My Instagram profile proudly boasts that I’m “blogger”. Actually that I’m a “travel blogger turned mommy blogger”. Considering that I’ve only posted once this year, a more appropriate tagline would be “aspiring blogger” or even more appropriately, “has-been blogger”. And so today, in the final moments of 2022, I owed it to myself to publish something, anything. For those of you who receive our holiday card, it’s possible you went to the website that hosts our annual end of year letter and read it. If that’s you, the following may sound suspiciously familiar since I am resourcefully publishing the holiday letter I wrote as a blog post. I may be reusing and recycling, but don’t worry, I didn’t reduce. In fact, I’ve broken it up into TWO posts.

This one combines my former and current blogger identities, traveler and mom. Enjoy! And sorry about the terrible formatting of the pictures.

On June 24th, Bill, Krisztina, Kalliszta, Bence, and Eva (aka my mom, aka Mima), and 7 suitcases, hopped on a plane to Dublin. Back in January, Bill and Krisztina committed to play at the World Masters Ultimate Championships in Limerick, Ireland. Bill played with a Masters (age 33+) Men’s team from Chicago called Pacemaker, and I played with a Grand Masters Mixed (Women age 37+, Men 40+) team from Boston called Molasses Disaster. Earlier in the month I took a quick weekend trip to meet most of her teammates and play with them at a tournament in Boston. The only teammates I played with before (a decade earlier!) were Emily, Cara, Marisa, and Seth. It was fun to see each other and play with each other after all those years. Molasses Disaster ended up losing ALL their games at that practice tournament but didn’t lose heart or hope!

Bill and I thought it would be easier to handle playing a week-long international frisbee tournament if we were on different teams so that while one parent was playing the other could be on parent duty. That proved not exactly to be true because our schedules were so different, and there was a lot of rain and wet and cold that it didn’t make sense to bring the kids and my mom to the fields every day. The week and a half in Ireland had much less sight-seeing than we had hoped due to our teams’ schedules being all over the place, and much more indoors time at our river-front vacation house for the kids and Eva than we had hoped for. A huge shoutout to Eva, who was on duty taking care of two kids, one who just started crawling and only wanted to crawl around into everything, in a small apartment and braving the rain and cold entertaining two kids (and the other sideline kids!) while their grown ups played frisbee. She also made all the food for everyone everyday, and did all the laundry.

Over the course of the week, we ran into/met up on purpose with so many friends from over the years. It was great getting to spend some time with Julie and Dan (and have our kids meet again and play together!) and Paul and Liz. In the end, it was all worth it because I am now a World Champion! It was an incredibly satisfying feeling contributing on field to the team’s success, everyone playing better individually, and better together over the course of the tournament with every game. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing frisbee over the last 15+ years was playing in the semi-finals and the finals. Though a world championship was on the line, I felt more joy than nerves, and felt no self-imposed pressure one would assume in such high stakes games. That was probably why I played so well! To watch some video clips, go to my Instagram Highlights called “World Championships”. Bill, Kalliszta, and Bence are so proud of me and we all agreed that a touristy trip back to Ireland was necessary in the future. 

Since we were already so far from home in Ireland, we figured we might as well stay on that side of the world and head to Hungary to visit my family. This second half of our Europe trip was planned a bit last minute, so there were some scrambles to rent a car, get train tickets and seats, figure out daily itineraries, etc, but it all worked out. Luckily we have amazing family and friends in Budapest who are always happy to give airport rides, lend strollers, go grocery shopping for us to stock our fridge before we arrive, etc. My aunt and uncle, Agi and Feri, and my cousin and her husband, Ildi and Balint, picked us up from the airport. Balint and I were wearing the same exact color bright pink shirt. I should have snapped a pic! By now, it was July and Gabor celebrated his retirement (Congrats Nagypapa!!!) by joining us in Budapest (after his flight was canceled, then delayed, then delayed again). We spent the first week living in a three bedroom apartment in a fun part of the city. We would walk to local playgrounds during the day, visit with family and go out to dinner with family and friends. It was so lovely. Our favorite place in all of Budapest is the Dunapart (the Danube Shore). Located on the Buda side (West side) of the Danube River, north of Obuda Island, north of the ancient Roman ruins (yes – the Romans made it that far East!), and across the street from where my aunt, uncle, and cousins live, is a lively dirt-road river-walk lined with restaurants. Since it’s off the beaten path, you probably won’t find it listed in most travel books. These aren’t fancy restaurants, but the kind where you order some greasy (read: delicious) food at the window, and eat it at picnic tables. On weekends there is often live music, and the atmosphere is just so much fun on those beautiful summer days with the breeze off the river. Part of the many happy memories along the shore is being there with our friends and family, so we always make a point of it to go at least once on every trip to Budapest. This time we went twice, because we had to make sure Bob and Judy got to experience it. Out of all the beautiful places we went together, this was definitely a favorite of theirs. They were even serenaded while they danced by a group of guys at a bachelor party! 

After about a week, we drove out to Lake Balaton, a summer vacation staple for Hungarians. Of course the 4 days we stayed there, it was gloomy and cold and windy. This was Bob and Judy’s first experience of Hungary as they arrived a week after us. I think they were amused by the size of the kitchen in our rental house. We made the most of our time at the Lake by going on a boat cruise, going to a castle, splashing in the kid pool at the house, and enjoying the lively lake-front happenings of the weekend. We all (Bob, Judy, Eva, Gábor, Bill, me, Kalliszta, Bence) headed back to Budapest just to get on a train to Vienna, Austria. Thankfully, Eva, who is a seasoned European traveler, insisted we purchase seats for the 2 hour train ride. An extra $5 a head, it was extremely worth it as both the train there and back had people standing all along the aisles as the rail lines sell as many tickets as people want to travel, not as many tickets as there are seats on the train.

