Hol van a Taco Bell? (Where is the Taco Bell?)

I can't show you pictures of the people we were with this past week because some of them wish to keep a low profile. They are doing member care for people serving in countries in Europe where security is an issue. I can't show you people but I can show you what we did on our free afternoon during the week!

Due to the off-season rates, we were able to stay in this wonderful hotel near the beach for the European Member Care Conference 2010. We stayed in the Papa Luna Hotel in Peniscola, Spain (2 hours from Barcelona) from Tuesday afternoon through Saturday morning, really, really early. The attendees were from many different countries throughout Europe, North Africa, Central Asia, Canada and the U.S.. The conference was held in English but as you walked among the tables in the restaurant, you could hear many different languages being spoken.

The last day had a 3 1/2 hour block of time that was free for lunch, resting and running down to the beach for a leisurely walk in the sand. It was the only day that was sunny and warm! God saved the best for last! Anyway, going across the street from the hotel to the beach, if you look to the left, this was the view.

And to the right is an old castle or fortress up on a hill that juts out into the ocean.

As we walked toward the castle, we could see the small city that has built up around it.

So we wandered through the small city that surrounded the castle, always taking the road that would take us higher and higher....until we arrived at the top. The view was phenomenal!

Even looking straight out was a perfectly framed view of a tower.

One side of the top of the castle dropped straight down into the water, making one just a little nervous leaning over the edge to view the descent.

From the top we could see the onto the flat roofs of the nearby apartment buildings. I thought it interesting to see how folks took advantage of the flat roofs to give themselves more living space. Laundry "rooms" seem to be the most popular usage, but we also saw some beautiful gardens and outdoor eating tables for those hot summer nights.

Every direction held a breathtaking sight! One side held a view of the beach, one was nothing but clear blue-green ocean, and the other side ...

a bay area with a large port.

We climbed DOWN the opposite side from whence we went UP, and snaked our way to the port to watch the boats unload their catch of the day.

We found out why seafood in the local restaurants wasn't a cheap meal. The haul for the day was quite small on some of those boats!

Didn't really care for the tubs of eels. Ech!

But did drool over the huge shrimp!

After watching several boats unload, we meandered through the small, quaint town and then headed back to our hotel in time for the next session.

Most of the buildings were painted white which was quite pretty and gave a crisp, clean look to the town.

I was tickled to find Senegalese men and women with their blankets spread out on the sidewalk selling things we bought when we lived in Africa! I'm sure our kids will recognize the balaphone and the tam-tam that are just like the ones we have! I asked one of the women where she was from and she replied, "Dakar". I mentioned our daughter had lived in Minam and Sindou, and she didn't even raise an eyebrow or recognize the names of the villages right outside Dakar. I wonder how old she was when she left Senegal???

Found this scraggly tree and thought it made a cool picture! Kind of reminds me of the Boabob trees in Senegal too!

It felt so good to be out in the sun, soaking up the warm rays. This was truly our first day of beautiful weather and we kinda hated to leave it to come back to cloudy Budapest.

We got back to Budapest on Saturday at 1:00 pm. We spent the day doing laundry, paying bills, answering emails and calling family before heading for Germany on Sunday morning. We will be in Germany for a week, and then wind our way home through Czech Republic, visiting with some of our families along the way. By time we get home again, I will be soooo happy to see my own bed. My goodness! I sound like my grandfather!

Friends Cruisin' Down the Danube

This week started out like all the others...COLD...but by the end of the week, we were in full-swing SPRING! Ah, but I jump ahead of myself!

On Sunday, Glenn and I decided to walk to church even though it was freezing cold outside. It had snowed 1-2 inches a few days earlier and almost all of it was gone by Sunday so we chose to walk since it wasn't slushy outside. Besides that, when the temperature drops below a certain degree, our electric gate won't open!

While we were walking home, I decided to take pictures of our neighborhood, especially of all the things that you just don't see very often at home in America. I saved all those pictures and will post them on my blog the next time Sunday rolls around (the day I update) and I don't have anything else about which to write.

On Monday we had one of our Eden House guests down for dinner and I made a red velvet cake. I'd been craving one for about a week! Do you know how much red food coloring goes into one cake? Two ounces! I have a little yellow McCormick box with the 4 primary colors, and the WHOLE box is only one ounce! Well, I didn't have anywhere near enough red food coloring so I used up what I had, and the cake was still delicious even though it was more brown than red! (Because my recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, it was a nondescript shade of brown.)

Not having enough room in the refrigerator to store the cake (with cream cheese icing), I pulled a "Queenie" and put it out on my front steps. Glenn's mom (Queenie) used to store food outside all the time on her porch, and since it was bitterly cold, my greatest worry was whether the cake would freeze before we finished it off. It didn't!

