early Halloween?

Roxie loves Halloween. It's not a big celebration in Australia but she loves the scariness, ghosts, black of it all and the sweets of course! We had another big day today. In the morning Rox wanted to go to Rare Bears an indoor play centre. I have to say I really dislike these places. They have crap junky food and it's very noisy. The constant noise of vacuum cleaners blowing up the jumping castles and giant bouncy climbing castle. Anyway, not real fun for me and April didn't really get into it either but Rox loves it. In the afternoon April had a nap and Rox really wanted to play with the trains - we have a large collection of wooden Thomas the tank trains and tracks. She set up a track & wanted to make it scary & bumpity like the jungle train at the Vidám park (Amusement Park) in Budapest. She made some bumpy rock 'lions' and set them up with a dinosaur, some more rocks & I found an old zebra mask that we put a torch behind the eyes to light them up scarily. We found some old fake spiderweb, some plastic bugs... then she wanted it dark, so we pulled the curtains. Then she made a warning sign for the trains & asked me to write it. Which I did. Then Rox decided we needed to make costumes for the trains (!) & made this amazing frilled neck lizard outfit out of painted paper and tape for Thomas the Tank.  By this time April had woken up & was making something for Emily & painting Emily's face as well. Well, then Rox wanted to dress up as a witch complete with face paint & declared that she wanted it to be Halloween today. It was a massive creative constant play! Of course they didn't stop there. Daz got home & they went for a jump on the trampoline while I cleaned up the Trains' Halloween jungle scene! When I went out to the tramp Rox & April were all soaked as she'd been jumping & sliding on the rained-on wet tramp & was inspired to pour extra water onto it with her gumboot (very resourceful). So much fun! Then back inside to do playdough...Finally, I had to go to work playing at the Vodka Bar. I left when they were having dinner, finally deciding to chill out watching a Playschool dvd! Busy, busy! 

Tomorrow will be too. Bridie is coming over to play & then there's creative dance class. I love this life. It's intense, busy and fun! But it's now 4am!!! What am I doing up so late? 

sunny winter's day...

We had a great day today. First up Rox we went to Balance Gymnastics gym in Research for play gym. Basically Rox gets to play, climb and jump on all the equipment. Trampolines, foam pits, high beams, bars, ropes and hoops etc. Was a lot of fun and April loved it too. She was jumping into the foam pit with so much joy!

After that Rox requested mini pasties and I needed bread so we got some. Then I dropped Rox at Bridie's house for a play and took April home for a nap which she relished. I had time to lie in the sun with my computer and do a few 'work' calls. Very nice really. Rox got walked home by Bridie, Anne and Jasper and they'd brought along Squeak the guinea pig to visit. So Squeak has finally met Bluey the lizard. We get our guinea pigs soon too...!

Made a cauliflower timbale for dinner. And apple and pear crumble. YUM! Rox and April of course did their frequent evening concoction making but this time it was cake. Rox wanted to make a chocolate cake and they both did a version! Looks delicious but they went to sleep before it came out of the oven so tomorrow we will sample together... 

My 'stuff-we-do-at-home' slideshow of some fave pics

Find more photos like this on Radical Unschoolers Network

I Love these photos, some of them are really old ones from when Rox was around 2 and others are more recent. Another view of our little life here in Melbourne...

Thinking about our sleep and body clocks...

