Glenn almost missed his birthday!

Yes, something happened this week that we have never experienced, and it almost kept Glenn from making it to his own birthday party!

With all the snow and salt, sand and grit on the road from the winter months, our car was looking pretty nasty so we took it to be washed. Granted, I never took our car to be washed in America (because Glenn or Chris always washed them by hand), but I've never even heard of washing a car with STEAM instead of water!!! Maybe it's because we lived in the south and washing with water wasn't a big deal in the dead of winter...It's possible that up north where it's much colder and snow is on the ground much longer that steam car washes exist. Anyway, for this southern lady, I'd never seen anyone wash a car using ONLY steam.

When I asked the guy if I could take a picture of him washing the car, I explained to him and his 2 buddies that they don't wash cars with steam in America where I came from, that we use water. He kinda had a puzzled look on his face, shrugged his shoulders, and then said, "Yes, take pictures." After taking a couple of pictures, as I was walking away, one of the 3 said something in Hungarian, of which the only word I understood was "American", and then the 3 of them burst out laughing. I'm not sure I want to know what he said. No, I'm sure I DON'T want to know!

But this tale doesn't have anything to do with Glenn almost missing his birthday party. Read on.

Turkey is plentiful here in Hungary, but you can't just walk into a grocery store and buy a 12-14 pound turkey for a special occasion. They raise turkeys until they are huge in size, bigger than any I've seen for sale in America, and then sell them already cut into breasts or legs, or ground up (like hamburger meat), and the remaining parts go into turkey sausages.

Anyway, since Glenn and I both prefer dark meat, we decided to go for just the drumsticks. To make the meal more festive, we used some spices that Kate brought us back from Kenya called Garam Masala. It was delicious! The only thing missing was the sweet potato casserole!

But that didn't have anything to do with why Glenn almost missed his own party!

Can you tell the difference in these two 10,000 forint bills? Well, maybe you can now that I've drawn your attention to it, but Glenn didn't. But the cashier at the store did! She called the store manager and several others over to try to communicate to him that the bill he'd just passed to her was counterfeit! He got a little nervous when the store manager got on the phone to call someone. Glenn figured he'd be learning all sorts of new Hungarian vocabulary words, like pokey, slammer, jailbird, inmate... and how mad I would be at him for not calling me to let me know he wouldn't be home in time for his birthday dinner/party later that evening!

Fortunately, they figured he was innocent and let him go. They even let him keep the counterfeit bill!!! A lot of good it will do us though. We're out $50, but it makes a good story. An expensive story, but a good one.

And he enjoyed telling the story later that evening when the Doyles, Clubbs and Snyders joined us for our first cook-out of 2011! Glenn grilled burgers and sausages (it's a Hungarian thing-anytime you have a guest over for a meal, you are supposed to offer 3 kinds of grilled meats. We're all Americans, so we compromised and served 2.)

Mary made Glenn a home-made German chocolate cake, his all-time favorite! We're not talking a box mix with a Betty Crocker tub of pecan coconut frosting. It was the real deal made from scratch! It was 3 layers and had tons of great tasting frosting!

For his birthday, I got Glenn a 3-D puzzle of the Hungarian Parliment building. We've set up the card table in our living room (or is that our dining room????) and he is starting to put it together as I write this blog. I'll have another picture next week of the finished product!

Have a great week! We have company coming this week for 3-4 days to work on education plans and I hope to have some good news for you in the very near future. Well, it's good news for me, but I hope to be able to share it with you soon!!