!Yo Diggity!

Well the demonstrating still contines in Budapest. They’ve moved away from the Parliment but they are still going strong in other places. Last Saturday, I was in my flat and I heard what sounded like whistles and chanting. I leaned out the window (totally safe - don’t worry, Ma) and saw a gang of people strolling by at the end of my street.

They were carrying the Hungarian flag and who knows what they were chanting. But I’ll assume it has something to do with the prime minister or maybe just the corupt government here.

The demonstrating is totally peaceful and I do not feel threatened at all. The only violence to come from the demonstrations seems to be fights between the police and the demonstrators - not amoungst the demonstrators themselves. On Saturday, I found out why that was. As I was hanging out my window taking the pictures above, I looked straight down… and there were police spilling out of the bar across the street!!

Yep… they were headed right towards the demonstration…. hmmm…. I’m not sure how that is going to be condusive to keeping the peace!!!

Thanksgiving really is one of my very favorite holidays. You get to sit around with all your friends or family or both and … and… and well, not really do a whole lot of anything! Being here in Hungary makes it a little odd as we do not get a holiday from work… but this year I went ahead and took the day off. I went out to Diosd area (suberb of Budapest) and hung out with some of the families I know from church. Unbelieveably (and oh yes, wonderfully) we had this amazing spread of all the typical Thanksgiving food!

And compliments of the wonderful world of technology, we were able to watch American football on the computer (thank you, Slingbox!!). Well, ok, the guys watched the football and the ladies enjoyed a cup of coffee and good conversation in the next room. Ahhhhh Thanksgiving - I just love it!!!

Another fabulous thing about being here is that since we do not get Thanksgiving day as a holiday, the Americans here still want to celebrate so we pick alternative days to do the feast all over again! So I celebrated again with the folks from work. This was a more international crowd and we got to share the traditional holiday feast with folks from Portugal, Austrailia, Belgium, Singapore and the UK! I think they all truly enjoyed the holiday…

This picture was taken before the ‘eye-toy’ wars (eye toy is a virtual reality-type game… I lost to an 10 year old and I am a little bitter).

Mike did a fabulous job with the turkey and all the wonderful trimmings!!

See… everyone was alllllll smiles!!

So much to give thanks for this year….

Well, one of the hard things living in Budapest is that people who are not from here, do not typically stay here. The friends that I meet and make are mostly quite transient. I’ve been here now for about 1 year and 4 months (wow - I can hardly believe I’m saying that!!) and so I’ve been seeing lots of people come in and leave again. This weekend, I had to say goodbye to one of my dear, sweet friends, Simone. Simone is originally from Brazil, she is working for the same company as I am and arrived here about the same time as I did. You all know her from my blog. She has been my ‘partner in crime’, my travel buddy, and my Budapest exploring friend. It’s been so fun to experience all the things we’ve experienced together, I’ve really learned so much from her. Saying goodbye to her on Friday was not so bad as I thought it would be, however… mostly because I’m confident I’ll see her again… confident that likely it will not be too long! Simone is actually headed to Fairfax, Virginia for her next assignment. I’m excited for her for her opportunities there! It is possible that we could be in the same place again at some point… but if not… she is definately a friend for life, no matter where in the world we are!

Take care, Simone! See you SOON!