Good morning from somewhere in Austria! You are on this list because you may have been on this list the last time I blogged from our river cruise. This time, it's one week during the winter as opposed to two in the summer. We are going to some of the same cities but focusing on the traditional Christmas markets - something that has been on Mom's bucket list! Feel free to ignore or preferably, read and comment. :-)

We boarded the AmaStella ship in Budapest on December 6^th and after a terrific couple of days touring the city, are on our way to Vienna.  Mom, Karen, Kira and I make a great traveling foursome, and it’s really fun to have a teenager around – to see things through her eyes. The other day as we walked along the street in Budapest Kira said: You know what’s really weird? Me: What? Kira: We’re in EUROPE! Ha. Weird indeed! 

We actually started out by enjoying a couple days in San Francisco where we saw some family, ate great Chinese food in Millbrae (a 3-story dim sum mecca!) and got in the Christmas spirit by toodling around Union Square. Like the other zillion tourists, we took pictures in front of the big outdoor Christmas tree in the square, checked out the 2-story gingerbread house at the Fairmont and of course made our usual pilgrimage to Uniqlo for more cold weather gear. We got lucky and had Alex with us for a day and night before he headed back home. As always, we had to go to my fave - a Chinese dessert shop and we rediscovered one in Millbrae that had a menu 8 pages long. So many choices, so little time, and so good!

The trip from SFO to Budapest took about 20 hours total with the layover in Amsterdam. Tiring, but traveling on KLM Business class, we all agreed, was one of the best flights we ever had. If you ever need to impress a teenager, a sleeping pod is a sure bet (Check out the big grin on Kira!)  Everything from the personal mini storage locker and comfort case, to the Flying Dutchman cocktail and yummy food, to the amenities like little house shaped chocolates and ceramic Dutch house souvenirs was amazing.   Very spoiled way to fly.  It also definitely doesn't hurt to be able to hang out in the KLM lounge while waiting for the connecting flight to Budapest as you can see from our beverage choices. 

We arrived in Budapest at 9:30 pm, and got a glimpse of the beautiful buildings lining the Danube River before checking into our nice Sofitel in Pest. We immediately went out to the big Christmas market right down the street and spent an hour or so (it was COLD) wandering around looking at crafts and ornaments but mostly at all the food! Photogenic sweets galore and lots of sausages and goulash and a few super mysterious looking foods. We did get our very first taste of Glühwein - hot mulled red wine, a staple in all the markets - pretty tasty!

Our plan for the next day on our own was to check out a traditional thermal bath house. We took a stroll down the main shopping street to the huge indoor market first where we found treasures like Hungarian paprika (and more ornaments) and then crossed the beautiful Liberty bridge to the famous Gellért baths which have been around almost 100 years. Apparently there are references to healing waters here since the 13th century. It was a little comical trying to figure out the system - you get an electronic bracelet that lets you in then you change in a "cabin" then you make your way to the baths which on this particular day were coed. Thank goodness everyone was dressed because apparently when Mom and Dad went years ago, it was not coed and Dad took one look inside and fled then spent an hour waiting for Mom. He said he had never seen so many fat hairy naked men in his life. Ha! We were spared that thank goodness. We tried all four of the hot thermal baths, each with different decor and slightly different temperature. It was really relaxing and beautiful! We sleepily checked out of our hotel and made our way to board the ship, the Amastella! Enjoy the photos more coming soon!