Coming Home!

December 24, 2015

1:00 a.m.

Rachel finally made it into Salt Lake City after only a few flight delays.  We were so happy to see her!  

 It was a girl's night out at the airport in the middle of the night!

 We spent the night at Sheldon and Angie's home in Farmington since Brendan had one more radiation treatment to undergo before we headed home for the Christmas break.  Rachel was told not to wake up Brendan since he had to be up early.  But Brendan heard her come in and jumped up to give her a big hug!  Then we tucked him back into bed, put Rachel down and tried to get a few hours sleep before we headed home.

Shaun took Brendan to his early morning radiation treatment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute while we packed up at Sheldon's.  We met up with Shaun and Brendan in Brigham City for breakfast.  Here is where Rachel saw her dad for the first time since September!

 We enjoyed breakfast while listening to Rachel's experiences in the Czech Republic.

 It was good to finally be home -- all together as a family for the first time since Brendan was diagnosed with cancer.  Having Rachel back made everything complete!

Vienna from Inside My Head

"Hey, let's sit on a bus for 12 hours overnight, go to Venice for 12 hours, then go back overnight on the bus! It will be fun!"

"Oh look, it's supposed to rain all day. I'm sure it won't be that bad. It's Italy."

"Well, it's raining, but it's not that cold...yet..."

"Fish markets. Lovely. Ooohh, they're still alive..."

"Pigeons are just winged rats. And you don't see people feeding rats, do you?"

"It can't keep raining like this. It's gotta let up soon." 

"When did they say lunch time was?" 

"How is it still raining this hard??!!"

"That puddle appeared out of nowhere."

"Art, old basilicas, and palaces versus pizza and no rain...."

"St. Mark's Square. That's nice. Can we eat lunch yet?"

"Mrs. Morgan would be ashamed of me."

"I just ate that whole pizza. And enjoyed it."

"Gelato?? Yes!!"

"Bad idea. Now I'm even colder." 

"So. Much. Leather."

"How long did you say the walking tour was??!! Do you see our faces freezing off?!"

"Can't feel my toes."

"I'm just going to buy every warm thing from every tourist stand anywhere near me."

"Why didn't I bring extra socks?"

"I'm never going to be dry. Ever in my life."

"Why are they letting me lead? Don't they know I'm directionally challenged?"

"Yep. Lost."

"They're going to leave us here."

"I'm going to be homeless in Venice. If I live through the freezing night."

"Oh wait, there's the group." 

"Pasta? Yes please."

"Don't make me go back outside."

"Just...make it...to....the bus....."

"Whew. Headed home. Finally."

"Oh, Venice? Yeah, it was pretty cool!"

Days of Day Trips!

It's been a crazy couple of weekends! After Kraków, I guess we decided we weren't doing enough, so we planned some more trips! On Thursday we traveled to Česky Krumlov, 

which is in the Czech Republic, about a 6 hour bus ride away. (Don't ask me how, because Prague is on the other side of the country, and it's only two and a half hours away.) Česky Krumlov is way hyped up over here, everyone is always telling us to visit it. It has a castle (of course, every town worth its salt here has a castle), 

lots of tourist shops,

 a river/moat thing going on,

 some towers, and that's about it. It was a really fun visit, and a very nice day. I didn't think it deserved all the hype, but there's probably a lot of stuff about it that we missed. It was enjoyable, though. Can't get enough of the trdelniks. 

It was just a day trip, so we took the seven hour bus ride back home and got back at 1:30 am. Party on. 

The next day, we left for Budapest at 5:30 pm and got there around 10:30 pm. Charlie and I walked around Budapest for a while then went to bed; the rest of the group went out. 

So! The next day, our question was: how much of Budapest can you pack into 8 hours? The answer: not really that much. Budapest is really big. It's also split into two sides, on either side of the Danube, Buda and Pešt. We never even got around to the Pešt side. So, if I had the chance, I would definitely spend more time in Budapest. But we still got to see some pretty and amazing things. 20 miles of walking later, we had seen the Parliament building, Heroes Square, Christmas markets, beautiful crunchy-leaved parks, and other super awesome stuff. 

Some tips: 

Figure out the metro system. Save your feet. 

Don't eat the plum/poppy seed rete. Nasty. 

DO eat langoše. 

You THINK you'll get to everything. It's a lie. 

I dare you not to start humming The Blue Danube when you see it. 

Carry a calculator. You will never want to use their currency again. 

So yeah! That was the weekend.