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Hungary
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The beauty of these cities and this region never stops. The architecture and the planning of this city is amazing - Buda (the hilly side of town) on one bank of the Danube houses the royal stuff, while Pest (the flat side of town) is directly across the Danube and houses the business stuff. The multiple bridges crossing are nice, but standing on either side of the river affords you stunning views of the capital city. We visited the Castle District and Royal Palace (where Grey once again danced), strolled across the Chain Bridge to a square near the pedestrian areas, then toward Parliament and some of the most stunning government buildings I've ever seen, took a cruise along the Danube, found some great cheap eats along the side alleys in Pest, and had a delightful lunch (Andy, Zack, and I had some cold fruit soup - kind of like a soup smoothie - before downing some traditional Hungarian fare, while you guessed it, Grey, Jack, and Quinn found another Subway) along one of the many pedestrian ways through the city center.
The plazas, wide avenues approaching downtown Pest, and the architecture near (surrounding) some of the mineral baths were amazing. The boys tried bargaining for trinkets in small shops, and got a few gifts for home. As we re-approached the center of Pest, Quinn leaped every post he could find, often to the amazement of tourists toting video cameras (whether they were filming Quinn's exploits, or trying to catch a glimpse of Jack may be a matter of contention), while Zack, Grey and Andy delighted onlookers with their slapping games (again, pictures will have to serve as explanations). We think that "our" way of traveling will spread to others - a sort of cultural diffusion, courtesy of the Jersey Boys. Along some of the streets we saw reminders of WWII fighting as there are still marking on the facades of many of the buildings and there are multiple monuments to the people who made the city what it is/was.
Budapest food was good (goulash was not a favorite with this crew), but the hotel food left something to be desired, thus McDrive was kept in business, and thankfully was open until very late! There was a mall nearby with an indoor skating rink, a food court with all sorts of goodies, and a supermarket that reminded me of SuperWal-Mart and Costco combined. At this point, the Minnesota boys are with the Jersey boys nearly every moment, and that has made for some great times - everyone gets along really well and stories that would have gotten old suddenly have new audiences. We walked around quite a bit and got some great exercise covering ground in this capital city. We have gotten lucky with the weather and with the fact that the Minnesota boys are so easy to hang around with.
There wasn't a lot of English spoken here, so we had to be a bit more careful in our travels around the city, and we decided to hang around the hotel a little bit more - fortunately for the boys, there was a McDonald's (with a late night drive-in that the boys walked through quite often) and a supermarket right behind the hotel, which had its own bowling room. We bowled each night (a little competitiveness emerged, as those crazy youngsters from Minnesota thought they could stay with the Jersey boys) and then vegged (probably the wrong word considering that Big Macs aren't heavy on veggies, and we can't really can't french fried potatoes of McFlurrys as healthy foods) out at the hotel until falling asleep. The Jersey boys rose to the occasion each night, and well, there will be no gloating because one of the MN kids was amazing, especially compared to the rest of us. There was plenty of bonding in Budapest, and that left Quinn's potential future wife outside the loop (the romance is over, before it even began).
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