The Tovington Post

This cake thing is possibly a mistake. But we are doing it anyway. We are up to day 2.. It's yummy so far.
for about $3 we got two cakes and a coffee this morning and ate the cake this evening after dinner. I was only going to have a little bit of my half. So I divided it and put the rest of mine in the fridge, opened the fridge and ate it all. Tova ate her half too.
The coffee is revolting.. but.. coffee..

We decided to arrive at Peto at 9am.. Instead of 8.30am. We were told it starts at 8.30am, but every time I get there at 8.30am I stand around for about 40mins doing nothing, with no one giving me any direction and a frustrated Tova not knowing what to do. I did ask the other day, but wasn't told anything. I was more shrugged off. So.. I give up and will just arrive at 9ish, it seems as though they have it together at 9ish. So. that's good.
On the way to 'Budapest School' we pass road works. But road works in Budapest is quite different to Australia. There is no barrier. We can touch the heavy machinery if we wanted to. We could get hit by flying rocks etc.. it's interesting. Tova hates the loud noise and cries while covering her ears. Cute.

Tova is doing well with food and drinking. And she has developed some good new fine motor skills. I wonder if we should stay for a couple more weeks.. hmmmmmmm

Maybe a conductor want's to come and live in Australia with us for a year or two.. hmmmmmm

Our days are filled with Therapy, work and food. We are enjoying ourselves.

Here is a story

It was about 9pm.. Someone was ringning on the door bell phone thingy. I ignored it. Then after the second time I said 'helllo?', they didn't speak English. So I spoke English and they spoke Hungarian.
I messaged my landlord (Marcelle - lovely guy who lives accross the road), he said he isn't home and his parents aren't home.. (they live in the flat next to me)...
So then it was quiet..
Then the people that were ringing the bell were wandering around the stair well, so somehow they got in. This was a bit noisy. Tova started fussing (She had been trying to fall asleep).
There was a knock on my door. I said "who is it".... No answer.. There is pretty much no way in the world I'm going to open the door to someone that isn't answering me.
I went and grabbed Tova from her room.
I thought, if it's the fire people there would be a firetruck out the front. or a police car. Tova and I looked out the front from the balcony.
Nothing.
The person at the door wasn't talking. I rang Marcelle.
He said he was 2 mins away. When he turned up I opened my door (I knew it was him coz when I rang him I could hear his phone ring in the stairwell.)
He said it was the police that had been trying to get in the building. Because the lady downstairs had called the police as someone broke into her flat - through the kitchen window. Aparently she is hard of hearing so she didn't hear to door bell, the neighbours aren't home, which meant that the police were bugging me to let them in.
I guess eventually the lady let them in and they came up to my flat to see why I didn't let them in.. lol..
So the lady downstairs was scared waiting for the police.. I was scared because there was so much noise.. and blah
Stupid robbers making problems

I'm on a soup quest. Yesterday kohlrabi soup, today.. I'm not exactly sure.. perhaps vegetable soup.. Awesome soups.
Oh.. and I've been introduce to cake. Dear lord. Tova and I may need an extra seat each on the way back home. Cake costs next to nothing here and it's divine. I've decided that our new mission should be a piece of cake a day keeps the doctor away. I'll give it a go at least for a few days. Today is day 1.. success. yum. It's possible that I've eaten two pieces of cake today, but forgot to photograph the first one. The second one Tova selected and she did well. Some sort of orange, chocolate, nut thingy..

Tova and I walked to the Peto in the morning. There was frosty, crispy, frozen leaves on the ground. It reminded me of growing up in Hobart and walking to school on cold mornings.

I'm pretty sure Tova is working hard at Peto. She is still happy to go there. She still is kicking me out of the room and tells me to go downstairs to work. She's very, very, very, very cute.
I missed Nissim lots today. There was a grandson of one of the conductors in the room today, he is about 4 with no special needs. He made me think of Nissim, which made me miss Nizo.. my cute little man.

Tova and I have had dinner and are now sitting on my bed, she is watching Barenboim and I'm doing this. I think she must be his biggest fan.

Oh I went up and had lunch with Tova. She is getting a bit annoyed about all this chewing work she has to do.. my poor little baby.. but.. Sorry Tova, people chew. She took about 100 years to eat her massive bowl of chicken and rice. I went downstairs after that and worked.

After 'budapest' school, Tova and I went to the shops to get Soy Yogurt and cake. It's pretty cold out there. The inside of buildings in Europe is a billion degree, so when you go outside it's unexpected.

I like this place. I like the atmosphere.. Maybe it's because I can't read nor understand anything. It's kinda fun
The weekend went so fast. It's hard to believe it's Monday. Tova and I walked up the hill to Peto. She went to class and I went to the computer lab to work.
Last week was school holidays so there weren't many people around. Today I had to share 'my office'. People were talking to me and I didn't even notice.. I turned around at one stage and everyone was staring at me.. haha. I got a fright.. They were looking at me as if to say 'why aren't you answering us?'.. lol.. 'oooh', I said, 'um.. gosh. I don't understand you lot, not even if you say hello to me'. they laughed...

