Kendall is doing a school report on the Budapest Art Museum.  Since she has never been there, we thought it would be good to make a trip!  I was taking the boys to the Orthodontist just a few blocks away so we decided to stop by on our way home.  It was a good experience for the kids although they lost steam fairly early.  We saw an exhibit of Rembrandt sketches and a Carvaggio exhibit that featured many beheaded biblical characters.  There were 5-6 pictures of John the Baptist’s head on a tray and the feature work was David holding Goliath’s head.   The boys were into that!!!

  
The museum also has a pretty good exhibit of Egyptian artifacts.

All in all it was a good visit.  It’s hard to believe after 3 1/2 years, we had never been there.

 

 

On the way home, we saw this bathtub on top of a car.  We all had a good laugh!!!

It snowed here today for the first time this year. Overall, this is pretty early based upon our experiences over the past few years. It only snowed for a little over an hour, but it snowed pretty hard.   It is pretty amazing since a week ago it was down right balmy.  The cold came fast and the snow followed right behind.  Winter is definately on its way.  Now I have to figure out how to get Snow Tires on my van since every person in Budapest is thinking the same thing and the tire places are going to be backlogged.

On Monday, we made another trip to the immigration office. Thankfully, it was the final trip for this year as we received our Residence Permit for another year. The process this year was extra stressful since we have been spread out around the world. It was good to all visit the office together and received that blessed sticker in our passports. There have been times that we wondered if it was going to happen this year. We had hoped to get a two year permit, but we only received one.

At least we don’t have to visit that office again until next April. I’m way too familiar with it as it is.

Since I returned to Budapest a week ago, it seems like the focus of our lives is the HEAT!!! Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t terribly hot (only upper 80s), but the big problem is that we don’t have air conditioning. I know this is very common for Budapest and for most of the northern US, but it is driving us crazy. I just left Texas where it was in the 100s, but we just didn’t stay out in it. Now, we sweat in the morning, sweat at night, and sweat all day. It does cool down at night into the 60s, but that is where the mosquitos get bad. Therefore, we can’t open the doors and windows or we get bombarded by mosquitos. We don’t have screens on our doors or windows like most Hungarian homes.

I’m enjoying my office which does have air conditioning. In fact, on Tuesday night, I worked a little late and the whole family came up and had dinner up here. It was funny to see the kids sitting around the boardroom table (didn’t have my camera or you would be looking at the pic). It was a pretty high powered meeting. After dinner, we didn’t want to go home so we downloaded a TV show on iTunes and watched it in my office. By the time we got home, it was almost bed time and cooling off a little.

Yesterday, we went to the pool at a local campground. It was perfect on a hot day and got us through the hot part of the day.

Today it is overcast and rainy! YIPPPEEEE!!! That should cool things off at home.

I have the feeling this is going to be the neverending battle of the summer. I picked up some firepower in the form of two new fans today though. I was looking at their portable air conditioners. Very tempting . . .

Here’s just one of the challenges that I haved faced being Mr. Mom and Mr. Dad for 2 1/2 weeks.

Kirby Ann attends Hungarian preschool (Óvoda). On Friday, they had a field trip. I found out about this on Thursday at 5pm thanks to our Hungarian friend Agi. It had been posted for at least week, but since we can’t read the signs we were clueless. I don’t know where we would be without Agi. If this would have happened last year, when we didn’t have Agi, we would have shown up at Ovoda and wondered where everyone was.

The plan was to meet at the city bus station at 7:30am. WOW! That’s early for a bunch of preschoolersm, not to mention that I had to get Kendall and Reed to school as well. It is about a 15-20 minute drive from our house to the bus station. I left home about 7:10 which was cutting it close, but Agi told me that the bus didn’t leave until 8, so I knew I had a little margin.

The problem was that it was raining on Friday morning and that makes the traffic horrible. I made it within 2 miles of the station in about 10 minutes. The final 2 miles took 45 minutes. I was calling Agi telling her that I didn’t think I would make it. She called at about 8am and told me which platform the bus was leaving from (I knew I was in trouble).

Kirby Ann and I parked and ran across the street. When I came near the platform, they were all looking at us and I felt like we were approaching the end of a race as they were all cheering for us to get there on time. I slung Kirby Ann onto the bus and almost forgot to give them her backpack. Agi told me that she has just asked the bus driver to wait for 1 minute for us. This was a public bus, not a charter, so he didn’t have to wait at all.

