Hello! Well it has been a long time since I have posted, but I handed in my essay today, so I feel I am able to update this thing properly. That, and the fact that I am in the box office of my museum for the next month or so being trained in another aspect of the museum and it is very quiet in here at the moment!! Budapest - what can I say? It is such a beautiful place. The city is such a world away from London. We had a great time. It was lovely to be able to get away from London for a break. I have not had a break since May when my parents were over, and Scott really has not had an extended break in a year and a bit I think. So it was certainly well deserved!! We arrived on the 23rd of December, and we were met at the airport by my grandfather’s first cousin Pista. We travelled by taxi with him to the place we were staying in Raday Utca (Raday Street), which incidentally is the same street in which my great grandmother had her flat (and where my nana lived for some time). I love feeling connected to a place. I knew my nana, but I never got to meet my great grandmother, with whom I share my name (Stephanie). That afternoon we just wandered about a bit. We found out that our phones would not work in Hungary (silly mistake on our parts, and hence us not answering any Xmas texts we got - sorry!!). So we purchased a cheap handset, so we had a local mobile phone number. It was quite handy really, as my relatives could contact us easily, and we did not have to ask them to call a UK number. The next day I really wanted to find the Christmas markets. I had been to Christmas markets in Germany in 1996, and they were great. I must say, that I really loved the ones we found. They were in Vorosmarty Ter, which is at the end of the fabulous yellow metro. The yellow metro (I shall try and find a photo) is the oldest metro in continental Europe. It runs tiny trains, which seat about 5 people across them, and they are really cute. Anyway, back to the Xmas markets. They were full of great handicrafts, food, more food, music, and more food!! There were little huts with different stuff being sold. Scott bought me a lovely pair of earrings, made of deep blue glass, which remind me of the glass beads I learnt to count with on our lounge room floor. We also bought some extra Xmas presents just in case! I bought myself a hair clip with a white elephant on it, it is surrounded by red enamel, and is unlike anything I have seen before. In a similar style, ie enamel, I also bought a necklace. It has a triangular pendant on it with a light blue background and a duck on it. It's really sweet. Public transport stopped on the 24th at about 4pm, so after lots of wandering about the markets, we decided to walk back to Raday Street where we were staying. It was a lovely walk down one of the famous shopping streets. Not that the shops were open, but Vaci Street is quite a lovely street with tourist places, and restaurants galore. The 25th we spent at Pista and Eva's flat. They have a lovely flat at the top of Buda hill. As we caught the bus higher and higher up the hill the level of snow became deeper and deeper. There was no snow on the streets in Budapest itself (ie in the Danube valley), but there was plenty when we reached their place! It was such a lovely day. There were lots of people in the flat, which made it a bit overwhelming, but similar to my cousins' house in Brisbane. We received some lovely presents - books, alcohol, and chocolates. I have 10 third cousins, who were all there that day. They range in age from 13 to 24 I think. Most of them do speak English, but they are hesitant due to a lack of confidence. I am like that with German now I think too. Although my German is so much worse than their English!!! The 26th we went to Heroes Square, and to City Park. We also went to the Transport Museum, which was at one end of City Park. It was such a great museum. Old fashioned a little, but perfect. It was full of models of every mode of transport ever! Planes, ships, trains, cars, trolley busses, trams. It was excellent. And they had model train sets that ran at particular times of the day. They were fun to watch. I took a few movies of them on my camera, so I shall see if I can post them somewhere. Not sure if they would be very interesting to you though!! Outside the museum Scott and I spent some time breaking puddles. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, it is such fun. Obviously it was cold enough for the puddles to have frozen, so we stood on every one we could find until the ice cracked. Some we were even able to lift up the ice and break it by dropping it on the ground (these puddles were around some of the machines the museum had outside. For Christmas we were very kindly given tickets to the opera by my family. They were perfect, as Scott had never been to the opera before, and Carmen is a great way to start. The music was fantastic, and the seats were great too. An excellent view. It was funny hearing the French lyrics and reading the Hungarian words (reading yet not understanding a single word!!). We also moved accommodation in the meantime. The second place we stayed was in a hospital. It sounds strange I know, but it was in the accommodation they have for people who are visiting people in the hospital, if that makes sense! It was very comfortable and very warm, which is all we needed!
On the 27th we went to the castle overlooking Budapest. It is high up on a hill side, and kind of towers of the city a little. The day began with light snow. Where we were staying was on the edge of Budapest (only a small place so less than half an hour into the city on a bus). Anyway, up in the hills there was much more snow than down in the Danube valley where the city itself lies. We were quite accustomed to seeing lots of snow outside where we were staying but not in the city itself. The day we went to the castle changed all that. We arrived at the bottom of the funicular railway which would take us up the side of the hill to the top. It began to snow quite heavily when we were sitting in a cafe having hot chocolates. It was lovely to see everything around us being slowly covered in a layer of white. There is something quite purifying about snow. In a way it covers the blemishes leaving them pristine white. It was quite cold and I am so glad I had my thick scarf on (the one I knitted!!) because it goes up to my ears, so it could meet my beanie which I put on under my hood. I must have looked quite a sight but I was wind proof, which was all I needed!!! I loved the way the snow was sitting on the surface of my coat, and it was slowly turning white.

