Hereos Square Horse Racing

 Budapest has this awesome horse race that is built on a normally concrete, giant plaza.  It was constructed in about 2 days and taken down even faster than that.  It was crazy!  Ava, being the horse lover that she is these days loved it.  It was conveniently located only 2 blocks from our house - so we attended the festivities several times throughout the weekend.  What a fun, VERY different experience.

Zsofi!

Zsofi was our amazing, amazing, amazing nanny for Arlo in Budapest.  How cute is she? She has got this job down - from the minute she stepped into the house, Arlo loved her.  He was happy to go with her everyday and it is clear she enjoyed him as well.  Any family who gets to work with Zsofi in the future is extremely lucky.  We will definitely keep in touch and hope to see her again sometime, somewhere!

Our beautiful Budapest house

Our Budapest house was once in Elle Decor magazine, so we figured it was going to be pretty amazing.  It lived up to its reputation.  We loved staying here and could have stayed for much longer. It felt so easy, so comfortable, so much like...home!  The owners are a Hungarian man and American woman who now live in Buenos Aires with their 2 children.  They seem to have the wanderlust that we have...and should we ever be in the same city, I bet we would get along very well. I am so happy they shared their beautiful home with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cutest friends

Ava and Laura were such cute best friends when we lived in Prague three years ago and it was like no time had passed.  They immediately started playing with each other and laughing and having the best time. We had a wonderful day with the Cummins family (we love them - so easy to talk to for hours on end) - first a 4-hour brunch with lots of wine and champagne (with a kids play area that had a babysitter - score!  I love Prague for this very reason), then another play area in the shopping center while the adults continued to chat.  Play areas really need to be built around the world.

Having a little brother is the coolest.

Back to Prague

Since we were so close in Budapest, we had to make a trip to Prague to reminisce and meet up with freinds.  We took the overnight train, which Ava and Arlo both loved.  I can't I LOVE it, but it makes me happy that they love it.  You don't sleep a ton (well, they did, but not the adults so much).  We went to see the old neighborhood and ate at all of our favorite places.  We met up with Jana several times and had a lovely day with the Cummins family as well. It was good to go back...and it has actually changed a bit in 3 years!

The old apartment

The old playground

Beautiful

Bar and Books

 When we lived in Prague in 2011, we lived around the corner from Manesova Bar & Books - a cool, mellow bar with good cocktails and bar snacks.  It was a very smoooooth place.  That is the best way to describe it.  We always wondered if there really was a New York bar, as the sign suggested.  Well, when we were just in NYC staying on the Upper East Side for Labor Day weekend, we walked past the Bay & Books New York.  How crazy is that?  Out of all of Manhattan, we happened to walk by it and guess what...it was right around the corner from our hotel.  So weird.

Just a few weeks later....we found ourselves in Prague again to visit and reminisce and there it was again. Bar and Books.

Beautiful Szechenyi Baths in Budapest