Our first days

We weren't sure how the kids would handle the time change, the disruption to their schedules and surroundings, and the general aftereffects of travel, so we planned Sunday to be a lazy day. Good thing, as Zoltan woke around 2am totally pissed off and only slept lying on top of one of us, like back in the old days (aka from 4 weeks to 3 months old). He eventually slid off and went into the ubiquitous H formation we keep hearing about - never sleeping with our kids means we haven't experienced this fun aspect of parenting, the "being pushed out of bed by a creature the size of one's arm."

In general, Terry and I slept like poop.

We got up for good around 7am, and made a big pot of coffee. I had to run out for sugar and to discover what the Sunday hours of the local grocery store were. Interestingly, the Swiss embassy is on one side of this apartment building, the Iranian and Italian are within 3 houses of the other side, and Libya is on the corner. Tells you something about the neighborhood.

Our first day we met our friend and went for lunch, having Hungarian food for my first time. Yummy! The extra special bonus at lunch was the table next to us, where a lady first entertained Z by playing peekaboo, and finally held out her arms for him so I could eat some of my food. I love her.

The second day was Market day. The big indoor produce market is closed on Sundays but we love markets and needed fruit for the kids anyway so off we went Monday morning. This one is more touristy than some other one Terry heard of, but we still managed to drool over reasonably priced beautiful produce. We got bread and cheese and strawberries for an immediate snack (eaten at the playground across the street as the kids played, running up to us for one more berry and then back to whatever they were doing) and replenished our exhausted stock of paprika. Turns out there's 5 kinds of paprika and smoked paprika is only used on steaks. In case anyone needs to know.

When we got home from the market I tried to get Alex to nap while Terry explored the park with Zoltan. More on that next.

Budapest adorable-isms

1. Alex telling me she is always happy in Budapest .... because the whole family is together.

2. Waking each morning to the sound of children's voices, going into their room and seeing Z standing up in the pack n play, Alex sitting up in the bed, chattering to each other.

Budapest

We took advantage of a friend being posted to Budapest and the correlating free place to stay to visit the nation of Terry's last name, a.k.a. the country his great grandfather left to come to America. The trip occurred now because the children are as old as they can be before he leaves post (well, before we leave post, then come back to be alone meaning Terry can't take a day off work nor travel more that 2 driving hours away on the weekends, then our friend leaves post)

More posts and photos to follow. Initial impressions - we love it. We would love to serve here. Clean, convenient, friendly, YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER FROM THE TAP.

The flights there and back reinforced our tentative plans to put international travel on hold for a while (well, other than places like Vilnius, which is an overnight train ride, or Riga, which is a very short direct flight). Admittedly, being us, "for a while" means maybe until winter.

But I digress. The trip to Budapest was relatively uneventful except for the new Archos completely nor working, which we learned upon our return home was due to the fact that the new Archos can not use the same charger as the old one even though they look like they are the exact same. Fabulous to learn that on a trip involving 9 hours of door to door travel as opposed to 16 hours, which will happen in 2 weeks. In any case, Alex was entertained enough elsewise that she only watched 2 shows on the old Archos during the flight anyway.

Budapest drivers...

.... always stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Always. At least, in our 6 days it was consistent. Of course, as we couldn't bring ourselves to trust that, we stopped at the curb and planned to let the cars pass. But they never did. And seemed a bit annoyed for us making them wait when, had we just nonchalantly crossed when we first got to the street, we would have been halfway across by the time they got to us.

They also wait for the green man when walking, or the green bike when biking. Even when there is nothing coming for miles and miles, like at 9am on Sunday.

Our fabulously appreciating cabin

So we have spent most of the last 2 nights untangling a property nightmare that makes me wish we lived in the USA just long enough to sort this out. The long story slightly shorter: our cabin was reassessed, as the entire municipality was, a couple of years ago. Apparently the assessors didn't see the cabin the first time around, and still came up with an appraised value of the property that was just slightly lower that what we bought it for so we thought nothing of it as it was a down economy.

Then, they found the cabin and decided it was worth a lot. And created a Supplemental Tax Bill that we never received telling us how much more we needed to pay based on this. Mind you, our tax bills went up substantially in this time, almost doubling from one year to the next, and then fully doubling the next year. So without this bill we never received we had no reason to think they weren't taxing us enough. And I was informed by the county office that it was my legal duty to inquire as to whether a supplemental bill was ever issued, even though the regular bills never had trouble finding my address.

