Europe
I'm sure it will come as a surprise to NO ONE that our European adventure was
absolutely amazing.
We just got home and I have been having a hard time adjusting to life after this dream vacation. Not only does my body seem to hate me right now with jet lag, but I miss our vacation so much. I get post vacation blues pretty bad and that combined with jet lag has caused me a lot of emotional pain. I was reading about jet lag and this sums it up really well:
I wake up in the night and in the morning wondering where I am and what it is. It's the worst feeling to wake up in your own home, living your own life and feel out of place.
So I am using writing as a form of therapy for myself. This is also acting as a journal. BTW if the text is a different color it's because it's a link. I linked stuff if you want to learn more about it.
We are so fortunate to have been able to do this. We know just how lucky we are. We are grateful every day for the amazing two weeks that we got to escape because of my parents. They lived at our house while we were gone and my kids loved every second of it! Hayden has told me multiple times that she misses grandma sleeping over. And Will has grown so attached to my dad that when he sees him now he whines at his feet to be held. So sweet!
I thought i'd talk about something I haven't really talked about yet which is why we decided to do this trip. Tyler and I don't "travel." We didn't grow up in families that traveled often and the thought of "travel" has always been very foreign to us. Needless to say, we haven't made it a priority in our lives. I can count on one hand how many places outside of Utah Tyler and I have vacationed to(not counting summer sales in TN):
Houston, Disneyland, Vegas, Cabo and Puerto Vallarta.
Everyone who knows about my sister's lifestyle always asks us if we will ever visit her. Her husband's work takes them to different international places every few years and this is their first time living in Europe in over 10 years. This is also the first time they won't be flying home for the summer in nearly 10 years. Before I was married I had the opportunity to visit her abroad and I have always dreamed of visiting her again and it just worked out perfectly for it to happen this summer.
It was Christmas time this last year and one of my best friends from high school came over to catch up. She asked about how my sister was doing and said the inevitable: "you guys should go visit her." I laughed it off and said "yeah right." cause Tyler doesn't like spending a lot of money in one place or on one vacation. but then as I looked at him, he smiled and he said "why not? let's do it." I was like
"say whaaaat??"
He later explained why he felt okay with a vacation like this at this time in our lives and I was beyond excited. I pretty much told my sister like probably the next day. I told her over facetime in front of her kids which was maybe not a good idea because her kids assumed it meant their cousins were coming with us as well haha. OOPS!
Planning this trip was a lot of fun as well as a bit stressful. Thankfully we had some help planning the flights from our friend Tom and my sister planned out our days/where we would go. We found the "experiences" and "tours" but she helped us with the logistics of it.
We left SLC Wendesday at 11:45 am. My stomach was in knots all morning and it was such an uncomfortable feeling. It turns out I get anxiety every time we have a big travel day. My kids were also so excited to start their time with their grandparents. Saying goodbye was so easy and tear free. I think we were all just so excited for what laid ahead. Will seemed a little uneasy at what was going on but didn't cry when my dad put him in his car seat which was a miracle. Getting to Europe was much better than coming back. We were so excited to be alone and have an adventure(and watch movies on the plane! We saw Dunkirk and Dumplin', then on our flight back home we saw Aquaman and Fighting With My Family. We loved them all!). London's Heathrow airport was amazing and we had too much fun exploring it and forgot that we needed to by to our gate and saw that our flight was boarding. We booked it to our gate which was way farther than we thought. It was stressful! (The flight back was also stressful because my bag got flagged in heathrow and by the time we finished with that ordeal it said our gate was closing. We were so scared we were going to miss our flight. We sprinted through the airport and made it in time but felt like idiots haha.)
By the time we arrived in Vienna Thursday NIGHT we were soo exhausted! Then we had to navigate the public transportation and got a bit lost on the metro from the airport we finally made it to the Airbnb we booked for that night.
We met the host and he wanted to talk with us for like 30 minutes! I was dying! We had just spent 2 days flying and he wanted to sit and chat! He was really friendly though and it paid off to let him get to know us because as we were ending our conversation he told us we could keep our stuff there the whole next day while we toured around the city because no one had rented his place out.
We were so thankful!!
Vienna, Austria
currency: euro
prononciation for locals: Wien (the w sounds like a v)
language: German
is so beautiful!!
