H-o-m-e

We made it! After what I believe to be the longest flight I’ve ever been on (and Delaney and Frankie), we touched down at Dulles. Y’all, 9 hours and 45 minutes is a long time. And we had no food. They fed us a pretty good lunch after 2 hours, and then a pretty good warm panini sandwich after 7 hours and 45 minutes, but we were hungry. We would have brought food, but for the transportation fiasco and also I guess grocery stores are closed on federal holidays too, so 2 strikes.

All in all, if given Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa 2 thumbs up. One weird thing about Austrian was their uniforms though. Head to toe red and even red purses. Apparently their red tights are infamous, and I do like iconic, but in my opinion they are a little much.Anyway, we got through customs and everything and popped over to Raising Canes after we picked up our car. 

And then we had a lovely 3 hour ride home through traffic. We talked about waiting it out but we were all so ready to be home, and also naively hopeful it wouldn’t take the 2 and a half hours it said it would. Jokes on us, it took longer.

We made it home and had an hour and a half to kill before we wanted to go to bed so I got on an unpacking roll and my adrenaline kicked in and that’s why it’s almost 4am European time and I’m still blogging. Hopefully that means my adjustment will be easy? Fingers crossed 🤞🏼 

I love this. I feel like maybe I’ve shared it before, but I’ve been talking about this a lot with the girls and I just know it’s so important and so hard and like so many things, something to choose everyday. 

Also, Sarah sent this and just look at those precious babies. Love them so much. ❤️

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I love love to travel and I love love to come home. 

Vienna

Matt dropped us off at the airport in Zagreb yesterday and dropped off our car, which was a fiasco. Are there any honest car rentals? They said we scratched the car and obviously that cost $2000, because we have that coverage through our credit card. And the €10/day insurance that we had to add was just… for what? It’s all so predictable and stupid and now we have to get with our credit card to be reimbursed. And I don’t want to give those crooks anything. I hope we can fight it. 

So anyway, that started the day off rocky, but we’ve got a common enemy so we’re all fine with each other. 🤣

We had a 35 minute flight to Vienna that was blessedly smooth and easy. There were at least 30 empty seats but we couldn’t move around because of the weight balance, which seems silly, but I guess is true?

Love a quick and smooth flight. 

Matt takes lots of flight pictures and shares them with me. 🤣

Then we got to Vienna and the real fun started. We hadn’t bought out transit passes and we were a little unclear because the airport was out of the main zone, so we went to an agent. He looked at the address of our Airbnb and did a double take and was like where is that? And then he told us it’s a federal holiday and busses aren’t running out there and we’ll have to take a cab. What now???

You know how things get thrown at you and you’re not thinking the most clearly and you’re frustrated and hungry and not sure what to do? That was us. We checked other options (our Airbnb shuttle, airport shuttle, etc) and tried uber but it wasn’t connecting. And that is how we paid €50 for a taxi. 😩😩😩 so now we’re out $2050 so far for the day. I’m sure we’ll get the $2000 figured out (🙏🏻 🙏🏻 🙏🏻) but we were still having some sticker shock. 

The plan was to drop our things and then tour Vienna, but now we needed to figure out rides. And we were very close to the airport, but very out in the country, with no sidewalks and too far to walk anywhere. 

We went through all our options - go back to the airport and rent a car, uber to a bus and hope for the best, not tour Vienna, or uber all the way to the city (uber finally started working, obvi). 

I’ve been thinking a lot about a family member who had to check their child into an inpatient facility and a friend with a new cancer diagnosis and really focusing on gratitude, and in that moment of frustration, I suggested we pray and make a decision. Adi offered the most lovely prayer and it calmed and centered all of us and we decided to uber to a train stop and go from there. 

So we get to the train station and it’s under construction, no trains at all. 🙃 Our driver offered to drive us all the way to Vienna but we’d learned our lesson that haste makes waste and we decided to find food before we made any other decisions. We walked to a good restaurant Adi found and… closed. I was like, I should have been documenting all our L’s!

We laughed it off and everyone picked a positive (hey, we landed safely!) and found another restaurant tha was delicious and we found a bus and we bought our passes online and save €.50 each and Delaney (the child) was free because of the holiday. 