I guess we made it so that is all that matters. No telling what was going through the minds of all the Hungarian moms that made it in plenty of time. They were coming from a different direction so they didn’t have to fight the traffic. I’m sure the “lueless, American dad” thoughts went through their mind and I was helpless to explain that it was the TRAFFIC. Really, it’s not my fault. I was on time. . . . . Oh well.

Needless to say, I was 15-20 minutes early to pick her up. She had a great time by the way so it was all worth it.

[image:356:l] One of the things that I’m learning about here in Budapest is European Sports. At the top of the heap is European football or as we Yankees call it, soccer. I had heard before moving to Europe that soccer ruled the world, but now I believe it. With sports over here, it is soccer first and everything else is pretty much insigificant.

The World Cup this summer is the pinnacle of soccer competitions, but that comes only every 4 years. The top annual championship is definately the Champions League Final. Tonight, pretty much every TV set in every country around the world is tuned to the Champions League Final. It is basically the championship of all the professional teams in Europe. I told my Hungarian friend the other night, that probably only 1 in 100 Americans have ever heard of the Champions League (that’s probably a conservative estimate). Weird that while we think we are on top of the sports world in the US and yet the event that the rest of the world considers the top, we don’t have a clue about.

For those of you that care, tonights match is between Arsenal (from England) and Barcelona (obviously from Spain). They are playing in Paris and at halftime Arsenal leads 1-0. This will be a huge upset if Arsenal wins and their lead is even more amazing since they are playing a man short since their goalie was sent off with a red card 18 minutes into the match.

I would never have thought I would have know about these things or even cared, but for a sports-lover over here, it is pretty much my only choice. I can either give up watching sports or watch the sports they have.

ESPN2 is carrying the game in the US. You still have an hour to tune in and catch the 2nd half!

I thought my blog needed a break from the medical updates so here’s a little piece of Hungarian culture.

Every year about this time in our village it is what we call Hungarian Garage Sale. In the US we call it large trash pickup day, but here it takes on much larger proportions. Basically, you can stack up anything you want to get rid of in front of your house. Anything. Yes, I mean anything. Couches, Air Conditioners, Refrigerators, old doors, old windows, trash, clothes, etc . . . It seems like people start piling it up about 2 weeks before the actual trash pickup. That is when the “shopping” begins. No money changes hands, but somehow the word gets out that it is the time for our village and everyone shows up. Last Saturday, all day long, cars with trailers were all over the neighborhood trying to find treasures. When I started taking my stuff out, there wasn’t anyone around, but within 2 minutes, there were about 5-10 people just waiting while I hauled it out so they could get first shot at it. After 2-3 days, the huge pile in front of my house is almost gone. There are only a few cardboard boxes left.

Also, it appears that people from other neighborhood and villages bring their stuff as well and add it to the sale because on the main road leading to our house, there is a pile that is probably 40 feet long by 5 feet high. It wasn’t like this a few days ago and it isn’t in front of anyone’s house. People are just hauling stuff in.

This happens all over Hungary at one time or another. It is really weird when it happens in downtown Budapest because the piles are high and there isn’t much sidewalk to pile it on.

Maybe it beats garage sale shopping in the US because everything is free and you don’t have to clean up afterwards because eventually the trash folks will be by to haul everything off.

One of those fun facts that you learn about when you move overseas is that Daylight Savings Time is different in different parts of the world. Here in Hungary, and most of Europe I think, we went on DST last night and lost that precious hour that we so enjoyed back in the fall.

It’s weird because you guys in the US have to wait another week so we are 7 hours ahead of Eastern, 8 hours ahead of Central, and 10 hours ahead of the west coast. Please keep this in mind if you are going to call us next week.

Here’s a website with all the facts.

“Goodbye to Hungarian Class.” (I’m sure my Hungarian is wrong, but it is close)
On Wednesday, I had to say good-bye to my Hungarian Lessons. After 2 1/2 years of taking lessons each week, I finally had to call it quits. Over the past few months, when it is time for my lesson, I struggle to decide whether I should work or go to lessons. With my new job, it will be impossible to continue. I’m very sad as I love learning Hungarian. I know that if I stop lessons that the little Hungarian that I have will go away.

Valerie is going to continue and I hope that I will have some time this summer to take some more lessons. Thanks so much to my great teacher ZsuZsa. You made every week a lot of fun!!