(i'm not adding any pictures because chances are you have seen them already and hello I don't have that kind of time! I took over 1500 pictures and videos. Feel free to check out my highlights on Instagram if you missed them. Here is a link to my Facebook pictures I posted throughout the trip. It's not nearly as much as I posted in my stories but it's something.)
I was blown away by all the cool architecture of the buildings and just the feel of the place. We had a pastry tour scheduled for the day after we arrived(all the tours and experiences we did were booked through Airbnb experiences.) and it was probably one of our favorite things we did on our whole trip.
Jk can't choose a favorite but seriously it was fabulous.
Our guide was from IDAHO but had German speaking parents. So she grew up in Idaho speaking German? It was insane how much we had in common with her! She has impeccable English with no accent but when she spoke German with the locals we were like woah. We felt like instant friends and after the 3 hour tour ended Tyler and I said that we wished we could still hang out with her haha. She took us to 4 different places to eat pastries and desserts but also showed us how better to use the underground/metro which we definitely needed.
I will post a video I made below fo the tour but here is a description of each video and photo in order.
The first video you see is of Tyler eating something called a Krapfen and Austria is famous for them. It is filled with a semi sweet apricot jam that is super delicious. The interesting thing about the food there is that it's not super sweet. Which is kind of nice because you can eat more and not feel sick after.
We then visited an adorable little family own bakery called "grandmother's house" that is designed after "grandma's house." Grandma's and grandpa's work there and bake the desserts too. It was my favorite place that she took us to. The inside was adorable and the outside was also so beautifully and thoughtfully decorated.
Then we went to a place called Zotter Chocolate that is famous for their chocolate and bean to bar fair trade policies. It was so inspiring to learn about the ways the owner has changed lives of others! We sampled different kinds of delicious chocolate. It was located outside "naschmarkt." (The cutest market! You can see some of it in my video below.) Their milk chocolate won an award for it's deliciousness and it did not disappoint! There is a video of us trying their different kinds of hot chocolate that you melt yourself by putting a solid bar of chocolate in hot milk.
Our last stop was back where the tour began at a beautiful restaurant that she says the president likes to dine at. We decided to try more savory things to give our taste buds a break. It was all so delicious!
After spending all day seeing Vienna, we caught a late train to Bratislava where my sister picked us up. It's a 40ish minute train ride from Vienna to Bratislava.
In case you missed this detail, my sister and her family currently live in:
Bratislava, Slovakia.
currency: euro
language: Slovak
It is the cutest little village!
Okay it's not a village but that's what it felt like walking around it. This is the capitol of Slovakia and is such an adorable city.
Seeing my sister and her family again was so great!!! They were so wonderful to let us stay with them. Their cute home is three stories high and we stayed When we arrived her family was asleep but my oldest niece paid us a visit the next morning haha. Seeing them again without our kids was so nice because normally we are trying to parent our own kids but this time we could relax and just enjoy our time with them.
We toured Bratislava the next day and it's castle with the whole family. Then after the castle, we split off with just my sister and she showed us "old town" Bratislava. I can't even tell you how much we enjoyed this. We ate amazing gelato, delicious panini's, shopped cute souvenirs, went up to the top of a bridge that looked like a UFO, took kissing pictures at sunset, took "engagement pictures" next to the Danube river, napped sitting on a curb, and just had the best time! We went out just Tyler and I later that night to see it all at night and it was so romantic.
Going to church with my sister was something I really had been looking forward to. I love getting outside of the Utah bubble and to experience the culture of the church in different places.They drive an hour to Vienna for an English speaking ward and their building looks like it could be a temple. It's in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood with a tall spire that catches your attention. When you walk in you have to go upstairs for the chapel and that's the only thing on that floor. Then there are classes on the man floor and in the basement. Their chapel was really modern looking with cool metal and wood benches. It was also very small. Compared to Utah ward houses. There is also no AC in the building so there are many windows open. They actually have quite a few African members in their ward which I thought was so cool! We thoroughly enjoyed the feel of the church out there.
On that Sunday (Father's Day) we toured a palace called Schloss Hof Palace. It was the summer time home of the Habsbergs. (We visited their full time residence our last Sunday there.)
I also bought my floppy hat at this palace's gift shop. It is now my favorite hat.
Monday my sister drove us to a fairy tale castle called Bojnice castle. Pronounced boy-ni-tze.
