Weekend Trip to Serbia

This past weekend we filled up all 7 seats of the Dacia, and drove to Subotica, Serbia.
Our purpose in going was to take some people from our church to see the work that God has done through the Calvary Chapel there - which was the first one in Central/Eastern Europe.

On Saturday we hung out in the city, ate some great čevapi and hung out with friends from the church.
Nate and Felicia like traveling and found plenty of places to play and run around.
(pictures by Kovács Kati)




Because the Subotica church service is on Sunday evenings, Sunday morning we went down to Bačka Topola for church, and I had the privilege of preaching the sermon.


After church we went to a lake outside of town, where we drank coffee and the kids got to play at a playground.
Later in the afternoon we went back to Subo for lunch, and we hung out in the church coffee shop until service started.


Church in Subotica:


On Monday morning we headed back home to Eger, but we did some shopping first. We found this juice, which I think God ordained for our family:

I think we need to find a way to get this stuff by the trucklload!

Border Crossing with Kids - Határátkelés...Gyerekekkel

This past weekend when we went to Serbia we had a little problem at the border, and I'm writing this in the hope that it will help someone to avoid the problem that we had.

Múlt hétvége amikor elmentünk Szerbiába, volt egy kisebb problémánk a határnál, és ezt azért írom, hogy segítsek másoknak elkerülni egy kellemetlen helyzetet.

I'm pretty sure that changing laws is the main hobby of all politicians.

Úgy tűnik, hogy megváltoztatni a törvényeket minden politikus fő hobbija.

When I first moved to Hungary in January 2002, I was told not to bother getting a visa for Hungary in the US, but to just go to Hungary and then get my Hungarian visa in one of the consulates in a neighboring country like Slovakia or Romania. When I arrived in Hungary I found out that the law had been changed on 1 January, and now you could only get a Hungarian visa in your country of origin. I didn't have the money to get a ticket back to the US, so I stayed as a "tourist" for 8 months by "border hopping".
By August 2002, the law had been changed again and had reverted back to the old way - so I was able to get my visa in Slovakia.

Amikor ide költöztem Magyarországra 2002 januárjában, azt mondták nekem az USÁban, hogy nem kell magyar vízumot intézni Amerikában mielőtt megyek - hanem csak menjek el Magyarországra, és majd valamelyik szomszéd országban intézzem el a vízumot egy konzulátusnál, pl Romániában vagy Szlovákiában. Amikor megérkeztem, megtudtam, hogy 2002.január 1-jén megváltozott a törvény, és a magyar vízumot csak abban az országban lehetett igényelni ahonnan származott az illető. Mivel nem volt pénzem visszamenni Amerikába, itt maradtam "turista"-ként 8 hónapig, úgy, hogy néha átmentem Romániába egy egy pecsétért.
2002 augusztusában megint megváltoztatták a törvényt és visszaállt a régi rendszerre - így Szlovákiában tudtam elintézni a vízumomat.

So, here is what happened this weekend:
Rosemary and the little ones are dual citizens, but we never bothered to get Hungarian passports for the kids - we always just used their US passports whenever we traveled, and had no problems. This time when we were leaving Hungary, the border guard told us that we have to prove that our are Hungarian citizens, because otherwise it seems that they have been living in Hungary illegally without visas.
In the past it had been enough to show their Hungarian address cards, but this time they said it was not enough. We would have been able to prove that easily by showing their birth certificates, but those were back in Eger - 320 km away.

Szóval, ez az ami most történt a hétvégén:
Rosemary és a kicsik mind kettős állampolgárok, viszont soha nem igényeltünk magyar útleveleket a kicsiknek - mindig csak az amerikai útleveleit használtunk amikor utaztunk valahová, és soha nem volt ebből probléma. Most, ahogy elhagytuk Magyarországot, a határőr azt mondta nekünk, hogy be kell bizonyítanunk a gyerekek magyar állampolgárságukat, mert különben úgy tűnik mint ha illegálisan tartozkodnak Magyarországon vízum nélkül. Eddig elég volt megmutatni a magyar lakcímkártyait, de most azt mondták, hogy ez már nem elég. Simán be tudtunk volna bizonyítani az állampolgárságukat a születési anyakönyvi kivonataival, de azok otthon voltak Egerben - 320 km-re tőlünk.

In the end, the border guards were very understanding, and after making some phone calls were able to let us through by leaving a note at the border that we should be allowed through, as it was clear that the kids were ours and Rosemary was able to verify her Hungarian citizenship.

Végül nagyon rendesek és megértőek voltak a határőrök, és egy kis telefonálgatás után átengedtek bennünket, mert nyilvánvaló volt hogy a gyerekek a miénk és Rosemary be tudta bizonyítani a magyar állampolgárságát.

The point is this: if you have kids who are dual citizens, you need to get them a passport or a photo ID card. It used to be that they only issued these ID cards to people over 14, but now the law has changed and they can be issued to newborn babies as well.

A lényeg az, hogyha kettős állampolgárok a gyerekek, igényelni kell nekik vagy egy útlevelet vagy egy fényképes személy igazolványt. Régebben csak 14 évesen lehetett kapni személy igazolványt, de most már az újszülött babáknak is lehet kérni.