The rest of the week I spent hunched over my computer working on TCK (third culture kids) education emails. As the education consultant for Europe, all the requests for clarification of interpretation of the new TCK educational guidelines and all the requests for exceptions are coming to me. I do the research and then make a recommendation to my boss, he makes the decision, and then I communicate the response to the parents. Some emails are relatively easy to answer, but some require getting input from others, asking hard questions, and carefully formulating a response that is not what the parents want to hear.

Glenn has been wonderful this week, fixing most of our meals, doing the laundry and whatever else needed to be done. Because we are going out of town this coming week, I really needed to get as caught up as possible so he has done almost everything around the house to free me up.

In the picture above, it is about 8 pm and I am still working. He fixed us something to eat (Nachos) and he is getting ready to watch some tv while I keep on working.

On Saturday, I hosted a baby shower (with help from several friends) for Dorothy who is expecting her first baby in a month. The cake was done by Robin, a co-worker, and it was not only beautiful but also delicious! I never knew she had the gift of cake baking! (When we were serving as missionaries in Ivory Coast, one of the men in our church asked me to make the wedding cake for his upcoming marriage, telling me I needed to use my spiritual gift of cake baking!)

We played some silly games, like guess how big around Dorothy is! I actually got pretty close-only an inch or two off...

...but Teri wasn't anywhere close! (Even though I was close, I didn't win. Robin nailed it to the centimeter!)

Right after the shower ended, we put away all the food, packed up all Dorothy's gifts into our car and took her home, then went to meet long-time friends Debbie and Joe Moss in downtown BP!

Joe and Debbie were members of our former church in Marietta, First Baptist, and they served as missionaries in Togo around the same time that we were in Ivory Coast. We've kept in touch all these years, and consider them great friends. We've shared a lot of similar experiences through the years.

Joe and Debbie flew into BP earlier on Saturday to board a ship for a weeklong cruise down (or is it "up"?) the Danube River. They would have all evening and Monday morning to sightsee in Budapest before the ship set sail.

They had emailed us that their ship would be docked between the Elizabeth bridge and the Chain bridge...but it wasn't so we had to walk along the Danube until we found their ship, the Viking.

After eating dinner in a typical Hungarian cafe on the famous pedestrian street called Vaci utca (pronounced vat-see oot-sa), we drove them past Hero's Square, through City Park and over the Chain Bridge to the other side of the river to get a good view of the Parlament building. Of course, I took MORE pictures, but I will spare you!

We then drove up to the Citadel that overlooks the city for a gorgeous nighttime view.

By now, it was about 10 pm so we parked our car close to where their ship was docked and walked them over to it to say good-bye BUT THEIR SHIP WASN'T THERE! (My first thought was, "Phew, I have clean sheets on my guest bed! My second thought was, "Oh, but I have pink and purple balloons, streamers and "It's a girl!" banners strung all over my living room and dirty dishes in the sink from the baby shower! )

Did they misread their departure time and we'd have to drive them to Vienna to catch up with their ship? Fortunately, Joe and Debbie had a phone number for the ship and Glenn and I had cell phones, so we were able to call the ship and ask, "Where are you?" They told us they had moved to Pier 2, which was all the way down at the other end of where passengers board and disembark, a half a mile away! Oh well, we got to walk along the Danube at night with some great friends! All's well that ends well!

Glenn and I head to Spain on Tuesday for a member care conference that will be attended by counselors from all across Europe with many different organizations. We will be there until Saturday, and then on Sunday we are driving to Germany for the Germanic cluster meeting where we will do member care appointments. Busy, busy, busy.

Please pray for us. We will be traveling A LOT for the next 2 months. Currently, I'm battling a sore throat and not feeling well, but have a thousand things to do before we head for Spain on Tuesday, none of which I feel up to doing. Glenn and I both will be leading some small seminars in April and need some time to prepare for them but with our travel schedule, it will be difficult. Pray for wisdom, grace and compassion as I respond to parents requests concerning their child's education. Pick a prayer-any prayer! Just pray!

Just a normal week...

...at the Borders home. We enjoyed having a couple from Russia that came to have a baby and renew their visas. They had the cutest little boy, Andrew, who enjoyed playing cars with Glenn.

These are the same cars that Glenn played with 25 years ago with our son Chris. They've definitely gotten some "mileage" over the years!

These 3 young ladies spent a week or two here in town too. One day we went to the discount pottery place and did a little shopping. Not me, mind you. I'm saving my forints for Polish pottery! One of these ladies returned to Russia on Thursday, one left today for the Czech Republic, and the last one leaves tomorrow for Ukraine.