Talk about a beautiful castle! Unfortunately the tour was in Slovak(with an English translation paper) and the guides weren't too nice about having a small child with us but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless! It was a 3 hour drive there and back. It was so good to be able to chat and catch up with her. We also visited some castle ruins on our way back.
Slovakia has more castles per capita than anywhere in the world!
How cool is that??
That night we ate dinner at a restaurant called Stroodel. Such a cute little lodge of a place. I swear everything in Europe has so much charm and this ethereal feel to it. We tried authentic Slovak food for the first time and it was delicious! My brother in law speaks Slovak and it was cool to hear him converse with our waitress. We ordered Strudel dessert and once again Tyler was astounded at how not sweet it was haha. His biggest complaint about Europe! The lack of sugar!
Tuesday we started the day early and caught a 7:30 train to Budapest!!
Budapest, Hungary.
currency: for int
pronunciation for locals: Budapest (with a ch sound where the s is)
language: Hungarian
Oh Budapest. You have my heart ♥
Now it is extremely hard to pick a favorite place. We loved all the places we went!!
I'm not sure if it's because it's the first place we went but if you ask us what our favorite place was, it was Budapest. This might surprise people. Because Prague seems like the obvious favorite right?
But something about Budapest just has stuck with us. Maybe it's a bunch of small somethings(yummiest food, beautiful sights, cutest Airbnb, easy public transportation).
Our time there was not nearly long enough!!
The very first thing we did was purchase public transportation tickets at the train station which was a piece of cake and cheap! (if you're wondering how we knew how to get around it's all thanks to google! It told us what bus to get on etc)
Our first stop was Szechenyi Spa Baths. It's Budapest's #1 recommended spa and it did not disappoint! It provided towels, robes, shoes, mineral herbal shower gel and a swimming cap. Some of the pools there required one. We spent hours there. Probably too many hours. But it was such a relaxing time! Budapest is known for it's natural hot springs and so the water there was naturally hot mineral spring water. It felt AMAZING.
After we managed to pull ourselves away from the tranquility of that spa we found our Airbnb. Which was amazing. I don't know how we got so lucky in finding the most adorable places but we did. It was two stories and felt so cozy and unique. We then had a river cruise tour booked and had to book it to make it on time. We had no idea that there are two parts to Budapest. did you know that there are two parts of Budapest? the Buda side and the Pest side separated by the Danube river. There is also an island between the two sides that you can get to via a pedestrian bridge. There was so much beauty to see on the tour and it was so apparent to us that we didn't have time to do it all. It was a 6.5 hour train ride to Prague from Budapest so we only had 1.5 days to do Budapest. We wanted to give Prague a full two days though which I am glad we did.
After the tour we went looking for a dinner spot called and found Pata Negra Pest. After reading the amazing reviews we ordered what was most recommended on the google reviews(once again thank you Google!!). It was the most amazing food we had on the whole trip. And the dessert was salted chocolate fudge square in olive oil. Sounds weird right? It was divine. We wanted to eat there again the next day haha. Walking home at night was a lot of fun and the night life on the Pest side was bursting. At one point there were so many people around a colorful water feature in a plaza we wondered if there was going to be fountains bursting out of it. Nope. Just hundreds of people chilling and talking with one another.
Our second day in Budapest started with a delicious brunch at a cute little Cafe. I say brunch because it was 11 am by the time we made it out of our Airbnb. It's not a vacation for us if we can't sleep in. We would google restaurants and pick the one that looked best. We never failed to love anywhere we ate! Then we booked it to the Buda side to experience some of the buildings and architecture over there. AMAZING. SO majestic and beautiful. There was a little girl selling bunches of lavender and I WANTED SOME SO BAD. Tyler was like that's just not practical babe. And i knew he was right.
We just so loved Budapest!
We almost missed our train to Prague. We were sprinting through the train station. It was the last train out and we made it within minutes of it departing.
I thought I was going to throw up.
We were bummed to have to leave Budapest so early but were grateful to have gotten to see it at all. The train ride was really fun because they had a restaurant on the train! Unfortunately our train was delayed about an hour into the ride and we saw on the railway for almost two hours. Which means we didn't get into Prague till midnight. When we arrived at the train station there was throw up on the floor, no one was around and the machine wouldn't take our card to give us public transportation tickets. So we walked 20+ minutes to our Airbnb through some not very well known streets. I felt very uneasy and we later found out from our tour guide that we walked by "the red light district" which is basically a street with prostitutes lining the windows. ANYWAYS.
