How August became October

After our failed IVF cycle, it was understood we’d try again. We talked about it before we even came here.  Unfortunately, that meant extending our plane tickets, and figuring out how we’d leave the country before I was here for 90 days, since I’m required to exit before I stay that long. Some silly visa thing.  We did the paperwork route once before – what a nightmare juggling us through the police station, a zillion papers, schmoozing calls from his mom to whoever and dancing for an extended stay of like, 3 days. It was really, really dumb and a waste of energy…but that time it wasn’t planned…In any case, we scoured the one or two reputable Belgrade travel agency websites to find a destination. We thought about taking a train to Croatia, getting off and getting back on – just to get my passport stamped, because really that’s all I needed to do.

We were considering a bus tour to Budapest, for a long weekend, I think. We really weren’t crazy about the idea of my intestines on a bus for 12 or however many hours – though the itinerary said the bus made stops along the way, we weren’t clear if they had a bathroom on board or if it would be a stressful dodge and wait between rest stops for the bathroom.  I’m really a pain in the ass when it comes to traveling.

So we decided to make it the honeymoon we never had, since he had to go back home the morning after we were married. We looked at Ireland, and we were theoretically spending thousands on a vacation there, and fine with it. We work our asses off, we deserve a nice honeymoon, we decided.  Well, we were almost booked when we thought about checking visa requirements, and since Gordon is still a Serbian citizen, he needed to get a visa. Well, with 3 weeks before our 90 day mark, and before the start of my next cycle when we’d have to be back in serbia, there just wasn’t enough time to wait for a Visa. And this is why, he pointed out, he looks forward to becomming a US citizen.

In the end we decided to go to Budapest, and while I thought it was pretty cool, I didn’t have a real strong opinion about going there.  No visa required, and we could fly there for relatively cheap. We spent hours shopping hotels and in the end booked a room at the Hilton, which was in the castle district, and had a ‘Danube view’. I expected to be able to see a sliver of water between two buildings, because that’s what I’m used to a room with a view meaning.

We had the most amazing time there, in such a beautiful city – I think it was the most beautiful I have ever been to. It was so romantic, too. We arrived to dinner in our room with a bottle of wine and gourmet food and dessert, and went out in the evening to stroll up the cobblestone street to the castle and back towards our hotel, around the Fisherman’s Bastion. Live gypsy music isn’t at all what I thought it to be. In Serbia, gypsies are poor, and are known for their boisterous trubachi music – very exciting, and lively, but very, very different from what the gypsies in Hungary play…which was classical music. It actually took me a little bit for it to register that ‘this’ was the gypsy music I read about. As we walked through the plaza under the stars, we could see the beautifully illuminated capital building through the arches of the Bastion reflecting on the Danube, Gordon swept me into his arms and made the plaza our private ballroom. We danced to the gypsy band playing at the restaurant on top of the Bastion and melted into each other’s arms. It was truly a fantasy honeymoon with a magic we will never forget. But in case we need a reminder, we have zillions of pictures, beautiful tapestries and even a piece of fine porcelain with a Hungarian motif 🙂