Here, there and everywhere!

Having returned from the Serbia Team Retreat, we ran a few loads of laundry through our tiny European washing machine that takes 1 hour and 15 minutes PER (tiny) LOAD to wash, watered our plants, paid bills, made a few Skype calls, and then repacked our bags only to leave again two days later for Prague, Czech Republic.



Charles Bridge with hot air balloon in distance

Our trip actually had two purposes: to make member care visits with the families living in Prague and to attend the business portion of the European Affinity Global Leadership Team (AGLT). Don't feel too badly though that we were only home two nights between trips because I chose to go to Prague 2 days early in order to go with the AGLT ladies on a "Polish Pottery Run" to Boleslawic, Poland where they manufacture the beautiful, distinctive Polish pottery that I'm so fond of. While I was in Poland with the ladies, Glenn met with several of the families by himself, and then when I returned, we met with the rest of the families together.

It's a 3 hour drive from Prague so we left early in the morning to be able to shop all day until the stores closed at 5 pm. I counted 12 stores we visited, so by dinnertime we were hungry, weary and broke but happy! We found the cutest little log cabin restaurant that looked like it was plucked straight from the north Georgia mountains near Ellijay, complete with yard art and country artifacts!!

I had one of the best Polish dishes I've ever tasted at this little place!

And this is what I bought with my birthday and Christmas money that I've been saving for the past year. Well, it's not all for me ... the casserole dish on the far left was bought for a friend of mine. :-)

From Prague, we went back to BP for another two nights before heading to Malaga, Spain for a cluster meeting where we provided member care visits with all our personnel.

During the meeting time, I sat next to one of the ladies with a 32 ounce QuikTrip cup! It was a real shocker to see that! Made me feel like I was back in Georgia. Sure made me wish I could have one of their Coke Zero fountain drinks with crushed ice. Ahhhh! The things we miss!

First on the list, a bottle of fountain water!

At the start of the meeting to get everyone relaxed and familiar with one another, we began with a scavenger hunt. The purpose was to get us working as a team, to help us learn our way around the little town, and to learn about the Spanish culture by needing to ask questions of locals in order to locate the specific scavenged items.

Hmmm, where is the statue?

Another thing we had to find and photograph was a statue that was made depicting one of Picasso's paintings which meant that we had to stop locals to ask them what it was of and where it might be. Turns out there were a lot of British tourists in town who didn't know it and where it was and not a lot of Spaniards who spoke enough English to direct us, but we finally found it!

Picasso's Women Running on the Beach

We found out that Pablo Picasso is from Malaga and the town honored their citizen by having a statue made from his picture of Women Running on the Beach. Actually, we learned a lot about Spain through the scavenger hunt!

We also found that our little group is not very competitive and decided we'd rather stop and have a couple of drinks (Coke, of course) than win.

And this is the view out the back of the cafe' where we stopped for some refreshment. The weather and temperature was ideal for walking about town but a little cool for swimming.

The best part of the meeting though was getting to know our personnel better through the member care visits. Always a favorite with us!

Our return flight left Malaga at 6:45 AM so we had to wake up at the early hour of 4:30 AM. We had a 4-hour lay-over in Paris which meant we were there over the lunch hour, hence, how we came to find these funny signs! I've heard of French fries, the skinny little strips of deep fat fried potatoes, but I never knew that those deep fried fat wedges of potatoes are called American potatoes. Maybe this is France's way of retaliating?

And I loved this sign!!! On the menu board the chocolate chip cookie had a little sign taped to it that read (in French), "This recipe is a victim of it's own success", which is a cute way of saying that there are no chocolate chip cookies available.

Next trip? Antolya, Turkey. :-)

P.S. All photos used with permission

The First Time I Ever...

I get so excited over some of the most insignificant things. Living in a foreign country gives us many opportunities to rejoice over so many things that in America were no big deal. For example, this week for the first time EVER I saw American-style whole wheat bread in Hungary!

Of course, it only had 16 slices and it cost $2 for the little loaf but it was soft and sliced and soooo good. May be the best $2 I spend each week! It is not easy to find soft sliced bread of any color but it's especially difficult to find a good, healthy, dark bread. I was told that the reason you don't find many dark breads in Hungary is because back in the communists' days, dark bread was all you could get, and now that the days of communism are over, they don't want anything that reminds them of those days. That's what I was told, anyway. Don't know if it is true or not....

Back to the whole wheat bread... I got the last loaf on the shelf at Tesco the other day and I'm hoping that it will continue to be available from now on, but I'm not getting my hopes up! Too many of our personnel across Europe have found a product that they really liked, and when there were no more on the shelves, would talk to the manager about reordering the such-and-such only to be told that they weren't going to stock it any more because they couldn't keep it on the shelves! Too many people kept buying it that they had to keep ordering it and restocking the shelves. Evidently, they didn't own the store; they were just working in it.

