Dino Days are back!

This week started off with dinner with some wonderful friends. Glenn and I both love having folks in our home and our job introduces us to lots of new folks each week. (The only problem with having folks over so much is the number of desserts I fix each week, and I'm not strong enough to pass them up.) Ever since this family returned to their home, things have been very quiet at the Eden House, which has allowed me to do some inventory and pull out the winter comforters for all the beds.


Mmmm, the apple crisp was great!


Our next door neighbors

Our landlord's wife's' parents live in the house behind ours, and they spoil us with lots of fresh fruit from their yard. It's been a real interesting relationship betweeen us since we don't speak Hungarian and they don't speak English. We do a lot of pantomining and saying "igen" even when we don't really understand!


Homemade grape juice, for real!


Our very own 2 liters of homemade grape juice

Ryan, Hannah and Cody

We had the pleasure of having the Aderholt kids over for a couple of hours this week. We love playing with them. We don't have very many toys any more since our kids are now grown, so we walked up to the Eden House for them to play in the children's play room. They have tons of toys for all ages of kids.

Even big kids!

They played so hard (well, maybe the 3/4 mile to the Eden House and 3/4 mile back tuckered them out) that they collapsed. I think Glenn would have joined them if there had been room for him in the bed too!

And while the kids slept, the dinosaurs disappeared!

Saturday, I cleaned house because on Monday my Dad and Emogene are coming for 11 days! I promise to have a lot of good pictures of their visit next week!

Well, that was my week. Hope yours was good, too!

A Perfect Day!

This week has been very busy for both Glenn and me because the Eden House was almost full all week. I should have taken a picture of the mound of laundry that I started on Saturday when 3 families left! Right now, we have a bit of a breathing spell. There is only one couple there now through Tuesday, and then no one until next week! Wow! How did that happen? Hopefully, this down time will allow me to get caught up on some other things, like returning emails, preparing for my Dad and Emogene's arrival on October 1, and who knows, maybe I'll even get in some language study!



Speaking of language study, this week we had to meet at our language teacher's apartment because she was waiting on the plumber to come. (Some things never change!) It was interesting being in her apartment and getting a glimpse into her family life.


Books, books, and more books, but not a one could I read!

I knew her husband liked to read, but I had no idea how much!! They have two bedrooms in which 3 of the 4 walls are covered completely in books! NO JOKING! I have never seen anything like it. They had more books than most used bookstores! I love to read, and would have been in literary heaven had the books been in English!



This past week we also had the pleasure of having two young people come to stay with us while they renew their tourist visas for Greece. Jennifer and Dean are friends of a friend of ours, Kristin. (Kristin was at ILC last Oct.-Dec. with us.) We were really busy with the guest house and doctor's appointments so we didn't get to spend much time with them the few days they were here, but it was cool that Jennifer is from Peachtree City and Dean lived some in Athens, Georgia!



After a hectic week and with one of the last gorgeous days of the summer, Glenn and I decided to do some exploring in Budafok, which is the extended neighborhood in which we live. It is a subhurb of Budapest. We live about a 25 minute walk from the Danube River, and we heard that there is a bike/walking trail along the river. Unfortunately, there is a pretty busy road that runs along the river too, and so we had to find the bridge or tunnel that went under that busy road to get to the walking trail.

It took us a little time, but we finally found it. The water was flowing fast, was full of plastic bottles, and the scenery was not all that beautiful down in our area of town, but it was a nice walk in the warm sunshine.

We then headed into the downtown area of Budafok. Do you notice the long row of apartment houses in the distance? Those are some of the many apartment buildings that were built during the communist era.

From the top of the hill in Budafok, you can see some beautiful views!

Glenn in downtown Budafok

Communist era apartment buildings

Run-down train station in Budafok, right next to the river

Taking a walk with the Pollards

Since we were so close to the Pollard's house, we decided to walk up and visit them. They live at the top of the hill in Budafok so we definitely got our exercise in today!

Abby and Chloe find a ladybug

On the way down the hill, we saw lots of new houses being built, trees that have born their fruit for the season, and this magnificent door! Actually, this is a gate door to someone's yard. I found it odd that the massive door is attached to a green chainlink fence! We walked about 2 1/2 hours in all so tonight we are going to watch some DVD's. I imagine that tomorrow I will be sore!

Well, another week, another weekend. Can't believe how fast time has flown by! Until next week...

Hit the Road, Jack!

Thought you might like to see some pictures of the Eden House, our home away from home.


