I'm so domestic!

We were in town for a week and had lots to do but it was all fun stuff ...like having several families down from the Eden House for a meal, or going over to Dan and Janet's for a meal (since we haven't seen them in about 2 months!!!!).

I love talking with our kids on Skype amd getting caught up on their news, but especially the times when their babies are awake and we get to see them. It's amazing to Glenn and me how much Jazmine and Alec have grown just in the past 3-5 weeks since we've seen them!

Speaking of our kids, today is our son's birthday! We called Chris this morning at 7:30 am his time in New Jersey, but he was already at the hospital doing his rounds so all we could do was leave him our birthday wishes. We hope he had a good day and knows that we wish we could be there to celebrate with him, Kate and Jaz.

Judit, my Hungarian friend, invited me over to pick figs off her tree so I hauled Glenn over there on Thursday with my jumbo-size Tupperware bowl. I've never eaten a fig by itself before but I loved Glenn's mother's strawberry fig preserves that she used to make. I looked up the recipe on the internet and found that the figs never met a strawberry. What I mean is, there are no strawberries in the recipe but that you use strawberry jello (which I'm sure never met a strawberry either!) to flavor it.

Anyway, I cut up the figs (about 16 cups) and added 8 cups of sugar (yep, you read that right) and boiled them all together for about 30 minutes until it made a nice syrup and the figs were soft. I added 3 boxes of Jello (from America) and one strawberry gelatin packet (from Hungary), and one Sure-Jell (from America) and boiled for another 2 minutes.

While the preserves were still piping hot, I ladled them into canning jars, closed the lids tightly, and then placed the canning jars upside down in a basket lined with a thick beach towel (not that it matters to my fig story, but my mom and dad gave me that beach towel in 1994 so it has been around for a long time and we use it often. It's especially nice because it is a double-wide beach towel!)

Then we wrapped it again with a blanket and stuck it out of the way to let it cool down slowly for 3 days. The hot preserves and the slow cooling down process insures that a nice vacuum seal forms on the jars and then the jars can be stored in a cabinet until ready to eat.

And now I have 13 jars of strawberry fig preserves to share and enjoy for the next 3 years!!!! But aren't they pretty??? I feel so domestic!

Glenn and I left for Germany on Sunday morning for a week.

We flew Malev, the Hungarian airline, on a 7:55 am flight to Frankfort. It's a pretty nice airline, but I got tickled when I saw the tiny amount of lettuce on my cheese sandwich!

We are attending an Emigrate, a conference for our personnel who have been on the field about 9-12 months; kind of a refresher course on strategy and vision, and a time of encouragement. We are doing member care appointments with everyone.

And when we got to Frankfort, I was tickled again when I saw this sign that points to "Other Directions"!!! What??? Some things are just funny to me, and this was hilarious!

Well, off to bed. Morning comes early here and I've got a full day tomorrow. I'm having a great time getting to know all these "new" folks since it is a pretty small group (18 people, plus those of us who are facilitating, speaking or working). We head home on Friday.

Have a great week!

I see London, I see France...

After a few days with Andy and Kaye, we went to the south side of London to spend a day or two with our boss and his wife, Mike and Julie. Glenn spent one day in the London office with Mike, asking questions, going over budgets, making plans for the future...

and then the day we were to fly out, they took us to the British coast to see the cliffs! We didn't go as far as the famous white cliffs of Dover, but almost. We saw some pretty impressive white cliffs!

The cliffs are chalk (pure calcium carbonate with black flecks of flint) and the water close to them is a whitish green because of all the chalk "dust". It was quite an awesome sight for miles and miles.

The cliffs, 10 miles long, drop as much as 107 meters down into the Strait of Dover, which separates England from France.

I was not about to trespass beyond the wire fence. Going to the edge of the cliffs is very dangerous as it can break off and plummet into the water below. This is also where some folks have committed suicide. I preferred to go down to the water's edge and look UP, rather than go to the edge and look DOWN.

We had taken a sack lunch and found a nice roadside park next to a sheep pasture for our scenic picnic. It was quite lovely. And quite a surprise to see a phone booth out in the country!! Who makes calls from out there? The shepherds??

And before we left London, Elaine (who used to live down the street from us in Budapest) and Julie took me to Costco! Can you believe it??? It was like I had walked into America. Even though I had recently been to America (three times, actually), I managed to buy a few items. Surprised, are you?

Then we got on a train and went to France via the Chunnel. It is called the Chunnel because it is a 50 kilometer tunnel built underneath the English Channel. Even though evidence shows the first mention of building a tunnel connecting France and England as early as 1802, construction did not begin until 1988. Yes, 180 years later. The Chunnel was 80% over budget when it was finally completed in 1994.

I love riding on trains. I think they are my favorite mode of transportation. I would love to go on a long ride to some exotic place, but I've slept in their sleeper cars. They aren't very comfortable!

We stayed in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris, with Jerry and Kathy who also do member care with us. They took us out to see the Chateau de Fontainebleau, originally built in the twelfth century. While there, I got to enjoy great Middle Eastern kebabs. Yum!

