The Adventures of
David
Elizabeth
and Leif

I woke up this morning to find a "momma-bird" feeding the "baby-bird" …

it was successful.

We found Elena out in the steps in a pensive mood, writing poetry like her father before her.

OK, she wasn’t really writing poetry, she was being carried to the park near Mamut. Here’s Ellie carrying Ellie…

While Elena was playing with the "harmless" toys …

… uncle Dave discovered why hampsters think their wheels are so fun!

OUCH! I had a knot on my head for the rest of the trip from that one!

It was totally worth it.

Ellie found some Magyar mythological stuff to pose near…

Meanwhile, Elena was enjoying a view from above…

Inside the playhouse, there were nets she liked to climb on.

The Best thing on the playground was the zip line…

Of course, Uncle Dave had to try it too!

Too bad we can’t have this stuff in America … too many lawyers and not enough common sense, I guess.

Eleise paitently waited while Mommy and Elena had more fun …

At lunch, Elena wanted the camera out of her face…

Elise didn’t mind, though!

In America, this is an insult. In Budapest, a store in a mall.

Elise conked out on the way home…

This evening, we got "dressed up" and headed out for Indian food…

Halfway there, our tram stopped because it was ditch-your-car-and-ride-your-bike day in Budapest. We had to walk across the Margite Hid (Bridge). Here’s the moon over the Danube … and some people who didn’t ditch their cars for the day!

The Indian food was great and so was the company!

If you saw a man with a wierd green thing sticking out of his mouth what would you do?

Grab it, of course!

Elise slept well that night…

We got up this morning planning on heading to the park. The sisters were pretty good getting ready.

We went to a park with a small playground and a bunch of really awesome big slides. Here’s E looking at E.

Here’s Dena with her cool orange-motif. Bono would be jealous.

This thing is a platform with springs under it … I bounced it and Elena giggled.

After bouncing on the small playground, we made it to the slide park. First, the green slide.

After that, Elena wanted to go on the big slides.

What about the red straight slide?

Happy times!

A few minutes later, Elena had climbed back up to Mommy at the top …

I stood at the bottom of the tubular slide until I heard Dena’s voice and Elena’s squeals…

Next I rode the red turny slide with her.

Let’s do the green one again …

Then she wanted to do the red tubular slide again … with "Dave"…

Elena made a special little friend who helped her climb back up a few times.

Of course, she wanted to climb up herself too…

After about a zillion times going down the slides you might think Elena would be tired…

But she was still ready to keep going!

Hey Elena, want to go down the red one again?

…here she comes!!!!

"Flipping over around the last turn was fun, but landing on my belly in the sand was pretty rough!" Elena was pretty tough, though. She didn’t cry, but she didn’t really talk either, while she was walking around holding her ribs. She was ready to be done after that. Time to pack up Elise!

But maybe she has enough energy for one more slide with her special friend …

And one more time down the red curvy slide …

Elise was content to watch.

OK, one more slide with Mommy!

Time to head to lunch at the For Sale Pub!

Tired girl, happy mom.

Happy girl, concerned girl.

I’m ready for lunch.

In the pub, Elise conked out.

Elena wanted to talk to the people behind us.

When Scott’s food finally came … about 30 minutes after it was ordered, we were finally happy.

After lunch, the girls took the girls back for naps. Scott and walked down to the catherdral of St. Steven, the first king of Hungary. We saw his hand too.

Almost everything in this magnificant structure was devoted to some saint. Finally we found a "picture" of the Lord on the ceiling, way high up. It felt like a church that was built to show how God was on the side of Hungary.

The architecture was magnificant.

On the way home, we found a monument to the prime minister of Hungary during the 1958 rebellion. He’s standing there waiting for other nations to come help. No one came.

Day one in Budapest

We made it here from ATL by way of Amsterdam. We were the last two people on the flight from AMS to BUD, but thankfully, we made it. Nothing against Scipol airport, of course!

Scott was his usual self augmented with extreme fatigue from running an intergalactic missions conference last week.

Dena was happy to be able to hug her man after he was working hard all week.

The last two researchers from the conference were still in town, so Scott and I went to the Cukrasda with Olga and Svetlana from Kiev.

We were very happy pondering the menu options.

and talking about culture and language.

Finally, it was happy times … the Budai Cremesh-s (-ai? -orum? I don’t know how to do plural in Magyar) arrived.

After a delightful dessert, we headed for the train station from which trains left for destination to the east. Olga and Svetlana were going for a 24 hour train ride back to Kiev.

The train station was beatiful with the sun setting.

Scott was happy to be having a lighter week coming up.

Good thing they put those "red lights" there to warn the train drivers to stop before driving into the streets of Budapest.

There was a guy sitting with a chessboard waiting for someone to come along for a pickup game.

Walking through the plaza between the train station and the subway to get back to the Friderichs, we got a picture of a bunch of guys serious about their game, with some money bet on it. Some of the guys didn’t want their picture taken…