The Eden House


Backyard and children's playground


Family room


Office


Main kitchen for guests


One of 8 bedrooms

In addition to catching buses into town, there is also a train that comes through our neck of the woods, passing right by Campona Mall on it's way into town or going out of town to other parts of Hungary. Catching the train into town is much faster than taking a bus because it makes fewer stops and it moves much faster than buses do. It is no problem to catch a train going into Budapest because any train coming from your right is going into town. However, catching a train from downtown out to Budafok where we live is a little more confusing because of all the trains going to various other cities. Unfortunately, it has been difficult for some of our missionaries to read and interpret the map and departure schedule in town for the trains coming out to our neighborhood, which has caused several of our missionaries to hop on the the wrong train and sail right pass the Campona Mall!

I needed to learn which is the correct train(s) for our missionaries to take so that I could instruct them in how to do it, so on Thursday Kristi, her son Ryan, and I hopped on the train into town and then she showed me how to read and interpret the map, and then we got on the right train to come home. I learned, "DON"T take the RED train because it is the express train and even though it passes through Budafok, it does NOT stop at Campona Mall".



Riding on the train with Ryan reminded me of the many trains we caught when Kari and Chris were his age while we were living in France and going to language school before moving to Cote d'Ivoire. It brought back wonderful memories of our train trips to Germany, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland during our language class breaks.



Hopping on that train gave me the bug to travel, so after talking with the other wives here, the 5 of us decided to hit the road and spend Saturday in Vienna! I drove, which was great experience for me! Actually, it was quite easy as once we got on the interstate, it was a straight shot into Vienna. We parked in a parking garage just as we got into town, bought a metro day pass, and stormed the city. I think each one of us had our own reasons for wanting to go. Mine was just to experience another city for a day; a chance to get out and walk; one last opportunity to sightsee in another country before the weather turned too cold to enjoy it.


Krisit's reason? STARBUCKS!!!

We left Budapest at 9:00 am. It is 1 1/2 hours to the Austria/Hungary border and then another 30 minutes to Vienna, so we arrived in time for morning coffee at Starbucks.

4 Starbucks cups but 5 ladies. Who doesn't drink coffee?

Me!

But I love Coke Zero which was available everywhere in Vienna but can't be found in Budapest!

After the morning coffee, we took advantage of our trusted guide, Kristi, and her trusty map, and took off to explore the city.

We did a lot of walking, meandering wherever anyone wanted to go. It was very relaxing. If anyone wanted to go into a store, we stopped to let her. If Karen or I wanted to take a picture, the group waited patiently.

No one had anything in particular they wanted to see or do, other than try to find all the Starbucks possible, so when we happened on a festival to celebrate the harvest season, we took time out to enjoy it.

Boot toss

There were lots of things for children to do. This game was to see how many men's heavy rubber wading boots could you pitch into the wheelbarrow that was about 5 meters away. You can't see it very well, but her boot is in the air, just over the U in the sign. She did pretty well, getting 4 out of 5 boots in the wheelbarrow!

Free-for-all climbing on the hay bales. Chris would have loved this!

Just for Queenie!

There were quite a few of these huge bales of hay covered with fruits and vegetables for decoration. I couldn't help but think of Glenn's mother, Queenie, and how much she would have enjoyed seeing these!

We discovered a beautiful rose garden and I talked the ladies into doing a lap around the outer edge of it.

Parliament Building

Don't know what this is but it was big and beautiful

Excavation finds city below the city in the heart of the city!

Another beautiful, ornate Catholic church

I hope my father will forgive me. Between my lack of love for history in general and having seen every Catholic church, cathedral and basilica in Europe when I was a child, I have no desire to see any more, much less care about learning the names of them. Besides that, they all look the same to me. Lots of gold inlay, ornate woodwork, humongous pipe organs, priests standing in high towers from which they "preach", and all these tourists walking through in the middle of services. Needless to say, I do not know the name of this church; one of the ladies wanted to see it so we came inside.

We walked along a pedestrian street and enjoyed the street vendors and performers. There were several of these types of human statues dressed totally in silver or gold dotted all along the street. This particular couple would slowly bow down when you place coins on the ground in front of them. I'm not sure what the talent is here, other than not scratching when something itches.

I much prefer the real perfomers such as this juggler, or the blind trio that sang a capella, or the hippie duet playing the drums or the man singing while strumming on his guitar. We dared Kristi to do a cheer for everyone to enjoy to see if anyone would give her money, but she tells us she has forgotten all of them. Yea, right.

I love the old buildings and can't seem to quit taking pictures of them!

We ate dinner at a restaurant on the pedestrian mall. I chose weiner schnitzel and it was delicious! The restaurant, however, was a bit expensive in the end. They advertized out on the street the weiner schnitzel at 9.50E (9 euros and 50 cents is about $13 USD) but on the menu inside it was priced at 10.50. The waiter told us it was an old menu out on the street. (Hmm?) Then they also charged us 2 euros per person cover charge (which is about $2.60 a person)! They also charged me for 3 ketcup packets at a cost of 1.20 euros, which is about $2! (At this nice restaurant, they used ketchup packets so they could know the exact amount you used and charge you for it!) Good thing I ordered tap water. When I needed a refill, I poured it from my water bottle because I was afraid they'd charge me $6 for tap water!

