Budapest!

the other weekend i joined my parents for quick break in Budapest, arriving 1am thanks to ryanair, had a cooshy sleep in my parents hotel and woke up to cloudy budapest. but first! some real canoli made it all the way from sicily, wait no, just rome in my suitcase! a taste of italy  before eating everything else in hungary!

they have many very cool sculptures

twins basil!

this is a window inside the church that was next to our  apartment

there was a mass on when we went inside

and this cutie was running up and down the aisle

and this is the view of our apartment from the top of the church. our apartment was the building in the middle of the photo, our apartment was 2nd floor, the 3 windows in the middle

it was thiiis big

and this is inside the dome of the church, very technical

riding the hop on bus and jamming to the awesome background music!

quite an dramatic sculptor who created this  angel

the lovely couple

there are even statues of dogs

hungarians are great striders

they have amazing buildings

spot the dad!

coloured tiles

mosaics in the baths, the hot baths we went to were in a neoclassical style hotel, gorgeous building, rude people. we got a 3 course meal and bath ticket, except you eat first then roll around the bath house in the maze of changerooms and rude hungarians looking for a bath. the hygeine part freaked me out a bit, all those people, only so much water...

very cute bar in a market on the piazza had some good hot chocolate and mulled wine. except we were speculating what they do with the food... the next day the lady we were buying bags from violently protested when we said we were just going to think about it over some lunch because... they just leave the food there, in these big woks, open. overnight and reheat it the next day.. and noone knows how old it is... 

i am the icecream

dad and i on the hop on hop off

spot me!

im hanging with the giants

great mixture of architecture

yummy sweet treats

the great market hall

think deep fried pizza with sweet topping of your choice, now you see a langos..

now you dont! my mom had this treat down in her list of things to do in budapest, tick!

building built for the houses of parliment, what a palace!

each bridge has a different style

this one was designed by the Eiffel group, the same people who designed the Eiffel tower

the caramelized nut

our awesome apartment all to ourselves and in the centre of budapest looking onto a busy square and  the giant church we were on top of in the other photos. it was like 20euro a person a night! i was impressed, if you ever need accomodation in budapest look up Pals hostel. they aown a group of private apartments and our was fantastic, we just wanted to stay inside!

more beautiful decoration

asking for directions

playing with the cats

a castel and in the winter there is a massive iceskating rink around it! how magical

a giant pretzel monster!

and finally we collapsed in the cat cafe. that is a cafe where you play with the cats!  i think its great, and so did lots of other tourists! had a great time in budapest with the parents, we could have been anywhere it was just great to see them. until the next trip!

February from Francescos new camera

so this is february from Francescos perspective because for his birthday i gave him an expensive canon camera and am forcing him to use it as often as possible to settle my mental debt, i still start sweating when i think about it. AAnyway... this is at an art exhibition. even though we live in a shoebox, at least its a shoebox in a fantastic location, almost in the centre of rome. and a 5min walk from one of the biggest galleries in rome Macro Testaccio, aaaaand most of its halls are free! yeah! bonus so this is an exhibition that was very interesting and Tron-like. can you guess what this wall is made of? but better yet can you guess what the orange light is?

this is also on at the Macro, its called the big bamboo. its up for about 6months and you can walk up inside it. it is incredible

so this is it from the outside, a towering organic mass of bamboo. from far away it looks like theyre going to burn down the gallery and are starting with this big bonfire!

lots and lots of work went into this

there is even a small stage and seats constructed around

did you guess yet what these are?

theyre plugs!! all plugged into one another and at the end is the switches making a tron like stripe

we went to an american chain restaurant for sunday all you can eat ribs. they were pretty good. except for the sauce frank says. but for snacks they gave u this HUGE bucket of peanuts, blergh. this is francesco trying to describe how he looks when he eats nuts, before he dies...

yup its still cold in rome you lucky sa buggers!

this is when we went to Terni to visit Raffaella

up close and personal with an altar piece

franks dog nichname 'polpetta' meaning- meatball. looks like maaa sheep to me

valentines day came and went without much fuss

present for frank in favourite soccer team

presents for work colleagues. cute poh bear biscuits. to see more see this blog post on them here:  valentines day biscuits

driving in me car da da da daaaada, oh ya right

im driving on the  train da da da daa

this is his sophisticated look

digging biscuits at the moment

this is the come to italy or il call all my mafia friends on your ass look

im hypnotising you look

sausage festival.. thats the town on the mountain in the background

and the town above which is very cute

although frank can take some freaky shots of normal looking things. like little blairwitch kids are running around here

theres one now!

after we had a complimentary minibus ride up the hill to the town and expressedly telling the idiot driver that we would need a ride back. he was nowhere to be found. so we walked down the mountain back to the festival which was pumping by the evening

photo bomb bomb photo bomb bomb photo bomb boooomb. we didnt win anything from the draw, could have won a scooter or bicycle but we didnt. we just ate sausage ciao for now