Budawin

This is what Kristina/Amy/Budapest look like at 6am.

     This past weekend, Kristina and I had the fabulous opportunity to spend a day in Budapest. We took the night train from Belgrade; not the midnight train, the 10:30 p.m. one that actually leaves at 10:10. Arriving in Budapest at 6 a.m., we immediately start sight seeing. The next fifteen hours are a blur of great photos and serious map consulting. We beasted through, and after spending a night in our hostel and waiting sketchily for tacos, we headed back home.

These are some of the best photos from the trip, but you can see all of them here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3402137454209.2127696.1293000428&type=3&l=4dc0bd3adc

I'm once again confused by the signage. Shocker. Is this offensively saying that only black hands aren't allowed to touch? Or maybe it is emphasizing the fact that you shouldn't touch men with unibrows. Ultimately unclear instructions.

Some of the statues had girly hair.

And some of the statues were upside down on the ceiling.

This is a nice man in a hat walking Dora the Explorer by the hand.

We rode insanely steep escalators to the middle of the earth and then back up to its crust.

This is Budapest at sunset. I had plenty of time to take this while waiting for Kristina.

Budapest is so fond of random statues that they build them into regular buildings, like this bank.

I took this photo to illustrate how far we were from the front of Parliament when Kristina decided she needed to get a photo of the front of it. This was hour 13 of sight seeing. She shouted out her intentions as she fast-walked away from me.

The first time having Mexican food. It's so unusual in Eastern Europe that they need to give pronunciation directions. Transliterated in their alphabet, of course.

This is in honor of Kristina. The supposedly seven-hour day-train home took closer to nine. She was awake the entire way and was out of her mind, complaining about how slow the train was going. We ironically saw this as we were chilling at the Serbian border for an hour on that same train.

We went to a fabulous hidden hospital and secret nuclear bunker. We weren't allowed to take photos, but we cajoled the tour guide into taking this one. We wanted to show off our Harry Potter capes, which kept us warm in the tunnels. Mine was so long Kristina stepped on it.

Then we had Mexican a second time.

And a third. All at the same franchise, but two different locations. I have no shame about it either.

The Jewish Synagogue that we spent over an hour locating. It was closed when we got there. It may or may not be the second-largest in Europe, depending on how reliable you deem hippies to be.

The less famous backside of Parliament.

There is a memorial to Jews killed in the war that is located right down from Parliament, along the river. The soldiers lined them up along the banks, arbitrarily asked them to remove their shoes, and shot them. The bodies fell into the river and many, many years later cast iron shoes were placed along the bank to remember the tragedy.

So in English it says, "keep the window closed and burn to death because we don't care enough about you to run the air conditioner regularly and you can't open the window to thwart that purpose." Also, what does this picture mean? I assume that whatever this means is allowed. There is no cross through it. It can't mean "throwing bottles allowed" because you can't open the widow. Maybe "you will see floating bottles." Like magic.

This was taken outside our hostel. We are convinced that they shoot all sorts of action movies here -- All of the ones where they jump balconies and scream in foreign languages.

We also tracked down the statue that could either be Peter Pan or a Little Princess. Everyone disagrees.

Our hostel had a big cat theme. We had respect of neighbours. Our neighbours did not respect us. They were crunching bottles for recycling at 3 a.m. Was that necessary that early?

So when you break a train window you get a snowflake explosion. Just so you know. Hope you brought your own hammer though, as they are definitely not supplied.

List of Ten

Here are ten things that have either happened to us, or that I've learned about Kristina in the last two weeks.

1. Kristina is afraid of birds, mice, and lizards. She also considers me to be a cat-o-pedia.

2. Israel items:

• Getting lost for about an hour on our way to our first foray into teaching ESL to the Roma.
• Having the Israel's building catch on fire and the power cease to exist.
• Fighting a losing battle during a very rigged Apples to Apples game. Note to self: never play with grandparents and their grandchildren. 

3. Feta makes errything betta.

4. One night, Kristina hit me in the face with a carabiner. For all you Connors out there: it's a metal hook-like contraption that rock climbers use and kids sometimes attach to their backpacks.

5. Number four led me to evict her twice. I told her to go live upstairs with the Stevens, but she couldn't because of number six on this list.

6. Kristina got a lesson in loading the dishwasher from Kyle. She mentioned that she was still going to do it her way, which is why she can't live upstairs and I have to keep her midnight-violent self.

7. Kristina hit me in the face (supposedly because there was a bug) and I swallowed a bug accidentally.

8. #Griffinism (Enough said.)

9. We spent over an hour looking for the (supposedly) second-largest Jewish synagogue in Europe. It was closed when we got there.

