Hungarians try Mexican food

So after our high school events today, I made my way with laptop in hand to Arribas where there's free wireless and I can enjoy a bit of semi-American (albiet Mexican-American) culture while getting things done. It beats going home and getting distracted with the things I need to get done there especially when I had emails and posters and administrative details to catch up on this afternoon.

I'm such a people watcher and today it brought such a huge grin to my face as I watched an older Hungarian family make their way into Arribas. Two daughters (probably in their late 20's) were obviously treating their parents (in their early 60's) to a night of Mexican food. The girls introduced their parents to everything, including large horchata milks, the chips and salsa and the burritos. As they awkwardly looked at and ate the Mexican food, I heard "finom" "finom". This means "delicious." They were engrossed in the food and it was adorable.

Adorable.

Hungarian meets Mexican.

Arribaaaa!!!!

House guests

This morning I said good-bye to Nona, my two week house guest who taught me everything there is to know about being a vegetarian, although this is something I could never do. I love meat too much. But, I did learn to cool lentils, and they are mighty tasty, I must say. As she left me this morning at 6:30 am, I told her i would carry on the tradition of healthy eating. I really do hope to do that. It was great to learn and watch her in the kitchen all the time. As we were leaving she said, "I'll miss you" to which I replied, "No you won't. You'll just miss my kitchen." I can see how rock stars kick their booties into shape. If you had a personal trainer aka personal chef aka personal Nona, you'd be doing just fine. Nona's the one who taught me some other things about Sprint Tris and bicycles. I still have a lot to learn. Wish her well and pray for her as she jumps back into the world of all things hard core in NYC. That lifestyle is DEFINITELY not appealing to me anymore. I once thought I wanted to live in New York. Now that Nona has informed me as an insider, no thanks.

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My next house guest arrives in a little over two hours. Just enough time to clean up Nona's mess and get on with living. (If you're reading this Nona, don't kill me but you left a mess, especially in the juicer!!)

Liz is a girl from Carson City where I grew up. She's actually my little sisters age and went to school at St. Theresa's with her. I don't know her well at all but she asked to stay here and I feel so thankful and fortunate to have the place I do that it's no problem to give up my couch now and again. Although I must say I haven't had any "couchsurfers" I've definitely had a wide open door to friends and acquaintances recently.

Liz leaves on the 18th but promises to be self-entertained which is a good thing because this week will be busy. Then I have two days to rest before the Texas team arrives. That's going to be a week of non-stop awesomeness in Budapest.

I do love this city and the people. I wish I spoke the language more fluently but that will never happen. I've given up hope and lessons.

the power of punctuation.

confusion and irritation

Just the other day I was telling someone else about the ipersonic test and how fun it is. Well, after going through the four steps my results came back as a Laid-Back Doer. In an attempt to get back to the Groundbreaking Thinker I really thought I was, I took the test once again and my result was the Spontaneous Idealist.

I'm confused.....and irritated.

I'm glad I know who I am but come on people. These tests are supposed to give you a little more insight into your soul and apparently I have the soul of three. All three descriptions fit in their own ways. That's a bit confusing and irritating, actually.
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Yesterday on my 4 mile run, I took in the beauty of the changing seasons. Leaves were scattered everywhere along the path and a cool breeze met me along the run. I love this change in weather.

learning English

I meet with a high school girl every week for an english lesson. She's preparing to take an intense intermediate course for English in November. She has to be prepared to talk on 26 different topics and she's not sure which one they will pick. As I'm correcting one of her essays on housing/living arrangements, two new English words appear. I've never heard or used either - masionette and larder. Before you look up their meanings, have you heard of these words? Can you guess what they mean?

Oh yeah! Let's Hear it for the Red Sox Nation.

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080908&content_id=3439344&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos

Indian summer

Apparently, an Indian summer is "a period of unusually dry, warm weather occurring in late autumn" and that's exactly what's taking place here in Budapest at the moment.

The result is that the streets smell worse than normal, people are irritable, hot and sticky and all around it's miserable. I took a shower this morning before church and was out of the house until around 2 pm. When I got back to the flat, I felt like I smelled so bad and wanted another shower! My friend Anna has OCD because she won't touch anything and gets sort of freaky-deaky about touching things. I figure just always have hand sanitizer in your bag. Nona, the girl who is staying with me until Saturday, had the right idea and had the light off in the kitchen when I got back while checking internet. I moved my bed back up to the loft a week or so ago, thinking it was finally cooling off as there were a few cool mornings but it's not about to cool down. Apparently not. :D

I just took a shower again and I'm out the door to meet Nori and Dori. We are going to transition all the responsibilities Nori used to have for the Foundation to Dori. Dori just got back from working for the summer in Yellowstone Park and I'm looking forward to hearing about her adventures in the USA. But I'm not looking forward to stepping back outside into the hotness. I walk and take public transport so vehicles with air conditioning are not an option for me. Oh well. This is the price I pay. It's really not that bad. I just wanted to let you know we're experiencing a very hot Fall at the moment. Maybe it's global??? I'm ready for the cool Fall breezes to blow through Budapest.

