The Steussy Ranch

This little 250cc motorcycle belongs to my brother-in-law, Attila. He’s offered to let me use it while I’m in town. This Sunday (March 30) was the first day I got to use it.

Rainy day visit to Szentendre, an touristy/artsy village north of Budapest. Think Carmel, California or Woodstock, New York and you’re not far off. Train trip to the city, meet friends, walk a bit to the Danube, pizza, beer, walk to a cute café, coffee, desserts then back to Budapest.

Photo above is off the internet, since all of mine had smirking kids and dark clouds. Funny thing – the horse and carriage were there today for us as well. Camilla was brave enough to pet the horse. Dan-dan wasn’t. Aaron was asleep.

When I first imagined our time in Budapest, I thought it would be hardship, expense, dense language study and long nights working for my business all in the name of an occasional twenty minute break to sit at in an open street cafe, sipping coffee/beer/wine in the sun and saying, “Dang, I’m in Europe.” Today was one of those twenty minute days.

Gabi and I walked out of the apartment with no destination except to look at restaurants and take the best-looking one for lunch today. We walked to a pedestrian street (Vaci Utca) three short blocks away. The photos above show the street and one pub we stopped in front of. If you look in the distance, at the end of the street is the enclosed Farmers’ Market that we took Dan-dan and Camilla to our first week here (and wrote about on the blog).

We ended up at a Thai restaurant that Gabi had been to eleven years ago. Great food! And we stopped at an open street cafe for coffees and dessert. Sumptuous!

“Your 20 minutes are over! Back to work!”

While I was in Gyula, I borrowed Monika’s bicycle and went riding to Romania. Gyula is a border town, so it was a very short ride. I went through the border town on the other side and rode around for about an hour. I took a few photos below.

If you have seen the movie Borat, you should note that the impoverished sequences showing Kazakhstan were actually photographed in Romania. I could see why. Below was a horse cart I passed outside of town which was clearly still being used as functional transportation.

Let me check my watch here. Yes, it is the twenty-first century.