Comin' 'n goin'!

Glenn and I have had a busy two weeks!

We started off in Gyor, Hungary to visit with two of our families who live there.  Gyor is about an hour from Budapest so it was a short trip, up there and back in one day.

I was amazed at the beautiful flowers on the balconies!

While Vivian walked us through town, she told us about the park they were going to build right here, but when they started preparing the foundation, they found ancient ruins!  They look Roman to me  :-)

In the heart of the city, there is a beautiful plaza with this awesome fountain that shoots water up from the ground and folks are allowed to play in it!  It was so hot that day that if I'd had my bathing suit, I'm pretty sure I would have joined those kids!

Vivian was a great tour guide and every where we went, we ran into someone she knew!

On our way back, we stopped at the Hungarian version of Sam's.   It's pretty much like Sam's in America ...

... except they aren't as worried about lawsuits!  They use those forklifts with customers standing right there, no barred aisles at all!

One Hungarian dish I really enjoy is Cold Fruit Soup.  My favorite is made with cherries, but I also have enjoyed plum and mixed berries.    This is plum season so when we found plums at such a great price, I decided to try my hand at it.

It turned out pretty good, if I can say so without sounding like I'm bragging.

A day or so later, we had a J'man come to stay with us for a couple of nights while she toured Budapest.  She finished her two-year term 2 weeks ago and will be traveling all over Europe for a month before she heads to the U.S. to start the next part of her journey in life.  Lauren was a joy to have!

The day after Lauren left, the Davidson's arrived.  They are friends of ours who were taking their son to  boarding school in Germany and wanted to spend a couple of days in Budapest, seeing all the sights.  Their grandparents flew into Budapest from America so they were dealing with a little case of jet lag but they did so well!

They were all here for our biggest national holiday, August 20th so we took them into town for the festivities.

There were huge vats of food for sale!

I loved the rustic swings for kids.

There were over 800 booths, selling Hungarian handmade items, everything from pottery, to lace collars, to wooden toys, to Christmas ornaments, and candles.   (Shhh!  Don't tell Alec and Jazmine that we got them something!)

This picture doesn't do the crowds justice.  Every where we stepped, we stepped on someone's space!  Poor Glenn!  As he tried to get us through the crowds as we browsed through the booths, he said it was like herding cats!

The grandparents are from Lake Hartwell, Georgia so we had a lot in common with them.   They invited Glenn and me to come for a visit when we are in the U.S. on our stateside assignment (which we've set for next June-September), and we might just take them up on it!

While we were out with the Davidson's, we passed an antique store and I found the perfect gift for Glenn.  He's been wanting a lamp for the living room.

Yesterday, Glenn and I made a trip to Slovakia to visit with 3 of our families that live there.   We stayed in a *** hotel (3 star) and though it was very clean and we had a great view over a small lake, the wall paint was woefully short on tastefulness!  All the walls were painted pepto bismol pink and splattered with white and black spots!  

We had lunch with one family at a great pizza place, dinner at a Slovakian restaurant with another family, and coffee the next morning with the third family.  I'm not sure what it was called, but I got a coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.   I'm getting into this coffee scene pretty good!  

On our way home from Slovakia, we stopped for a break at a rest stop and saw this helpful sign, warning us to beware of people with masks taking things out of the other side of our car as we change tires.  Guess it happens often enough to merit warning signs!  

Going camping next week so should have a pretty interesting blog update coming soon!

For sale: 1 used jet???

This week Glenn and I have done a lot of walking because the weather has been soooooo agreeable.

Plums are in season and one evening we took a walk in our neighborhood to see how many plum trees we could find, particularly those NOT in peoples' yards.  Let's just say we walked and talked until we were "plum filled up", which took about 30 minutes!  

Tuesday evening we had dinner with Melissa and Scott and their daughter, Elle.  They are moving to Turkey at the end of this month so it was our chance to say good-bye.  Actually, we said, "See you in March", because we will be going to Istanbul in the spring for business and will make it a point to go see them.   In case you don't remember, Scott went to Iowa State University at the same time as Jonathan, our son-in-law, and they were in the same Bible study group. 

Wednesday, we went into town for lunch with Scott and Jo Ellen and to see their new apartment.  They used to manage the Eden House, our former S.B. guesthouse.  I love the wrought iron (take note, Kari) banister.

Even though I have been living here 5 1/2 years, I am still occasionally surprised by some of the things I see.  I don't know how long FedEx has been in Hungary, and I've seen their trucks before, but I still do a double-take when one passes.  I have to stop and ask myself which country I am in!

While out with Scott and Jo Ellen, we passed a hotel that had some bikes out front to rent.  This is something I am starting to see more and more.   However, just because rental bikes are showing up, it doesn't mean it is a good idea!  The traffic in downtown is horrendous and there are cars and pedestrians (and tourists who aren't always looking down where they are walking!), and now bikes everywhere!

And, of course, I had to have ONE MORE photo of us in front of the Parliament building!  

I have been working on my fresh pizza dough recipe and think I'm getting the hang of it, finally.  We love fresh pizza but it takes so long to make!   I use pepperoni, thin slices of spicy salami sticks, ground sausage, chopped red, yellow and green peppers, onions, olives, mushrooms, and jalepenos.  If anyone has any suggestions as to how to reduce the amount of time to make homemade pizza-other than reducing the number of toppings-I'd be open to your suggestions.   

When we ate at Melissa and Scott's earlier in the week, Melissa fixed this great chicken salad dish that Glenn wanted to replicate.  By time he finished, the only thing her salad and his salad had in common was the chicken, I think!  He started with a ton of green onions ... but then I suggested he not put all the onions in until he mixed everything else together to see if it needed more onions.  That was good advice.  That was some pile of onions!