Last Thursday we had a two families come from out of town for the ACSI Honors Chorus that was performing in town and out at the Christian School of Budapest; one stayed with us and the other stayed at the Eden House but we spent a lot of time with them. We spent one day sightseeing with the two families. One of the guys also worked on our computers one day.

This is Denise, one of my friends from Prague. She and her husband Scott stayed with us and we enjoyed "girl talk" while the guys did "manly things".

We did all the normal things but of course, my favorite was looking at Parliament across the Danube River.

I love this view through the arch...

...and this view through another arch.

We spent so long in town that it got dark on us! This allowed us to view Hero's Square at night, which is beautiful, isn't it?

I went to Judit's house for English conversation. Our topic for the day was baking. Chocolate chip cookies, in particular. A few weeks ago I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, adding pecans, ground flax seeds, bran flakes, wheat germ and oatmeal, and took a bag of them to Judit, hence, the reason we were discussing cookies. Anyway, her family loved them and asked for the recipe. Gulp! I never measure so how do I help her make them like mine???

No, we didn't put nutmeg and cream of tartar in the cookies, but while I was there with Judit, her mother came down from upstairs and showed me the nutmeg and cream of tartar from her cabinet!!! What? Where did she get them? Ten years ago when she took a trip to the States! She wanted to know if they were still fresh enough to use. I don't think so.

When she also pulled out the Skippy jar, I just about flipped! Hungarians haven't discovered peanut butter yet so I knew she didn't get it here. Her mom has saved the jar all these years.

This past week our boss came to town from London. We spent most of our time talking while working on our computers at the dining room table. It was really good for us to spend the time with him, getting to know him and hearing his heart. While he was here, we were able to discuss a lot of the new changes with the educational guidelines. It was a good time and very helpful!

Yesterday it snowed all day and was beautiful. We're supposed to have snow and rain all week. We're not sure when spring is EVER going to come!

A taste of our week!

Most of this week Glenn and I have been at our dining room table working on our computers. He's been working on the financial report and I've been responding to emails about TCK education. I was so ready for the weekend when I could justifiably step away from the computer.

Saturday morning and early afternoon we ran a couple of errands. A light on our dashboard started blinking so my handy hubby lifted the hood, wiggled a few wires and the light disappeared. Saved the board about $25!

The local government hauled away the recycling bins from in front of our house about 6 months ago so we now have to take them to the one two blocks away. We recycle paper, plastic, aluminum, clear glass and colored glass. Glenn is really good at keeping our small bins from overflowing in our mudroom.

I did something I haven't done in months, and that is to write a letter with paper and pen. In this age of computers, it is so rare to get letters! You know, REAL letters! It's nice to have the speed of emails but there is something special about receiving a letter. It is definitely much easier to hit the send button than to mail a letter, especially here in Hungary where every letter has to go to the post office to be weighed. You can't just have a book of stamps at home, stick one on the letter, and put the letter in the mailbox. Oh, no!

Our snow has melted except for where the piles were 4 feet tall, leaving behind a small pile of dirt! Fortunately, the street cleaners will be coming along soon to clean the streets and sidewalks and Budapest will be back to being bright and beautiful.

When I went to my English class with Judit and her daughter Nicki, they gave me some cookies that they had made in honor of Buso, the celebration of winter leaving. The cookies were huge, decorated with seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, and poppy), and had no sugar. Maybe they weren't really cookies since they didn't have any sugar???? The thought was really nice.

This is a close-up view of them. They are scary masks to scare away the winter blues.

Glenn donned a couple of layers of clothing earlier this week to go on a bike ride. Isn't he cute?

He has really enjoyed this hobby.

Well, back to those emails! Have a good week.

Turkey is terrific!

We left for a cluster meeting in Turkey a week and a half ago and even though Turkey is modern and has all the conveniences of the western world, the internet connection at our hotel was so bad that we couldn't update our blog. We had a great trip and would love to go back again for another vacation!

We started off in Istanbul, visiting with one of our member care team leaders and his wife. They picked us up at 9 am and took us around town to show us their world, and we talked about work off and on all day while we saw the sights.

The traffic was horrendous, just like in Budapest and any other city that was designed for about half as many cars as there are today. The airport is about 25 miles from the guesthouse where we stayed, but it took us about an hour and a half to get across town!

I just about flipped when I saw Little Caesar's Pizza! They also have Domino's Pizza! Even though we had a delicious Turkish dinner out with two couples who live there, I kind of had in my mind that if we ate early enough, I could order a small pizza to be delivered late that evening to the guesthouse, just for the experience of having a Little Caesar's pizza, but the dinner was too good, too filling, and we didn't get home until 11 pm and we were so exhausted that we went straight to bed!

We took a 20 minute boat ride across the Sea of Marmara to the other side of Istanbul. We traveled from the Asian side to the European side, and then back again. The clouds were low and heavy, and definitely overcast all day, but at least it wasn't cold or raining.

