enough, BA and I saw the same roof at at hospital in Beaune, France a few years ago.

While Budapest is beautiful, their trains haven't quite caught up yet.

The Metro stations were a little deep, and the escalators went at warp speed!

The Opera House

The Opera House

As you can see, we hated our dessert at Gerbeaud!

Inside Gerbeaud.  Pretty much every person dining there was from France.

The Baths!!

Our home for four days in Budapest.

Derby Day 2012

Derby Day is kind of a thing for me.  It's only a thing because my grandfather made it a thing.  After all, it's an excuse for a party, right?  And that was his thing.

My first Derby Day without him was last year, and it was quite the celebration!  Last year a bunch of us went to Gamekeepers and wore our Chuck Fuller T shirts because he played there on Derby Day and was no doubt involved in totally illegal betting.  This year I thought that maybe I would try something different but low and behold, I wound up right back at Gamekeepers with bets on two losing horses.

The few hours that I spent at Gamekeepers meant so much to me.  Very few of the old crew were there but that didn't really matter.  Heidi, Hammy and I (and some other great family friends) laughed and cheered and for lack of better words, goofed off and had fun.  It's not the same as it used to be, but it is what it is now.  I don't think I will ever see a horse run and not think of Poppy.

Side note, when I was about 10 he owned (at least in my mind he did) a horse named Gentle Kelly.  He took me to one of her local races all dressed up in a white dress and pink and green bows in my hair.  When she won, we went down to the track and took photos with her and the Jockey, with flowers around the horses neck.  Poppy gave me a $50 bill that day from his winnings.  I kept it in the bottom drawer of my nightstand and kept it there for a very long time.  Months?  Years?  I'm not sure.  I remember my parents "borrowing" it for whatever reason, and I always made them pay me back in a $50 bill.  I have no idea what I finally spent it on, but I remember where I kept it with the picture of us with Gentle Kelly.  It was an 8x10.

Oddly enough, I work for a company that was named after a Derby winner way back in the day named Majestic Prince.  We had a fun day at work with everyone dressed up, the unveiling of a painting of the horse, lunch, and derby pie. 

It was a weekend filled with good times, memories and traditions both old and new!

The Majestic Derby Day hat crew!

Jonathan and I with the Majestic Prince

It's Derby Day/Cinco de Mayo at Gamekeepers!

My Poppy T that was supposed to bring me good luck during the race.  Failure.

60th Birthday Bash

Almost two months ago (oops) we celebrated my mom's 60th birthday!  She went on vacation with my sister beforehand, so Ernie and I got together to discuss the master plan and taste a few awesome small plates at Felice, a local place we all really like.  A few small plates wound up being about 10, with numerous glasses of wine.  Surprise, surprise!  My mom called during our secret mission, but we didn't reveal a thing.

The reason that we chose Felice was because they have a great third floor lounge that they were able to block off for us.  Check out the decor in the pictures. It's so difficult to talk at a large sit down dinner, so we went with the apps/drinks idea.  It was small- family and just a few friends.

She had NO IDEA.  She called my brother and aunt from the car on the way to her own party to chat because she thought they were going to the restaurant to check out a plumbing job for Ernie.  Little did she know that we were all together waiting to surprise her!

I think that the whole night was perfect.  We were even able to talk to Bethanne from France on Skype during the party, so we were all with my mom on her special day!

Doggie Bowling

This past weekend, a few of us went bowling for a WONDERFUL charity that is so close to my heart. The charity raises money for people who are blind but cannot afford seeing eye dogs. It's amazing how long it takes for a dog to become a working seeing eye dog. They train for almost a year and a half, with six months of extensive training towards the end. These dogs cost $25,000! Worth every penny to be your set of eyes, but not affordable for many people.

They had some young dogs in training there that were sooooo cute! We all bowled pretty horribly, but we had a great time and then went out for wings and beers after. A perfect Sunday afternoon!

Cleveland Wine Club

Well, it certainly took me long enough (over a month) to finally do something with this wine group that I joined, but I finally went to an event with the Cleveland Wine Club this week.  I really didn't know what to expect. I had no idea what kind of people would be there and if going alone was normal or weird. So I just sucked it up and walked in the door of a place a half hour away from home that I had never been to before, called Brother's Lounge.