We've only just gotten over our jetlag and our body clocks have finally adjusted ro Aussie time. I had no idea it takes so long. All these things are highlighted with children. I'd never really noticed before because I'd just push through it but kids just don't work that way. (Well maybe some kids are forced to wake earlier to get ready for school on time etc. and forced to go to bed at 7pm which possibly suits only the parents so that the kids lie awake in bed not able to sleep for ages etc.! rant rant ...) but when you're really wanting to honour their natural rhythms and allow for body clocks to reset themselves it's a very different thing. It took Roxie about 2 weeks to be back on her personal diurnal rhythm of waking at 8-8:30am and going to bed at 9-9:30pm. Her timing is very strong. I love being aware of her rhythms, I love that Roxie is aware of her own rhythms! I love allowing her the space and time to get sleepy herself and she often says "I want ot go to bed now" so we'll tuck her in and read to her till she falls asleep. Rox came to a Stiletto Sisters concert on Saturday night - it started at 8pm (she loves coming to my gigs on her own) and finished late. By the time interval came along at about 9:15pm, she was pretty tired, lay down on the floor in the dressing room and promptly fell asleep. We'd set up the snoozy spot with her earlier so that she'd feel comfortable and warm and safe. She rarely stays up really late unless her body clock's been mucked up (like when we got back from overseas!) Darren and I were pulling our hair out thinking that t would never change that tehy'd be going to bed at 3am or 2am or 12am every night from now on but of course if we would've trusted the process and the girls a bit more we wouldn't saved ourselves some stress! I wish I would learn by now to just TRUST!!! I am able to allow things to unflod but I stress and worry that it won't...sooo crazy. I mean by now I ought to know better!
It's very interesting. April is the same although her clock is a bit different. She initially set her body quicker than Rox but went a bit back and forth with a little sniffle interfering too. She's back on track now too and is still needing her nap in the daytime.
Really to honor the sleep/wake times Darren and I just need to be aware, chill out and accept where we're at, watch things unfold and then aid the signals.
Tonight ROx and April got creative and busy, I made a bath at about 8:30pm and let everyone know that there was a bath ready if anyone felt like it. I washed dishes, Daz hung out with the girls while they continued with their activity. He went off to do some emails. Then just before 9pm Rox took herself off to have a bath, got out on her own and came out to where I was with April who was still concentrating on her project. (I was admiring April to myself tonight - she is incredibly skilled with scissors and drawing for a 2 year old and was very focused on her work and having a great time!) Rox asked me to come with her to read a story and put her to bed. Which I did. Not long after April came in wanting me to keep her company in the bath. So Daz took over Rox's story and I went with April. Rox asleep by 9:30 April asleep at 10:30. This is kinda late for April but she had to do her project! April often finds nightime a good time for work. Like me I guess! My body clock is all over the place. I'm still awake late at night often. I had to be in bed very early 6 or 7pm when I was little. I remember singing myself to sleep with my clown toy. I' wonder if that's got anything to do with it or whether I'm just a night owl... I'll continue this later...but just wanted to add this link too.Sleeping with Butterflies by Sarah Parent. It's a podcast about 'unschooling' sleep or simply following natural wake/sleep rhythms. You can listen online or download. A lot of her podcasts are great!

Remembering our Trip...

Have been reminiscing about our sojourn to Europe and realised that I didn't really write much about Prague. So I thought I might do a bit of that here now in retrospect...I'd love to have more pictures but I may just have to make another smilebox slideshow for each section of the journey! The girls and i enjoy looking at those every now adn then. The pics include one of the venue at the Waldstein gardens - soooo amazing and spectacular. More so in real life than pictures. I'd seen pictures before we went there, but on entering the gardens...wow. They are formal arranged gardens and i never would've thought it'd be something i'd like. Usually I'm more for the romantic natural forests and gardens...
I also very coincidentally caught up with an old friend of mine who is now living in Prague. Anezka Novak - who is a wonderful, creative and eccentric woman. She happened to walk up wih some friends of hers during our soundcheck in teh gardens. It was so unexpected for me to see anyone familiar that I nearly fell off my feet! We caught up for dinner with her on one of our last nights there which was so fun.

Going public?

I'm toying with the idea of going public with my blog.

I've just joined another 'unschoolers' social network and that's got me thinking about it, that is putting the address out there on my facebook and as part of my signature on personal emails. Basically letting people know about it, maybe even get some comments??...yeah why not? I just hope it doesn't make me change too much how and what I write! I still would like to keep this blog like a diary and venting place...for all sorts of stuff. Definitely a good thing for venting and grumping (though probably not so fun to read?)...also good for trying to sort out my stretched old brain and reminding me of the things we do...don't want to be editing for any 'just in case' someone doesn't like...

