Cravings and a day trip..

This morning Brad and I both woke up craving a good ol' start your Saturday off right breakfast at IHOP. You know the kind with the stack of pancakes as big as the plate that melt in your mouth and your choice of eggs and enough slices of bacon and sausage to meet your daily intake of saturated fat for a month. Yea, that is what I am missing. Breakfast here looks very different and much more healthy. Which is a good thing, I'm just missing a few comforts from the States.

We are also missing a good juicy steak. Yesterday we got our hopes up when we went to Sopron, Hungary for a little day trip. It is only a 1 hour train ride from here and an opportunity to get our passports stamped. We were told that there was a great steakhouse there too. So afterschool we left and arrived to find "Joe's Steakhouse".
It looked like it was straight out of Texas, with a covered wagon and saddles at the bar as seats. Our mouths were watering just thinking about sinking our teeth into a medium rare steak.

After we worked up an appetite walking around the town, we ventured into the restaurant and ordered 2 tenderloin steaks, which they show pictures of on the menu that make you want to drool. We ordered 2 potatoes in their "jackets", which are baked potatoes and some kids meals for Luke, Abby and Levi. After waiting for quite some time, our meals finally surfaced with lovely presentation. After one bite however, we were sold on the fact that what we got was NOT beef, but instead a mystery meat that I will leave to your own imaginations. The "gray" meat had a very different sort of taste, not one like we have ever experienced before. Our dreams of a juicy steak shattered. This place looked like the real deal... Maybe we just caught them on a bad day, as the kids food was fine. I'm sure Brad will one day be able to turn this story into a great sermon illustration and we were laughing about it even in the restaurant. A few moments later however, we weren't laughing when we went to catch our train back to Vienna.

We arrived back at the train station with 15 minutes to spare. We waited with everyone else on the platform and once the train arrived we all got on with the crowd. Because we had the stroller and scooters and the 5 of us, I suggested we go to another car in the train, so we would have more room...I think it was Chris Farley who said "BIG MISTAKE, BIG MISTAKE!"
We all trickled out and went to the next car...it was as if it were happening in slow motion as the doors of the train shut right as we got to the next car. With the conductor standing at the same doors we were standing at, we were hopeful that he would have seen us frantically punching the button to re-open the doors with our 3 kids, 2 scooters and a stroller in tow. It was with however, a smile that he almost seemed to smirk and wave goodbye as the train rolled on full steam ahead!
There was steam alright! It was coming from my ears! I was burning mad for many reasons...that I had suggested we get out to move to a bigger car, that the man watched us suffering and seemed to take delight and that the next train was not coming for another hour and 50 minutes! My sweet husband was much more sanctified than me, and took the entire situation in stride...making up games with the children as we waited in the station. Needless to say, we were very glad to get back home and take refuge in our beds. Another adventure of mishaps we can laugh about...the next day!;)