Now we have the Delinquent Tax Notice. Of course. And after 2 entire evenings spent on the phone, we finally have a straight answer regarding for what value the property was assessed. Lo, miracle of miracles, apparently our little 700 sq. ft cabin is worth 50% more (in a tanking economy) than we paid for it (in an up economy).

Think we should sell?

Tandoori Nights

There is an Indian restaurant highly recommended among the expat community. A similarly named restaurant is located 2 doors down and we've been warned that they profit from the confusion. Saturday night we decided to finally, almost 2 years into our tour, try Tandoori Nights. As we walked in, the front part of the restaurant was crowded with Indian men watching cricket. Good Sign #1. The menu was a bit hard to decipher, their recommended dishes were a range of North and South Indian cuisine, so we weren't sure where the chef was probably from. Still, we figured it would be best to stay away from our Malik's favorites so to avoid the inevitable comparisons. When we ordered the Karachi Chicken the server warned us that it was spicy. Good Sign #2. I had a craving and couldn't resist to I asked if they would make a nimbu pani even though it wasn't on the menu. He said no problem. Good Sign #3. I did ask for sweet and it was definitely a bit salty, but I won't hold it against them. Yum, yum, yum. After a couple bites of the chicken I could not longer use my taste buds but Terry was in heaven. We brought the leftovers home and left a generous tip to thank them for using chili powder. During the course of our meal, another thought occurred. Expat Indians largely if not universally speak English. Meaning, we can order takeout from the very good but mostly South Indian restaurant that's on the way home from work. Wooo-hoooo! I hate that it took us 2 years for these realizations, but am grateful that we have 2 more years to exploit the information.

+9 Centigrade

Today's temperature. Yeah, spring is a fickle, weak little thing who flirts with winter and lets him walk all over her with 5 inches of snow on March 31. But ... Let The Thaw Begin.

Love America's Love of Convenience

We have plane tickets for our home leave, and a corporate apartment for the week of consultations in D.C. In the confirmation email Terry received from the management company, there included a paragraph to the effect that if we wanted groceries in our apartment when we arrived, they recommended using Peapod and they would be happy to have the items placed in our apartment.

O M G

So, 22 hours or so after the children last slept, when we have nothing left to give, no patience, no strength, barely the capacity to physically prevent them from doing things that might kill them, we DON'T have to draw straws to see which one of us goes to the grocery store on a Sunday at dinnertime?

America, I love you.

IWC general meeting

I don't think I've mentioned the IWC yet. It's the International Women's Club, and I think they have chapters in most major cities and in most countries. In Malta nobody I knew joined it and I was busy learning how to be a mom so I never even bothered to try to figure it out, here in Petersburg it's pretty big among the expat women and in fact a pretty great resource for lots of things that make life here wonderful (play groups, a list of recommended nannies and cleaners - remember we don't have grandparents here or even daycare - special tours at the top sights, etc etc).

One feature of the way IWC runs is the monthly General Meeting. It is the opportunity for all the IWC members who wish to gather, socialize a bit, and experience a presentation. This year's topics have included presentations from some of the charities we support; a writer who's been researching and writing about the Romanovs for most of her career; a discussion of the 900 day Siege of Leningrad.

Last week we had a man from the Mariinsky Ballet Company (something to do with their International Projects, I think he's the Director of but I don't want to mis-quote) come to talk to us about ballet. It was great. And by the way, the younger ballerinas especially wanted him to make sure we all knew that real ballet companies run nothing like Black Swan, even though they all do love Natalie Portman. This is the kind of thing that reminds me why we wanted to live overseas.

Orders!

We finally have orders, which means we can plan to come home. Terry sent the request to the travel agent to book our flights. Looks like it may actually happen. Not like there was really a question as it's a Congressional mandate to have home leave between posts, but like everything around here nothing is confirmed until after it already happened.

Oh and it snowed again last night with another flurry this afternoon. Glad I didn't put away the winter coats. I will probably be safe to pack them away the weekend we fly out, as we won't return until June ...