Mermaid

We had an amazing day yesterday although ended up being very energetic. Rox and April did some painting in the morning then Daz got home early in the afternoon on his study day and we decided to go to the pool. Rox really wanted to go to the pool because the night before in the bath she went underwater. bigtime. Which is amazing cause till now Rox has been quite fearful and cautious about putting her head right under the water and swimming under water. But in the bath with goggles on she just did it with great gusto and decided she wanted to try it in the pool. So off we went. Roxie was swimming underwater! She was jumping in, experimenting with floating and holding her breath. I was floored at how suddenly she just was able and so confident to do it. All on her own without us or anyone else 'teaching' her how to do it. Of course I ought to just expect that this sort of thing happens all the time but everytime something suddenly really comes into focus like that it really is astonishing. Especially out of season! That's very like Roxie!
It got me thinking too...she said to me as she was playing around with floating that she could never do that with her bubble and it felt unsafe... Why did we even bother with any kind of floatation device to aid swimming? I can't believe I actually took Rox to swimming lessons when she was 2! (didn't last long thank goodness - cause I thought the kids were treated crudely and insensitively, even with parents in attendence) It seems obvious now to just be with them, no parapharnalia (unless specifically asked for) until they decide to do their thing when they're absolutely ready. I think I'm going to leave the whole riding a bike thing alone now too. All Rox's homeschool friends are into riding, some on training wheels most are off them. I'm now realizing what I felt deep down that Rox will do it when she's ready. Training wheels feel really unsafe for Roxie. She doesn't trust them. She'll work out her own way of learning to ride. Then it'll be safe for her cause she'll design her own method.
It's tricky for ME not to feel pressured by others! Isn't that crazy. I go on about freedom and choice yet thwart Rox's slient choices because of mummy peer group pressure...gotta let go. gotta chill out. I'm learning all the time!

Back home!!!

Ahhh it's good to be home! We had an amazing trip. Except that rotten plane trip. Oh my how loooong is it? was very hard for the girls. Very hard for us! Still I guess a small price to pay for a phenomenal experience. I always learn sooo much when i travel. This time it was an incredible learning experience in Hungary with my family - Darren, Roxie, April and with my wonderful family in Kisvárda... They are so warm hearted, generous and kind but there are lots of cultural issues that have only become obvious to me now, this time with them and my kids! Very interesting! Things that were easy to cope with as me a student then adult visiting. Thinking a lot about cultural differences with regards to food, manners, gift giving, being a guest and how others deal with visitors...how one can maintain one's integrity to ones own ideals whilst also keeping in mind others differences and expectations...
But I'll have to continue this later. We're still awake at it's 1:30am. I think it'll take a few days to get back in sync with Aussie time. The girls wake up Hungarian time - for dinner! And we woke today at 3pm which is 6:30am! Very strange... I want to post a few more pics from Darren's camera at the gig in Prague and some other bits. There's also lots of little mini movies that I will try and stick on you tube or something like that and link to the blog...
goodnight for now!

NEW PHOTO SLIDESHOW!! scroll down...down...down!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I've put up a new smilebox slideshow for your amusement! The first slideshow I made can be found amongst the archives (scroll down to the bottom in June) I've just updated this Hungarian Adventures slideshow because one of the movies on the previous version was too long and boring! This version is shorter and with slightly better music (music choices for free Smilebox shows are hmmm... limited!)
I plan to put another slideshow up (cause they're fun to make), with the remaining bits from the trip and also another one from Prague. If you're interested in photos from the Prague Festival check out the Stiletto Sisters site which has a link to Flickr - Jo has put up a heap a pics from the concerts and afterwards but I have a few behind the scenes like one of Jo and me after the concert both breastfeeding our little ones. I love that pic. Roxie thought it seemed very peaceful...

Hungarian Adventures Smilebox Slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I have 2 of these that are similar, couldn't decide which I preferred. Hence both are here! This one's shorter....

