Balassagyarmat

From Bratislava, we took a train to Vác where Krisztina picked us up for a quick visit with her and the kids.


We went out to a local festival to watch some live music and eat cotton candy.


We took a ferry to Visegrád where we rode the bobsled, had a delicious fried fish picnic, ate more cotton candy, and hiked up to the top of the hill for a beautiful view.


On the last night, we taught Bogi how to make her own pizzas :)


Many thanks to Krisztina for taking time out of her very busy schedule and treating us to such a lovely weekend!

Weekend with the Kisses

We spent a long weekend in Balassagyarmat, Hungary, visiting our friends Peter, Krisztina, Bogi and Balasz.  Peter and Bogi picked us up from the Budapest airport in our favourite Kiss-mobile.


We helped Peter finalize the website for his new kitesurfing school in Sri Lanka (http://www.surfpoint-srilanka.com) and when the kids returned home from school, we went on a really cool semi-private tour at the local zoo.


The next day, we drove to Slovakia for a day of skiing.  It’s been well over 6 years since we’d been out to the mountains for skiing/boarding, but we took it easy and had lots of fun (despite a little rain and fog). 


On our way home, we stopped at a cozy restaurant near the Hungarian border for a really delicious meal, for less than 5 Euros.


On our last day, Peter’s dad invited us over to try some traditional Hungarian cuisine for lunch - bean soup and goulash made from stomach lining.  We really enjoyed it, especially the bean soup!


Krisztina and Bogi drove us back to Budapest where we visited a few sites in Buda and Pest before saying good bye.  We were sad, but hopefully we will see them in Sri Lanka this summer.  


Before heading to our hotel for a short nap (before our early morning flight), we stopped to check out an eclectic and funky bar called Simple Kert, for a pint of cider.


During our visit, Dom went on a sausage shopping spree after discovering all kinds of delicious Hungarian sausage.  We must have brought around 10 huge sausages back to London with us :)

Hungarian Easter

Since we were working in London, we decided to fly to Hungary for Easter break, to visit our friends Peter, Krisztina, Bogi, and their new son Balázs.  Unfortunately for us (and our friends), we both came down with a really bad flu just as we were leaving London so we ended up spending almost the full 4 days in bed!  :( :(.

Lucky for us, they took really great care of us.  We still manage to do a few small outings while we were there, including going across the border to Slovakia for dinner!


On our last day, we regained enough strength to visit a typical northern Hungarian village.  During Easter, there is a fun old tradition here, where guys go around town throwing water at the girls, so the girls all got splashed :)