It was really fun! There was a little bit of everything. Most people had similar "stories" about why they had joined. They were single and their friends had families and kids, they were interested in going out more than their friends, they were recently divorced, just moved here, etc. I met some really nice people and learned about some other fun groups. I joined a hiking club based on some suggestions I got while I was there, and won a bottle of wine!

Sunday Family Fun Day

Last Sunday was a FULL fun day! I decided in January that the Kubach/Sawitke/Fuller/Fiscos needed to set a date to get together since there are not any holidays or birthdays coming up. Being the cruise director that I am we all found a Sunday and decided to go bowling, and then out to dinner. Then Ernie let us know that he had bought tickets for a church charity event the same day.

My brother decided to sit the church event out, but Alisa and I said we would go. We didn't want the tickets to be wasted. Like my brother, I assumed we were going to the party room of some church for sandwiches and coffee. We show up at this huge German party center with a Mardi Gras theme, raffles, tons of food, music and pitchers of beer. I was thrilled!

We raced off to the bowling alley to meet everyone else by 3:30. I noticed that the parking lot was really full when we got there and as it turned out, it was totally insane inside. There was a bowling league that we didn't know about going on so after we rushed to make it on time, we had to wait about 45 minutes for that to end before we could get lanes. This turned out to be fine because I'm on the phone with my brother and the conversation goes like this:

Matt- Where are you?
Me- I'm in the bar with Alisa, Ernie, Mom and Heidi. Where are you?
Matt- Well I'm in the bar with Susan, Heather, Jeff and the kids, and you're not here.
Me- Maybe you're at a different bar. I think there's two.
Matt- No, I think we're at a different bowling alley.

Apparently there are two bowling alleys in this suburb. Who knew? Not me. So after a little confusion, we all wound up at the same place and had a lot of fun bowling. Minus the birthday party next to us with 20 kids and four adults to pay attention to them. There was a kid with "sticky fingers" who kept coming over to our lane and stealing our balls!

After two games of almost everyone scoring under 100 we headed to Red Robin for dinner. Nothing fancy, but great for the kids. We called ahead because we had 12, which wound up doing us no good when the young hostess gave our table away to another party. Red Robin was a bigger zoo than the bowling alley. Suddenly we realized that the next day was Presidents Day and there was no school. Bad choice of Sundays to pick for kid-friendly activities!

The day was a lot longer than we thought it would be, but everyone had a great time!

Alisa and I celebrating Mardi Gras

This guy totally made me think of my grandfather- he loved this kind of music! Jeff getting ready to show us all up
Pretty sure Brooke might have had a higher score than me thanks to her ramp and bumpers

This is some serious stuff!

The little bowling clown!

Family photo opp

Brendan found the "biggest chip ever" at Red Robin

Christmas 2011

This was the first Christmas in a while that I didn't have to travel to get home, and it was SO nice! No red eyes, no cancelled flights and rental cars, no last minute shopping. However, it was still just as busy and crazy as recent years. In two days, I had about five places to be.

I had the Fuller family over on Christmas Eve. Last year we did a big sit-down dinner at my grandfather's house, but I honestly just don't have the space for it. Everyone brought something, and we just did a little buffet-like dinner with pizza, sloppy joes, salad, apps, and mac and cheese. Nothing fancy, but we were all happy with it! We do a White Elephant gift exchange, and I wound up with some really nice things from Williams Sonoma. After the Fuller clan left, Alisa and Pearson came over to hand out with me, Matt and BA, and we might have had a few too many drinks and stayed up a little too late. Oops.

Christmas Day we went to brunch with my Dad at McCormick and Schmicks, and then headed to my Mom's house to open an insane amount of gifts. I can't imagine what it will be like when we have kids around one day. Actually, the adults will probably just have less gifts.

After THAT, we all piled in cars and went over to my aunt and uncle's house for Christmas night with the Kubach's (and a few extras). More gifts, more food, more games.

All in all, a successful Christmas here in Cleveland!

My tiny fake tree and all of my gifts (to give).

Matt, my mom, Bethanne and I at a family Eve of Christmas Eve dinner.
Too many Christmas Ales and Whiskey?!

My mom opted out of the tree tradition and went with a Santa this year.

Fat Guy In A Little Coat! (JK, he's not a fatty, but it was a little coat).

Getting ready for our big gift exchange on Christmas at Susan and Denny's.

Brooke, all dressed up in her butterfly gear!

Brendan, AKA Ralphie.