From our stop at hot chocolate we braved the snow to go and see the Mattyas Church. I had been there before with my parents in May, but it is such an amazing place that I was happy to show Scott. I can't remember when it was built, but every surface on the inside is painted. It is similar to the gothic style churches you get elsewhere with cavernous ceilings and columns. However, instead of having plain sandstone walls, there are patterns painted on every surface. A little sensory overload looking at everything, but I really like it. We had a look in the museum upstairs which houses the crown of Hungary with the tilted cross on top. We had a look in the Budapest History Museum which was down the other end of the hill top. Very interesting, and well worth another look.

My favourite part of the day was definitely being able to watch the city being changed from a city of grey, dark grey and black to a city of white. Snow covered everything - roofs, cars, roads, trams, buses. It was just breathtaking. And for some reason it made me really happy to watch. I guess it's not something you get to experience very often living in Australia, or London for that matter!!

Tuesday the 28th was the day we went to Sekesfehervar. It's a town about an hour or so away by train from Budapest, and the reason we went there was because my great great grandparents lived there. It's just a town, but we were keen to explore out of Budapest as well. We had a guide with us, my third cousin Marton. He is such a great guy. He thinks that his English is really terrible, but we found him easy to understand, and very very easy to get along with. He is quite a character - very clever and very funny as well. We took the train there and wandered to the town centre by bus. We found the park we were looking for, which was where my ancestors used to live. Not in the park obviously, but that is where their house once stood. It was a bit of a shame that it was not there to see, but interesting nonetheless. We came across a Media Markt, which is a giant shop that sells all things media - dvds, cameras, televisions that kind of thing. Scott and I were keen to look as we had found dvds to be very cheap in Hungary. We ended up buying some dvds as well as a card reader for my digital camera. It cost be the equivalent of £10, which was a bargain and I can download photos onto the computer as soon as I take them. I no longer have to wait to fill the card and burn them onto a cd!! :-) We went to find a museum after that, and found that only one was open. It was in the library and they had a display of line drawings from Hungarian artists dating from the 1960s to today. I was very impressed by one artists, Arnold Gross. I am very keen to get a print of his, but they did not have any there. My favourite one of his was a drawing of a field with a large tree in it. If you looked very closely there were strange things in the picture - like flowers with people's heads on them, envelopes placed randomly. It sounds really strange, but they were quite amazing. I was really intrigued by them. He had another one, that if you glanced at it you would think that it was a drawing of a park in summer. But if you looked really closely, you would see that half of the people in the park were in fact naked!

We ended up taking the non-express train back to Budapest and it took twice as long to get home as it did to get there. But we were met at the station by my cousin Peter (Marton's uncle) who had invited us around to his house for dinner. He also had some guests over - an ex-work colleague of his who is English and his Hungarian wife. He has lived in Hungary for 15 years. It was a lovely evening. He was very easy to talk to and it was also great to be able to see Peter in his own home. I had seen in at his dad's house with many many other people in the house, but Peter is a very funny guy, and it really came out that night. Very amusing. Amusing too that I had my jumper on inside out and didn't realise - oopps!!