Glenn and I now have our own personal driver. Not really, but we like to think we do! Zoli is a taxi driver that we now call any time we need to travel to the airport or train station. He lived in New York for a few years so he speaks English well. We enjoy our conversations with him and hope to get to know him and his wife better. They attend the local Catholic church so we have that in common, except we attend a Baptist church. :-)

On Tuesday, Zoli took us to the train station and we headed south for the Serbia Team Retreat.

We spent one day in Novi Sad (population 400,000) with the team leaders Mike and Pam before heading to Brzece, a small town in the mountains for the retreat. (Yes, I spelled the town name correctly. Alex, I'd like to buy a vowel to put between the r and z, please.) Here we are standing in front of OUR Danube River as it passes through their town. I think Novi Sad, overlooking the Danube River, looks a lot like Budapest, only not quite as pretty. But then again, I might be just a wee bit prejudiced. :-)

Their town square was quite beautiful and quaint, and not nearly as crowded as ours are in Budapest.

We visited the fortress of Petrovaradin on the hillside overlooking the Danube River that reportedly has 16 miles of tunnels underground from which the Serbs were able to deter the Turks from advancing northward. It is a fortress that no enemy has ever taken throughout the ages. In the fort you could see holes in the walls barely off the ground from which guns would shoot the Turks (and all other enemies) as they tried to take the city. If you look carefully, you can see a door underneath the bridge where you could enter one of the many tunnels.

What time is it on this clock? 1:30? WRONG. Years ago when sailors would come around the bend of the river in their boats (maybe a little tipsy), they couldn't see the small hand of the clock to know what hour it was. The story goes that someone switched the hands and so that the long hand actually tells the hour now instead of the minutes. It evidently didn't matter the EXACT time to the sailors, it just mattered what hour of the day it was. So I took this photo at 6 o'clock-ish.

You can see pylons in the Danube River left-over from the bridge that was bombed and destroyed by the Germans in WWII.

On Thursday we headed to the mountains (to an out-of-season ski resort) for the Serbia Team Retreat. We loved the rolling countryside, the many grape vineyards that climbed the sides of the hills, and the bags and bags of red peppers and apples for sale, stacked up on the side of the narrow winding roads leading to the hotel.

Part of the retreat was spent going over everyone's Grip Birkman results so that they could learn what strengths each person brings to the team, which would give them a greater appreciation for the differences in their co-workers. Here, Pam, Mike and Carl are working "together" to build the tallest structure they can out of uncooked spaghetti noodles and marshmallows.

This team came in third place. :-(

The captain of the team that came in second place is very competitive and didn't like being in second place. He said that second place is just another word for losing. Ah, but it was fun watching the 3 teams work out their strategies, or not use a strategy at all!

This man led the Grip Birkman part of the retreat and did a good job. He won everyone's heart when he gave everyone Oreo cookies that he used for one of his examples and then let us eat them!

The retreat ended this afternoon and we head back to Novi Sad tomorrow and then on to Budapest on the night train. Glenn reserved a sleeper car for us so we will at least be able to stretch out and get a little sleep. (emphasis on little) We leave Novi Sad at 10 pm and arrive back in Budapest on Tuesday morning at 5 am. After running a few loads of laundry and repacking our suitcases, we leave for Prague on Wednesday morning. Do you know the song On the Road Again by Willie Nelson? That's my new song.

Catch you next week!

A great week!

This picture should give you a clue as to what we did this week...

I ended last week's entry with David running in the Budapest 2011 marathon and Glenn, Debbie and me following him around the route to cheer him on. He didn't think it outrageously funny when the rest of us made comments about how sore and tired our feet were, at least not as funny as we did!

We figured he would be a little sore the day after the race so on Monday we went to the Szechenyi Thermal Baths.

Since we got a late start (somebody was awfully tired and sore and slept late! ME!), we decided to pack a lunch and eat a picnic in the park on the grounds of the baths. Why do sandwiches always taste better when eaten on a picnic???

We enjoyed going from one pool to another (they have different minerals in them and are different temperatures too) soaking in each one to get the various medicinal benefits they have to offer. We tried a couple of saunas too. I prefer the one with the eucalyptus aroma but the room is so foggy that I can't see where I am sitting. I'm always afraid I'm going to sit on someone's lap (other than Glenn's) by accident!

We stayed until our hands were like prunes and we were totally relaxed! Ahhhh!

After a couple of days of working from our home, we noticed the weather was about to turn cold and nasty so we planned a day in town to show David and Debbie the sights of the city. With a trusty map and our cute looking guide (Glenn), we headed into town for the day.

My daughter, Kari, discovered this perfect spot for taking family photos with the Parliament building in the background.

