Six Ladies+One Wilson=Budapest

I've never been really good at math, but this equation worked out just fine. I had the distinct pleasure of spending my first visit to Budapest with a phenomenal group of women. We laughed, shopped, and ate Mexican food. Pretty much a perfect weekend...I'm sure Jen could've used more sleep though.

We left Belgrade (the morning after Team Thanksgiving) in a ginormous van. It was mostly empty except for us and Randi's delicious Banana muffins. We were on the road by 7:30am and managed to make it all the way to the border with no issues. After waiting in line for what seemed like forever we handed over our passports and raised our hands as the customs official did a head count. We left the Serbian border and moved on to the Hungarian one; where we actually had a guy open the door and knock on the door panels to make sure we weren't smuggling anything.

On the way back we didn't have any customs issues which was a huge answer to prayer. Wilson was fidgety and we had packed all of our purchases into every square inch. It would've been a nightmare to empty the van and find receipts for everything.

So we had a day and a half in Budapest and managed to hit two malls, a Tesco, Ikea, have Mexican food and shop one more Tesco-like place in that time. I plan on going back to actually see more of Budapest, but the shopping can't be beat. Especially when the exchange rate was something like 230 forint (Hungarian currency) to every American dollar. Things are much cheaper than they are in Belgrade as well, so it makes sense that everyone does their shopping there. We heard quite a lot of Serbian spoken actually. So enjoy some photos of our mini shopping vacation. I'll also have a post dedicated to legit Mexican food and a Foto Friday born out of this trip. Get ready.

The Gellert Hotel

I included this photo because if you look across the crosswalks you can see the two rule followers Randi and Julie. They refused to cross the street on red. Which is why the rest of us left them behind in the cold on a strange Hungarian street.

This is the Mamut mall. Mamut apparently means Mammoth or something like that.

I say that because they had mammoths everywhere. I took a photo of these because they reminded me of Ice Age when they have their little baby. If only they had Sid hanging around somewhere...

They also had mammoth parts in glass cases all over the mall. Apparently they found a skeleton somewhere around here when they were doing construction and some clever individual decided to make that the mall's theme.

This is Wilson chilling in the recliner after a hard day shopping.

This a photo of half of the Tesco on steroids. I can't remember its name at the moment, but it was huge.

At the very last store, Wilson and I were left alone while his mother went off for socks and everyone else finished up their shopping. I began to notice that he was awfully interested in the floor in front of the buggy. As I leaned over I could see that he was drooling onto the floor and watching as the puddle expanded. I just scooted the buggy back as if the drool lake didn't exist. I'm going to be a wonderful mother.

This is the last food court we ate in. Looks almost like home, huh? Check out those swell Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling. This is also where the drool puddle was.

These photos may not be riveting, but I had to get them out of the way so I could display the more fantastic ones in later posts. Up next? Mexican food heaven.

Team Serbia and the microwaves

Oh my goodness, the last seven days have been so blog worthy its going to take me quite a few posts to relate it all to you. I'm still working on my Roma+Israel video, but in the meantime I'm going to start making headway on all the other great things that have happened. These are some photos of our Team Thanksgiving that happened this last Saturday. There were 12 adults and 10 kids...did I get that right? Anyway, a house full. We even had a new friend from Greece that was hanging out between flights. Oh, and there were three microwaves. One in the Israel's house already, one from the Stevens and mine as well. We decided to combine leftovers from Thursday's feasts and serve a few other things...the most efficient way to do this (without killing Randi's oven) was to let everyone fix their own plate and then to let them heat it up in the microwave of choice. Here are some photos of that occasion, not great ones because I was a little busy stuffing my face...but they'll do. 

Before food, playing computer games and waiting on our southern teammates to arrive.

"Playing" with Wilson. He's always a hit at parties.

The second refrigerator. It was cold enough to store side dishes, desserts, and drinks out there. We even had room to spare.

Josh, before he accidentally dissed Jen's dressing.

Microwave #1

Microwave #2

Randi showing off Microwave #3 and the insane amount we fit in her small oven.

Eating deliciousness.

A rarity. The Stevens without their beautiful children. (I actually don't have many kid photos because we sent them all out to play before it got dark.)

Connor showing off the ideal way to eat Turkey and Dressing. He was so awkward trying to cut it so that he had stuffing on top of his turkey with every bite. Instead of cutting the turkey and the adding the stuffing he would pile it on top and then cut off the desired amount. We convinced him eating it like a turkey boat was much more efficient.

More deliciousness.

We played games after...except Mike and Kyle. They hate games. We also watched the scifi movie about the giant submarine eating shark that battles the giant crocodile that destroys the stadium...top notch entertainment for this bunch. 

 

 

After spending all day with each other, we were exhausted. The Stevens and the Israels were kind enough to let people fall where they might in their respective houses and the team spent the night in Belgrade so that the ladies could get up bright and early and head to Budapest. And thus ends (mostly) the Thanksgiving Odyessy.

Israeli Thanksgiving Day Madness

     I was lucky enough to spend my first Serbian/Belgrade Thanksgiving with the Israel family. On the agenda: service to the Roma children and then fantastic foodage. Well, in true Israel style, things didn't go exactly as planned. They were even better.

   

Minor Disaster #1: While washing dishes (she managed to not only cook everything, but keep a clean kitchen) Randi placed all the dirty utensils in what she thought was a dirty measuring cup...when in fact it was her delicious coffee that she had been carrying around to maintain her sanity.

