We returned from Budapest last Tuesday evening and I feel like I’m just starting to get back in the swing of things here in Amsterdam. As much as I love traveling, sometimes I feel like I need a vacation after my vacation — one that only involves sleeping and binge-watching TV (remember the days before kids when this was a possibility?? What a dream.)

Budapest was amazing and actually reminded me a lot of my beloved Oakland in many ways. I think it’s one of those cities that I could live in and would just grow to love more and more as time passed.  We spent eight days in Budapest and headed out to explore as soon as we arrived. Wandering around a new city is one of my favorite things to do while on vacation. Seeing the architecture and little cafes tucked into hidden alleyways — it’s the best.  When we were in Madrid we started off our trip by returning to the apartment in the middle of the day with the intention of letting the kids nap. After two days in a row of them refusing to nap while back at the house though, we just decided to start staying out during the day. Lark still naps well on the go, and Prim (our go-go-go party girl that she is) will literally be at 100% and then crash in the stroller or on KC over the course of a matter of minutes when she finally runs out of steam. She usually conks out for about 30 minutes and then is ready and raring to go again. (Luckily she is a good sleeper at night!)  Prim finds the fun pretty much wherever we are. I love that about her. We spent our week in Budapest wandering all over the city (I was oohing and aahing over the architecture, of course).  I mean, come on. Don’t you want to just wander those streets forever? Totally. As I mentioned in my Madrid post earlier, we did have an afternoon where we were tired and the kids were falling apart. KC was losing his patience and I was frustrated and the kids were coming apart at the seams and I had one of those moments where I wanted to just be back in Amsterdam and not dealing with “ALL THIS SH**” as my not-so-cool and composed brain puts it. But luckily within 20 minutes or so both kids fell asleep (on each of us, of course) so we wandered into one of the Ruin Bars and each had a very cold and very large beer.

It’s amazing what 20 minutes and a cold beer will do for your sanity. I was dying to see the inside of the amazing Parliament building, but when KC and I looked at tickets we realized that you had to take a 50-minute tour of the building in order to see it (there were no self-guided options). While this is something I would be all over if we were traveling without kids, with Prim and Lark in tow we determined that we were better off saving our money (and probably our sanity) and avoiding that. While we do stretch the kids on vacation, upending their schedules and forcing them into long days exploring and being patient in restaurants, we also recognize that these little ones have limits and it’s best if we accept the fact that we’re not always going to be able to do everything we want to do while traveling with them. We did see the Shoes on the Danube memorial during a rare moment when both kids happened to be sleeping. I was wearing Lark and KC had Prim on his back in the carrier, and even though it was around 90 degrees, we braved the direct sun so we could see the monument.

I have seen Holocaust memorials before and been to concentration camps, and I’m still always struck by how emotional seeing these things are. We walked down the row of shoes and I immediately saw a pair of child’s shoes among the others. All I could think of was how someone — a child’s mother or father, most likely — had to bend down and remove their child’s shoes knowing that they were both going to die. Even writing this out now is heartbreaking. There are no words to describe that kind of devastation. The current political climate in the US especially necessitates that we remember these horrific acts. This all happened within the modern era. Now is the time to brush up on your history, people.  Prim is becoming quite the savvy little traveler, and sometimes I look at her and I swear that she’s two going on sixteen. In her two short years she’s been to more places than I had been when I finished college, which is pretty crazy to think about.  And I have breastfed this little peanut in so many unusual and interesting places — including the Museo Nacional and Templo de Debod in Madrid, Parc de la Cuitadella in Barcelona, just outside Matyas Templom and at the baths in Budapest, and in line (literally shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strangers) at the Frankfurt airport while waiting to be rebooked because our flight back to SF was canceled — ugh.

She will never know (or probably care) that she was nursed all over Europe, but these are some memories I’ll definitely hold tightly to. She’s truly my international baby.  We rode the cog-wheel train and children’s railway, and Prim’s push-puppy came along for the ride. We found that dog at a toy store in Budapest and Prim insisted on pushing it all over the city — literally everywhere. That poor puppy is so worn just from his few days of seeing the city, but man does Prim love that thing. And it was a great way to keep her moving when she wasn’t in the stroller.  We had a couple of really hot days in Budapest, so on one of them we headed to Margaret Island and ended up at the Palatinus Baths. Prim had a blast running through the kiddie pools and going down the little slides. I swear this girl has no fear — clearly I need to get her into swimming lessons ASAP, given how much she loves the water. You were so dreamy, Budapest! I hope we get to come back again someday soon.