Before anyone tells me the title should be in past tense, I KNOW, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. “I wasn’t home for Christmas” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Thank you; moving on.
My parents are well aware the only way to guarantee I’ll spend time with them over the holidays is to take me on a trip. So due to my poor use of vacation days in 2018, we had no choice but to plan our annual Stuart fam vacation over Christmas – something we’ve never done before and will probably never do again. The holidays just aren’t the same without pierogi and grape leaf rolls at grandma’s house.
Earlier this year, my dad said we’d be going somewhere warm in December so we could spend Christmas on the beach. Interestingly, neither Prague nor Budapest has any beaches, and it certainly was not warm. Guess I shouldn’t have packed my swimsuit. However, getting to wear my cute winter coat that’s still too poofy for New York made it all worth nearly freezing my hands off every day because I still don’t own gloves.
As is typical on our family vacations, I accidentally encouraged everyone to climb up a lot of stairs to see a cool place we could’ve easily reached via public transportation or Uber. I also dragged everyone to an opera (The Magic Flute) that my parents hoped to leave at “halftime.” Shockingly, they stayed until the end and that ended up being one of the highlights of our trip.
The bar I recommended, AnonymouS, was one of the best we went to all week, and I found a Russian dumpling restaurant so we could have pierogi and borscht for (the day after) Christmas lunch. I’m basically an amateur travel agent at this point. Will plan trips for the low low price of taking me with you.
In addition to the above, we saw some Hungarian art, went to a bunch of churches, consumed approximately 23 sausages from the Christmas markets, had a net loss of $30 at the casinos (unsure why this was even part of our vacation, but way to go Ben), worked on our family selfie-taking technique, fought over directions approx. six times, bought some supposedly authentic Hungarian paprika and drank a group total of 46 cocktails.
Even though it was weird being so far from home over Christmas, especially knowing I’m not going back to Nebraska again until June, it was great to spend some quality time with my family (when we weren’t yelling at each other). Obviously I’m in no position to turn down a weeklong vacation during which I don’t have to pay for my own food or entertainment, so that was nice, too. I also love Prague and had never been to Budapest, which was aaaamaaaazing. There is literally nothing to complain about here. I’m just being dramatic.
Honestly, the strangest part of this whole trip was that I was SO excited to get back to New York. I know I don’t usually get sentimental (in public), but wow. I love this city, and going away for a week just reminded me how amazing it is to live in my favorite place. Stay tuned next week to hear some of my serious and not-so-serious New Year’s Resolutions that’ll make living here even BETTER. It’d be too cliché to share them on January 1 so I had to wait a bit. And I really couldn’t delay this post another week. I’ll work on my scheduling skills in 2020.