CERN, Amsterdam and Budapest

I take a solo trip to Amsterdam, and we visit Budapest, and experience record floods of the Danube in Budapest.

At CERN, a special festival was held to inaugurate a bike trail - Passport Big Bang. The kids did a lego contestWith a backdrop of the CERN underground in the background
We did an orienteering course that took us all over the grounds
Coming home from dinner in old townI took a 2 day trip to Amsterdam completely on my own. A few pictues from the Rijksmuseum - lots of famous paintings there. This is a dollhouse from, believe it or not, 1676
Cute windshield for kids on bike
I liked these postcards - nice patternsOn my way to the Quantified Self meeting
The meeting was held in a facility that also has some ongoing art projectsThe kids would have loved this huge swing
On the ferry, headed north of Amsterdam. I rented a bike, and had a lovely ride
Self-portraitLots of dikes
There was a separate bike path on most roads.In the town of Holysloot
I believe this is in Ransdorp
On the way to Broek in Waterland - houseboats along the dike
Each with their own individual cable crossingHeaded back to Geneva
In Budapest - we managed to hit the weekend where the highest flood, EVER, was predicted to peak in Budapest. We, along with the rest of Budapest, indulged in a lot of "flood tourism".
The Parlimen building is normally quite a bit higher up from the river!
The metro tunnel was very well protected
I thought this milk packaging was neat - it's all a plastic bag, but there's actually a handle for pouring, made by inflating a little closed tube on the side
A very fancy McDonalds at the Budapest train station Hero's square, from a hop-on, hop-off bus tour.
At castle Hill
The changing of the guard
We're about to have a real thunderstorm here
We hopped out of the taxi that was taking us back to our hotel, because we could walk faster
Water, bubbling up from cracks in the streetExtra sandbags reinforcing the defences of the Metro station
After this, the river area was blocked offThe parking garage of our hotel
Water is beginning to seep throughI learned online that these heavy buses and trucks were brought in to keep the subway tunnel underneath from rising up - never would have guessed that!
The road is getting pretty seriously wet from seepage here
Filling sandbagsStrange one-person benches in Budapest
Hero's squareAt the Szechenyi thermal bath - nicely warmed to 34 degrees - just perfect
The staff of one of the hop-on, hop-off tour buses helping with sandbags
Taking the tram to the Children's Railway in Budapest...up a cogwheel track
... and onto the Children's Railway, where kids ages 10 to 14 sell tickets, check tickets, and fulfill various other dutiesApparently it was once run by the Young Pioneers, a communist youth group
We tried to find the ruins of a medieval monastery, but had no luck as the signs were very obscure and I can't make head or tails out of Hungarian.Peter took a picture of me with some flowers he picked
On the Erzsebet lookout tower.
A monster beetleA fancy Hungarian restuarant for Eric's birthday dinner
This section of sandbags had buttresses for extra strength