Our 4th “B”

Bratislava, Slovakia

Today we reached our 21st country! Incredible. I think this trip is just starting to get fun, or maybe in Turkey it did? I’m not sure, but today and yesterday and maybe the day before that I really enjoyed my family. Even on the 16-hour train journey from Brasov to Budapest I felt an easy togetherness. There’s the feels-good-because-it’s-hard fun, and then just pleasure fun. Now it feels like that, just fun fun.

This is our fifth “B” stay in a row: Bulgaria, Bucharest, Brașov, Budapest, Bratislava. It’s hard to keep it all straight when countries are so nearby to each other, and when there are so many Bs.

Yesterday we spent the day in Budapest, just one full day there, two nights. The place we got was almost hilariously small; we wondered how we’d fit all our luggage, backpacks and shoes. It crossed my mind we might need to take turns accessing our suitcases! Plus, having no hot water was a bummer, but a cold shower isn’t all bad. It sure wakes you up.

Two nights was all I’d want to do there, and really one day in Budapest was enough for me. The architecture was interesting, and either side of the Danube offers a lovely view, but it has some kind of an edgy darkness to it and not the magnetic kind that fascinates me. It felt closed and heavy.

But, it was a sunny day in Budapest and after walking for several hours we stopped for a chimney cake ice cream cone. Leo was real sick of walking, Ari was getting cranky because we couldn’t find a Hungarian coin for our money collection, so a delicious, fancy ice cream cone was the perfect antidote. For me it’s because chimney cakes (or kürtőskalács, in Hungarian), have been around for 250 to 350 years that made it most fun.

I did not know that Budapest used to be two cities: Buda on the west of the Danube and Pest on the east, and they still refer to each side as such. Now it’s one city: Budapest.