This is his finished chicken salad.  It was quite good, but not much similarity to Melissa's.  Instead of chicken and rice base, he used chicken and Mediterranean couscous and he added chopped green onion, squash, red peppers, hot peppers, carrots, broccoli, olive oil and wine vinegar to taste.  I think we'll be eating it for the next 3 days.  

Sunday, we took a 2 hour walk through the woods, down to the lake near our house, and then back up through a ritzy neighborhood.

Lot's of families were outside enjoying the beautiful day, fishing in the lake.

As we were walking back, we passed this used car lot.  You probably can't read it, but the name of the business is called Auto Elegance.  They sell used cars ...

...  used motorcycles ...

... and used jets!  No joke!

Now, how often do you see that in America???  This is just one more reason why you need to come visit us in Budapest!

Retreat, rest, and ride!

This weeks' title is so appropriate for describing what I have done for the past 7 days!  

Last Sunday, we returned from a 10 day stay in Greece that, although we had built in a day off, we ended up working all 10 days.  By time we returned to BP, I was exhausted.  I had one day (Monday) to unpack, buy groceries, do laundry and repack for a ladies retreat that began on Tuesday.  No time for resting on Monday, so I went into the ladies retreat with less than normal enthusiasm, to say the least.  

The ladies retreat was put on by a wonderful group of women from Austin, Texas from the home church of one of our ladies who lives in Budapest.  However, after 10 days of being with people, I needed some real "down" time, and the Lord knew it!

I managed to get some kind of 24 hour stomach bug the first day, and ended up staying in my room, in my bed, in an air conditioned hotel with a great view!  I slept and slept and slept, and finally woke up the next morning, feeling MUCH better and able to rejoin the ladies.  God knew exactly what I needed and provided the perfect place for recovery!

We stayed in the Novotel that is located downtown, on the Danube River, just across from the Parliament building!  Would you believe that my room was "smack dab" (I hear my mother's voice!) behind the tree on the second floor?  Yep!  I could still see the Parliament building through the trees though and was just awed at the view.

This is the view out the window 2 doors down from my room.

And this is the same view at night.   It is absolutely gorgeous!

Kim, the leader of the group, led us in a Bible study from the book of Esther each morning and evening.  It is amazing that God brings out something different each time we study His word, even the parts that are as familiar to us as the palms of our hands!   (Do you see the Parliament building in the background through the window?)  

After attending a Hungarian Baptist church for 4 years, and even though we now go to an International church where we worship in English, emotion still overwhelms me with each opportunity to sing those familiar old hymns in English. 

What would a retreat be without a break long enough to run to the nearest Starbucks?  All we had to do was walk a block or two down to the nearest metro station and ride one stop, come up out of the ground, and voila', there's a Starbucks!

The ladies brought us treats from America, which we greatly appreciated!  I got two bags of Fritos, 4 packs of note cards, 2 cake mixes, 2 bags of pecans and a bottle of shower gel, but the best gift was the making of four new friends.  

While I was gone, Glenn got some needed "ME" time and then he texted me to say he was going kayaking with Istvan in a lake about 30 minutes away.  It was an inflatable kayak so I was praying for safety for them.  He also cleaned the house for me (!) so when I got back, we took Saturday off and went for a long, long, long bike ride.  

Glenn showed me a castle in our little part of town that he had discovered on a previous bike ride.  It is the Nagytetenyi Castle.  I don't know anything about it other than it houses a museum and evidently allows people to have their pre-wedding pictures taken there-for a fee.

We rode out in the country and passed by "dacha's", which, in the old days, were tiny one-room summer homes on small plots just large enough for raising vegetables for the family.  Today, many dacha's are simply country homes where people retreat to on weekends to give them a break from the hustle and bustle of city life.  This house was probably about 12' x 15'.  

While riding out in the country, we were passed by a small group of about 10-12 more professional-looking bikers.

Here's Glenn as they whizzed by!

Further out in the country, we came to a field of sunflowers.  It was right about noon when I took this picture and since the flower faces were not tilted toward the sun, I assume the flowers were past their prime and were waiting to be harvested.  

Up close.

While I was taking the previous picture, Glenn gently said to me something like, "Cile, don't freak out, but there is a plane about to go over your head."  I looked up just in time to see a glider noiselessly float over me and land across the street in the open field of a small local airport.   The field of sunflowers is on the lefthand side of the photo, and the open field of the airport is just behind those bushes on the right.  

There was some sort of glider competition going on, so we waited a few minutes until the next one came overhead.  I was so hoping for a picture of the underside of the glider as it flew over me just before landing.  Unfortunately for my photo op, the second plane cruised over me about 30 yards down the road.  Still, it was awesome.  The weirdest thing was that a plane of that size makes NO SOUND as it glides through the air!

We eventually turned back toward town and followed the river into downtown BP, taking another break along the way.  I think we rode 3 hours and 45 minutes in all.  

Today, I am resting, physically, emotionally, and spiritually!  

Coffee-fiend that I have become, I am now fixing frappucino's at home, re-using my Starbucks clear plastic cups to give me that psychological edge.  However, since I don't have a blender to crush ice, I am having to make mine with ice cream, which has entirely too many calories to do this for long.  Needless to say, I'm on the lookout for a used blender!

We'll be in town for most of August, resuming our travels in September.  We have company coming several times this month to stay with us for a few days while they sightsee in Budapest.   Tonight, we have a young, engaged couple coming for 4 nights before they fly back to the U.S. in time for college to restart.