I went up to have lunch and snacks with Tova. She is so cute. They are trying so hard to get her to chew. She is trying so hard to chew.. She was eating some fancy Croissant thingy this morning. Rice for lunch.

I was brave too and went to the cafeteria and got some soup. Kolrahbi soup.. It was ok.. It had cream it in.. oh well.. I was starving and my only other option is that food machine that has no coin slot.. it's only got very junk food. Or yes, I could bring my own food.. but that's not going to happen.

There are only 3 kids including Tova in her group at the moment. So that's nice.

We miss Nissim. He has sports day today. GO NISSIM!

1st Nov 2015:

We slept in, and took it easy for the morning. We hand lunch and then went to the river as I wanted to do something special for Tova.. the boat cruise with the musicians.. Hmm. So we got to the ticket booking office and they said that the cruise in the day time didn't have music, it had lunch. The night cruise has the musicians. Tova told me she would like to go on the boat anyway.. so I got tickets. It's just a one and a half hour cruise, so I figured Tova could handle that with out getting too bored.

We got on the boat and were given sparkling wine and orange juice. I had the wine obviously.. Tova even let me sit down for a few moments to have a couple of sips. But anyway, I was too trigger happy with my camera to really care much about the drink.

Tova did well. Especially each time we went under a bridge. And actually for the first 50 mins or so, she was great, watching the buildings go past etc.. but she did end up getting bored and wanting to climb walls. Thank goodness for youtube and hoopla doopla. She watched an episode and then was ok again for the last bit.

We walked towards the white bridge, where I know my bus leaves from and made it just as the bus was pulling up again.. we seem to have a knack for that.. We got on and someone said "OH HI SHOSHANA".. haha. It didn't even seem strange. But thinking about it now, it really is. So it was Eszter, the lady that lives in the flat next to where Tova and I are staying, and actually she owns our flat. She was in the city checking up on one of her other flats that she rents out to tourists via AirBNB.
We sat with her and chatted. It was nice to not worry about where to get off the bus (even though I've got it figured out now'). We walked back together and that was that. So nice.

Oct 31 2015:

It's our second weekend here, but first without jet lag.

It's so nice here!
I do love Europe, and Budapest, you are amazing! Do I really have to go home?

Yuval, come move here!

Today I did some work in the morning and then realised that .. omfg it's the weekend and most people don't work on weekends, I don't even remember the last time I didn't work on a weekend (other than flying here, which so doesn't count).. So.. I put the laptops away and took Tova out for the rest of the day. We went to the city.
Tova was absolutely delighted to be going on a bus. She was excited at the thought of seeing buskers.

We got the number 5 all the way to the city. We got off at some random stop and wandered around. Because I got a sim card the other day, I have GPS. This is fantastic.. But first we wandered along the river and Google Hangouts video chatted with Yuval, so he walked along the Danube.. I'm pretty sure this river goes all the way through Austria too.. Tova has seen this river in her symphony orchestra videos.

So we wandered along for a while with Aba, then let him go to bed because I think it was 100 oclock in Melbourne.
Then my gps got us lost for a while. I found our way and we made our way to the Grand Synagogue. Yep, it's grand! It's huge. It was so fantastic to be in the Jewish area. I felt comfortable.
Tova demanded food.. so we stopped at a restaurant near the shull and she had salad and potatoes.. omfg.. I've never seen Tova eat lettuce before. And cucumber. My eyes and brain can't believe what I'm seeing. I have to cut things up small, but not puree nor mash. craaaaazy.

Tova enjoyed walking around and was delighted that we had to go down and up stairs to cross a road. I wasn't so delighted as we had the pram. But people helped us. People are good here.. People are generally good everywhere.. but it's nice to know they are good here too.
I think it would be much more fun with our boys. Next year I hope they will come. We'll be coming back that's for sure.

We noticed a massive ferris wheel. Maybe we will do that tomorrow for the morning or arvo.. or next weekend.. I did see that there are tickets to go on a 1.5 hour cruise with a concert (classical music) along the river.. hmm.... I guess we should do something like that. It would thrill Tova.

Perhaps I was a touch lost when we decided to start walking back to the bus.. (Thankfully I had taken photos of the bus stop when we got off, and the surrounding area)... I managed to somehow stumble across a mall - The main mall - which had a tourist info box in it.. I showed them my photos and they pointed me in the right direction. It was amazing walking through the malls. There is food everywhere, people everywhere too. It's stunning, alive and interesting. So, we wandered off and managed to pretty much just walk straight onto our bus, which was about to leave. I felt very impressed with myself.