Marta & Dad in Sarajevo

Sarajevo, a beautiful but quite different city, that's where dad and Marta were for four days with the students. We stayed in a beautiful "pansion" in the old town. On the first night we went to a wonderful steak house and had some chevapchichi. Which is basically chicken in a pita.

Here are some of the pictures.

Palace of Wonders an Horse Evolution Show

It is quite unfortunate that we don't have any pictures from these events but Dad had the camera with him in Prague.

The Palace of Wonders was a great science museum with things from a vellodrome to optical illusions to giant tables and chairs. The museum had three floors packed with information and experiments. Vera, after we left and asked what her favorite thing was she responded by saying "well I liked everything". The best things on each floor were probably the human yo-yo, the vellodrome and the giant's table and chairs for the first floor then on the second was the maze of mirrors and finally on the third floor was a camera that took a picture of your shadow.

The horse "circus" was amazing. People were riding horses standing up and trapeze artists doing tricks while the horses controlled the strings and the most amazing of all: horses tap dancing. They played all sorts of popular music, Thriller (Michael Jackson) and a medley of "My Fair Lady" songs. They even had the horse man's kids do a dance with some tiny horses.

Croatia Trip

We are having a great time in Croatia on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. We are staying right on the beach in a nice inn. At night we can stand on the balcony and look at the water and during the day we can go walk on the rocks and look at the boats. Yesterday we walked around town in the rain and saw, Hercules Gate, the ampitheater, the old cathedral, the Triumph Gate and the Twin Gates. That evening evening we also went down to the docks to walk by the boats. In the picture on the left we are standing at the temple in Pula and in the other picture we are in the ampiteater.

Spis castle

On the way back from Krakow we stopped in Slovakia at Spis castle. It is the largest castle ruin in Europe. We went up in the tower and climbed up on the castle walls. We also went in the Bailey which is the large yard in which knights would attack. The view out of the archery window was beautiful (top left.) The castle was looked like a movie from far away (top right.) Jay, Marta, Katie and Emma went down through some low gates and climbed up on the high rocks. It was very hard to get down. (below.) We also went in the bed chamber and dungeon. And at the end we ate lunch down in a gazebo. The trip was very interesting.

Our trip To Krakow

Our trip to Krakow Poland was amazing. The picture is in The Cloth Hall.

The Cloth Hall is a giant marketplace with little tourist booths. Unfortunately it was under construction while we were there so it was two times smaller than usual.

In the video Vera is following a man who had little fake dogs. Vera loved it! We had a great time and will remember it forever.

Parks and playgrounds

Here there are lots of cool buildings but

also there are lots of cool parks. In the

picture on the right we are at one of the

near parks which is very beautiful and has

a fountain in the middle. In the video, well

first I'll explain, you sit in the middle at a

slant and someone pushes you.

-Marta B.

Dad and Will's trip to Romania

Dad and Will just got back from Romania last night at 11:00 p.m.

In the picture on the right Dad is climbing a mountain and in the

picture on the left they are on the mountain above a city called Torocko. The first night

they had dumpling soup and steak for dinner the next couple night they had salad wraps.

They stayed in very nice inn and brought back a giant pencil (Marta) , a puzzle and bracelet

(Vera), an embroidered tablecloth and napkins (Mom) and a sword and shield (Nils).

Student Dinners

Every Friday night the Calvin students come over for dinner.

We play games and eat good food. The challenging thing is we have

2 vegetarians. Anyway in the picture on the right Will is trying to trick

Jay (left) and Seth (right) into taking a glass of ice tea about two inches tall

and then when Jay or Seth wants more he will tell them "no refills".

In the other picture it's mostly game time. Marta and Seth are playing

Cinco, Emma and Nils are playing Chess and Jill, Jesse, Lindsay, Shannon,

Will and Vera are playing a game called "In A Pickle". Erika had made chocolate

pudding for dessert, and at the end of the night Sasha made great russian pancakes.

-Marta B.

Train run by sound

Yesterday we took two trams and a cogwheel train to the Buda hills while my dad was at work and we found a hidden park in the woods. Here is a video and a picture of us at the little park. When we left the park we walked about 200 steps and found yet another park. That one was bigger and there was other kids there. When we left that park we found another park. There was a zipline there that we got to go on. After that we took a small hike and found the children's railway the longest railway run by children in the world! It's six miles long. We went in the station to like at hours and prices. Then we walked back to the station and took the cogwheel train back.

-Marta B.

Biker dudes

Everything can appear at Hero's square. Last night the case was Hungarian bikers. Here is a video of them although they did do pretty cool tricks after I took the Video. I hope you are not high maintenance and can sit back and enjoy this. And remember weird things here but that's Europe.

-Marta B.

St. Steven's basilica and hero's square

Yesterday we went to St. Steven's basilica (left) and Hero's square (right). Also the students came with. In the picture of Hero's you can see Arpad and the Magyars (Madyars) The Magyars are barbarians.

These are the pictures of the Budapest zoo. This is the white rhino  This a light they had in one of the buildings. It was really cool to look at some of the things they had on just the walls and ceilings. I would  grade this zoo 4 out of 4 stars.

-Marta B. 

This looks really weird, but that's Europe. There was a large dinosaur convention in  downtown Budapest. It's kind of strange that the big guy isn't even looking at the dinosaur. The truck was right next the Blaha Lujza metro stop, so everyone could see the dino.  

Maybe this wasn't the best opera between the outstanding fight and the Michael Jackson lyrics. But one things for sure, we had fun at the ancient theater. 

Today we were went to the ruins of the ancient city Aquincum, this used to be the Romans fort to keep the Huns from  crossing the Danube. I couldn't believe how small the townspeople's living quarters were. We saw an ancient toilet used by the Romans, even though it was just a hole with a grate on top of it, my mom said it was better than the toilets in modern day Bangkok. The picture to  the right is us standing by pillars of the ancient baths.

-Will B.

Hi, here you can see a funny video of us

on Margit island. We were at  beautiful

fountain that had a radio that played classical music. We also went to

a petting zoo there and pet ponies but they

also had some crazy chickens that looked like they

were wearing genie pants.  

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to our blog. We are in Budapest Hungary because my dad has thirteen students from Calvin College here studying. There are 6 people in our family, Mom, Dad, Will, Marta (that's me), Nils and Vera. In this picture you can see the Chain Bridge, the most famous bridge over the Danube in Budapest. It connects the two parts of Budapest, Buda and Pest. In this picture we are actually at castle hill. We saw some pretty cool stuff the only problem was teenage girls who taking pictures of themselves posing like supermodels.