And it's been at least two months since I showed any photos of the tourist sites in town, so please bear with me ONCE AGAIN. This is of the Szechenyi Chain Bridge, my favorite bridge in town. (There are 8 bridges that cross the Danube River in the downtown area.) The Szechenyi bridge, completed in 1849, was the first permanent stone-bridge connecting the city of Buda on one side with the city of Pest on the other side of the river, and today is the most well-known bridge in Hungary.

Just north of the Szechenyi Chain Bridge is the Margaret Bridge (Margit Bridge, in Hungarian) and just beyond that bridge is the Margaret Island, which today is a city park that is popular with joggers, lovers, frisbee throwers, tourists and local citizens alike. Margaret Island sits in the middle of the Danube River, a short walk from the gorgeous Parliament building.

We spent some time up on Castle Hill overlooking the Danube River and the city of Budapest. It must have been a school holiday in several of our neighboring countries because we saw and heard many tour groups of high school students speaking different languages.

These 3 tourists are looking over at Fisherman's Bastion.

The white-stoned Fisherman's Bastion, is described as being Disney-esque because it is full of turrets, projections, parapets and climbing stairways. (That word "parapets", I got from a web site; it's a real word. I didn't make it up. It means "a defensive wall or elevation, often made of earth or stone, in a fortification." It was built in 1905. The seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that came to Hungary in 896 that eventually joined together to form Hungary, or Magyarorszag ... as it is called in Hungarian.

This monument, Shoes on the Danube Promenade, commemorates the death of Hungarians shot by the terrorizing Arrow Cross party in the winter of 1944-45. Containing 60 pairs of iron shoes, the monument is about 40 meters long. Even though this is not the only location where people were killed and dumped into the river (to save them the trouble of burials), it is symbolic of all the victims who were told to take off their shoes before being shot (because shoes were valuable belongings at that time). The iron shoes were placed on the bank of the Danube River in 2005.

A magnificent sight in the late afternoon with the sun reflecting off the words of Christ, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life", St. Stephen's Basilica is the largest church in Budapest and the second largest in the country. It is dedicated to Hungary's first king, St. Stephen, who is credited with bringing Christianity in 1000 to the seven warring tribes that came together to form Hungary.

More known for housing Hungary's most sacred treasure, the mummified right hand of St. Stephen, than for any worshipful experience or its' extravagant gold inlays inside, the church is a favorite among tourists and a must-see for those who out-of-curiosity want to see the mummified hand. It took 5 decades to complete and 3 architects to build due to several unfortunate mishaps, including a collapsed dome and 2 wars (the 1848-49 Revolution and the War of Independence). It was finally completed in 1906.

After all this sightseeing, of course we had to "show" Debbie and David the famous and delicious Kurtoskalacs! Sweet bread strips deftly wrapped around a wooden spindle, slowly baked until puffy and golden brown, unceremoniously dredged in cinnamon sugar, coconut flakes or chopped walnuts, and then while still scorchingly hot, slid into a cylindrical plastic bag, easy for pulling apart to devour, these Hungarian delicacies are the best!!! (How was that, Kari?) Glenn calls it Decadence on a Stick.

And while we were in town, we saw quite a few of these three-wheeled bicycle-carts for hauling tourists around whose shoes were not designed for hours and hours of walking on our cobblestone streets. This is a NEW thing for Budapest, having arrived this past summer. Don't they add class to the landscape of our city? At least they could have made them to fit in a little better with the quaintness of the architecture or chosen a more appropriate color, such as tan or beige!

While at the bus stop, Glenn and I enjoyed a good laugh. This is an advertisement of an American Express credit card, complete with a very popular Hungarian name. That's a little funny to me.

But it's sad that Hungarians are following too closely and too quickly in the debt-filled footsteps of overextended westerners, and it's especially sad that they are being encouraged to get it the American way-with an AMERICAN Express credit card.

Made my weekly way to Judit's house for some more English conversation on Tuesday. I really enjoy her friendship, but I have to keep reminding her to speak in English as much as she can; after all, that was the original point of my going to her house each week I am in town! It's amazing how much Hungarian I can understand! Anyway, I never plan ahead what we will talk about because there's usually enough going on at her house to keep us talking for an hour. Such as her flowering plants that are EVERYWHERE inside and around her house!

And this week, she learned the all-important English word "hedgehog". Now, how many times in her lifetime will she need to know the English word for this prickly little fellow? They found him lying on their driveway, drunk from pigging out on the rotting (fermented) figs fallen from the trees in their yard. It was really hard to get excited about petting this little creature. His quills are stiff and painful if you rub him wrong!

One day this week I took Debbie and a couple of ladies staying at the Eden House to a pottery outlet and we stopped for lunch at a roadside kiosk that makes from scratch the delicious langos that you've read about several times here on my blog. Sorry, the picture isn't light enough for you to see the four sweet batter langos deep-fat frying in oil!

