Packin' it in!

This week's blog actually spans two weeks so I've tried to pack our daily events into one short blog update.  

Judit and I went into town last week to buy some fabric for a trip I'm going to be taking in the near future to a country that requires very modest dress.  She'll be making the clothes for me and she's got a good eye for what fabric works well with which styles.   We decided to walk as much of the way as possible in order to burn a few calories.  I'd say we walked a good 3-4 miles, and then when we got back to her house, she offered me a slice of bread with homemade jam.

When someone asks if you want a slice of bread, check to see how big the loaf is before you say "yes"!  Fortunately, our slices were from the edges and not from the middle of the loaf! 

We'll be on the road much of the time between now and our stateside assignment so we looked at our calendar with Dan and Janet and realized that from mid-April until June 2nd, we would not be in town at the same time as them.  We decided to take advantage of our last opportunity to visit with them for a month and a half by going out to dinner together at Johnny's Bistro (where they sell great American-style hamburgers and all the atmosphere of a 1950's diner.  

Their latest acquisition?  A & W Rootbeer!  Wow!  At $2 a can, we won't drink it often but it is a nice treat once in a while ...

We left Friday (a week ago) and went to a spiritual retreat that was being held in the town of Vajta, Hungary, 1 hour 15 minutes from Budapest, for our personnel living in Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, and part of Bosnia.  We drove, and as we passed through each little town, I loved to find the Catholic church for that particular village.   I wish I had a collection of pictures of the Catholic churches we've seen in our part of the world.

We stayed in the Calvary Chapel's Bible school facility for our retreat.  The students were on a 10 day evangelical mission to various parts of Europe so we had the whole place to our selves.  They call it a castle, but it really looked more like an estate to me.  Large buildings, quite old but recently restored, and stately gardens.

Across the street from the main campus, they've built lodging for outside guests.  We stayed in this building (that's our car in the parking lot) for the retreat, which ended on Sunday with lunch.  Everyone else left, but Glenn and I stayed over until Sunday, and then on Monday morning, drove on down to Bosnia to visit with the families in Sarajevo.

It was about a 6 hour drive from Vajta to Sarajevo, so we had lots of scenery to enjoy.  There's just something different about the style of houses in this part of the world, compared to our houses in America!  Always, always fences around the yards, houses built up rather than out, and usually out of brick and stucco.

We saw only one town in which folks were selling things out in front of their houses, such as pickled peppers, honey, sauerkraut, garlic strands, etc on our route from Budapest to Vajta to Sarajevo but we saw quite a few small markets along the way.  Always pleasant to see because they are so colorful!

In all our travels here in Europe, Sarajevo is one of our top favorite cities to visit.  VISIT.  The old town  area is quaint, and I love meandering among the cobblestone streets, looking in the various shops selling war artifacts, beaten copper pictures, scarves, and sugar/cinnamon coated almonds!  Great tasting strawberries were for sale in several little markets so we pigged out on them too.

Don't know if you can see the logo on the top of the yellow hotel, but this is Holiday Inn.  I thought all Holiday Inns were painted green???  

We didn't stay in the Holiday Inn, but rather, in a small, family owned hotel that has about 8 rooms for rent. It's one block from what we call "pigeon square", which is the open area at the entrance into the old town area with a fountain and several cafes and hundreds of pigeons scavenging for food.  The view out the front of the hotel is nice with the rolling hills and mountains in the distance.

The view out the back of the hotel is not so nice.  This is out our window.  The burglar bars are on our bedroom window, and the building across the alley is about 8 feet away.  If you can zoom in on the photo, you will see the horizontal crevice where they've added a second floor and the quality of workmanship in the building!  Not where I'd want to live! 

In the middle of the night, from our room we heard this horrible growling and then a dog fight that seemed to go on forever.  It was obviously between more than two dogs.  The next morning as we were walking into the old town to meet up with one of our families, we saw this pack of dogs in the lot next to the hotel, which explained why it seemed like it was just outside our window and among several dogs.  There are 11 dogs in this photo.  They must have gotten over whatever was upsetting them during the night because they were just as calm and quiet as sleepy cats.

One of the families we visited in Sarajevo has ties in Africa.  We were thrilled to see their "guard" chairs, like we had in Cote d'Ivoire.  These are the chairs that the night guards would "sit" in during the night while they "guarded" houses.  :-)  They lean back just enough to make you sleepy!

We got back to Budapest on Wednesday night.  Had Paul and Tena over for dinner on Thursday.  On Friday, we took dinner to Carolyn and Gary at their hotel since Gary didn't feel up to traveling across town after his surgery last week.  We stayed and ate with them.  Saturday, we had 4 college age girls over for an American cookout.  Sunday, we're resting.  :-)

Busy, busy, busy, but we love it!