Halloween

It was a low key Halloween for the Dunn family this year. Eliot's Monday playgroup had a party so I dressed him as an Irish football player. One of the moms said to me, "Oh, he's a rugby player. Are you Irish?" So, it was good someone realized that he was in a costume. Then I explained that while my husband is of Irish heritage, the reason Eliot has so much Ireland gear is that Aer Lingus lost my husband's luggage and gave him money to spend at the Dublin airport. I thought he was a very cute rugby player.
Daddy and Eliot.
Eliot turning his chairs into a train which I was shortly requested to ride. Getting on the back car was a bit tricky but I managed. He invented this game all by himself. Maybe they do it at school?
Snuggling.

It's been a crazy week of meeting deadlines and regrouping from two weekends on the road. More blog posts about our fun visit with Carol and Pat coming this weekend.

Eliot playing

Here is a video of Eliot enjoying the playground at Mechelen.

Rouge Cloitre/Foret de Soignes

Another in-Brussels destination for us this weekend was the Foret de Soignes. Its a heavily-wooded area on the southern side of Brussels. The fall colors were beautiful and the weather was great for a walk. Eliot still likes to ride in the backpack!


Eliot likes to look at things, including fall colors, upside down.

Simonis neighborhood

This weekend we mostly hung out in and around Brussels. We went to this neighborhood in Brussels called Simonis one afternoon. It was foggy. The main attraction in this neighborhood is this giant cathedral. We walked through the park which was very nice. Somehow we forgot the stroller so our arms got a good workout! The cathedral itself was atop a hill and offered good views of the surroundings. The neighborhood was very different than where we live. Much more urban. We did not actually go in the cathedral - too close to dinner time and Eliot was hungry!

Nice fall colors.

Park in Mechelen

On Saturday we went to a town near here called Mechelen. In Chicago, any town this close would be considered a suburb. Not here. Mechelen is its own town with a big cathedral, its own grand market square, etc. We focused our time there on this park, which had a great playground and mini-zoo. I loved the wooded setting and all the changing leaves.

Here are Chris and Eliot hanging out.
Eliot looks expectantly at Chris to join him in the play structure.
Eliot flies an airplane!
Eliot befriends a donkey in the mini-zoo.

Eliot rows the boat

This is from August. I promised I'd post a video of Eliot rowing the boat, and here it is....
During the video, ELiot notices a small scratch on Chris's knee and goes to inspect the ouchie.

Video available

I finally got around to joining YouTube.


Here are two videos of Eliot at a horseshow. Very cute!


In this video, Eliot says his word for horse, Auck, between seconds 3 and 5.

Cute photos of Eliot in Budapest

I focused a lot on the sights of Budapest in my postings but of course Eliot again proved himself a delightful travel companion on this trip. His curiosity and enthusiasm make us appreciate all the details of our destinations. Here he is thoughtfully reading on the train to Esztergom.
Eliot liked these flowers at the base of a statue in Ersztergom.
Eliot and I outside the castle in Budapest.
Eliot among leaves in a Budapest park.

More in the web album.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jenmbdunn/Budapest#

Day Four in Budapest: Pest and the Jewish Quarter

We took the oldest underground subway line in Europe to a big park where Eliot played on a playground. Then we walked over to this castle, which is now a museum of agriculture in Hungary. We skipped the inside and enjoyed the outside.
Great statue in Hero's square. The tomb of the unknown soldier is just below the statue. It is guarded by Hungarian soldiers in military dress. There were many, many tourists in this square - most of them American.
Memorials outside the terror museum, housed in the former secret police headquarters. A nearby computer had information about each of the people on the wall and the heroic things they did to try and improve the situation in their country.
The main synagogue in Budapest - and the largest in Europe. It was beautiful and hard to imagine the Nazis had turned it into a stable/radio station combination during their occupation of Budapest.

All-in-all we got a great combination of culture, history, scenery, and food during our trip to Budapest. It's unlikely we'll go back this year, but we hope to make it back to Hungary some time in the future - there's a lot more to explore.

