Ex-pat Newlyweds

Sabine at Heroes’ Square in City Park, Budapest.

In the not-so-distant past, as the gray skies still hovered over Berlin, I wanted a warm, sun-soaked holiday for Easter. We got on the websites, looked for deals and where did we come up with? Budapest, Hungary (pronounced Budapeshd, we learned).

Not at all tropical, but we did enjoy 24 C weather the whole weekend.

Looking at maps, we were worried we were going to be visiting Prague 2.0 — a city that disappointed us. There is a river that the city centres on, a castle on a hill, bridges everywhere. Fortunately, geography is all these cities have in common. Budapest is an amazingly beautiful city, gritty streets running alongside the glamourous ones, full of historic sites with a truly western feel. Not at all what we were expecting from a former Soviet state.

The trip started out well: we checked in late but got upgraded to business class. We were there by noon and made our way up to the castle. Whenever we go to a new city, we start off somewhere high up to get a panorama of the place, get a feel of where we are, what we want to see. We walked around, snapped photos, strolled through market stalls peddling handmade lace and enjoyed the sunshine.

Budapest was originally three cities: Buda and Pest make up the city centre, while Obuda is the northern outskirts. Buda is hilly, while Pest is flat. Here is Fisherman’s Bastion, Castle Hill, in Buda.
Castle Hill.

Josh snapping some photos with the “big camera” of the ruins at Castle Hill.

Our trip included no visits to museums or guided tours, but we still felt that we saw a lot and learned a lot. Budapest is an open city, with many of its historical sites, like cloister ruins and the castle, open to the public to wander around for free. It’s a small city centre, and getting around is easy with the three Metro lines, including Europe’s oldest underground rail line. Yes, the oldest Subway is not in London, but Budapest.

Like Berlin, Budapest had repurposed it’s Christmas Market Stalls for Easter. In a few squares, we found delicious food and Hungarian entertainment. In a square near our hotel, there was even a Jazz and Wine Festival, where visitors could enjoy the concerts for free and sample famous Hungarian wines for cheap.

Josh at M., where the decor was just brown wallpaper with drawn on decorative furniture. It was adorable… and delicious.

But our first night in Budapest was the best for food. We went to M., a restaurant recommended in our guide book, and, thus, it was full of tourists with the same book. But the restaurant was in the book for a reason and that reason is delicious. It’s a French-inspired Hungarian restaurant that has a constantly rotating menu, based on what the chef got at market that day (for us, it was duck). It was delicious. We ate so much. We washed it down with wine from Villany — the famous wine region. We went to bed in a food coma that night.

The crowded pool deck at Szechenyi baths… when we finally got to go.

Josh was really looking for some relaxation so we went to the spa on Saturday, but were thwarted by an early closure. Instead, we rented an electric vehicle and rode around the park. We returned Sunday morning fsaw us dipping into the many pools of Szechenyi Baths — one of the largest complexes of its kind in Europe — and even getting massages for 13 Euros. The spa culture in Budapest goes back 2,000 years and all of the city’s pools are fed by natural hot springs.

Sabine and a busty bust on Margeret Island, in the middle of the Danube River.

As it was Easter, Great Market Hall was closed, being the one disappointment of the weekend. We filled the rest of our days visiting St. Stephen’s Basillica, which held the first king of Hungary’s mummified right arm. We spent an afternoon wandering around the Danube’s Margaret Island, finishing our last evening in Budapest on it’s west bank, watching the sun set behind the hills of Buda.

Josh found a door he was too tall for in the Cloister Ruins on Margeret Island. This was very exciting for him.

We did a lot of walking, ate a lot of street food and saw a lot of sites. It was still a relaxing trip for us and we were delighted that Budapest was far from being Prague 2.0.

The Gothic Parliament that dominates the riverbanks on the Pest side of the city.

It’s 2:30 a.m. Why is the phone ringing?

Right. It’s because that’s when Europe is in business.

Josh has been busy. He estimates he has applied for about 40 jobs since we got serious about leaving Vancouver in December. He’s had a few phone interviews, some promising but the one at 2:30 a.m. was what he called “embarrassing”.

After scheduling the interview for 11:30 a.m. her time, one German HR representative asked Josh to speak German, at 2:30 a.m. our time. Needless to say, it did not go well.

Oh, and our wedding is one month away.

This is happening.

I’ve always wistfully said that I wanted to live in Europe. And now we’re doing it. We’re moving trans-Atlantic with in months. You could almost even say weeks.

Oh, and did I mention our upcoming wedding?

We are Josh and Sabine. I, Sabine, will mostly be writing this, with some contributions from Josh.

After dating for four years, Josh proposed in front of the gothic cathedral in Cologne. It was a rainy, wet and miserable Monday afternoon. I said yes, of course, and now, we’re five weeks away from our wedding and three months away from being jobless and in the process of being homeless.

Josh and I have been living together for almost three years. We’re getting married on the fifth anniversary of our first date, which we spent the afternoon on the floor of my then-new apartment listening to David Bowie and the Cars. Since, we’ve grown together to who we are today. I was 20 then and am now 25. I can’t imagine I’d want to know what my life would be like without Josh in it. No thanks.

Well, to celebrate our first year of marriage, we’re doing something different. We’re saying “I do” on October 11, 2008. And instead of settling into the life we’ve known for the last three years, we’re packing up. We’ll be selling the Ikea college collection and the rest will go into storage. We’ll find ourselves in the arrival area of a European airport with two suitcases each, tired, hungry and restless to start the next step.

It’s going to be an anxiety-ridden step, but it’s going to be exciting. We’re hoping for a year that we can grow together, an experience that will bring us together that really will be, for the rest of our lives.

The location is still TBD and we’re three months away.