Where Buda meets Pest

The Széchenyi Chain Bridge connecting Buda to Pest

Before we got married, Jon and I considered going to Budapest for our honeymoon based on the recommendations from his Uncle.  We heard wonderful stories about the beautiful architecture and cheap wine.  Ultimately, Budapest did not win out over our honeymoon in Turkey, which still remains to be one of the most fantastic vacations we have ever taken in our lives.  Since that day, Budapest has always been on our "bucket list" of places to visit.

Loss and Cope

It's been a tough couple of weeks for our family.  Jon lost his grandfather to illness and traveled back to Boston for the funeral.  Unfortunately, Calvin and and I could not travel with him to pay our respects.  Fortunately, my parents were able to visit us in Stockholm and provide some much needed family support.

Jon and his family wrote a beautiful eulogy for his grandfather and I have included only a snippet to show what an amazing man he was and what a great family we are blesse to have.  It is in moments like these that we wish we could be closer to our family in times of need.  We love our lives in Sweden but truly appreciate the love and support that only family can provide.

"One of the first lessons Grandpa taught us – through actions rather than words –was to be protective of those you are responsible for. I remember when I was nine or ten years old, there was a water quality issue in Pawtucket.  Unable to use the tap, everyone in town was told to pickup their ration of water at the firehouse – but for Grandpa that was unacceptable.  And not just unacceptable for his family, but also for all of his tenants in his apartment buildings.  One day I jumped in his beaten up ford truck with him –the bed full of gallon jugs of fresh water – and we hand delivered two gallons to every tenant that he had.  We covered a lot of stairs that day, but saved just enough time to get some chocolate cake at Chellos." 

International Travel with a Toddler

Playground fun in Budapest!

Everyone wants to know what it is like to travel with a +12 month old.  Either people are convinced that it cannot or should not be done for the sake of the parents or for those traveling around them.  Well, I have two answers to that line of thinking: 1) Parents put up with a whole lot of discomfort for the long-term benefits of having kids -- traveling is the same thing.  You will be greatly inconvenienced for about 5 hours but then it's all over and it is a lot of fun.  And,

Medieval times

When our friends from CA came to visit us, Eric and Erica, we were excited for some super fun medieval/viking fun.  Eric has been watching Game of Thrones on HBO and was super pumped to see some of the landscape in person.  Having never seen Game of Thrones, we were just excited to show Stockholm and some of the neighboring areas to our friends.

Eric and Erica are professional travelers and

@Sweden gets some heat this week

Sweden has been in the news recently and not in a good way. It is always interesting to read about the country we are living in and have it mocked by one of my favorite comedians, Stephen Colbert.  Curators of Sweden hands over the @Sweden Twitter account every week to a new Swede for them to tweet their experiences and show the world their perspective on life.  It has been really interesting to follow and we have been loyal readers of the various "curators" of @sweden since we moved here.  My personal favorites were the lesbian truck driver