Six Ladies+One Wilson=Budapest

I've never been really good at math, but this equation worked out just fine. I had the distinct pleasure of spending my first visit to Budapest with a phenomenal group of women. We laughed, shopped, and ate Mexican food. Pretty much a perfect weekend...I'm sure Jen could've used more sleep though.

We left Belgrade (the morning after Team Thanksgiving) in a ginormous van. It was mostly empty except for us and Randi's delicious Banana muffins. We were on the road by 7:30am and managed to make it all the way to the border with no issues. After waiting in line for what seemed like forever we handed over our passports and raised our hands as the customs official did a head count. We left the Serbian border and moved on to the Hungarian one; where we actually had a guy open the door and knock on the door panels to make sure we weren't smuggling anything.

On the way back we didn't have any customs issues which was a huge answer to prayer. Wilson was fidgety and we had packed all of our purchases into every square inch. It would've been a nightmare to empty the van and find receipts for everything.

So we had a day and a half in Budapest and managed to hit two malls, a Tesco, Ikea, have Mexican food and shop one more Tesco-like place in that time. I plan on going back to actually see more of Budapest, but the shopping can't be beat. Especially when the exchange rate was something like 230 forint (Hungarian currency) to every American dollar. Things are much cheaper than they are in Belgrade as well, so it makes sense that everyone does their shopping there. We heard quite a lot of Serbian spoken actually. So enjoy some photos of our mini shopping vacation. I'll also have a post dedicated to legit Mexican food and a Foto Friday born out of this trip. Get ready.

The Gellert Hotel

I included this photo because if you look across the crosswalks you can see the two rule followers Randi and Julie. They refused to cross the street on red. Which is why the rest of us left them behind in the cold on a strange Hungarian street.

This is the Mamut mall. Mamut apparently means Mammoth or something like that.

I say that because they had mammoths everywhere. I took a photo of these because they reminded me of Ice Age when they have their little baby. If only they had Sid hanging around somewhere...

They also had mammoth parts in glass cases all over the mall. Apparently they found a skeleton somewhere around here when they were doing construction and some clever individual decided to make that the mall's theme.

This is Wilson chilling in the recliner after a hard day shopping.

This a photo of half of the Tesco on steroids. I can't remember its name at the moment, but it was huge.

At the very last store, Wilson and I were left alone while his mother went off for socks and everyone else finished up their shopping. I began to notice that he was awfully interested in the floor in front of the buggy. As I leaned over I could see that he was drooling onto the floor and watching as the puddle expanded. I just scooted the buggy back as if the drool lake didn't exist. I'm going to be a wonderful mother.

This is the last food court we ate in. Looks almost like home, huh? Check out those swell Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling. This is also where the drool puddle was.

These photos may not be riveting, but I had to get them out of the way so I could display the more fantastic ones in later posts. Up next? Mexican food heaven.

Team Serbia and the microwaves

Oh my goodness, the last seven days have been so blog worthy its going to take me quite a few posts to relate it all to you. I'm still working on my Roma+Israel video, but in the meantime I'm going to start making headway on all the other great things that have happened. These are some photos of our Team Thanksgiving that happened this last Saturday. There were 12 adults and 10 kids...did I get that right? Anyway, a house full. We even had a new friend from Greece that was hanging out between flights. Oh, and there were three microwaves. One in the Israel's house already, one from the Stevens and mine as well. We decided to combine leftovers from Thursday's feasts and serve a few other things...the most efficient way to do this (without killing Randi's oven) was to let everyone fix their own plate and then to let them heat it up in the microwave of choice. Here are some photos of that occasion, not great ones because I was a little busy stuffing my face...but they'll do. 

Before food, playing computer games and waiting on our southern teammates to arrive.

"Playing" with Wilson. He's always a hit at parties.

The second refrigerator. It was cold enough to store side dishes, desserts, and drinks out there. We even had room to spare.

Josh, before he accidentally dissed Jen's dressing.

Microwave #1

Microwave #2

Randi showing off Microwave #3 and the insane amount we fit in her small oven.

Eating deliciousness.

A rarity. The Stevens without their beautiful children. (I actually don't have many kid photos because we sent them all out to play before it got dark.)

Connor showing off the ideal way to eat Turkey and Dressing. He was so awkward trying to cut it so that he had stuffing on top of his turkey with every bite. Instead of cutting the turkey and the adding the stuffing he would pile it on top and then cut off the desired amount. We convinced him eating it like a turkey boat was much more efficient.

More deliciousness.

We played games after...except Mike and Kyle. They hate games. We also watched the scifi movie about the giant submarine eating shark that battles the giant crocodile that destroys the stadium...top notch entertainment for this bunch. 

 

 

After spending all day with each other, we were exhausted. The Stevens and the Israels were kind enough to let people fall where they might in their respective houses and the team spent the night in Belgrade so that the ladies could get up bright and early and head to Budapest. And thus ends (mostly) the Thanksgiving Odyessy.