Prague, Czech Republic.
currency: czech koruna or czech crown.
language: Czech
pronunciation for locals: Praha
Prague is such a charming, beautiful place!!
I kept telling Tyler I felt like I was in Harry Potter or some real life fairytale story. Cobblestone sidewalks and streets, adorable buildings and markets, The Charles Bridge which was so cool! And delicious treats! We spent two nights and two days in Prague.
The first morning we found the most delicious breakfast place that we ate there both mornings! Tyler ordered what he said was the most delicious pancakes he had ever had. They were coconut pancakes with pistachios and whipped cream.
Our first experience was an electric bike tour around the city. We stopped at 24 places! It was so cool. We had never ridden electric bikes before and I wish I owned one! It was on this tour that one of the stops was a local outdoor bar in a park and we blew everyone away by not trying the beer. Our tour guide said "I know you said you don't drink but at least try the beer." And when we still refused she said "oh are you pregnant?" it was so awkward haha! Apparently Czech beer is AMAZING. But only if you're a beer drinker otherwise how would you know if it was amazing or not??
The restaurant we ate at was unforgettable. You walked into the restaurant only to then realize you were suddenly in a courtyard surrounded by trees, being serenaded by an accordion. They bring you beer automatically and once again we surprised them by declining their mug full of beer. They basically only serve Coke so Tyler had lots of Coke on this trip haha. We ordered a local favorite called Pork Knuckle. It was good but not like out of this world good. It looked like the knuckle of a giant animal.
Aside from being surrounded by cigarette smoke, we were so glad our tour guide recommended this restaurant to us. It had such a fun atmosphere to it.
We stopped off at "The Dancing House" on our way home and realized it was about to rain and we didn't have anything with us for rain. Back at the Airbnb we had an umbrella but of course we forgot to take it with us that morning when it was sunny. ROOKIE MISTAKE!
So we were caught in a rainstorm but it didn't really matter much because we were on our way home anyways. We ended the night watching some Netflix way past our bedtime.
You guys it was the best!
Doing whatever we wanted because we could!!
Our last day in Prague we felt pretty exhausted. We ate at our favorite brunch place again and just took it easy that day. Thankfully we found a luggage storage place in the train station so that we didn't have to carry our heave backpacks with us around. We never did get any public transportation so we walked everywhere. Which was good and bad. Good because we got to see the sights more but bad because we were more tired.
We savored every moment we could before we had to catch the last train out of the city back to Bratislava.
Saturday in Bratislava was a really laid back day which was wonderful. We slept in wayyy late. Like noonish. I DON'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I SLEPT TILL NOON.
We then visited a really fun castle called Devin castle with my sister and nieces. For dinner we ordered Dominos and my brother in law warned us that it wasn't like Dominos in America. After trying it I said it was still delicious pizza. He then shared a hilarious quote with us:
Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad it's still pretty good.
BAHAHAHA. Sorry hope I didn't offend anyone!
Then we had game night and played Disney Apples to Apples. Such a fun game! After the kids went to bed the adults watched Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. How had I never heard of this show?? It was amazing. We binge watched it in two nights haha. warning though: it's a heavy show.
Our last full day with my sister was Sunday. We went to church and then toured Schoenbrunnn Palace in Vienna. Such a beautiful, beautiful place!!!
Home to Marie Antoinette until she was married off. It rained on us a bit which was kind of fun because #1 we were prepared, but #2 it got rid of a lot of people. We basically had the place to ourselves afterwards! My sister took the cutest picture of us. We were walking towards her with our umbrella and when Tyler noticed her taking a picture he started walking weird which made me laugh and then this photo was born:
On Monday morning my sister took us to the train station. Our flight was the next morning and it was easier to already be in Vienna. Plus it was fun to have one more day/night together before getting back home to real life. It was sad hugging my sister goodbye for who knows how long. Due to the nature of her husband's job, we never really know when we will get to see her again. But can't dwell on that! Just gotta
absolutely amazing.
We just got home and I have been having a hard time adjusting to life after this dream vacation. Not only does my body seem to hate me right now with jet lag, but I miss our vacation so much. I get post vacation blues pretty bad and that combined with jet lag has caused me a lot of emotional pain. I was reading about jet lag and this sums it up really well:
Jet lag, it’s a Twilight Zone place of mental and bodily confusion and no one can seem to give you an adequate jet lag cure.
