The time (two months) has gone by incredibly fast, but we feel like we've seen and learned and experienced a lot, though of course there's always much more to see and do. We'll miss Budapest, but we're both glad that, before too long, we'll be back in our natural habitat.
We've had an event-filled few days, as we've showed Uncle Pat some of our favorite sights and discovered some new ones. Here are some highlights ...
Devin and I had a father-daughter day on Saturday. We found a playground we hadn't been to yet (Szent Istvan Park), in this kids' travel book I found recently called "Benjamin in Budapest". It's got everything a kid would want to do in Budapest. (I've become an appreciator of European playgrounds, which are much more interesting and much more respectful of kids' abilities than almost any I've seen in NYC. It probably helps that you can't get very far with lawsuits here.)
Anyway, Szent Istvan (St. Stephen) was not one of the most exciting playgrounds I've seen here, but Devin was happy as a clam with her pail and shovel in the sand for more than an hour. It's nice and different to be with her one-on-one. There's nothing you can do but focus on each other. Margaret is often Devin's preferred playmate when the three of us are together, and I probably don't work hard enough to engage her imagination.
After about 90 minutes, Devin had to go to the bathroom so we stopped into this lovely upscale cafe across the street, plunked down our sandy implements at a table, went to the bathroom and then returned for some tea, and apple juice and pastry.
Here's a little video interlude from Devin ruminating on my teapot ...
After a little more playground exploration, we braved a brief rain shower and headed toward our favorite taco place, Arriba Taqueria, which we discovered early in our stay here. Devin devoured a shredded pork taco with cheese and corn.
Then we headed home to let Margaret know what we were up to before heading to the Natural History Museum (another attraction we learned about in the Benjamin Book). Devin wanted to see the Noah's Ark exhibit, which included real (that is, dead) stuffed animals. So we headed off to a nearby, but as yet unexplored part of the city, to see that exhibit. But the way to the exhibit included a walk through a rather dark hall with aquariums and a see-through glass floor with specimens of ancient sea life. This kind of freaked Devin out and we never made it to Noah's Ark, but she was a sport and "let me see," as she told Margaret later, a terrific photo exhibit in a large room near the entrance, about China. I really wanted her to see the Ark and friendly, English-speakig museum aide tried to help me convince her that it wasn't scary. But after a bit, I realized that it was indeed scary to Devin, for whatever reason, and I couldn't make it unscary. So I picked Devin up and talked to her about each of the China photos and she asked me questions about some of them. And then we sat down for Sprite and apple juice in the museum cafe and then got a dinosaur, a Quartz pendant, and some Quartz earrings for Margaret in honor of Hungarian Mother's Day.
I'd love to write more now, including a report on our fascinating Hammer and Sickle Communist Walking Tour today, but that will have to wait. It's late and my fingers aren't cooperating, so I'll just leave you for the time being with this photo from our return to the great slide playground on Gellert Hill in Buda yesterday. We went there several weeks ago, and reading about it in the Benjamin book reminded Devin that she wanted to go again (and you can see why).
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