Last day in Kisvárda

It's arrived already. The last day. We decided to go to the Nyiregyháza zoo. Get to catch up with Gabi one more time. It was pretty good. Nice day. Even saw some creatures I'd never seen close up before. 

Took us a while to get there Zsuzsi's car broke down on the highway, Rox wanted to buy the sme remote control helicopter that Levi had from Aldi and April some new paints so there was delay but once we got there it was fun. 

Got back to have another big meal. Chicken and vegetable soup, then homemade doughnuts with homemade apricot jam from home grown fruit! YUM!

Yesterday we went to Sonkád and Turisvándi. Both gorgeous, bucolic places with swimming areas. The first place was a flowing river the Túr, the second place was the site of an old mill (still there) and now a camping ground. It had a little swimming hole that was just so pretty. The girls jumped in straight away! We had some food there and beer. And got home very late. 

I have to apologise for being so brief on this post but it's very late again and I'm planning to post another smilebox slideshow and get some sleep before our drive back to Budapest. 

Dombrád, Tisza, graveyards...

Today we had  a quiet day at Zsuzsi's but not so quiet too..Another scary mealtime! with tension you could carve regarding Roxie's behaviour and fussing over her food...Poor Roxie. She's just being honest. She is very fussy with her food for whatever reason and everyone thinks we ought to have told her that she has to eat  what's in front of her or you get nothing, or, you can't have your mother bending over backwards to get you what you want..aaargghhh!!! 

Later that day though, was lovely. Once we finally escaped scary food rules. We went to see Dombrad. We went to see Csutoros Nagymama's grave. Roxie was gorgeous. She made a special garden there with flowers and grasses she picked and was quite reverent. It was very peaceful there. And the view from the top of the cemetery hill was indeed restful. A field of sunflowers to the right with rows of giant poplar trees. Acacia trees and meadows of wild flowers. A small village home roof. A church steeple. Blue sky. Suuny day. Really quite idyllic. From here we went to the Tisza river. Perfect for Roxie and April and the boys. A small dark sandy bank and lots of muddy shallow water to play in. My girls were naked and having a ball! Darren hopped in the water too. His undies were red and newish so he got away with it! Then we got icecream. And went to see the kis vasut and some old leftover carriages from the small train line opposite which was a little very old fashioned playground complete with traditional seesaw! Rox and Levi climbed high up an old chestnut tree. Then finally we went to see Feri bacsi's (Gyongyi's late husband)  grave. Different cemetery. Picked some wild chamomille flowers for him. Rox picked some flowers too. April made friend with some veyr young gypsy girls who then gave us some ornamental plums as a present. It was quite a beautiful and innocent gesture. Finally back to Gyongyi's house for dinner. Creamy Kohlrabi soup followed by apricot dumplings. YUM! April enjoyed it too. I had a brief gentle word to Rox before dinner and she managed much better so we'll keep working on it. Tomorrow we go to another place to play in the water - Szilard's suggestion. Although our hire car has a problem that needs looking at. Very boring and annoying since we're paying so much money for it... Ah Hungary...

Kisvárda adventures..

We had a lovely time yesterday. Szilard thought we should go to some thermal baths in Sárospatak. So we packed sandwiches and drove off. Szili, Gabi, Levente and Zsombor  in one car and us. Wasn't too far and a lovely drive to Sárospatak. We kept spotting lots of Stork nests (and stork families!) on top of electric wires, fields of glorious sunflowers, Akácfa (acacia tree) forests etc. it was quite lovely... arrived at the baths and had a great time in the water. 

There were about 7 or 8 different pools to choose from including a big slide and baby pool and very hot medicinal pools. I even got to have a proper swim! We were there all day in and out of the water. I'd blab to my cousins, then play with the kids in the water. Lots of fun! Had snacks of lángos again - the girls had palacsinta (pancakes) with chocolate... We got home late. Rox wanted more ice cream (her ice cream passion is way out there at the moment! - she's really desperate for lots of it...I think I know why. Will briefly mention later...) so we stopped at the local Tesco store to get some. It had started to storm and thunder just as we left the store. Again! Anway, we got back to Gyöngyi's place and of course she had prepared a huge Hungarian meal for us. Húsleves and chicken in sour cream sauce with galuska. And ice cream for dessert of course. Anyway it wa a fairly relaxing fun day. 