The view from the ferry was incredible as we looked back. I did not know that Istanbul was hilly; it sure made for some beautiful pictures!

"To save water, flush twice" Huh?

Loved this sign! I'm sure that there is a reason that flushing twice saves water, but it alludes me!

The Blue Mosque

The men are washing up before going up to the area under the arches for their prayer time. We saw lots of mosques in Istanbul.

"Reading a menu"

How do you read a menu in a language you don't understand? It's easy when there are pictures! We loved the Turkish food!

Chocolate covered peanut butter balls for sale? Unfortunately, not! Roasted chestnuts were for sale everywhere in these little rolling kiosks.

Remember the Spirograph?

We saw several guys selling the clear, pastel colored circles on TV trays, and they would stand there all day long making samples on the sheets of paper so that you could see how beautiful your designs can be. What a way to "work".

As Glenn and I travel, we see some pretty strange things and I was making a photo file of them (before the robbery and my old computer was stolen), and now I have one to start my new collection.

The cluster meeting was held Sunday through Tuesday on the southern coastal town of Antalya, which was formerly called Pamphylia in the Bible times. It is the top vacation destination in Turkey, and is a favorite of Germans and Russians all year long. In our hotel and every where we went, people thought we were German (since we smile, they knew we weren't Russian) and greeted us with "Wie gehts?" (How are you?)

After the cluster meeting ended, Glenn and I took two vacation days. We spent one day in Antalya on our own and one day on a tour with a couple of our families who also stayed a few extra days.

During our day in Antalya, we took a one hour boat ride and got some gorgeous photos of the coastline! Part of the coastline is sheer cliffs and the other part is pebbled beaches.

Tons of colorful spices

We spent a couple of hours in the Old Market, wandering up and down winding alleys not much wider than a car. I loved the colors! Spices of all kinds were found in interesting displays.

The pottery always caught my eye, and if I didn't already have a Polish pottery collection started, I would have bought a couple of plates and bowls from Turkey.

I took this picture from the top of a cliff, and just a few feet to my right began the flat, pebbly Lara beach.

This waterfall, called the Lower Duden Waterfall, begins as a river that flows through town, goes under the road, and comes up again right at the edge of a cliff where it overflows into the Mediterranean Sea. This was an awesome sight!

Gorgeous, isn't it?

Glenn and I enjoyed the kebabs. Our "waiter" was engaging and told us that the spindly thing is called a doner, and hence the name of these kinds of food stands are called "doner". There are even some "McDoners" around, taking their name from McDonald's.

We also went to the Upper Duden Waterfall (which is where the first photo on this blog was taken) and found this sign. We have NO IDEA what it is supposed to mean. Do you?

One day we went to nearby Perge to visit the ruins. Eleven miles outside of Antalya, Perge is known as one of the cities where Paul visited on his missionary journey in 46 AD. This town that is now only ruins was an important city to Christians during the Byzantine period and is believed to be where Paul preached his first sermon.

Who knows? Maybe Paul stood under this archway too?!?

I took 329 pictures in Perge, mostly of the ruins from the Greeks and Romans (mostly Romans). I never could get a picture that I felt adequately showed how massive the ruins were! This lady "set up shop" inside one of the Roman baths, hoping to sell a few beaded necklaces and earrings.

I would love to return to Antalya for a week in the winter! We stayed in a beautiful hotel on the Mediterranean Sea for $44 a night, per person, all inclusive! Three meals a day, all the drinks we wanted, Turkish baths, swimming pool, fitness center, etc. The rate is so reasonable because it is the off-season; ordinarily the rate is 6 times higher during the spring, summer and fall!

When we got back to Bp on Friday night, Mick, Dalese and Dalese's friend from America, Lisa, were snuggled nicely into our house, arriving the day before us to watch the basketball tournament between Christian schools in Europe.

While Glenn took care of a medical emergency of one of the basketball players, I was out with Lisa and Dalese at the Szecheny thermal spa and a few other fun spots. On Sunday, before their train departed for Prague (from whence they came) we took a quick trip back into town to show Lisa a few more sites. We took a brief respite in this McCafe.

Have you ever seen a McDonald's in America that is as beautifully decorated like this one? It looks like a train station.

After enjoying a couple of latte machiattos and white hot chocolates, we went for a quick lunch at Arriba's, our favorite Mexican restaurant, before they boarded the train for Prague.

We are home for several weeks but they will be very, very busy! Our new MK education guidelines came out this past Wednesday and my work load automatically increased. Should be an interesting couple of weeks as I learn the new policies that will govern our educational options available to our personnel. Please pray for wisdom, compassion and consistency as I help families deal with some necessary changes.

Have a great week! It's good to be home!