9.18.2007

we've arrived!

the first challenge with posting to the blog from a foreign country is that when i pull up the website it's all in hungarian! not the words that i type, but all the navagation/edit words are in hungarian! i can't even give you a sample b/c i don't have the letters on my keyboard and i'm having trouble copying and pasting. even spell check tells me everything is misspelled! too funny. anyway, we made it to budapest! all 10 pieces of checked luggage and 3 carry-on bags... it was a long haul with a small toddler who decided to start saying the word "no" on the airplane. yeah she did. plain as day, "NO!" we have already come to hear it a lot. she has been quite the trooper though and she is a big hit with the hungarians. everyone likes to say hi to her.(since she had her own seat on the plane we made a little palate on the floor for her to sleep on. it worked out quite well. in this picture she is drinking her milk and watching some cartoons on the portable digital player they gave us.)
we are all adjusting to the time change pretty well. last night i slept the longest, 11.5 hours. reese slept about 10.5 and matt about 9. i was the one that didn't sleep but maybe an hour or two on the planes over. we don't feel like we got to enjoy business class to the full extent that we could have without reesey boo, but of course i wouldn't change it for the world! i did enjoy the extra room though and the service was very good.

we explored a little today. we walked down to the danube (danu in hungarian) river, found a great park with lots of moms and strollers (good for me + reese), got some more forints out of the atm and went to the food market. we aren't exactly sure what all we bought, but our hungarian-english dictionaries are already coming in handy. we also learned that you need to bring your own bags for your groceries. thankfully we had enough room in the stroller and the diaper bag.

our hotel is nice. it's nice to have 2 bedrooms. the above picture is reese's favorite spot so far...walking out onto the balcony by herself. it has a big step to go over and she can do it by herself. we don't have any a/c so we have the windows open a lot...not something texans are used to. thankfully it's about 60 degrees out, so it's nice and cool.
we checked out the metro and took it over to oktogon square which is along andrassy ut. ut means road and utca means street. i've learned one small thing. :) it's a pretty tree lined street with lots of shops. probably a more touristy area. we stopped at a little cafe for a beer this evening to get out of the sprinkling rain and then we came home and actually made dinner. we are a little tired of eating out so much.





so far so good! thanks for all the prayers!



11 comments:

Sarah Hazel said...

Yipee!

Sara Carolina said...

wow! already making dinner! so glad you made it. can't believe reese picked up "no" just in time. isa has been asking about all 3 of you a lot - but mainly about reesey-boo. she now says y'all are in budapest (of course having no idea what that really means).

gram said...

your journey has begun. remember to learn something new everyday and enjoy every minute. we miss you.

Mario and Andrea Rodriguez said...

I am so impressed that you have posted already AND explored your new city so soon! Y'all are so cool.

Julie & Jack Perry said...

you are out of this world - cooking, posting, cruising the town. have fun! we miss you!

sol said...

courage, patience, and wisdom. I hope God gives you buckets of it every day.

thanks for sharing your new knowledge. keep it coming. we love you all!

(i wonder if you can read our posts to you..)

jessica said...

i'm so glad that you made it safely! i've been checking the blog daily. we're thinking of you!

the dowiaks said...

thanks everyone for all the comments! it's very sweet of you to be checking on me. i'll keep the posts coming if you keep the comments coming. :)

Teri said...

I can't believe you are there! & I'm also impressed at how you are cooking dinner already...but I bet it makes it feel more like you are "home". That is very "green" that you have to bring your own grocery bags. "Us" Americans could learn a thing or two from "you" Hungarians!

Lori said...

I'm glad to hear that you had a safe flight and have began to settle in. Take lots of pictures and keep posting. I can't wait to see the sites.

Sarah said...

So glad you guys made it over there ok! I'm so jealous, although I'm sure you guys are exhausted. Reese's hair is too cute!