Hey guys, since I last talked to you I have picked up Anna Maria and spent a few days exploring Budapest, Eger, and have arrived to Slovakia.

On Sunday morning, I got up early and drove to the airport to pick up Anna Maria. We went back to the Airbnb apartment and both passed out for a couple of hours before getting up and setting out to do a little sightseeing in the afternoon. It was good to be reunited!

Later on in the evening we stumbled upon the “Budapest Eye”, which is just a big Ferris wheel that’s set up in one of the city parks. We decided to go for a ride and got to see a little bit of scenery from the top.

After the Ferris wheel ride, we decided to cross over the famous chain bridge and make our way back to the apartment for the evening. It’s the oldest bridge in the country and it’s cool to see at night when it’s all lit up.

On the walk home, we stumbled across a stand selling fresh baked “Chimney cakes”, which are hollow cakes that are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. They are mighty tasty!

On Monday morning, we got up and had a nice breakfast at a cafe next door to our Airbnb and then hurried back over to the Pest side of the river to meet up for a free walking tour where we saw a few highlights of the city and heard some interesting information from the guide.

After the tour, we walked back over to the car to depart for Eger, our destination for the evening two hours to the east. When I tried to start the car, I could barely get the engine to turn over. It had been struggling for the last several days, but this time I was seriously concerned that we were going to need a jump. We decided to drive across town to an auto parts store to get the battery tested, and sure enough it was bad. Since this is not America, they were glad to sell me the battery, but I was on my own for the installation. I hadn’t changed a battery in a while, but after about 15 minutes of tinkering around I had us back in business.

After taking care of the car, we drove the two hours in the dark to Eger -where Anna Maria had found us a hotel in the city center for the night. After getting checked in, we went out to do a little exploring and found the place to be a total ghost town. We literally saw 5 people in the entire city center and almost every restaurant and cafe was closed up by 9pm. We found a place open and had a couple glasses of the regional wines from that area, including the famous “bull’s blood”, and then went back to the hotel to relax and shut it down for the evening.

Before we went to sleep, Anna Maria started freaking out because she found out that the results were out from the test she took a few weeks ago to become board certified. She had been waiting on this for a long time and was convinced she had failed the test. So you can imagine the suspense as I watched her log in to the website and navigate to the test results…. And the pure joy and excitement when she saw the word “pass”! There was a two person celebration going on for quite a while in our hotel room, as this is the last test she’ll have to take for a very long time and is the culmination of about 11 years of hard work and sacrifice that began in undergrad and studying for the MCAT to get into medical school!

On Tuesday morning, we checked out of the hotel and set out to see a little bit of Eger by day – including climbing the northernmost Ottoman minaret in existence. Getting up and down it was pretty tricky, but the views from the top were great!

Here are some views from atop the minaret:

After checking out Eger, we decided to set sail for Slovakia and the Spis Castle, a UNESCO world heritage sight about 3 hours away. We have to be in Bratislava on Thursday to meet with Anna Maria’s parents, so it just made the most sense to get to Slovakia now and then work our way back west over the next couple days to get to them. We saw some fair scenery driving across the plains of north-central Hungary and south-central Slovakia.

About an hour after crossing the border, we made it to the Spis Castle. Unfortunately, it had just closed for the day, so we just walked around the outside of it. We still got a feel for what it was like and saw some nice scenery of the surroundings from the top of the hill.

After taking in the sunset at the castle, we made the 15 minute drive to Levoca, where Anna Maria found us a nice little hotel room for the night. After getting checked in, we went out to a little Slovakian restaurant down the street to try some of the local cuisine. It was a good meal, but Slovakia is not as cheap as the Balkans!

Now we are just back at the hotel and making our plan for the next two days until we meet with Klaus and Inge in Bratislava on Thursday afternoon.

Talk to you guys again soon!