We were so excited to welcome our first official visitors to Budapest on Thursday, Joe & Lacey McCabe. Joe and Kyle met our freshman year at Texas A&M and lived together off and on throughout college. He was also a groomsman in our wedding. Joe & Lacey live in Austin, TX and are seasoned European travelers. They had already visited Budapest once 7 years ago, but returned to see us after a family trip to Ireland.
Unfortunately, the beautiful weather we had been having disappeared when they arrived (they brought the rain with them from Dublin). However, we were lucky enough to get spurts of sightseeing in. When the rain started we played lots of Wii (Caden created a "Joe" Mii) and promptly beat Joe in tennis and baseball a few times! Don't worry, Joe got better and returned the favor by beating Kyle at Tiger Woods golf.
We toured St. Stephen's Basilica and climbed the 364 stairs to the top of the dome to enjoy the views. It was quite windy at the top! We then continued our walk through the city to Parliament, across the Chain Bridge, up the Castle Hill Funicular, and into the Castle District. Then the rain started, but not before we enjoyed two kurtoskalacs - Joe's favorite part of the trip! We spent the evening at Goa Cafe in the city for dinner enjoying a few martinis and yummy food.
On Saturday we drove out to Memento Park which features 42 politically themed statues from the Communist era. There are many famous statues including Stalin's boots (the rest of the 8 meter statue was pulled down on October 23, 1956), Liberation monuments and Worker's Union monuments. Again, we were able to take most of it in before the rain...
We spent our last night together at a pizza place up the hill and topped off our meal with a stop to Caden's favorite ice cream place, Szamos Marcipan.
We are so grateful to Joe & Lacey for coming to visit us. Familiar faces and friends are such a welcome sight! Caden and Reese loved having them as well. Thanks to you both for all the play time and extra hands!
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