3 months

My third month was one of the best I have had of this trip.

The first two thirds of this month were my last in Amsterdam. As I have told many many times I had an absolute blast working in Amsterdam.

My last weeks included really starting to feel at home, and getting into the groove of watching my girls grow up in front of my eyes.

We say way more than I ever thought and discovered so many cool museums and homely attractions. I felt so at home and Amsterdam.

Saying goodbye to my sweet girls broke my heart. Much much love for them!

The month ended with my returning to Budapest, my favorite city in the world. And I had so many friends come back. We were a family again.

I visited an abandoned train depot, and paragliding. Right as this third month ended I went to the most amazing thing on earth- Sziget Festival.

It was an amazing month. Month 4 already brought the rest of Sziget and it will include going go Nepal tomorrow (what?!?!?!).

My love for Vondelpark

This place was my favorite part of Amsterdam.  Living 3 blocks away was absolutely incredible.

I spent the afternoons playing on the 5 different playgrounds and open green space. We had so much fun. Lying in the grass, eating ice cream and laughing for joy. We blew bubbles, we raced through ropes course, and we learned about the lives of the dutch. The girls met and laughed with dutch children, chased dogs, and watched the world go by.

Whenever we rented bikes we rode around for ages making laps in the park with shouts of faster faster faster following me the whole time. I shared more giggles with those girls in Vondelpark that anywhere.

A very hard place to say goodbye too.

In the evenings vondelpark was my safe haven. I would take a walk every night after dinner. I would clear my head. I would see the bikes the lovers the families and the travelers. I would vow continuously to come back to that city as soon as I could.

Living Life

Sorry I haven't been around for about 2 weeks. I have been WAY to busy enjoying my traveling life to come to this space. In fact I didn't even open my laptop for 9 days. It was glorious.

The main reason why? I spent 7 days at the most incredible festival in Europe. I had SO. Much. Fun. at
SZIGET: ISLAND OF FREEDOM

more to come on that adventure, my 3 month traveling update, the last of my Amsterdam posts, and my anticipation of what is to come in Nepal (I leave in 5 days?!?!?)

Amstel Park: Enjoying the rides

We took a trip to Amstel park in one of our first weeks in Amsterdam and enjoyed walking around, playing mini-golf, and having a relaxing lunch.

Right as we were completely exhausted and the kids needed to go home we discovered an awesome area with all of these cute rides, a petting zoo, and an awesome playground. So we added it to our list of things to go back too.

We took the girls one sunny morning, laid out in the grass under the trees, and played as much as we wanted. The rides were cute and the girls played themselves to the point of complete exhaustion. Another adorable, and extremely well done Amsterdam park.

Budapest Paragliding

I have about 4 more posts to go about Amsterdam and Amsterdam life but since I am back in Hungary now I wanted to share the epic day I had yesterday! It was literally all too perfect, random and incredible.

After the whole day this was the random synopsis my friends and I came up with about our Hungarian paragliding adventure:

"Amazingly insane paragliding trip. It entailed driving 2 hours through the completely empty Hungarian countryside with a random salsa-dancing crazed Hungarian scientologist, galavanting around an abandoned military air strip, herding sheep, feeling so utterly confused, running like we were on steroids, fly attacks, handstand push-ups, and swimming in an epic lake full of locals. Complete with Hungarian pastries and an offer to go salsa dancing tonight. Day so ridiculously well spent"

That is truly what our day was. We were told that if we wanted to go paragliding we could  get picked up by this local at around 11am and for $50 we would get an all day adventure. I was super keen so we signed up right away!

and this is how our day went down...

We were picked up at 12 (not exactly 11) and then were driven for 2 hours out to this abandoned military base. I didn't know how long the drive would be but we just kept going and going and going out into the countryside. Flat land and hay barrels, but damn Hungary is beautiful! 

We stopped at this tiny local pastry shop in this little village and tried some traditional hungarian cake which was incredible!

Then we continued on for awhile until we arrived at the air strip. It was really cool and had even the old abandoned control tower you could walk around and visit. 

Then this car drove up with a wench on the back. I was not keen on going 500meters into the air first so I let my friends go first. The first one went off without a hitch but we were all pretty nervous. After we saw him up the air we could tell is was going to be just plain incredible. They were SO high up and it looked super free and incredible. 

Then my second friend went but there was a small delay because we had to move to wait for the wind to shift. About an hour later she was finally taking off from this shed filled with sheep (told you it was random....)

I was up next and getting nervous. We started running and then before I knew it we were lifted into the air. At first it was just confusing as you gained height, but once we got to the top the view was plain STUNNING! Just green fields and little villages in every direction. Not to mention an epic view of the Danube river. We were all the way up in the clouds, I couldn't believe it. Then he let me steer the glider for awhile and turn us left and right when I wanted. Then as we began to descend he began to do aerodynamic moves where we would flip upside down and the glider would literally be below us. I was scared but loving the thrill of it all. It is truly like flying, you are completely detached from anything except for your glider. 

This day was JUST. SO . GOOD. It is random things like this that remind me why I travel and make traveling just so so worth it.

We finished off the day with a swim in this local lake that was like a beach resort for Hungarians. Our guide ensured us that we were the ONLY non-locals there, and the lake was beautiful, with awesome fresh water that was warm like a bath. There were cute little docks to jump from, and sandy and grassy areas to sit and enjoy the sun. Couldn't handle how great this was.

This day was one of the best I've had in Hungary, and I hope there are more like it in the future!