You’re waking when you should be sleeping and nodding off mid-conversation to your boss at work. And this is 6 days after you touched down.
You constantly feel wired and on edge, your words get confused and you cannot see, let alone think through the fog.
I wake up in the night and in the morning wondering where I am and what it is. It's the worst feeling to wake up in your own home, living your own life and feel out of place.
So I am using writing as a form of therapy for myself. This is also acting as a journal. BTW if the text is a different color it's because it's a link. I linked stuff if you want to learn more about it.
We are so fortunate to have been able to do this. We know just how lucky we are. We are grateful every day for the amazing two weeks that we got to escape because of my parents. They lived at our house while we were gone and my kids loved every second of it! Hayden has told me multiple times that she misses grandma sleeping over. And Will has grown so attached to my dad that when he sees him now he whines at his feet to be held. So sweet!
I thought i'd talk about something I haven't really talked about yet which is why we decided to do this trip. Tyler and I don't "travel." We didn't grow up in families that traveled often and the thought of "travel" has always been very foreign to us. Needless to say, we haven't made it a priority in our lives. I can count on one hand how many places outside of Utah Tyler and I have vacationed to(not counting summer sales in TN):
Houston, Disneyland, Vegas, Cabo and Puerto Vallarta.
Everyone who knows about my sister's lifestyle always asks us if we will ever visit her. Her husband's work takes them to different international places every few years and this is their first time living in Europe in over 10 years. This is also the first time they won't be flying home for the summer in nearly 10 years. Before I was married I had the opportunity to visit her abroad and I have always dreamed of visiting her again and it just worked out perfectly for it to happen this summer.
It was Christmas time this last year and one of my best friends from high school came over to catch up. She asked about how my sister was doing and said the inevitable: "you guys should go visit her." I laughed it off and said "yeah right." cause Tyler doesn't like spending a lot of money in one place or on one vacation. but then as I looked at him, he smiled and he said "why not? let's do it." I was like
"say whaaaat??"
He later explained why he felt okay with a vacation like this at this time in our lives and I was beyond excited. I pretty much told my sister like probably the next day. I told her over facetime in front of her kids which was maybe not a good idea because her kids assumed it meant their cousins were coming with us as well haha. OOPS!
Planning this trip was a lot of fun as well as a bit stressful. Thankfully we had some help planning the flights from our friend Tom and my sister planned out our days/where we would go. We found the "experiences" and "tours" but she helped us with the logistics of it.
We left SLC Wendesday at 11:45 am. My stomach was in knots all morning and it was such an uncomfortable feeling. It turns out I get anxiety every time we have a big travel day. My kids were also so excited to start their time with their grandparents. Saying goodbye was so easy and tear free. I think we were all just so excited for what laid ahead. Will seemed a little uneasy at what was going on but didn't cry when my dad put him in his car seat which was a miracle. Getting to Europe was much better than coming back. We were so excited to be alone and have an adventure(and watch movies on the plane! We saw Dunkirk and Dumplin', then on our flight back home we saw Aquaman and Fighting With My Family. We loved them all!). London's Heathrow airport was amazing and we had too much fun exploring it and forgot that we needed to by to our gate and saw that our flight was boarding. We booked it to our gate which was way farther than we thought. It was stressful! (The flight back was also stressful because my bag got flagged in heathrow and by the time we finished with that ordeal it said our gate was closing. We were so scared we were going to miss our flight. We sprinted through the airport and made it in time but felt like idiots haha.)
By the time we arrived in Vienna Thursday NIGHT we were soo exhausted! Then we had to navigate the public transportation and got a bit lost on the metro from the airport we finally made it to the Airbnb we booked for that night.
We met the host and he wanted to talk with us for like 30 minutes! I was dying! We had just spent 2 days flying and he wanted to sit and chat! He was really friendly though and it paid off to let him get to know us because as we were ending our conversation he told us we could keep our stuff there the whole next day while we toured around the city because no one had rented his place out.
We were so thankful!!
Vienna, Austria
currency: euro
prononciation for locals: Wien (the w sounds like a v)
language: German
is so beautiful!!
(i'm not adding any pictures because chances are you have seen them already and hello I don't have that kind of time! I took over 1500 pictures and videos. Feel free to check out my highlights on Instagram if you missed them. Here is a link to my Facebook pictures I posted throughout the trip. It's not nearly as much as I posted in my stories but it's something.)