So we get on the bus and he asks for our passes and he’s like, this is for Vienna. And I was like yeah. And he was like Vienna? And I was like yeah. And he was like, we’re outside of the core zone. And I was like? And he was like that’s €4 each. 😩 So Matt tried to pay with our credit card and it was cash only. 😩 And I was like ok cool, let’s get off girls, and he was like, nah it’s fine. 🤗

It felt like it had been a long day and it was only 3:00. 

We took a metro and walked and made it to the cutest Easter market ever. Everything’s looking up!

Frankie’s fighting for her life back there. 

It’s in the square for Schönbrunn Plaza which was on my list so perfect. 

They took their Christmas market stalls and made them Easter in a truly smart marketing move. 

We walked all around and I didn’t dare buy anything because of all our L’s for the day and I really wanted to, so that was the tiniest bummer. 

We’d managed to consolidate and empty a suitcase for just in case souvies, and that empty suitcase stayed empty. No one even wanted a treat and I wanted that too but abstained. 

I feel like I could make these and I feel like I want to also. 

We walked the grounds and it’s very beautiful. 

We made our way to a lookout and asked a nice Austrian lady to take our picture and she even clarified that we wanted the palace in our picture. I always say Asking people to take your picture is like a box of chocolates.

Love this girl! I hope she had the best time and is happy with her trip choices. Even with all of our many lessons learned, I am. 

The palace we didn’t see behind us. 

Frankie was hot to go. You know that end of a trip feeling when you’re just kinda antsy to get home. 

Sisterly love and hijinx. Right before Adi dropped her. 

We voted against a tram tour (free with our pass!) and headed home after our walk. 

Not before Matt left his last little piece of Maryland though. 

It took us over an hour to get home, but we acted like we knew what we were doing and were never questioned about our passes again. We waited forever for a few busses, but only spent €20 to get all the way back to our apartment after we got as close as we could with the busses, so that was sort of good. And we didn’t find any open treat places so no treats for us. 😞 

We were up and at em at 5:45 to catch the bus from our apartment at 6:15, because after that there wasn’t another until 10:30. Success!

It was an easy bus then train ride to the airport and we hit the corto at the airport for grocery store brekkie for €20 and got to our gate 3+ hours early. Our first easy travel through Vienna. 🙃 And chandeliers in the airport? Amazing. 

This was by far our rockiest overnight layover. I think there will just always be unexpected circumstances and you just gotta roll with it as you travel. At one point we saw a Marriott and then paid travel groups on busses and we questioned why people would use those, but we learned some lessons from that hubris. There is safety in a tour group and American hotels we know. We’re always learning. 

Boldog HúsvétiÜnnepeket

***Happy Easter in Hungarian 

Matt got some beautiful pictures of the sunrise this fine Easter morning.

Matt and I got up early and went for a walk. We found these cute little wine cellars all down the street by our house. 

I love love all the little churches. ❤️

Sometimes Lidl brekkies look like donuts and sometimes they look like gazpacho. 

We walked all around the cemetery by our Airbnb. We looked for family names and found several Takacs, but that branch of my family is from a few hours away. We found some Kovacs variations of spelling, but also my family was from another village about 15 minutes away, so I didn’t really expect to find anything. 

We met one lady that tried to talk to us, but unfortunately no matter how many times she said the same thing in Hungarian, we still couldn’t understand her. We translated a few things with our phone, but she still seemed a little confused. And happy Easter in Hungarian is way longer than I thought it would be. 

The cute part of the wine cellar street. 

Our fun Airbnb. This was a nice one. Which was especially nice because tonight’s is simple and small. 

We got the girls packed up and they had a few Easter treats. “Fun eggs” (generic kinder eggs) which they decided don’t taste as good as KE, but have better toys, and then also chocolate lollys. *Adi & Frankie packing the car 

Photo cred- frankie

We drove up Matra again and did the smaller of the 2 bikes up to the highest point in Hungary. It was up a ski run, and fairly steep, so not the easiest hike. 

Matt climbed the ski lift tower to take this shot. 

Matt making me nervous. And look! The girls taking pictures on their own! Photo cred - Frankie. Used her 2 contributions today. Also, I love the pockets in my leggins, but putting them in the biggest part of my leg is not nice. 

He’s kind of camouflaged in with the trees, but there’s Matt being a bozo. Thankfully he didn’t get hurt. 

Highest point! 1014 meters/3327 feet. 

Remember how we thought nothing would be open on Easter? We were very very wrong.  Everyone and their brother was out at the parks, riding the train, shopping the cute tourist shops, and eating at restaurants. And most places were very open. 