Chateau de Fontainebleau, a gorgeous castle about 55 kilometers south of Paris, has been inhabited by many, many kings and emperors throughout the history of France. Each king or queen has either built additions or remodeled sections of the castle according to their own taste or needs. It was interesting to see what was important to each leader, and the egos some of them had.

After visiting the chateau, we walked through the quaint little town of Fontainebleau and enjoyed the stroll among the shops.

And the pastry shops, called patisseries, were incredible! Truly edible!

We saw London, we saw France, but when we got home, we did our happy dance!

We love to travel to see our co-workers, but home is always a good place for us to be, even if it is for just a few days. How long? 6 days. Next stop? Germany. Auf Viedersehn! (That's "good-bye" in German.)

How do you say this in ... English?

Sorry for the lapse in updating my blog. It was an incredibly busy week back in Budapest after being away for a month (2 weeks in U.S. and 2 weeks in Senegal). We had to do all the things we have to do when returning from a trip, like grocery shop, pay bills, do laundry, etc, and we had several families from the Eden House down for meals.

We were in Budapest for Labor Day, and the couple that manages the Eden House invited us down for a Labor Day cook-out with the guests. I had signed up to bring a dessert so that morning I made 6 quarts of ice cream as our contribution to the meal. (Next summer I'm going to keep track of how many quarts of ice cream I make.)

There were 10 adults and 3 children at the cook-out, and the burgers were soooo good.

I wanted to take a meal to one of our families in Budapest that evening though to help them out so I had to plan my schedule out very carefully to make sure I could get the meal to them on time!! (The wife had gone to the U.S. for a family emergency, taking her youngest child with her and leaving the older 3 children with her husband in Budapest.) I had calculated that, at the very latest, I needed to be back from the cook-out and working on the meal no later than 4:30 pm. I actually got home and started working on the meal at 4:20 so I had 10 grace minutes!

We were heading out of town on Thursday, so Glenn had to harvest our grapes before we could go. :-) We didn't have a huge crop this year so it didn't take a lot of time. Phew!

Thursday afternoon we flew to London to visit with one of our member care couples who are responsible for most of western Europe. They leave for their 6 month stateside assignment on Friday. Andy and Kaye live in South Gate, a suburb of London, and we really enjoy our time with them, wherever we are!

Kaye taught me how to eat the way the Brits do: with the fork turned upside down, and using the knife, scoop the food onto the backside of the fork, putting it in your mouth upside down. You never put your silverware down. I enjoyed the famous fish and chips!

Kaye and Andy also taught us that here in the U.K., chips are french fries, potato chips are crisps, biscuits are cookies, barbies are grills, and boots are trunks. Even though they speak English here, it is definitely a different English! We learned that instead of having garage sales, they have boot sales. On certain weekends, people will pay a small fee to park their car in a field and sell their good junk out of the trunk of their car!

Saturday we went into town to the Portobello Market, probably the most famous street market in the world. It is about 2 miles long of antique shops, local foods, clothing (new and used), and fleas.

It was packed!

There was one store that sold men's clothing, and part of the decor was that the walls were lined with antique sewing machines. Quite fabulous!

I kept losing Glenn in the crowds so I just looked for a man in a red shirt!

Just one block off the street was this book store that was made famous in the movie Notting Hill with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Glenn and Andy took a "look see" inside while Kaye and I were in a different shop, and they found out that the book store is closing! I'm guessing it is because Amazon.uk is putting them out of business.

We were there over the lunch hour and looked around for something to eat but we decided we DIDN'T want this breakfast. At least, we didn't want baked beans which is part of a typical British breakfast!!

We got yummy steak sandwiches on this awesome bread. (By the way, according to some Brits that we met, the word 'awesome' has recently come into vogue in England.)

Does anyone use a telephone booth these days?

Throughout the city we found these blue circular signs that advertised where world famous people had lived, stayed, eaten... This one says that George Orwell, the novelist and political activist, 1903-1950, lived in this place.

Red double-decker buses were everywhere.

We hopped on one and rode it through the city to see things from up high!

We eventually got off when we got close to Buckingham Palace and walked the rest of the way.

When I was in middle school and living in Germany (my dad was in the army and stationed there), our family traveled to England to see the Queen. Well, not really, but we did get to see the changing of the guards here at Buckingham Palace!

This house was covered with beautiful, colorful flowers.

I thought this building was quite attractive.

And I loved all the red brick buildings.

This statue of Lord Nelson, who led in the Battle at Trafalgar against Napoleon, is located in Trafalgar Square. The lit dome in the distance on the left of the base is the tower of Big Ben. Did you know that Big Ben is actually the name of the BELL that hangs in the tower, not the big clock? I didn't.

Another view of Trafalgar Square. The red digital sign on the other side of the fountain is the count-down clock for the Olympics that will be in the U.K. next summer.

Glenn and I left Kaye and Andy's house and moved to the south side of London and are now staying with Mike and Julie. (Mike is one of our bosses.) Today, while Glenn and Mike went into the office to talk business, Julie, Elaine (who used to live in Budapest), and I went to COSTCO today! I felt like I was back in America!!!

We leave tomorrow (Tuesday) for Paris to visit with another member care couple for a few days so my next update will probably be of our time in France.