I was blown away by all the cool architecture of the buildings and just the feel of the place. We had a pastry tour scheduled for the day after we arrived(all the tours and experiences we did were booked through Airbnb experiences.) and it was probably one of our favorite things we did on our whole trip.
Jk can't choose a favorite but seriously it was fabulous.
Our guide was from IDAHO but had German speaking parents. So she grew up in Idaho speaking German? It was insane how much we had in common with her! She has impeccable English with no accent but when she spoke German with the locals we were like woah. We felt like instant friends and after the 3 hour tour ended Tyler and I said that we wished we could still hang out with her haha. She took us to 4 different places to eat pastries and desserts but also showed us how better to use the underground/metro which we definitely needed.
I will post a video I made below fo the tour but here is a description of each video and photo in order.
The first video you see is of Tyler eating something called a Krapfen and Austria is famous for them. It is filled with a semi sweet apricot jam that is super delicious. The interesting thing about the food there is that it's not super sweet. Which is kind of nice because you can eat more and not feel sick after.
We then visited an adorable little family own bakery called "grandmother's house" that is designed after "grandma's house." Grandma's and grandpa's work there and bake the desserts too. It was my favorite place that she took us to. The inside was adorable and the outside was also so beautifully and thoughtfully decorated.
Then we went to a place called Zotter Chocolate that is famous for their chocolate and bean to bar fair trade policies. It was so inspiring to learn about the ways the owner has changed lives of others! We sampled different kinds of delicious chocolate. It was located outside "naschmarkt." (The cutest market! You can see some of it in my video below.) Their milk chocolate won an award for it's deliciousness and it did not disappoint! There is a video of us trying their different kinds of hot chocolate that you melt yourself by putting a solid bar of chocolate in hot milk.
Our last stop was back where the tour began at a beautiful restaurant that she says the president likes to dine at. We decided to try more savory things to give our taste buds a break. It was all so delicious!
In case you missed this detail, my sister and her family currently live in:
Bratislava, Slovakia.
currency: euro
language: Slovak
It is the cutest little village!
Okay it's not a village but that's what it felt like walking around it. This is the capitol of Slovakia and is such an adorable city.
Seeing my sister and her family again was so great!!! They were so wonderful to let us stay with them. Their cute home is three stories high and we stayed When we arrived her family was asleep but my oldest niece paid us a visit the next morning haha. Seeing them again without our kids was so nice because normally we are trying to parent our own kids but this time we could relax and just enjoy our time with them.
We toured Bratislava the next day and it's castle with the whole family. Then after the castle, we split off with just my sister and she showed us "old town" Bratislava. I can't even tell you how much we enjoyed this. We ate amazing gelato, delicious panini's, shopped cute souvenirs, went up to the top of a bridge that looked like a UFO, took kissing pictures at sunset, took "engagement pictures" next to the Danube river, napped sitting on a curb, and just had the best time! We went out just Tyler and I later that night to see it all at night and it was so romantic.
Going to church with my sister was something I really had been looking forward to. I love getting outside of the Utah bubble and to experience the culture of the church in different places.They drive an hour to Vienna for an English speaking ward and their building looks like it could be a temple. It's in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood with a tall spire that catches your attention. When you walk in you have to go upstairs for the chapel and that's the only thing on that floor. Then there are classes on the man floor and in the basement. Their chapel was really modern looking with cool metal and wood benches. It was also very small. Compared to Utah ward houses. There is also no AC in the building so there are many windows open. They actually have quite a few African members in their ward which I thought was so cool! We thoroughly enjoyed the feel of the church out there.
On that Sunday (Father's Day) we toured a palace called Schloss Hof Palace. It was the summer time home of the Habsbergs. (We visited their full time residence our last Sunday there.)
I also bought my floppy hat at this palace's gift shop. It is now my favorite hat.
Monday my sister drove us to a fairy tale castle called Bojnice castle. Pronounced boy-ni-tze.
Talk about a beautiful castle! Unfortunately the tour was in Slovak(with an English translation paper) and the guides weren't too nice about having a small child with us but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless! It was a 3 hour drive there and back. It was so good to be able to chat and catch up with her. We also visited some castle ruins on our way back.
Slovakia has more castles per capita than anywhere in the world!
How cool is that??
