On our way to the People's Park, as it's known here, Chris bought me a rose at one of the many flower stands that dot the city. I really do love the walkable nature of Budapest. Just stroll down the street and in one block you will walk by a flower stand, a grocery store, a Turkish gyros restaurant, a lotto kiosk, a cafe, and a 24-hour market (known as "ABC, 0-24, Non-Stop" here--as if one title weren't enough).

People's Park is sort of Budapest's Central Park. You can find all kinds of activities to do and things to see here. This is a giant hourglass that rolls around on itself when all the sand empties to the bottom. We think it runs on a 24-hour cycle, but didn't stick around to find out.

This was my favorite sculpture at the park. It starts as a huge block of stainless steel (on the left here) and gradually erodes into rusted columns. Along with the giant swaths of cobblestone, it has an air of Soviet "largesse".

This was the most peculiar sculpture there. At first I thought nothing of it, until I remembered that we are not in the U.S. and seeing a giant statue of Washington and a bald eagle should strike me as out of place. The inscription completes the weirdness: "To The Memory of Washington, The Hungarians of America, 1906." My biggest question is how this statue managed to survive both World Wars and 40 years of Communist dictatorship. Nobody messes with George, I guess.

There is a plethora of castles in Budapest, and this one was quite lovely. Being the lazy tourists that we were on this day, however, we have no idea who lived here or what its history is. But the guy in this photo sure looks poised for action with his camera. Maybe he knows something we don't...

If Washington was the weirdest sculpture, this was the scariest. But look at how carefree these children are, even though they are standing directly in front of a Ringwraith? Hurry kids! His piercing scream alone will be enough to kill you all! Especially you, little boy in the background wearing nothing but blue underpants! Oh no, my nerd is showing.

All in all, it was a lovely Mothers' Day. I would like to end this post by showing you a photo I am titling "Contrast." Notice the beautiful flowers to the right of the frame, and the grumpy-looking husband on the left. I can't blame him, though. We were hungry and on our way to eat giant burritos. He didn't want to take the time to smell the pansies.

They weren't kidding about the quaintness. This is the local high school. We sat at a cafe next to this building and at one point all the children came pouring out of the school singing songs and playing guitars. I am not kidding.

Chris made a slight breach of etiquette and drank a beer in Wine Country. The Wine Country police are sure going to hear about this. But at least the beer had a doily skirt.

There is a large series of castle ruins in Eger. Here Chris is demonstrating how the castle guards must have marched along the lookout wall. Look at the straightness of his arms!

A lovely view of Eger from the castle. You can almost imagine a kindly, misunderstood hunchback living at the top of one of those towers on the left...

This was a representation of the fortress' security system. I don't know about you, but if I was being shot at, I'm not sure a bunch of wicker baskets acting as my shield would bring me much comfort. "Quick, Gábor, weave more baskets! They've broken through our first line of defense already!"

This was the view out one of the cannon slots in the castle's walls.

And this is the view of my not-so-tiny-hiney looking through the cannon slot. Chris told me to hold still for the photo, then promptly walked away without telling me he was finished. I had my head in there for longer than I care to admit.

Besides all of the historical sights we went to throughout the weekend, this was the place you would most likely find me. Baby Baker is making it hard to go more than 20 minutes between "having to go."

Because this is Wine Country, we got to visit an area where dozens of independent wine sellers display their goods. The area is called the Valley of Beautiful Women. They each have cellars dug deep into the sides of the hills and offer free tastings of their wine. It was fun to see, but strange being the only person walking around without a wine glass!

While we were visiting the wine cellars, we were able to observe the natives in their natural habitat. That's right: Hungarians making goulash is big, black kettles. Classic.

There was still a lot of ice near the shores that scraped the bottom of the ferry as we passed over it. Good thing we were close enough to the shore that if there happened to be a Titanic reenactment, we wouldn't be too far away from rescue. But I would totally want to play the part of The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

To make us all feel safe, the ferry posted this handy guide to Morse Code should anything happen such as "Man Overboard." My question: Why is the General Alarm code so incredibly long?

Once safely off the Titanic, we milled around all the brick and stone buildings scattered around the island. Both the Finnish and Russian armies used this island to store their weaponry and their soldiers. I think the weapons had better quarters.

This particular pose has made its way into every set of photos that Chris and I have taken on our travels. It's a classic by now. In thirty years we will put together an animation that shows our slow progression into middle and elderly age.

These dark and dank rooms were once a part of the king's quarters. If this is how the king lived back then, I don't even want to know how the peasants lived.

The island had some lovely lookout points. I love the way the water cuts into the landscape.

I shall title this photo "Chris and the Death Wish".

Can you believe that Hobbits once lived on this island?

There were what seemed like dozens of these mounded structures all along the northern end of the island. Although it turns out they weren't quaint little houses after all. They held all the guns and ammunition for the soldiers. Not quaint at all.

Here's me trudging up the fortress wall. Trudge. Trudge. Trudge. Walking uphill is significantly more difficult when you are actually transporting two people.

We celebrated surviving two boat trips and a military fortress by treating ourselves to fancy coffee and dessert in a posh cafe. This was the best spot in the house.

