One of my most asked questions when returning from vacation is “What was your favorite thing?”.   Turns out it is the hardest to answer.  It kinda feels like the ‘Which is your favorite child?” question. You aren’t allowed to have one.

Regardless, if allowed, or not, I do actually have a favorite thing from our last vacation.  It sticks out because it was so anti-planning Jackie. 

We had just finished our first full day in Budapest after my Slovakia ‘surprise’ 48-hour bug.  We were finally breaking free of our hotel. We bought a day pass on transit to help with the cross-city walking. We were attempting to keep walking to less than 10 miles for the day.   Dinner was done and we still had a few hours of daylight.  Hubby proposed we take the tram along the river on the Buda side, walk the south bridge, then take the tram along the waterfront Pest side, and walk across then north bridge.  

It was our very own makeshift river cruise! I was SOLD. What a creative idea!  Plus it used our one-day transit pass again, way to get our monies worth! When we lost a full day in Budapest, several items had to be axed to sacrifice the time luxury we no longer had. One of those items was a river cruise; which quite honestly is not needed. You can easily walk/tram the riverside and go across any bridges without the need of a boat ride. Budapest landmarks are beautifully lit up at night. It is a stunning city.

We made it to the Pest side and hubby said he had a surprise. Wait, I had already been spontaneous on our makeshift tram river cruise idea, now I was trapped on the other side of the river with a hubby in explorer mode! But I trusted him, shook off ‘boring planning Jackie’.

Hubby gave me the moon that night.  I so want to say ‘literally’ for dramatic effect, but I can’t. He didn’t give me the literal moon, but I did get a hanging moon in an outdoor atrium that was breathtaking and best seen in the light of dusk.

And my hubby wasn’t done yet…

He had another trick up his sleeve.  We were onto surprise #2.  Another thing crossed off our Budapest list was The New York Café.  It is famous and supposed to be the world’s most beautiful.  But we simply did not have time with the missed day, and if I am being honest, it was on my list to make my sister jealous. But hubby knew of a 2^nd café that was argued to be better than the world’s most famous… 

We went there….

And it was…. 

That night they had a piano player serenading guests. There was a busy hostess who gave us the unintentional gift of extra time- and then felt bad so ‘comped’ our dessert.  AND I made my sister even more jealous than I originally thought possible.

You know what else happened?  YES! There was a third benefit to our spontaneity. We returned to our hotel and had a drink at the swanky hotel bar. We chatted with the bartender, turns out he was from Michigan of all places. We talked about his life story that brought him to working at a bar in Budapest. He also shared some dinner recommendations for our last night tomorrow…  The following day we tracked down one of his dinner spot— and what did we come across???

You will NEVER guess… but go ahead and try…

A MOVIE SET!!!  It was active too— the crew was directing us away from the set complete with 1950s old cars lining the street. We were instantly transported back in time, and it was the coolest surprise!

All these were check marks from an unplanned detour. I don’t expect to have a magical story every time I shy away from my rigid planning Jackie mode. But this was the best reward for my spontaneity.

Do I have any other planner mamas reading? Any list makers?  When was the last time you went off script?  The world needs people like us, we play an important role in order, efficiency, and productivity, but every now and again its fun to spice things up; see how the other half lives.

What kind of night would we have had if I had said ‘nah’ to hubby’s suggestion? I mean I already had the best excuse getting over a mystery bug that took me out for two days. I could have said rest and chill was the best medicine. No one would have blamed me, not even hubby. But I can tell you exactly how that night would have played out… We would have walked the block back to our hotel, gone upstairs, gotten comfy in PJs and streamed a show from hubby’s I-Pad until we fell asleep.  P.S. this is also one of my favorite things to do, but imagine reading about that night? It would probably put you to sleep as well.

Here’s a fun challenge; and I hope you are up for it mamas.  Live today like you are going to write a story about it.  Then send me a message and tell me how you spiced up your day!