Nadia, Ollie and Owen are pictured with Alejandra and Sebey at the Christmas Fair in the center of Budapest, Hungary. They arrived from Bahrain on Friday afternoon and the next morning we left for the 4 hour drive north to neighboring Hungary.

Edelweiss, our new car did extremely well on its first excursion out of Belgrade. The countryside north of Belgrade is reminiscent of central Wisconsin or Illinois. It was extremely flat, lots of agriculture, and decent highways. We had no trouble crossing the border. It was nice to go through the Diplomatic Corps line and not have to wait. I got Diplomatic plates through the US Embassy which is very kind of them.

Budapest is considered one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and I can see why. The Danube runs through Buda on one side and Pest on the other. We stayed at the Marriot Hotel right on the river. It was a nice hotel but I would not stay there again. Great breakfast and views, but no swimming pool and they charge for overnight parking in their garage ($40). We used the GPS to find the hotel and other places we went and that was great. The first day we took the kids for a walk over the Széchenyi Chain Bridge shown in the picture below.

Budapest at Night (Wikipedia Photo)

We also stopped to throw some rocks in the Danube. We were with our good friends the Moynihans.They are shown to the left. We finished the night at the famed Budapest Christma

s Fair.  It was crowded and in my opinion, overrated. But after a couple of mulled wines, we ended up having a great time. I half learned how to say Merry Christmas in Hungarian, Boldog Karácsonyt

We were not impressed with the Hungarians. We found them to be very different from the Serbs. They were cold and borderline mean. For example, Ale and Nadia asked two people to take a picture of the family and they refused. I guess it is the culture, as the Hungarians have had a long history with the Germans and Austrians. I know one can’t judge a people with just one day in the country, but we did feel a difference. I was also comparing the cities of Budapest and Belgrade. Both are beautiful and similar although Belgrade was mostly destroyed during WWII and does not have all of the beautiful old buildings of Budapest. Although Belgrade has its charms, and if they would clean up the Sava and Danube rivers, it would be nicer. I like the fact however, that Belgrade has virtually no tourists and it is more authentic and vibrant. I hope it doesn’t change, but in the future it will as it looks to join the European Union. I also noticed it was more expensive in Budapest.

The next day I took Ollie and Ocean to the city park. They had a great time feeding the ducks and in the playground. The girls did some more shopping. We were thinking of doing some ice skating, but once again, the rink was crowded. I did enjoy the the Heroes Square. This was next to city park and had statues of all of the Hungarian Heroes. It was similar to the Venezuelan Panteon.

We do plan to return to Budapest as there is lots to explore. We hope we run into a friendlier bunch of Hungarians however.

Ollie & Ocean in Heroes Square in Budapest

Ocean is getting cuter every day. What an angel! She is so cautious and calm and she cries like a girl. Below is the most recent photo for Grandma.