See pictures from my Mom and Dad's recent visit to Macedonia in their online Kodak slide show!! CLICK HERE!!!!

 

My parents really liked the peach juice in Macedonia. Most of what we get is imported from our northern neighbors Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. They translate is as "peach mushy drink." It is quite mushy. I liked it too for about 6 months, but I probably drank about 100 liters of it, and now I'm drinking a lot more water. Yes, I'm eating a lot less sugar. My parents had a great time here. I showed them all the little corners of my life here, everything that I could. They came to school with me, to meet all my wonderful friends and colleagues, to meet my wonderful host family, and to meet Douglas, my wonderful boyfriend. I'm so blessed to be able to say that I have wonderful friends here. We also went to Budapest, Hungary, where I "did" a marathon. No, I didn't "run" a marathon... I "did" one.... I ran at least 60% of it though :) I'm proud of myself, but I'll tell you, it was hard, because everyone was speaking Hungarian to me while I was trying to run, and I couldn't understand. They were probably like, "Let's go, good job, doing great." But all I heard was "hadime radimo shpodika," and that's kind of discouraging. But, Budapest is a Danube dream come true, even if I could hardly walk half the time we were there.



So, tomorrow is Halloween but we don't have Halloween here. I'm going to give out candy corn anyways. I am working on lots of projects, teaching, and trying to be a good volunteer, but that "midway-point-oh-my-goodness-a whole nother year?-syndrome" is kind of blindsiding me. The fall is beautiful. Colors. It's getting colder. Everyone is making ajvar and pickling and canning. In fact, Douglas and I made some really delicious pickles.



That's about as quick of an update as I can manage. Comments, encouragements, inspirations welcome!