The view from Budapest

One of the most intriguing things about living over here is the obsession with stamps. I don’t mean the kind that you get at the post office and put on a letter, but the kind you get that mark a document as official. Everyone has one and nothing exists without a stamp.

Yesterday, [...]

Here’s Kendall and her good friend Janie with the castles in the background. 

Here’s Reed with his friend Jack. 

Kirby Ann tagged along with Valerie. I had to sit out because I have a big cut on my leg that hurt terribly when I put my skates on. I didn’t even make it out of the skate rental room. 

As is a tradition among many American missionaries here in Budapest on Christmas Eve, we went ice skating today at the main city park in downtown Budapest. It is a beautiful place and a lot of fun with all of our friends. Here are a few of the pictures. 

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . Jack Frost nipping at your nose. . AND FISH!!!” I mentioned in my last post that Fish Soup is the foodof the day here in Hungary. These are just a few of the billboards thathave popped up around town over the last week or so. [...]

One of the things we enjoy about living here in Budapest is learning about different cultures. While we knew that we are clearly over the top in celebrating Christmas in America (I just saw Christmas with the Kranks yesterday and it is pretty much a documentary on the subject), Hungarians are at the other [...]

Bill Byrne, Texas A&M’s athletic director, sends out a weekly email. This week he talks about the fallacy that going to a bowl game means huge dollars for a school. Since attending a bowl is incredibly expensive and they have to share the money with the rest of the conference, there is hardly [...]

Is it a white Christmas if it is ice and not snow? Our first significant weather precipiation started yesterday in the form of freezing rain While the first snow is an exciting event for everyone, the first freezing rain is a total drag. Streets are slick and probably [...]

I crossed another milestone in my journey to becoming European. It isn’t really something I aspire to, but something that seems to just happen to me. Ever since we have lived here, trash has been a problem. We have two small (by American standards) trash cans that have to make it [...]