That night we ate dinner at a restaurant called Stroodel. Such a cute little lodge of a place. I swear everything in Europe has so much charm and this ethereal feel to it. We tried authentic Slovak food for the first time and it was delicious! My brother in law speaks Slovak and it was cool to hear him converse with our waitress. We ordered Strudel dessert and once again Tyler was astounded at how not sweet it was haha. His biggest complaint about Europe! The lack of sugar!
Tuesday we started the day early and caught a 7:30 train to Budapest!!
Budapest, Hungary.
currency: for int
pronunciation for locals: Budapest (with a ch sound where the s is)
language: Hungarian
Oh Budapest. You have my heart ♥
Now it is extremely hard to pick a favorite place. We loved all the places we went!!
I'm not sure if it's because it's the first place we went but if you ask us what our favorite place was, it was Budapest. This might surprise people. Because Prague seems like the obvious favorite right?
But something about Budapest just has stuck with us. Maybe it's a bunch of small somethings(yummiest food, beautiful sights, cutest Airbnb, easy public transportation).
Our time there was not nearly long enough!!
The very first thing we did was purchase public transportation tickets at the train station which was a piece of cake and cheap! (if you're wondering how we knew how to get around it's all thanks to google! It told us what bus to get on etc)
Our first stop was Szechenyi Spa Baths. It's Budapest's #1 recommended spa and it did not disappoint! It provided towels, robes, shoes, mineral herbal shower gel and a swimming cap. Some of the pools there required one. We spent hours there. Probably too many hours. But it was such a relaxing time! Budapest is known for it's natural hot springs and so the water there was naturally hot mineral spring water. It felt AMAZING.
After we managed to pull ourselves away from the tranquility of that spa we found our Airbnb. Which was amazing. I don't know how we got so lucky in finding the most adorable places but we did. It was two stories and felt so cozy and unique. We then had a river cruise tour booked and had to book it to make it on time. We had no idea that there are two parts to Budapest. did you know that there are two parts of Budapest? the Buda side and the Pest side separated by the Danube river. There is also an island between the two sides that you can get to via a pedestrian bridge. There was so much beauty to see on the tour and it was so apparent to us that we didn't have time to do it all. It was a 6.5 hour train ride to Prague from Budapest so we only had 1.5 days to do Budapest. We wanted to give Prague a full two days though which I am glad we did.
After the tour we went looking for a dinner spot called and found Pata Negra Pest. After reading the amazing reviews we ordered what was most recommended on the google reviews(once again thank you Google!!). It was the most amazing food we had on the whole trip. And the dessert was salted chocolate fudge square in olive oil. Sounds weird right? It was divine. We wanted to eat there again the next day haha. Walking home at night was a lot of fun and the night life on the Pest side was bursting. At one point there were so many people around a colorful water feature in a plaza we wondered if there was going to be fountains bursting out of it. Nope. Just hundreds of people chilling and talking with one another.
Our second day in Budapest started with a delicious brunch at a cute little Cafe. I say brunch because it was 11 am by the time we made it out of our Airbnb. It's not a vacation for us if we can't sleep in. We would google restaurants and pick the one that looked best. We never failed to love anywhere we ate! Then we booked it to the Buda side to experience some of the buildings and architecture over there. AMAZING. SO majestic and beautiful. There was a little girl selling bunches of lavender and I WANTED SOME SO BAD. Tyler was like that's just not practical babe. And i knew he was right.
We just so loved Budapest!
We almost missed our train to Prague. We were sprinting through the train station. It was the last train out and we made it within minutes of it departing.
I thought I was going to throw up.
We were bummed to have to leave Budapest so early but were grateful to have gotten to see it at all. The train ride was really fun because they had a restaurant on the train! Unfortunately our train was delayed about an hour into the ride and we saw on the railway for almost two hours. Which means we didn't get into Prague till midnight. When we arrived at the train station there was throw up on the floor, no one was around and the machine wouldn't take our card to give us public transportation tickets. So we walked 20+ minutes to our Airbnb through some not very well known streets. I felt very uneasy and we later found out from our tour guide that we walked by "the red light district" which is basically a street with prostitutes lining the windows. ANYWAYS.
Prague, Czech Republic.
currency: czech koruna or czech crown.
language: Czech
pronunciation for locals: Praha
Prague is such a charming, beautiful place!!
I kept telling Tyler I felt like I was in Harry Potter or some real life fairytale story. Cobblestone sidewalks and streets, adorable buildings and markets, The Charles Bridge which was so cool! And delicious treats! We spent two nights and two days in Prague.