But we 've been having a problem. It's to do with food/manners thing. Roxie is having a really, really difficult time of the meal times. She doesn't like a lot on offer and certainly dislikes being mainpulated or talked into trying to eat what she doesn't want. Unfortunately it comes across as ungrateful, demanding, fussy, bratty, spoilt and wastful. I feel sad seeing Roxie in this position,  and I also don't like seeing our hosts feel that Roxie's ungracious because she's not but doesn't express herself hmmm...conventionally... I certainly don't relish defending myself and Roxie, but I do defend her.

The Hungarians are very forceful with the whole eating thing. You're a 'good' or 'clever' child if you eat your entire plate of food or if you try all the of variety of things on offer!!!!! This is awful for Roxie. I think her idea of hell perhaps! And she gets soo soo grumpy and impatient at the slightest hint of adult expectations that she feels she cannot fulfil (fair enough too!). There was also praise and lavish attention for April who happens to eat anything and is full of demonstrative love and connection. Roxie is defiant - she won't parrot the please and thank yous in Hungarian that everyone is suggesting she try as a way of 'learning' the language. I dont blame her. On the other hand I feel like we're not guiding her at all well or helping her navigate through this foreign, food/manners thing successfully at all. Darren and I have decided that at this stage we need to avoid the big meals by being more assertive about what we want to do. They'll probably be relieved not to have to cook if we say we're going out. We've also decided to make sure I word up Roxie about what's on offer and see if I can explain enough for her to understand the whole mealtime tradition...In a way it'd be much easier not staying in someone elses home. One can't completely relax. Especially the children. I could offer to cook a meal myself and purchase the ingredients to do it. Maybe I ought to make a risotto?? Or just tejbe griz for the kids?? Cheese toasties?? But they'd probably shoo me out of the kitchen and feel upset, almost insulted if I buy anything (which happened for breakfast bits!!!) "You're our guests! Let us cook for you!" It's lovely, but unbelievably hard for Rox. I think she's also really mssing her friends, familiar things and familiar communication

I've had headaches everyday here!!! I think it's the heat and speaking mixed languages (makes my brain swirl and squish!!) and possibly not enough water ( I'm working on that one...!)

The drive to Kisvárda

ARGHHHHH!! What do you do when your plans got awry because you get a really crappy baby seat in the hire car, and you've forgotten to bring the ipod connector for the car to play soothing music on, and there's no favorite car CD to play either to soothe the baby and the computer keeps sliding off. The ipod keeps crashing. April is screaming and so is Roxie!!!! And Darren is trying to drive on the totally opposite side of the road to what he's used to?? It was a really tough journey up to Kisvárda. When we finally arrived  it was lovely to see everyone. We dumped our stuff at Gyongyi nenis and went to see Zsuzsi's place. Wow. What an amazing garden with fresh vegies growing and fruit trees and raspberry bushes. Roxie was enchanted with picking raspberries off the bush and popping them into her mouth straight away, April was equally impressed with teh fresh peas that Gyuszko picked for her, opened up and she ate heaps of them. All very sweet and tasty. April was in her finest form, being very cute, and appealing to everyone!! She was giving hugs and kisses to everybody and obvioulsy relishing the attention of admiring adults and kids - even though they alll spoke Hungarian! Roxie was pretty quiet and contemplative. But said she loved the garden and relaxing on the swing seat with family all around her. Zsuzsi's kids are very sweet. Levente (7yrs) and Zsombor (10yrs). They got out a bottle of coke and mentos and showed us the classic geyser explosion that i'd been eager to try after seeing it on you tube! How funny that we should be seeing it here in this little village!!! Anyway, April was so impressed with the geyser - she talked about it to everyone excitedly for ages! Rox loved it too and ate the mentos aftewards with the boys. The we went inside to watch some Hungarian claymation from the 70's which the girls loved as well!  It was a lovely afternoon. Though Daz and I could see some 'issues' raising theirs little heads...

