A Week of Goodbyes
Wrapping up Europe, the summer, and a very special year with my sister.
Today is the last day of our trip (by the time you read this hopefully we are home safe and sound).
Last days are hard, anticipation and anxiety for the long trip ahead. Reality of what’s waiting for us back at home starts to creep in. The pressure of wanting to make the most out of your day and of course the kids know just when to push all your buttons 😏.
I do want to give you a bit of a recap of this last week in Budapest and I also have something else I want to share at the end.
Sharing about Budapest is not so straightforward; this week had amazing moments and some challenging ones. Of course like any trip this one had some challenges, but I’m referring to challenges specific to our location. Budapest is a huge bustling city. It was extremely hot (like the rest of Europe) and it wasn’t quite as clean as Austria :). But spending almost a week walking the streets and getting to know the city has 100% crept into my heart. One of the many reasons why I like to stay in one location for a significant amount of time is because If I only came for one day, I’m not sure I would’ve connected at all. One of my favorite parts of this week was all the walking we did, really getting to know the streets (average of 15,000 steps a day). By the end, the kids knew their way around and I thought that was so cool.
We did some typical tourist type things like:
Boat cruise on the Danube
Central Market Hall
Fisherman’s Bastion
The Funicular to Buda Castle
The Citadela
The Ferris Wheel
The Shoes on the Danube (very meaningful)
A few beautiful Synagogues
And we also did some things not on the travel lists:
Margit Island
Boating and swimming on Lake Balaton
Best petting zoo/ farm
Ice cream everyday (big highlight :))
Duna-Ipoly Nemzeti Park
Soccer stadium tour
Playing in parks
It was a fantastic week! And I’m ready for school to start :) but we still gotta another 2 weeks 🤦♀️.
Ok so now for the other thing I want to talk about :)
Today as we wrap up our trip, my sister, Brocha, my brother-in-law, Mendel, and nephew, Lenny, have wrapped up their year with us and are on their way to California. It has been incredible for me to have my sister around the corner. I’m attached to my nephew, I was his Tante-bubby :) and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal not having him in my house every Shabbos.
It was a really special year and I thank Hashem every day for the opportunity and experience. I am very sad that they are leaving and for the most part I have been pretending it’s not happening, ya know healthy avoidance. But I can avoid it no longer, and I will have to face my feelings. This was always only meant to be a one year thing and even though you know it’s going to happen, it doesn’t make it feel any better when it does.
Thank you Brocha and Mendel for living and working alongside us for a year. It will be something I cherish forever!
🩷 Chavie
P.S. If you haven’t already check out my conversation with Dena Schusterman last week about her brand new book, Stories Carry!