Hungary for Some Action?

I typically like to begin my blog posts with positive spins about our travels, so here goes my attempt for the first day in Budapest...

Border crossings. So much fun.

While waiting for Border Control's computers to kick back on so they could stamp our passports, the sweaty police-officer-man waddled up to my window: "Your front tire does not look so great," he mentioned. Sure enough we could see our tire, like my own spare, bulging off the sides. Taking a deep breath we drove onward to Budapest.

Thankful for a relatively uneventful arrival, we found our apartment but couldn't check into quite yet so instead headed out in search of an ATM, ice cream, and beer. Settling on a local Stardust Coffee, we ordered and eagerly waited for a snack that surely would hit the spot. If by spot, you mean moment of absolute meltdown, we hit it with fury. Deets uncharacteristically exploded, angered by his ice cream and  totally exhausted from what I can only assume was from having too much fun.

Ahhh, an outside cafe!
What could possibly go wrong?

Oh wait. This.

After chilling out in the apartment and gaining better toddler perspective we decided to hit the town again in search of playgrounds and happy hour. Sadly we didn't make it farther than a block and a half where we parked the car: a rotted crotch-monster busted the front passenger window in pursuit of Mark's seven year old iPod. Nads! He stayed by the car to deal with broken glass, police reports, and notifying the Embassy while I attempted to find dinner and calm the roar of hungry, wild eyed children.

Settling on pizza, the girl at the counter just watched with amusement (I hope) as Margo dug into her baby food smothering anything within arm's reach and Deets gleefully erased the outside chalkboard menu with abandon. I could only sigh and eat my stale slice of pizza.  Mark caught up with us and we went for our third attempt to find the bright side of an otherwise frustrating day.

In the end, we did find a small oasis of park and beer activity. Margo entertained a cute ten year old girl who wanted to practice her English and Mark got to practice his Hungarian by talking about shoes and swearwords to other fathers at the playground. Then we all promptly passed out from a long eventful day.

Fast forward... Now the Foreign Service has a lot of perks, most which I try not to take for granted. The Regional Security Office assisted us with paperwork and scheduling an appointment with VW to inspect the damage the very next day. First the good news: repairs would be completed within two days and they would go ahead and wash/vacuum our car. This was something I fantasize about doing on a regular basis, but never actually do.  Bad news: we needed to replace all four tires. You win some, you lose some right?