Day 2: The Spa and Pest

I posted days two and three out of order. We don't have many photos from Day 2 because it was raining! We spent the morning at a spa. One of the oldest in the city, it was an Art Deco design. It was located at the foot of the hill in this photo. We took a tram to get there and on the tram there was an older woman who befriended Eliot. He was interested in her hat and she showed it to him and talked about it (in Hungarian). When I was getting off the train at the end of the line, she reached up to help Eliot and I down. At the spa, we spent all of our time in the area for both men and women which had a warm pool and a cold pool that got bubbly from time to time. There were separate areas with hotter pools for men and women, but they were too hot for Eliot. It was a great atmosphere for relaxing. When we left the spa, the rain had departed.

We headed back to the hotel for Eliot to get a good nap. Chris and I, it turned out, were very tired, too, and we all slept! When we woke up it was about time for dinner. We ate at another very friendly place with great vegetarian options. My favorite were the potato pancakes. The waitress made friends with Eliot, teasing him in Hungarian. The restaurant was right across the street from a Liszt academy and there was piano music filtering into the night from the building. Musicians with cellos and other instruments were standing on the sidewalk talking.
We walked past St. Stephen's Basilica on the way back to the hotel - all lit up and beautiful.
We took some photos across the river of Castle Hill at night. Fairy tale.

Budapest Day Three: Journey to Esztergom

We took a day trip to a nearby town, Esztergom, on Day Two, which dawned bright and beautiful. After missing the first train by about a minute, mainly because of a very kind woman who was totally wrong about where the train would be, we got on the next train and headed off on the 1.5 hour trip. The train ride took us through some lovely countryside (check out photos in web album).

We arrived and hiked (30 min or so) into town and found great lunch at a nice bakery. Then we headed for our main destination, the cathedral at left. We had to go up a big hill to get there. Kudos to Chris for his perserverance with the stroller. The cathedral and castle ruins were beautiful.
Inside the cathedral, which has been the seat of Roman Catholocism in Hungary for a long time. It was very pretty and Eliot appreciated all the baby statues as is usual in churches for him.
Chris took the stairs up to the cathedral's cupola. Across the Danube is Slovakia. Note the tenuous chicken wire entrusted with holding back falling people....
In case you are wondering what a town in Slovakia is like, here is the town just over the river from Esztergom. It was a pleasant small town - all shops closed since it was Sunday. Slovakia was Eliot's 10th country!

Day One in Budapest: Buda

We flew Malev airlines to Budapest last Friday. Didn't know what to expect with the Hungarian airline - but it was excellent! A real meal! Nice flight attendants! We arrived and took a shuttle bus to our hotel, the Budapest Marriott, which we got thanks to Expedia. We quickly headed out to see one side of the city - Buda. (Budapest is actually a union of three cities, Buda, Pest, and OBuda.) We crossed the famous chain bridge (see first photo) then took a funicular (Eliot very excited) up to Buda's scenic castle hill.
Chris and Eliot just after getting off funicular.
This is a statue of Hungary's King Stephen in an area known as the Fisherman's Bastion that had great views of the other side of the river, Pest.
It had many quaint streets like this one, too. It made for a very nice stroll. We walked back down Castle Hill and immediately found a playground where Eliot played with a Hungarian boy who was a bit older than Eliot. Then we eventually found a great restaurant to eat at. It had been open since around 1900 and the staff was very friendly. There were a pianist and violinist who played for Eliot, with the violinist showing Eliot the instrument. Eliot liked it! Back at the hotel, we all fell asleep after a great first day in Budapest!

I'll post one entry for each of our four days in Budapest. Many more pictures are in our web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/jenmbdunn/Budapest#

Eventually I'll get the slideshow up and running, too.

Budapest Teaser

We returned from a trip to Budapest on Monday evening. We had a great time. Here are a few photos - I will be posting an album and more photos in the next few days.

Tram and view of Buda side of Budapest.
Eliot and I on funicular to Castle Hill
Chris and Eliot contemplate Hungarian Parliament in afternoon sun.



Castle in the city proper.