While we were making goody bags for the Roma children, Kyle was listening (intently) to the Veggie Tale audio stories from Chick-fil-A that my mom was kind enough to send.

This is the Roma Goody Bag Assembly Line. Brooke would add fruit to a delightful yellow napkin, Connor would then place a chocolate bar and a small toy and I would tie a bright red ribbon around it. *More to come on this in the next post.

Minor Disaster #2: While we were making the goody bags, Connor's much anticipated Peanut Butter brownies met a near disastrous end. This photo was taken on the balcony were they had been placed to cool...along with all the drinks. It is cold enough now that you can use your balcony as a second refrigerator.

The wonderful Randi simply scraped off the burned parts and drizzled chocolate on it. An excellent save that made it more like a peanut butter cup and induced Connor to eat almost half.

Before lunch and while we were watching for Roma children, Randi placed the rolls on the radiator to rise.

Minor Disaster #3: The rolls rose over the side of the bowl and down into the radiator.

Randi saved the day by letting her children play with the dough scooped from the radiator. While the rolls never fully recovered, there was no lasting damage to the radiator. The rolls looked like sugar cookies, but actually were delicious.

The table ready for the Israels plus one. In the foil covered plate was turkey gold. Almost 20 bucks for half a breast. Ridiculous.

And then I skyped my family! They were insane as usual, but we had lots of fun.

Flat Amy was holding down the fort in Mississippi and having all sorts of culinary adventures of her own.

After we ate, we played a few rounds of card games. While I lost some Uno rounds, I bested the Israels at Polish Poker, Spoons and BS. This is the score sheet from Polish Poker. It is so unusual to beat these guys that I just may keep this forever. Randi's final score of 53 could be considered the only legitimate Thanksgiving Day Disaster.

I will be forever be grateful to the Israel's for hosting me on this day of families and for showing me that laughter happens all over the world. As for all our near disasters....it was better this way.

Foto Friday...a non-Thanksgiving edition.

So it's that time again, Foto Friday. In reality I should be posting photos from my Israeli Thanksgiving Madness, but that will have to wait for tomorrow because I need to sort through all of the photographic goodness. So instead here are a few things I found over the last week that made me giggle or appreciate Serbia all the more.

Cole chilling in my bag after I returned from a night at the Israel's. I think this is his way of telling me I'm not allowed to leave him again.

This fountain is so awkward. I feel terrible that I didn't get a photo while they still had the water in it because it looked even more awkward with water shooting out of it. I'll let you use your imagination on this one. (Hint: the water comes out of the guy on the left)

If you were nervous about Vladimir Putin watching you, no worries. He is currently preoccupied with Serbia's EU vote.

These are tiny eggs that were in the refrigerator section with my regular sized chicken eggs.

Taste verdict: Terrible. Almost like orange mayonnaise, no discernible taste. Definitely not Mexico like.

My little vicious Lola.

This is some of my favorite graffiti. It is a fairly huge piece that appears right after the bridge (one of them) as you head into city center.

It's a fairly nice tribute to Belgrade.

However, "My Belgrade", is probably my favorite part of it.

So in the next few days I'll show you "Israeli Thanksgiving Madness", "On chasing down small children" and other catchy posts dedicated to my first Team Serbia Thanksgiving (happening tomorrow) and my first trip to Budapest with all the ladies from the team (coming up on Sunday and Monday). So plenty to look forward to.

I love Serbia because...

of all the talented (and not so talented) graffiti artists. I've always been a huge fan of graffiti and God has truly blessed me by placing me in a city that apparently teaches Spray Painting 101 in its local universities. Here is an example of some artwork by an up and coming artist...as in: he needs a little more practice. 

This appeared one day on the staircase outside of my language school. This photo is from the top of the stair case looking at the right side.

This is the view to the left on the same staircase. Too bad you can't erase spray paint...thats an embarrassing little bumble bee.

Thank you Belgrade for your attention to detail and your need to deface every thing in sight. Without your artwork my days would be infinitely less interesting.

Good Morning Belgrade

The last few days have been a bit ridiculous. I've almost forgotten what Belgrade looks like on account of this is what I see all day long (in varying degrees of intensity):

The view from my balcony around noon today.

The same view, sans fog.

Its a bit crazy to be driving down the road and be unable to see the lights of oncoming trams or traffic lights until they are just a few inches in front of you. Walking is a whole other story, I never realized how much I depend on landmarks to guide my way until I couldn't see anything outside of a three foot radius. Welcome to Belgrade, We have fog and chilly temps...but mostly fog.

It's Foto Friday!

This is really hard to see because we were across an intersection, it was foggy and the old man is wearing white shoes. However, if you look closely you can see the bunny at his feet that I discussed in yesterday's post.

This suddenly appeared outside of the "3D Cafe"...the internet gaming cafe that is in the same shopping center thing as my language school. You can find gamers all over the world.

Nina (my Serbian friend) says this is modern art. I think she is quite impressed with it. However, I am slightly disturbed that it sits right in front of the hospital where I went to get a few check ups. This mooshy-ness makes me sort of queasy and suspicious of their medical techniques...especially at a hospital that prides itself on its plastic surgery department. (I did not go to said hospital for plastic surgery, however, we couldn't help but notice they offered destination surgery vacations at a very impressive price...this place had everything. It was beautiful inside. I wanted to have a tea party instead of a doctor's appointment.)

I see this all the time and every time I pass it I think to myself, "I thought I was in Serbia?"