!Yo Diggity!

So Greg got here Wednesday evening and after over 24 hours of traveling over 10,000 miles he was delighted to find out that we would be getting up to leave at 6:15 a.m. to drive 3 hours to Kosice (pronunciation as in the subject). Kosice is a town in Slovakia where I have to turn in my paperwork to get my work Visa. The drive wasn’t so bad really… we weren’t driving actually. My co-worker and expatriate friends Mike and Brandi Davis drove us so that was key. They had already been once so the experience was quite pleasant really. They knew where they were going and we just followed along. It’s been that way my whole time here really – I’m very lucky to have folks like them (very nice and willing to help) to have arrived just 2 months prior to my arrival. Very, very key to so many small aspects of everyday living.
Kosice was a nice town. Pretty much what you might expect Slovakia to look like: grey, old… quaint, if you will. Cute town… I don’t think that many foreigners are probably too attracted there though. Not a whole lot going on. Here’s a couple of picture examples.

This is the little street we walked down to get to the embassy.

And a red, white and blue train! Awwww! Just for us?! How American…

And just so everyone knows: Indiana people rule the world. I was standing in line for my visa and recognized some very American conversation behind me in line. I turned around and asked the guy where he was from: INDIANA! Portage, Indiana. Weird. He is a missionary living here in Budapest working as a teacher at a church-school. We got his number so we’ll hook up with him later. What a small, small Indiana world.

On the way back, we stopped at Tesco. This is the Wal-mart of Eastern Europe. They have everything you can imagine. Well… not EVERYTHING you can imagine but I would say they have more American-type stuff than anywhere else. I got some pots and pans which I was in dire need of (I tried cooking some spaghetti in a mug in the microwave very unsuccessfully the other day – hey, at least I’m resourceful). I also got a grill. Greg and I are very excited about this. So after a jog that night we had our first grill experience in Budapest:

See Greg’s first grill experience.

Don’t know if we’ll be able to use it much in the winter… but for now, it’s great. Couldn’t find real coals… had to use some funky kind of wood-type pieces. Worked alright… but certainly will keep our eye out for real coals (American-style coals, I should say).

The weather has been pretty much perfect: 70 degrees, dry and sunny. We went to Margrit Island to the pool on Saturday and spent the afternoon. Took this picture on the way back from the pool.

Pics by the river

We want to do a bit of traveling… looked up some flights but didn’t see anything super cheap… perhaps still the summer vacation season. So we decided that we’re going to drive to Croatia this weekend. We hear it’s just a few hours to a beach… might be good? We’ll see. We’ve spent a lot of time together in cars over the past few months so it’ll be just like being back home! Haha I’ll be sure to share pictures and stories as usual….

Sure do miss ya’ll! Goodnight!