There's really no news to speak of...
Glenn made us 2-3 quarts of salsa from scratch. It is delicious!
We are harvesting our newest fruit-blackberries! We bought and planted in early spring 3 raspberry and 3 blackberry bushes behind our house and they are now in season. Our bushes look nice and healthy, and we'll get about 40 blackberries this first season, but we didn't get any raspberries at all. I don't know if our raspberry bushes ("sprigs" is probably more correct) were too immature to produce this year, so hopefully we'll have some next summer!
Our apple tree that produced 12 apples last year had about 30 apples on it this year. We're going to have to get on the internet and read up on how to make a naturaly pesticide to keep bugs away. Since we can't speak/read in Hungarian, we don't know how to ask for insecticide and directions on how to use it, so we'll have to go the "natural" route and make our own. Someone told me they thought mixing vinegar and water and spraying it over the tree would work. Any ideas, anyone?
OH! OH! OH! In a week that has been slow and uneventful, the BIG news is that we are getting a bus stop about 50 yards from the front of our house! We are very excited and curious. Excited that it is so close and convenient and yet not right in front of our house, and curious as to where the bus line will go and when it will start service. All week we have watched the crews as they came to dig the foundation, build the framework, pour the base concrete, and now they are laying the bricks. We are hoping the bus will go straight down the street to Campona Mall. (The bus line that passes behind our house goes toward the mall and then veers off to the left, going into downtown Budafok, which is where we catch a tram to go into downtown Budapest.) Maybe they will hang the sign with the names of the bus stops by next weekend and I can update you via this blog!
August 20th is Saint Stephen's Day and all of Hungary meets in Budapest for the festivities. This is the biggest holiday of the year, and it commemorates the coronation of the first king of the Hungarian nation back in the year 1000 AD. (He later became a saint, and is attributed with bringing Christianity to Hungary.)
Booths are set up from the top of Castle Hill overlooking the Danube River, all the way down the winding path to the bottom of the hill, stopping at the foot of the Chain Bridge.
The highlight of the festivities is the air show. Brightly colored planes zoom and soar, twirling to the heavens and leaving a cotton candy trail of white smoke behind them. They race in and out between pylons to show their manipulative skill and control, and the most daredeviling act is when they fly UNDER the Chain Bridge. To give you an idea of how dangerous and difficult this is (we've seen them practicing before) but they could not do it as part of the arial show on Thursday because there was too much wind! We didn't get there in time to see the main air show this year, but we did see the helicopter show, which was not nearly as impressive as the regular planes!!!
We're really not sure what this small group was all about. They walked in formation at ONE MILE AN HOUR! It was like watching a group walk in slow motion. Of course, that made it easier to get a clear photo!!
St. Stephens Day celebration is the largest local arts and craft fair I've ever seen, and an opportunity to eat some of the most fattening but delicious local foods and sweets! Artisans from all over Hungary come to display and sell their handiwork, such as traditional indigo prints.
Various musicians and small bands played throughout the day. The evening ends with a phenomenal fireworks display. Glenn and I didn't stay for it because we didn't want to get caught in all the traffic so we watched it on our TV when we got home! Of course, it loses something when you watch it on TV instead of in person. Maybe next year we'll just make plans to stay for the fireworks and get in the right mindset to be there all night! Of course, that might mean we end up walking home due to the buses not running very often out to our neighborhood that late at night.
Well, that ends our week. Glenn is watching a video clip and doing some research for son-in-law Jonathan while I work on this blog update. Tonight we are going to the Eden House for worship in English! We are still going to the Budafok Baptist Church on Sunday mornings, which is all in Hungarian, and recently no one has been available to translate due to summer vacations, so we sit there for 2 hours trying to find words we recognize! Can't say we're getting a lot out of the worship service, but it is an opportunity to sit still, read our Bible and listen for God to speak in our ears (in English, of course).
Have a good week!
1 comment:
Good blog entry, Cile. Those planes would have been interesting to watch. Too bad it was too windy that evening.
Thank Glenn for his diligent research. I'm praying as he continues.
-J
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