Another Starbucks!

Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun and it was a great time of fellowship. Of course, before we headed back to Budapest at 9:30 pm, we had to have "one for the road" at another Starbucks! Since I don't drink coffee, Kristi had to promise to keep me awake, which was no problem after all the caffeine and sugar in her 2 coffees that day!

Glenn is catching a train on Monday for a meeting in Prague (Czech Republic; no longer Czechoslovakia), but will be returning on Tuesday. We have 4 family units in the Eden House right now, so things are still busy. I made 1 1/2 gallons of potato soup on Friday and took it up to the Eden House to share with everyone. We also ate homemade ice cream and a chocolate cake (thanks to a wonderful care package!) to celebrate Beth's birthday (one of the guests). No wonder I am really enjoying the Eden House ministry! Lot's of opportunities for parties!

Thank you for your prayers, especially for God to call someone for the Eden House ministry! He is faithful to answer them. Thank you for asking!

Have a good week!

How Do I Get There Now???

Glenn returned from 2 weeks of "summer camp" in Idaho where he went for contingency training. While he was gone, and while I was in France last week, our landlord came to do some drilling in our basement to hook us up from septic to the new sewer lines that were laid in front of our house recently.


And this is how dusty it was when I returned from France.



Not only did I bring 3 boxes of granola back with me for Glenn, I also brought cold weather! I believe it was Tuesday when I called my Dad to wish him a happy birthday that I noticed on my computer that the high for the day was supposed to be 66 degrees! The temperature has hovered between 65-70 degrees most of this week and the wind has really picked up. I hope we get a little more summer because if this is the beginning of fall, it's going to be a longggg winter!


Where are we?

Glenn and I, along with a co-worker staying at the guest house, went into town on Saturday.


Where trams go to die or get refurbished

We hopped on a bus, then a tram and then several more buses and trams.


Bridges being repaired-1 Confusion and congestion-2 years

This trek into town was to find new ways of getting places because a major bridge, the Szabadsag (Freedom) is closed for repairs for 2 years. This is the bridge that leads into the area of town where the Grand Market Hall and Vaci Street are located, which is where a lot of our "co-workers" across CEE want to go when they come to town and have time (and health) to go sightseeing. Because it is closed, the bus and tram lines that crossed over it have all been altered and so we have to figure out where the new routes go and how to get to places that a lot of people want to visit when they come into town.

Sometimes we would hop on a new bus route just to see where it would go.




There were plenty of maps at the stops to help us figure out where the bus or tram goes, but I sure was glad Glenn was our fearless leader! His GPS training in Idaho sure came in handy!



Had to learn how to get to Grand Market Hall from the back of the building




Vaci Street was more crowded than we'd ever seen before!

Learned a new route to the English Secondhand Bookstore

And then it was lunchtime!

The highlight of the day was getting to eat at Speedy Burritos! We had heard about it from friends and passed it many times while on the bus but had never eaten here before. It looked authentic...

It looked like a Mexican buffet line....

even the walls were painted in lots of oranges and yellows, and it had a huge stack of fried torilla shells that looked mouth-watering delicious. The only weird thing was seeing the names on the menu written in Hungarian.

Looks like the real thing!

But looks are deceiving. We both got the fahita plate, and we both agreed that the sauce had more of an oriental flavoring than a mexican one. It was still good, and we enjoyed it, but it wasn't La Parilla!

I took this picture while we were riding around. On the right and in the center, you see the backs of two buildings. On the left, you can see the outline of a building that has recently been taken down, block by block, that was butted up against another building. Please excuse the wire that goes right through the middle of the picture! They don't put their wires underground like we do in America, so it is really hard to take a picture here without wires or poles in them!

Pecsi Istvan

This is Glenn's jogging buddy, Istvan (Stephen, in English). In Hungary, you write your last name first. He was finally able to come to church with us today, and then over to our house for lunch. He lived in the US for about 7 years so his English is good. I hope he "understands" our American quirks and customs! Today, when he went to say good-bye to me, he leaned over to hug me so I hugged him back. (You know, I'm from the south and we like to hug everybody!) Well, he wasn't leaning over to hug me, but rather, to give me a kiss on my cheek, which is the typical way to greet or say good-bye in Hungary. Hugging is not done in Hungary, so I hope he wasn't offended or shocked, but that he remembers it is a normal southern way to greet or say good-bye in America!

Great news! We have a couple coming to help us with the Eden House! They are coming for 2-3 years, and if their house sells quickly, they should be here in January! We'll give you more information about them soon, but we thank you for praying about this great need with us, and ask you to pray now for all their details to be worked out in God's timing and way. We're so excited and looking forward to working with them!

Got to run. Have a great week!

Borders Cile