Road trip: Euro style

My birthday was last week and I turned 33 years old.  When and how exactly I got old I'm not sure.  But it clearly happened.  To celebrate, Phil took me to Budapest for the weekend.  I was really excited because this was our first European road trip.   Saturday morning we packed our bags and hit the road with our newly acquired Garmin Euro maps edition and headed for Budapest.  First thing I noticed is how the roads are so much emptier, then we painfully found out why when we filled up with gas and paid 80 Euro at the pump on the way back!  I couldn't believe it!  We have friends with Navigators who don't pay as much.  Welcome to non-subsidized "petrol".  Anyway, I didn't do any of the driving, but I totally could have because it was a pretty easy drive.  Once we got out of Belgrade, there wasn't anything.  I mean NOTHING.  Open fields, grass, that's it.  Yes, it was beautiful, but I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if your car breaks down.  We hardly saw any other cars, let alone any policemen.  About 1.5 hours later we crossed the border into Hungary and were able to bypass the line using our Diplomatic passports.  That was pretty sweet.  Except it felt kind of weird, because we were definitely dressed down.  Like Phil was wearing a moose hat and I had my "homeless chic" outfit.  Diplomats? More like slackers wanna be hipsters.  But hey, they waved us on down, no questions asked.  That black passport is pretty powerful.

The trip took about 3.5 hours.  Our first stop was IKEA, aka, the greatest place on Earth.  We got a couple of things, but decided against eating in there because it was a MOB scene.  Definitely the most crowded place I've seen since we moved.  Those Swedish meatballs are clearly an international hit.  I almost expected the store to be different from the ones at home, but no, it was exactly the same.  Same lamps, bed covers, cheap glassware, as always.  This was both comforting and disappointing at the same time.  The only thing I did notice was that in the posters section, they didn't have all the NYC skyline ones.  Or maybe they were sold out.

The whole weekend was very relaxing and great.  It felt a bit like being back home.  We went to what people at the Embassy call the only authentic Mexican food place east of Berlin.  This little place called Iguana, which is conveniently located across the street from the American Embassy there.  It was pretty good, but nothing to write home about if it were in the US.  The whole weekend we totally pigged out, we went to McDonald's, Burger King AND KFC.  So wrong!  We also went to the movies and did a little shopping.

Which brings me to the sad truth. I couldn't do it.  I had vowed not to buy ANY new clothes for at least a year, but I caved in.  First in Madrid, I bought what I know call "the birthday dress".  Ever since I turned 30,  I have tried to get a cute dress to wear on my bday, so I wasn't going to count that one.  But once we were in the pedestrian shopping street in Budapest,  I couldn't help myself.  I only got two shirts, but they are cute and good for work and a steal!  Only 7 dollars each!

One funny thing I noticed trying on clothes here is how shirts don't have the ugly white deodorant marks that 70% of shirts I try on in the US have.  I had totally forgotten about this, but here, they don't sell that kind of deodorant.  Well, they do in some places, but it's super expensive.  It seems that most people use the spray or the old school roll-on, not the typical thick white bar, therefore, all their clothes are clean and spot free.  Which is not how I left the stuff I tried on.  Oops.

We came back to a good dusting of snow in Belgrade.  It's really pretty outside, but definitely slippery and slushy.  I hate that the holidays are so early in the winter season.  By now, I am kind of sick of the cold, and technically, winter JUST started. It's going to be a long wait till May...