The elections

Although we are not fully through the gauntlet of interesting political games, I got this sinking feeling in my stomach this afternoon as I started thinking that in less than two months the American people will have elected a new president. Less than two months! As the world looks on (and don't kid yourself people, they are looking), so much will be determined even on an international level through this.

On the one hand, why should we care what people think of Americans? On the other hand, we hold a certain level of responsibility -- first and foremost to our people -- and second to those places on the globe where our decisions influence regional societies and governments. Here in Europe recently, there has been quite a bit of talk about Americans, some positive and some not so positive.

I'm still quite undecided in all my thoughts on candidates for both major parties. And what if I just decide to vote independent? I've always felt that was throwing away a vote. Not exactly sure I want to do that either. It's tough thinking about who will be best on both a national and international level.

Tonight

Tonight after teaching English to Lilli, I met Anna (aka village girl) in Ujipest and we tried to find a place to eat dinner. Other than the dirty gyro stand on the side of the street, things were looking pretty slim. Finally we asked a lady in a mini-mart and she recommended this place a few blocks away called the Old Fisherman in Hungarian. It was actually delicious food -- buttery potatoes and breaded fish. Something about village girl -- I always find myself laughing when I'm with her. This girl has pretty much mastered the Hungarian language, and is now talking about taking Russian and Italian while she's here in Budapest. Who is she? She's trying to rope me in as well, but I'm not convinced at this point in my life that I want to start studying a language I will probably never use, although Italian is sort of romantic and would at least be in step with my Italian roots.

Tomorrow morning I'm running the Breakfast Run on Margaret Island. Although I'm a bit disappointed in my lack of preparation for the half marathon I was planning to run on Sunday, I'm excited about the 5k. I actually roped a few others in with me. It will be nice to get out to Margaret Island again before the weather gets really bad.

This morning's musings

I woke an hour earlier than the alarm, which is a good thing as I am trying to get a lot done so I can go and enjoy some time with a few of the ladies on our team who have infants and wanted to hang out together today. Since my love language (Five Love Languages, Gary Smalley) is quality time, I enjoy being with people...period. So, I'm going to try and get a few things done and still enjoy time with them this afternoon.
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I'm still a bit disappointed that I won't be doing the 1/2 marathon this Sunday but I just wasn't prepared. I didn't have the mileage I was expecting and I don't want to face injury. Instead, on Saturday morning I'll be running a 5 k and atleast I feel as though I'm getting out there and moving forward a bit.

I realized that I'm not as good at following the running plan as I was with the Sprint Tri plan. I much prefer training for a Sprint Tri but at this point I don't forsee myself doing another one on this side of the world anytime soon. Nothing is happening nearby and I think I'm going to wait. I'd like to get another one into my experience portfolio (hehe) before I see if I want to jump into Olympic distances.

One thing besides running that I dislike is strength training but I've been doing great with the strength training program that my friend Lisa developed for me. So, I'll just need to continue that. I also posted a full marathon training plan that would prepare me to be ready to do one (which I'm not planning to actually do, I just want to get my miles up there) by the Spring. I definitely need new tennis shoes but I'm waiting until I head back to the States in February before getting a new pair - if I can wait that long.

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"Leprosy yielded to no human remedies but it fled at once at the Lord's "I will"' Sometimes there are things in my heart that feel a lot like leprosy and I am asking God to touch those places. He says, "I will" and they flee. Thank you Jesus for being such a real part of life.

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Last night I found "Dan's Treehuggers" bookstore in Budapest and I met Dan. He is from the East Coast but has been living in Budapest for 16 years. He started his bookstore/organic cafe almost 3 years ago. I asked him how he got the idea and how it got started. He said that his girlfriend at the time wanted 4 kids so he realized he would need some income to sustain that. He said his girlfriend didn't survive the start up of the business, but now he has two bookstore/cafe's in Budapest and one in Vienna. I sold a bag full of books to him and then ended up purchasing a book later at another bookstore.

I ended up buying a paperback by the author Paulo Coelho called "Like the Flowing River." I've heard a lot about him recently and all of his books are here in Budapest in English. This story from his book caught my attention and I thought I'd share it with you.

"A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked:
"Are you writing a story about what we've done? Is it a story about me?"

His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
"I AM writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I'm using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up."

Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn't seem very special.

"But it's just like any other pencil I've ever seen!"

"That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world."

'First quality: you are capable of great things but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God and He always guides us according to His will.'

'Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he's much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.'

'Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.'

'Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.'

'Finally, the pencil's fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.'
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