Better go to bed now. More later. I'ts getting late again!!!

Budapest day 5 - Vidám Park AGAIN!

So our final day in Budapest and what were we going to do. hmmmm. Well Roxie decided to choose her favorite pace of all the places we'd visited thus far. The Jungle Story Park section of the Amusement Park. April was equally keen to go there so we did. It great fun. The girls got to go on all their favorite rides and swings and sanpit and hand powered train as they wanted. It was another hot humid day. Threatening to downpour in the afternoon with thunder but strangely no rain. We went for cover when it got grey and thundered but went back to the play areas for more rides when it didn't rain. Well of course we had our favourite lángos and some pancakes when it started. The biggest thunder storm i've ever been caught in. It was quite late round 7pm. And it poured down. Bucketed like crazy!!! Torrential. Really!!!! Roxie was quite terrified - the thunder was very loud, very close. We were sheltering under the awning of the lángos stall. April was in her pram and promptly fell asleep to the sound of the violent rain! Rox was in Daz's arms. We waited it out. Took longer than the other storms. Was a big one. Eventually we were able to get going the rain eased the thunder left and we went quickly to the metro, then the tram. April was asleep for quite a while! It was good to get back to our apartment but we had a great time nonetheless. 

I'd also finally caught up with Zsuzsi on the phone and we'd decided to rent a car ( not a campervan as we originally had thought) and we'd been offered a place to sleep at Gyöngyi néni's house. So we thought we'd go with that. Thinking it'd be good to be with the family closely and to save some money on hiring a campervan and also not offend the family by saying no to their generous offer!  

Anyway, Darren and I had some packing to do that night and the following morning....

Budapest day 4 - Állatkert (Budapest Zoo)

Roxie was a excited about going to the zoo as to the Amusement Park. So off we went. It was another hot day. Ice creams and cold drinks day! Got to the zoo and I was amazed to see people feeding the animals. (with special pellets but still...) I found it fascinating but unpleasant at the same time to see a hippopotamus come up really, really close to people and open it's mouth WIDE to receive the food pellets. It reminded me a bit of old fashioned animal tricks in the circus. It was teh same with the giraffes. Amazing to see their black tongues so close up and have them licking a child's hand for pellets (not Roxie's by the way!) but also very sad. Such a wild animal - tame. For food. 

Anyway except for the uneasy feeling I had for this side of things the zoo was a fun place to visit Roxie loved it of course. The highlight for Roxie was the Guinea Pig city. Seemed like hundreds of guinea pigs in a very large area with a village of clay (?) model houses, cars, buildings and even a windmill for them to play in. Very eccentric! 

Roxie and April both had their faces painted Rox chose a Zebra and April a Tiger. It was a hot day and the zoo had set up these gates to walk through that sprayed water in very fine streams so that peoplecould cool down. IT was most refreshing and the girls loved getting cool and wet and mucky! There was also a very cool playground in the zoo and we stayed there till closing time. Ropes to climb, an amazing whale scultpture that squirted water for it's 'spout' at unexpected intervals...a fantastic boat style seing that al 3 of us could lie in, a flying fox and an enormous adventure climbing wooden plyaframe in the design of a pirate ship with lots of ropes, ladders and underground tubes...very funky! Finally at closing time we left for the metro homewards. It was another big and satisfying day.

Budapest Day 3 - A Romai Fürdö - The Roman Baths swimming complex (not really Roman!)

Day 3 was hot hot hot. 34 degrees. so we thought we'd brave it on the suburban train to a reccommended swimming pool complex. It was pretty easy to get there and it was a short gentle walk through an amazing oak tree lined path to the entrance of the pools. Wasn't expensive which was nice! It was huge. There were many pools. an absolutely enormous slide thing that was just too huge for Roxie to tackle, she's not too keen on water slides yet, although she loves the idea of them, she isn't quite ready to brave them!