The langos are light and fluffy but they sit pretty heavy in the stomach once they are laden with sour cream, ham bits or salmai (as pictured above), shredded cheese and garlic sauce! YUM!

After all my raving about it, I was relieved that Linda, Debbie and Jessie enjoyed the Hungarian specialty as much as I do

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After almost a week of sunshine and unseasonably warm (mid-to upper 70's) temperatures, Saturday turned out cool and slightly overcast. Perfect for working out in the yard. But that's NOT me out there planting Jonquil and Daffodil bulbs under the apple tree in with Glenn. No, that is Debbie! She lives in an apartment in Moscow and misses being able to play in the dirt so she was thrilled to "have the opportunity" to work in the yard, which she did for hours and hours on Saturday! After having traveled so much this summer and early fall, our yard was in sad shape. Not sure why we planted Pansies since we will only be in Budapest for 14 nights between now and January 1. (No joke.) Who will be here to enjoy them???

We invited the Doyles, Jessie and, of course, David and Debbie who are still staying with us while waiting on their visas for Russia, for lunch on Sunday. I used a recipe from Elaine (who used to live here in Budapest) for a Mexican Chicken casserole. It seems all our personnel love Mexican food!

We leave on Tuesday for Serbia for a week. David and Debbie will still be here, waiting on those visas. Be back soon!

Run! Run! Run!

This past week we were in Germany for Emigrate, a conference for our first-termers. I was successful at finding Sour Sticks (Brause Stachen), the candy I used to eat when I lived in Germany in middle school! Yea!

For the security of our personnel who live in closed countries, I can't show you any pictures of the meeting or the people who attended, but Asya allowed me to post her picture! She is Bulgarian and came to provide childcare while parents were in meetings, but in her real life she is in school to become a massage therapist. Do you believe I asked her to "practice" on me? You betcha! And I found out she used to live in Marietta, Georgia for two years!!

On another note ... when we arrived at the conference in Rehe, Germany, Glenn realized he'd left his beige windbreaker somewhere in the Frankfurt airport. At the end of Day 1 of the conference, Glenn couldn't find his fleece jacket that he'd left somewhere in the hotel. Two lost jackets in two days. Good thing the weather was nice!

Well, the day before we left Germany, after a dozen people asked him if he'd checked for his fleece jacket at the front desk of the hotel, he found his way down there, not really expecting to find it there. It had been turned in! Yea!

And then when we were about to fly back to Budapest, Glenn decided, on a whim and a wild shot, to check the lost and found at the airport. He found his jacket! Boy, was he happy! Can you imagine how much fun I would have had teasing him about losing everything!?!

The day after we returned from Germany, we were expecting Debbie and David to arrive to stay with us for 10 days while they re-apply for another visa for their country, so ... Glenn and I had a ton of things to do on Friday before they arrived on Saturday at 5 pm. We ran to the grocery store to stock up on fresh fruit, veggies and dairy products, and then for the rest of the day we made a huge pot of applesauce for freezing (apples were less than 25 cents per pound!!!!), baked an apple cake and a batch of brownies, made hummus, brewed a gallon of sweet ice tea, made from scratch 2 pounds of sausage patties and cooked them up, mixed up a double batch of biscuits, cooked and deboned chicken, and using the crock pot, made some southern pulled pork barbecue. By time I crawled into bed at midnight, I was exhausted and my feet were screaming, "Get off of me!"

I had to get all this stuff done on Friday because on Saturday morning and afternoon, we were helping the our friends, the Pollards, move from our neighborhood out to a house closer to the Christian school where their kids attend.

I spent the morning and afternoon sweeping spider webs from the ceilings, dusting the baseboards, window sills and closets, cleaning and sanitizing bathrooms, and mopping floors. I had such a good day!

David and Debbie arrived on time, and I was home in time, showered, and in the kitchen preparing dinner when they got to our house. :-)

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David had registered for the Budapest Marathon (42.2 kilometers) that was on Sunday morning, beginning at 11 am so we all went into town to cheer him on.

There were different kinds of "runs", such as the full marathon, a half-marathon, Family Fun Run, Team relays, and a Kids Run and a race for those who are handicapped. In the FULL marathon that David ran, there were 3,000 runners!!! Can you imagine how many people were participating in all? Downtown Budapest was packed!

This is David's "heat" as he approached the starting line.

We were able to see David at 3 different points along the race and at the finish line as he crossed it! (David is in the third green shirt, on the center line.) He made it in 4 hours and 45 minutes! We are so proud of him, and we had a blast! Walking around in the hot sun, cheering joggers on for almost 5 hours would not have been much fun except that we knew someone, and that made all the difference. It was really a fun afternoon!!

Tomorrow, we are going to a thermal spa for David!