P

Old communist looking tv tower. We didn’t go in, though we did see some people do that. 

It was beautiful up top. Matt found a nice sunny spot facing Gyöngyös and we donated our Maryland rocks (since we often bring rocks home with us, we figured we’d share the wealth) and some of my mom’s ashes. We passed our rocks and the jar with nanny around and prayed and infused them with love and good vibes and then had a group prayer and Adi scattered her ashes. It was lovely and I believe my mom, my papa, and my great grandma (at least) were there with us. 

We talked about how my mom loved road trips and hiking and nature and sunshine, and she never made it to Hungary because it wasn’t safe when we lived in Germany, (for military families at least) so i know she’d have loved everything about today. 

Let’s all get a pic! Wait… where’s the child?

There she is! Silly child. 

We spent some time on a bench and soaked in the sun and the beauty.

 

I love this sweet dedicated time with my crew. Especially since I started my period a few days ago, suddenly I don’t want to claw peoples eyes out at least once a day. It really is so hard. And it’s like the puberties all over again too because I didn’t even know to expect my period, I thought it was just traveling stress. 

Matts doing a free water closet tour and paying himself €1 everytime he finds a free restroom. 🤣 And of all places we were surprised to find one at the top of the mountain. Paying for bathrooms is seriously 👎🏼 

Going down is almost always easier, especially if you’ve got good knees. 

Ski hangout?

Adi and Delaney have really buddied up lately so Frankie’s hung out with Matt and I a lot. She’s good stuff.

Next we got our church clothes on and headed to St. Bartholomews. D has wanted a vest and trousers and I’m down for the vest and white shirt - we got them at H&M in Slovenia, but I’m not a huge fan of the trousers. I much prefer it paired with a skirt. Photo cred - Adi

She loved her new duds! And the slides. 😩 I have offered to buy her cool new European slides everywhere we’ve seen them and she’s so stubborn. Photo cred - D

There was no information about times for the church services online. In fact, online they said there’s no way to know a time, you’ve just got to go to the church. 🤷‍♀️

So the church was open and we were able to walk around for a few minutes before a nice lady came by with her giant key and that was our cue that it was time to lock up and for us to leave. So no service there which was a little bummer, but then again maybe not. Photo cred - Delaney, and I am loving my cameo. 

Catholic services can be confusing for those not of the faith, and in Hungarian we probably would have been a scene. So I asked Adi to grab a few covert shots because a) I wasn’t sure photography was allowrd and b) we didn’t get to stay long enough to appreciate everything. 

Photo cred - a very proud of herself Delaney 

Selfies and big buildings are hard. 

But people were hightailing out of there. There was no one to ask. 

So we found a statue to put Matt’s phone on and the first one was pretty good. 

The second one seemed to catch people by surprise, like they thought the pic had been taken a second before. 

Then the phone fell. 🤣 Thank goodness for his heavy duty otterbox. 

And finally, I think the best one. 

What a beautiful Easter to spend in a place so rich in my family history. Photo credit - Adi.

And then it was time to road trip. We munched on our grocery store food, happy as can be.  

We all needed  water closet and Matt remembered we had some Hungarian money to spend, so we found a langos stand and Matt got a goulash soup and the girls got crepes. And that spent all our Hungarian cash but I didn’t get anything so then I got lured by McCrispy from McDonald’s and it was really good and had delicious fresh veg on it but the sauce was too spicy for me so I donated it to Frankie. Whomp whomp.  

Cute hobbit house restaurant. 

It was a 4 hour drive to Zagreb and we couldn’t check in till 5, which ended up being perfect. It looks like this is an operation run by an older woman capitalizing on living close to the airport and renting out units all around her house. We’re in the back on the house unit, 2 separate small apartments again, but not shared space between us. Adi and Delaney swung on the swingset And Frankie, Matt, and I went for a walk. Photo cred - Delane

Matt found a spot for his second Maryland sticker. 

Kind of a quiet spot, so hopefully she lasts. 

Simple tiny room. We’ve rearranged everything to hopefully make our long days of traveling easier and we’ve got a plan for the airport, a plan for returning the car, a plan for the public transport in Vienna and a loose plan for things to do. 

As we get closer, we all start feeling that pull towards home. 2 more sleeps in Europe and then purple mattress, here we come.