The Helsinki harbor was beautifully fresh and still filled with ice chunks floating in the water.

Our hotel room felt more like a train car from Ikea than a room. Every night we wondered if the next morning we would wake up somewhere in Estonia.

The best part of the hotel was the toilet seat. How could you not be excited about using a toilet with a worm crawling out of it?

Our first day there we came off the plane really hungry. We found a place that served troughs of food for under 7 Euros. Eszter, the tiny woman in this photo, ate the entire plate. She is a champion.

Helsinki is a small, friendly city. Many of the historic buildings were built during the Russian occupation of the 1700s to early 1900s.

The Kiasma Museum of Modern Art hosted most of the festival's events.

Architect Steven Holl designed the building. It has quite a spectacular entrance. And made me feel like I really loved Big Brother.

I spent an afternoon exploring the harbor, where I found this great little indoor market sitting right next the shore.

The market had all sorts of food and delicacies, but this particular item might have been its most delicate. Yes, you are looking at a chocolate you-know-what. And, no, I did not buy one.

After the eye-opening experience of the chocolate covered "bananas", I thought it was best to go straight to a church. This one is sort of like the phrase used to describe a mullet except in a reverse direction: business on the bottom, party on the top. Most of the building is made of standard bricks, but it feels like maybe the folks who built the church came into some money near the end of construction and completely changed the design for the top.

Coming down from the church, I heard a marching band in the distance and did what anyone would do: I followed them. Because for some reason, marching bands are like the Pied Piper. You just have to follow.

It turns out that all the pageantry was to welcome the president of Finland back from a trip to the gas station. Actually, I'm not sure where he was coming from, but there was seriously 20 minutes of marching around, then a fancy limo showed up, the president and his wife got out, the band parted and they walked 20 feet into the house. Then more pageantry ensued for another 10 minutes and I am pretty sure that the president was not peeking out of his window to watch. I think this whole thing was for the tourists. Maybe Finland needs to start a war so their military has something to do.

We ate almost every lunch at the Kiasma Museum's cafe because it was only 2 Euros for the artists. It was shockingly good, as indicated by the incredibly focused look on Chris' face. That day's menu was leg of lamb. Tasty.

I am going to end Part 1 of our trip by showing you a photo of what it's like to be me during one of Chris' art openings. The man is treated like a star and I could not be more proud.

The table itself was scrumptiously decorated. First up was a goose liver appetizer. The proper procedure for eating it is as follows: First take a piece of bread and spread onto it a thin layer of goose fat (bottom left on the table). Then put a piece of perfectly cooked liver on top and sprinkle, or should I say pour, salt onto the liver. After that comes a red onion/tomato mixture and if you are really daring (I am not) add some spicy peppers. Then take a bite and wait for a taste explosion.

Here's a close-up shot of the goose liver in case you vegetarian readers haven't had a good enough look to turn you back into meat-eaters. Just kidding, I love you veggies! Don't ever change. Especially for goose liver. Although it is seriously delicious despite it's ethical ambiguity. But that's a whole other post.

Gabor and Peter are thoroughly enjoying their appetizers. Peter, on the right, was our host. Gabor is a nice guy who is well-skilled at Hungarian dinner parties. Probably because he is Hungarian.

Peter's baby and Andras enjoyed some serious conversation. Probably something related to how small the little tyke feels in his gigantic high chair.

The next course was fish soup. Fish soup is quite the staple in Hungary. The most common sources of the fish are the Danube River and this other river whose name I cannot recall. A huge debate ensued when this information was told to us as to whether fish from the Danube or the other river was better. Considering that I see what the Danube looks like on a regular basis, I voted for the other river.

The fish in this soup was carp and each person got a healthy piece along with a warning that if we didn't watch out for bones, we may not survive the night. Peter has been to the hospital twice because of swallowing bones, yet he still makes this soup. What selfless hospitality.

Andras is the life of any party he attends and this night was no exception. I think he had just finished telling a dirty joke when I took this photo. Although I am pretty sure he has just finished telling a dirty joke in every picture I have of him.

And then came the main course....kocsonya. Don't ask me how to pronounce it. As you can see from the photo, kocsonya is a gravity-defying meat soup. My best guess is that this dish came about because someone making meat soup suddenly remembered that they had to feed the cows and ran out of the house carrying the kettle. They set the kettle down by the front door and an hour later, after sitting in the cold for so long, the broth became a hard gelatinous blob. Since microwaves had yet to be invented, the family had to eat the soup cold and for some baffling reason, loved the meaty/jelly flavor. They started sharing it with their friends, who also loved meat jelly. And so, the world got kocsonya.

The last course was dessert. Strudel is a very traditional dessert from all the way back when the Austrians and the Hungarians were one empire. This strudel was lovingly made by Peter's girlfriend's grandmother. She is part of the last generation of people who make the strudel's flaky crust by hand, a process that can take hours. Next to the delicious strudel is what I have labeled Laura's Personal Heaven: the most fudgy, chocolaty mousse I have ever tasted. The end.

The evening was a roaring success, and my culinary expert of a husband could not agree more.