10. Late one night, Kristina fell up the stairs. This is entirely unremarkable, except for the fact that as she fell, she reached up and grabbed my ankle. She yanked me backward to steady herself. My face came very, very close to making contact with a concrete wall. Kristina, however, was fine. Except she almost peed on herself. 

         

Awana's Around the World Party

The fabulous four pre-presentation.

     One of the joys of my job is being invited to all sorts of celebrations. I've blogged about Awana before, but this was an especially wonderful night. These four kids memorized over 50 Bible verses. They hosted an Around the World Party Sunday night to show us what they had been learning about. We got to dress up and eat some fabulous food. Here are the photos:

Kyle discussed what he liked most about Awana and recited his favorite Bible verse.

Of course, we had to document all of the fabulous costumes.

So I think this is Kyle pretending to kick a soccer ball. Maybe?

Kristina reads a book in the South America section.

The Africa display.

Europe.

Asia. With fortune cookies.

The United States.

Wilson took a few minutes to check out the world map.

Then he needed to be cute for a while.

The Australia display "down under" a table.

This is Kristina's Australia face.

We had Biblical fortune cookies. Kristina lost her fortune and couldn't remember the verse in Proverbs anymore.

Kristina Week Two: Fotos

Kristina and I cooked delicious food. It's one of the many things we did in week two.

So here we are at the end of week two. I've attempted to evict her and lose her in a foreign country, yet she still remains strong. These are some photos from our last week (minus the ones from Budapest, which will be a separate post).

And for the record: this makes me the better personal assistant.

We found some equal opportunity bathrooms in South Serbia. I had to snap this really fast, because a mom and her friend carried a half-naked baby out of the baby bathroom into the women's bathroom. When we walked in, they were rinsing the baby's butt in the sink. I didn't want to be taking a photo when they came back out -- or if any more half naked babies came out of that door. Awkward.

We had breakfast for dinner at the Israel's. Then we interrupted breakfast for dinner at the Stevens' later that week.

This was the atmosphere for breakfast for dinner night.

A snapshot of the delicious non-breakfast meal. We ate it all.

We attempted to get my visa. After waiting in line for 45 minutes to pay taxes, we saw this gem. The sign details what kind of clothing is inappropriate: Shorts and tank tops, spaghetti strap shirts, shants/capri pants, no shirt/drawstring pants, flip flops...etc.

One afternoon, I heard Kristina shrieking. I ran up front to find her huddled behind the glass balcony door, whimpering about some bird. I looked outside to see this frightened bird that she scared so much it pooped on itself. The bird eventually flew away, but it took Kristina hours to go back out and put her laundry on the racks to dry.

Cole and Lola entertained Kristina with tricks such as basket-hiding and climbing into insane places to spy on her.

Tri Sveti-fecta

The Sveti Sava has been honored in many many ways. These are two of my favorite.

The legit one.

The gingerbread one.

The lego one.

Sveti Sava

This is the front of Svetis Sava, one of the most recognizable landmarks in Belgrade. If this church follows the same patterns as other churches I've been in, this will be covered by an ornate door and screen and people will be unable to see what is behind it.

     One of my most favoritest things is also the most noticeable feature of Belgrade. You can see the Sveti Sava from practically any point in the city that is higher than street level. Some of you may remember that the Sveti Sava was the focus of our gingerbread house tribute way back in December. This past April, I finally got around to actually visiting this Belgrade landmark. Below are the photos (oddly bereft of any Connor posing) from that day.


For your reading enjoyment, though, a little background on Sveta Sava:

The side walk way was lined with booths selling all sorts of things.

They had traditional serbian shoes, hammocks, honey, and rakija

bottles adorned with saints.

     What we affectionately refer to as "Sveti Sava" would actually be correctly referred to as Храм светог Саве, Hram svetog Save, or The Temple of Saint Sava. It is the largest Orthodox church building in the world. It is dedicated to Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Religion and a pretty important guy all around. The massive structure and planned ornate interior are funded entirely by donations and profits from the gift shop found inside. Construction of the church began in 1935 and has continued throughout the years, despite several hiatuses due to war and political unrest. Today, the church is mostly complete. Only the inner mosaics remain unfinished.

And now for the photos: 

 

Fountain at the front.

Normally you aren't allowed to take photos inside the churches. This one is unfinished and therefore not under the same rules. Also, we stalked these other people taking photos so I assumed it was okay.

The dome is one of the more awe inspiring things.

Off to the side (where I was unable to take photos) they had icon portraits set up for worship along with candles for the people coming in.

This is looking towards what will be the front of the church.

There was a lot of scaffolding going on. Some of the icons were starting to be placed on the walls as well.

The entrance.

Its just smack in the middle of a neighborhood.

Tomorrow I'll have to show you what I'm calling the Sveti Trifecta. I'm excited.