The first morning we found the most delicious breakfast place that we ate there both mornings! Tyler ordered what he said was the most delicious pancakes he had ever had. They were coconut pancakes with pistachios and whipped cream.
Our first experience was an electric bike tour around the city. We stopped at 24 places! It was so cool. We had never ridden electric bikes before and I wish I owned one! It was on this tour that one of the stops was a local outdoor bar in a park and we blew everyone away by not trying the beer. Our tour guide said "I know you said you don't drink but at least try the beer." And when we still refused she said "oh are you pregnant?" it was so awkward haha! Apparently Czech beer is AMAZING. But only if you're a beer drinker otherwise how would you know if it was amazing or not??
The restaurant we ate at was unforgettable. You walked into the restaurant only to then realize you were suddenly in a courtyard surrounded by trees, being serenaded by an accordion. They bring you beer automatically and once again we surprised them by declining their mug full of beer. They basically only serve Coke so Tyler had lots of Coke on this trip haha. We ordered a local favorite called Pork Knuckle. It was good but not like out of this world good. It looked like the knuckle of a giant animal.
Aside from being surrounded by cigarette smoke, we were so glad our tour guide recommended this restaurant to us. It had such a fun atmosphere to it.
We stopped off at "The Dancing House" on our way home and realized it was about to rain and we didn't have anything with us for rain. Back at the Airbnb we had an umbrella but of course we forgot to take it with us that morning when it was sunny. ROOKIE MISTAKE!
So we were caught in a rainstorm but it didn't really matter much because we were on our way home anyways. We ended the night watching some Netflix way past our bedtime.
You guys it was the best!
Doing whatever we wanted because we could!!
Our last day in Prague we felt pretty exhausted. We ate at our favorite brunch place again and just took it easy that day. Thankfully we found a luggage storage place in the train station so that we didn't have to carry our heave backpacks with us around. We never did get any public transportation so we walked everywhere. Which was good and bad. Good because we got to see the sights more but bad because we were more tired.
We savored every moment we could before we had to catch the last train out of the city back to Bratislava.
Saturday in Bratislava was a really laid back day which was wonderful. We slept in wayyy late. Like noonish. I DON'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I SLEPT TILL NOON.
We then visited a really fun castle called Devin castle with my sister and nieces. For dinner we ordered Dominos and my brother in law warned us that it wasn't like Dominos in America. After trying it I said it was still delicious pizza. He then shared a hilarious quote with us:
Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad it's still pretty good.
BAHAHAHA. Sorry hope I didn't offend anyone!
Then we had game night and played Disney Apples to Apples. Such a fun game! After the kids went to bed the adults watched Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. How had I never heard of this show?? It was amazing. We binge watched it in two nights haha. warning though: it's a heavy show.
Our last full day with my sister was Sunday. We went to church and then toured Schoenbrunnn Palace in Vienna. Such a beautiful, beautiful place!!!
Home to Marie Antoinette until she was married off. It rained on us a bit which was kind of fun because #1 we were prepared, but #2 it got rid of a lot of people. We basically had the place to ourselves afterwards! My sister took the cutest picture of us. We were walking towards her with our umbrella and when Tyler noticed her taking a picture he started walking weird which made me laugh and then this photo was born:
google put together this animation of pictures.
I love this man so much.
I can't even believe how wonderful of a time we had together.
I miss it everyday.
Sunday night Tyler and I felt like getting out again on our own so we went to a restaurant where Tyler had the opportunity to try something new: Kofola.
I am not even sure how to explain it to you but apparently a lot of people love it! It's like European soda or something. Tyler did not love it but maybe it's an acquired taste haha. Our food was so delicious and it was fun to walk around and explore after.
On Monday morning my sister took us to the train station. Our flight was the next morning and it was easier to already be in Vienna. Plus it was fun to have one more day/night together before getting back home to real life. It was sad hugging my sister goodbye for who knows how long. Due to the nature of her husband's job, we never really know when we will get to see her again. But can't dwell on that! Just gotta
be grateful for the time we got to spend together!
♥♥♥
Our last day was spent in Vienna. We shopped at the Naschmarkt and ate there too. Then we saw a concert in the Orangerie of Schonbrunn Palace.
It was a perfect ending to a perfect vacation.
So happy for you guys! It sounds like it was an amazing trip!
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