In Austria, we stayed at a beautiful Airbnb penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Opera House for 2 nights. That first night we went out to dinner after a long day of travel. The next day, Bill, Kalliszta, and I went out for breakfast while Eva put Bence back down for a nap, since they were up since 5am. There is something so magical about sitting at a cafe watching a city wake up and start bustling around you. Then we all went to an awesome children’s museum, gave ourselves a walking tour of the city, then met up with our friend Tovah at lunch who joined us for much of the next week! After a quick rest, we all (except Bence and Eva) took the subway to Schönbrunn to see the palace and the gardens. It was beautiful, and we only scratched the surface of all there was to see. As it was our last night in Vienna, after the kids were asleep, we left Eva and Gabor to babysit. Bill, Bob, Judy, Tovah, and I went out to dinner near St. Stephen’s Square. We celebrated with the trendy drink of the summer, an aperol spritz! The next morning we walked to the subway to the train station to head back to Budapest. Thank goodness we had seats as this train was smaller and older than the first one, and the entire aisle ways were lined with people standing and sitting on the ground for the 2.5 hour trip. It didn’t occur to anyone to take a picture since the whole thing was pretty uncomfortable. 

Back in Budapest we wanted to show Bob and Judy and Tovah around, so we packed the schedule with sightseeing. It was definitely tricky working around the kids’ sleeping schedules. Bence would wake up at 5:30, have a bottle of milk and cuddle and play with Eva, then go back to sleep around 7:30 just as Kalliszta was waking up. Then once Bence was up again, Kalliszta was nearing her nap. There might have been a day or two when we didn’t all go somewhere together until 2pm! We stayed at an Airbnb in a great location in the city center on the Pest side of the Danube near a delicious gelato place where they serve the gelato in the shape of a rose. We went back so often one of the employees and I had built a rapport!  It had charming wallpaper and beautifully high ceilings, but the main living space was small and had an oversized dining table in the middle that was not ideal for small children and fitting lots of people. It was a bit cramped, but we made it work. 

Our first full day back in Budapest, Bill and Gabor spent the morning going to the airport to pick up our rented 15 passenger van. The rest of us went to do some sight seeing up on Castle Hill and the Fisherman’s Bastion. Since the Chain Bridge was closed for repairs, we couldn’t walk across it as we had planned. Instead, Kalliszta, Bence, Bob, Judy, Tovah, Eva, and I took a bus. Everyone except Eva and Judy got off on the other side of the bridge to take the funicular up the hillside. We all met back up near Matthias Temple. After a bit more walking around, we stopped to eat “lunch” at a pastry and treats shop. By now, Bill and Gabor had the big van, but we had to walk down the hill to meet them, since Castle Hill is closed to most traffic. We walked down along the back side of the hill along the ancient stone walls protecting the Hill and passed the yellow apartment building Eva grew up in. We piled in the car and headed to the Dunapart (the Danube Shore) to have dinner there again with our friends and family. After dinner, Kalliszta headed up to her great aunt and uncle’s 5th floor walk up apartment to pet a bunny. It was a great end to her great day. 

The second day, we took the Underground metro, (the first subterranean rail in continental Europe!) to the zoo. We walk past Hero’s Square, flanked by two museums, with City Park just to the north. After the zoo, we headed back to the Airbnb to recoup for dinner. We ate dinner along the Danube with a beautiful view of the Castle at the very restaurant where Bill and I celebrated their engagement! (Read about that here from my blog: https://krisztinafinn.com/2018/05/06/a-quick-side-trip-to-hungary/ ). Eva’s brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and his girlfriend joined us for dinner. The following day, we visited a nearby playground and fountain before heading to my grandma’s village Biatorbagy to have lunch and for Kalliszta to help Grandma Eva with some light gardening. Then once back “home” after the kids were asleep, we went out to dinner at the happening Gozsdu Udvar (alleyway). 

One of the best ways to see Budapest is from the river! On our third day, the whole crew took a late morning boat cruise to Margaret Island. We had a picnic lunch at the Rose Garden, where Bill and I got engaged years before. It was so wonderful to show Bob and Judy both the Rose Garden and the restaurant where we celebrated. That evening we all went to an organ concert at St. Stephen’s Basilica. On our last full day in Budapest, we all piled in the 15 person van and drove to a far corner of the city to go to AquaWorld. We only planned to stay a couple of hours, but ended up there for more than half the day! It helped that Bence fell asleep as soon as we pulled up, so after his (2 hour!!) nap he was ready to play and splash for the next few hours. Since my parents were staying an extra 2 weeks in Hungary, they came back to AquaWorld after they dropped off their luggage at Eva’s friend’s guest suite where they would stay the remainder of their trip. Going on a trip like this with a big group of people meant lots of logistics, but it was such a fun and memorable trip we wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, actually, in hind-sight, we would have changed the order of things, so we wouldn’t have to change Airbnbs so frequently with small children and lots of luggage. Next time we’ll do Budapest sightseeing first, then drive out to Balaton, then drive to Vienna (no more trains!), then fly home from there on a direct flight. (Bence pooped on me during a layover in Warsaw, so she is now the proud owner of a Warsaw airport t-shirt.)