Shoes ... May 24, 2009

On the Danube river, just next to Parliament and across the river from Castle Hill is an exhibit honoring the memory of the Jews that were shot on the banks of the Danube during World War II. The memorial depicts the shoes left behind by the victims of the Arrow Cross militiamen who had them take off their shoes before shooting them, using the Danube as a simpler alternative means of burial. There are 3 plaques along the memorial in Hebrew, English, and Hungarian: "To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944–45. Erected 16 April [[2005."

Bratislava, Slovakia ... May 23, 2009

In the three years that we have lived here, we have never visited the capital of Slovakia...Bratislava (except to fly out of the airport once, or drove through it on our way to Prague or something). It is only an hour drive, yet like many places that are close (most of the Hungarian cities we waited years to visit), we always figured we would have plenty of time to visit in the future. Plus I have been there a few times before and was never overly impressed. So, considering we only have a couple of months left, we decided this was the afternoon we would spend in Bratislava.
I don't remember ever visiting the main square and was pleasantly surprised. All I remember from prior visits is crowded city streets and the castle, so sitting in the relatively quiet square surrounded by standard European architecture (AKA awesome) with a fountain in the middle was quite nice. We walked through the square visiting the different vendor booths that surrounded it. The girls ran around, probably too rambunctiously. We hung out on some famous bench with the "statue", which I guess is good luck or something.
From the square we tried to WALK to the castle. We meandered through the side streets of Bratislava only to come to a dead end where we would have to cross the highway to just get to the BASE of the castle. Considering we had spent the morning in Vienna and we were all pretty tired, we decided to just take in the castle view from the road and we headed home.
So, I get that we probably missed out on a number of other things to see in Bratislava since we just spent a couple of hours there, but at LEAST my thoughts of the city are much more positive than they had been over the last 10 years.

Vienna, Austria ... May 23, 2009

So, for Ryan's birthday, we took him to Vienna and Bratislava for the day. We know how much he will appreciate this trip in a few years! We started the day driving the hour and a half to Vienna and then spent another 45 minutes trying to find a parking spot. Finally I dropped off Heather, Julie Hall, and the kids at Stephansplatz and used my skill and precision to find a very close spot about 15 minutes later. I met up with them and we proceeded to make our standard trek from the Cathedral to the Opera, past the Hofburg and finally to the Volksgarten. We stopped for a few minutes at the Mozart statue to let the girls run around a bit. I love this walk and it never gets old for me to take in the atmosphere, the architecture, and the sounds of that wonderful city.
We decided to get Brats for lunch and eat them in the park. However, after passing about 25 ATMs on the way to the Ringstrasse where we were going to purchase our lunch, I still had no Euros so had to find an ATM. I left the girls and went wandering. About 20 minutes later I found an ATM and made it back to the family. We ate lunch in the park and I watched Ryan walk for the first time (I missed his REAL first steps because I was looking for that stupid ATM!).
We walked through the Volksgarten, which is beautiful this time of year. When I lived here in 1996 I would just sit in that place on a bench and read and it was wonderful. Admittedly, with 3 kids, it is not as peaceful a place, but it is still awesome.
We walked back past the Hofburg and the Roman excavation site and finally to Zanoni's, where we topped off the city visit with some good gelato (Ryan had his first Zanoni's and LOVED it, of course). I will seriously miss being able to just hop into the car randomly to visit Vienna...especially Vienna.

Ryan's First Steps ... May 23, 2009

Happy Birthday...he took his first steps! And while it may have just been a nice, graceful, fall forward, it looked pretty good to me (I technically missed the first steps as I was trying to find an ATM when he did it the first time, but Heather told me to video as soon as we got situated outside the Volksgarten for our picnic to record the event).

Ryan's 1st Birthday ... May 23, 2009

We celebrated Ryan's birthday by waking him up to "Happy Birthday to you", eating the traditional breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, and spending a day in our favorite city of Vienna (what child WOULDN'T want to go to Vienna for their birthday!). We will have a small party for him with some of his friends on Monday night. We can not believe that he is one! And he took his first three steps (see next post!).

Danube Dinner Cruise ... May 22, 2009

Since a number of our group of friends are leaving this Summer, a large group of the "leavers" and the "stayers" got together to say good-bye. We took a Danube Dinner Cruise, which was quite fun. Actually, the food was terrible, but the view and the company was wonderful.
Julie Hall, one of Heather's roommates after college, is visiting us for a little while, so she joined us. And we sat with Dan and Colleen Browne (Colleen is Katie's 1st grade teacher and PERFECT for her!) who told us of their exciting adventures in Saudi Arabia, among other things. It was a fun cruise, despite the food. It is our wonderful friends and the beauty that is Budapest that we will miss the most!


Afterward we went back to the Intercontinental Hotel terrace and saw a fabulous slide show of the last few years together that Meredith put together (VERY well done Meredith!). And the "stayers" put on a little "So Long, Farewell" performance as well (we are only one country away from the Von Trapp's homeland of Austria).
Both the slideshow and performance were so good that those strolling the Danube Riverwalk stopped to enjoy it as well!

After the slide show we had a juggling contest (I won, of course) and then we played a remedial version of a game called "Stookich" (I used to play years ago in my office with my friends back in Louisville), which was basically take whatever you can find that is round (in this case it was lemons) and create a hoop of some sort (a public trash can right on the Danube) and have some sort of tournament (as I said this was a REMEDIAL version, so effectively it was whoever can get it in the trash first wins, while "Stookich" was MUCH more complex than that!...ok, maybe this was more like a remedial version of basketball or "knockout"??) Anyway, it was a great night (and by the way, while I thought Monique was SURE to win the lemon toss because of her great shooting form, I think Terry took home the pot). We will miss our friends here.

Katie's Play ... "Cinderella" ... May 22, 2009

A group of Katie's friends put on a small mini-play during the Friday assembly. Katie played the part of the Fairy God Mother and did a wonderful job. All the kids did very well and all knew their parts perfectly (by the way, it also happened to be "crazy hair day" at their school, so their hair styles were designed for that, not for the play).

Budapest Zoo Field Trip ... May 21, 2009

Heather was able to accompany Katie to the Budapest Zoo for her class field trip. She made it in time from Ashley's school presentation to the Zoo with Katie. They had great time together.