We walked around for a while annoyingly looking for the lockers - had to ask  in the end - they weren't easy to find and were up a long flight of stairs so we rented a 'kabin' which was your old style changing cabin. It came in very handy later in teh afternoon when the rain poured down and the thunder rumbled!!

Roxie loved the pools and had a ball swimming without her bubble! April took a while to get used to the water and people, after she'd had a sandwich and some mummy time she was happy to splash about.  Anyway we had a big lunch of chunky hungarian food well I did anyway - i had kolbasz  ( sausage) with mustard and bread and beer. The girls had pizza and Daz had a hungarian burger and beer! I took April for a walk after lunch as she needed a nap so once she was asleep I went in the water with Roxie to have a bit of fun with her. Darren was sitting with April sleeping in the pram but kept giving me looks about the sky and the weather. So I gently mentioned to Roxie that it may start thundering and raining soon and perhaps we ought to get out of the water. Almost the moment after we stepped out of the water it started pouring down. We were on our way to the cabin which the lady opened for us and told us to stay there until the storm had stopped. Poor Roxie was really having to deal with her thunder fears. We've had storms EVERY afternoon! Almost at the same time too. She still panicks wildly and needs to be cuddling very close to either me or Darren. April is fine about it but not so happy about the rain. She gets concerned about tables and things getting wet??!! Anyway once it stops it stops. So we were able to get changed and head off home on the train. I suggested that it might be nice to walk to the Chain Bridge for a bit of sightseeing. Turned out to be a bad idea. It was amazing walking towards the bridge and seeing the Danube totally flooded but by the time we got the the Pest side of the bridge the girls were hungry and tired and we were at the expensive side of town so Darren was not keen to sit in a big hotel and pay huge amounts for food. I thought we should jsut get an ice cream fo the girls which we did but it was much pricier. And we both got cross with each other...oh dear...anyway then I remembered a playground nearby and we were all able to chill out there. Got home eventually on the metro. Was another BIG day. And Roxie was very keen to go to the Zoo the following day....so ...to bed!

Prague to Budapest 'Smilebox' mini slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I haven't written in a few days, but thought i'd put this little experiment up here. Just a few more pics of our adventures. I'm interested in getting some feedback on this smilebox approach. You like it? or is flickr ok? I am yet to write on day 4 (the Budapest Zoo) and day 5 (Amusement Park, again!)  It's getting very late now and we have to get up early to pack and drive up to Kisvárda. But I want to write briefly before I forget details! Goodnight.

Budapest Day 2 - Margit Sziget

The island today. Hot and sunny... Rox and April were both keen to visit the petting zoo on the Margit Sziget. April fell asleep before we got there but Rox certainly enjoyed it. She fed a spotted deer (doe) and some ponies and we saw some golya (storks). We had lunch at an expensive touristy place. It was ok. But i think i preferred the langos i had yesterday at the Vidam park!! We went there only because we'd run out of forints and wanted to pay by credit card. The Somloi Galuska I had for dessert was yum as was Rox and April's icecream...

After lunch we headed for the playground recommended in the Benjamin book. We spent ages here. It did start to thunder at about 5pm again and rain a bit. Roxie got upset and worried again and as we started back towards our apartment the strom cleared quickly and we were able to stay on the island and admire the music fountain. The girls loved it and had a nice time dancing and getting a bit wet by the huge fountain! Then we went back to the playground till about 8pm! Rox got this amazing game going in the sand pit - she decided to make Margaret island and Buda and Pest with the river and flooding etc etc. It was beautiful and she involved a curious little Hungarian child too. We all had a great time! Came back home for a bite of pasta.

 Tonight Daz and I are facing decisions about how to deal with the trip home and getting to Kisvarda. How we get to and from Kisvarda will impact on how our homeward flights will work so we need ot start considering it all now... tomorrow we haven't worked out what to do yet...Its going to be 34 degrees hot and sunny so a visit to a pool would probably be a great thing! Széchényi or Romaifürdö the destination I think!