On the 29th we decided to take a tour of the Parliament building. It is such an impressive building from the outside and it was just as impressive on the inside. We bought tickets for the 12pm tour. The sign said they ran a tour at 6pm, but not in winter time. The tour was very interesting. We saw the entrance hall, and the chambers. The decoration on the inside is amazing. We were told that there is so much gold leaf in the building that they are constantly replacing it. And that 1000 layers of gold leaf are needed. That is a lot of gold! I found that very hard to believe though - could that be correct? Dad? Any thoughts? :-)

From the parliament we wandered to have a look at another exhibition. This one was of paintings by Farkashazy, a Hungarian artist with a connection to my family - he was the friend of some relatives. It sounds strange but he was very good friends with my grandfather's aunt and uncle. I think that's right. Anyway, the paintings were very interesting. And it was nice to see them in an exhibition, as I had seen some of them on the walls of my grandfather's cousin's house. But to see all of them an altogether was quite something. I was thinking about buying the catalogue of the exhibition, but it was quite expensive.

After the exhibition we ended up at the western train station, where there is a large shopping centre. Scott was looking for some cords and I was just happy to look. He bought two pairs of cords in C&A, which look very nice. He also bought a swimsuit as we were planning to go to the thermal baths and he did not have anything to swim in. We had dinner in the food court, the same one I had had dinner with my parents and Scott in May. And..... wait for it..... I had Rokott Krumpli. Sounds odd and I am not sure if I spelt it correctly, but it is the best dish ever! My mum makes it. And I found it in a food court!! Made my day it did. It was not as good as mum's but it was still ok. Basically it consists of sliced potatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs, sliced salami and sour cream all mixed in and baked in the oven. YUM!! Walking back to the train station we came across a vending machine that sold books. :-) Just in case you forgot yours. And I bought a winter hat, that looks a little more respectable than a beanie.
The 30th was a bit of a vege out day, which was just what we needed really. We went to the movies with my cousins to see The Family Stone. There were 15 of us in the group, so we took up a fair bit of one row which was fun. And the movie was not great. I t was in English with Hungarian subtitles. Interesting to see the Hungarian flash across the screen. After that we bought some things to take back to the work colleagues ( liqueur cherries, chocolates, paprika for us), the grabbed some dinner. We also decided to see another movie, because we could. And the price of movies was half of that in London, so why not? The movie we saw was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It was on very short release in London, and we were sorry to miss it. I highly recommend it if you haven't already seen it. Really really funny. A definite dvd buy methinks.

We got out of bed early on New Years Eve and went to the Gellert Baths. I was introduced to the baths by mum in May, and I wanted to show Scott. I had a pedicure and he had a massage. My pedicure was very nice, and very cheap. I was told only later that I should have given a tip - oh well, I shall know next time!! We spent a good couple of hours there soaking up the mineral goodness. From there, feeling very relaxed, we went up the hill to Pista and Eva's place for a family get together. Like Christmas, there were lots of people there. It was fun to see everyone. It is Eva's birthday on the 1st of January, so it is traditional to get together on the 31st apparently. I do like how that wing of my family are all very close to each other. It's something I have not really had much of. Don't get me wrong, I am very close to my parents, but being an only child with few cousins it has been quite a different experience. I guess I have always spent more time with friends than family.

Another family tradition is for the children (all 10 of them) to perform. All of them got up and read a short poem to their grandma (Eva), in Hungarian, some German and in English as well. It was fun. Again, different from my family, which I like. :-) I was included in one performance of a song, which was slightly embarrassing but fun as well.

After the party we took the cog railway that is nearby to the very end of the line at the top of the hill and played in the snow a while, and had a drink at a pub/restaurant. I took a movie of me walking in the snow as I wanted to capture the crunching sound of the fresh snow as I walked on it. I really love that sounds, and it was a sound I heard often when we were there. We took the cog railway down the hill again and went to a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was in an old train carriage. It was like a dining car of an old train, and it was lovely. It was opposite the railway station we left for our day trip from. I had goose with a sweet cabbage salad and potatoes. I had never had goose before, but I am very glad I tried it. It was lovely. After dinner we headed back to our room. Scott's boot had been leaking and he was very very cold. We ended up spending New Year's Eve watching dvds (well I did while he slept off his fever). But it was fine. I woke him up at midnight and gave him a smooch. :-)

On the first day of 2006 we packed up our stuff. We went for a last walk in the snow. Scott was still feeling a little off but it was nice to get a bit of fresh air. Took more snow photos which was part of the reason I wanted to go for a walk. We were very very kindly driven to the airport by Peter. He had been very kind to us throughout our trip, as had Pista and the rest of the family. Thank you to all of my family who made our trip to Budapest special and welcoming. :-)

And there you have it. We waved good bye to Budapest and hello to London.