Published

There are many reasons I love Flickr. One of the reasons it is great is that photos posted on Flickr are copyrighted, and you can also decide whether you want to allow people to be able to download your pictures or not.

For this reason, there are a lot of both professional and amateur photographers who use the site and post high quality images. Because of this, Flickr is a place that people like journalists and newspaper writers will go to search for images to illustrate articles, travel guides or websites.

In the past few years I have had 3 pictures published, and I got an email yesterday requesting my permission to publish another one.
For an amateur photographer, the recognition feels great.

Here are the pictures I've had published. I don't actually think these are my best photos, but they were what these people were looking for.

This one of the Denver City and County Building was used in a travel guide:


This one of Bill Clinton Street in Prishtina, Kosovo was used in a French news article about the unveiling of a statue of Clinton in Prishtina:


This one of Nessebar, Bulgaria was also used in a travel guide:


This photo from Sirok, Hungary will be published in a German economic journal:

Ja ♥ Eurocrem

For a short vacation Rosemary and I went to Serbia for a few days a few weeks back.
Here are a few things we love about Serbia - check the links if you aren't sure what something is:

• Eurocrem
• Skittles! - We were surprised to find them in the Rodić supermarket.
  
• Next fruit juice - was named best juice in the world a few years ago.
  
• Burek
  
• Ćevapi
• Higher percentage of macho people
  

We spent our first day in Subotica with some friends, and got to go to church in the evening, and then went to Novi Sad the next day, before heading back.

Here are some pictures:

Family Fun in Szeged

Rosemary and I have been wanting to take a short trip somewhere before the new baby comes in January, just to get out of town and do something fun.
We were originally planning to go to England for a few days...until we looked into how much it would cost!
So, we decided to get in the car and drive to Serbia, and visit friends in Szeged and Subotica, with the intention of getting to Novi Sad to take pictures and walk around.
We are in Subotica right now, and got blessed to be able to stay at a friend's apartment - where there happens to be free wifi in the building :)

This afternoon we stopped in Szeged on our way, and visited with Kyle and Odi Eckhart, and got to see their 2 month old baby Zara. It was a real blessing. Afterward, we hit up an Indian restaurant before heading to Subo.

We did get to spend a bit of time downtown in Szeged while it was light out, and took some pictures:

The Little Prince on his throne -


Dom in a puddle -


Family photo -


Nate's favorite free-time activity: Terrorizing pigeons -


More:

For the Love of Bill

A few years ago we took a trip through Serbia and Kosovo. It was 2003, so the Kosovo conflict of 1999 and the NATO bombing of Serbia was still fairly fresh.

In Serbia we tried to keep a pretty low profile as Americans, since many Serbs were obviously not too happy about the US having bombed their country. We had a good time in Belgrade, we liked the city a lot and found people very friendly and kind.

But in Kosovo, it was a completely different situation. The city itself is nothing special. Sightseeing in Prishtina consisted of visiting the UN headquarters, the big hotel, the (black) market (ok, that was actually pretty fun), and the money changers - like 20 guys standing around near a bus stop who changed money as a business (ok, that was fun too:) The cool think was that in Prishtina we were very open about being Americans, because since that same NATO bombing, many Kosovars love Americans. We got treated great - we were given free pastries in bakeries and free coffee in cafés, a good price on exchanging money - just because we were American.

America is viewed as having saved Kosovo - and the savior himself is Bill Clinton. And they certainly love him. The main street in downtown Prishtina is named Bill Clinton Boulevard.

We even saw his name on random other stuff, like this company which sells marble.


This past week, for the love of Bill, a 3 meter tall statue of him was erected in the Kosovar capital. Bill himself was there to unveil it.
Here's a video of it, and here is an article, which contains one of the pictures I took back in 2003.

Aarrrgghh!

Just another day in Croatia...

Tito and other Yugoslav graffiti

I wrote this post after our last trip to former-Yugoslavia, about Tito, and how in every former-Yugoslav country it seems there are many people who love Tito, and miss the Tito era, when the Yugoslav nations lived in peace and relative prosperity.
I found this poster in Zagreb:

 

It seems that in Croatia even punks love Tito!

I really like looking at graffiti wherever I'm at in Europe; I think its interesting to read what people think is worth writing on walls for everyone to see. Sometimes the ones written in English are really funny, especially when they are misspelled, or phrased wrong. One of my favorites in the main square in Debrecen said: Let us go to steal.In Croatia there was a lot of interesting graffiti - I especially liked this one I found in Zadar:

 

I'm not really sure what they mean by saying that Zagreb=Belgrade, but I'm guessing its negative, and this person from Dalmatia doesn't like either of these cities very much.
Anyone have more insight into this?

Croatia pt. 1 - Zagreb and Plitvice

We have less money this year than in years past. Because of the financial crisis we have less money coming in, plus Nate is getting bigger and eats more, and we now have Balázs as part of our family and he needs food, clothing, bus passes, memory cards, etc...
Because of these things, we thought we wouldn't be able to afford a family vacation this summer. We were planning to go to Slovakia for just 2 nights, but had a hard time finding accommodation on short notice.
I happened to write on Facebook that I was frustrated about not being able to find a place to stay in SK, and someone left me a comment, saying: Why don't you just get some tents and go camping? My first response was that I wanted to write him back and say, That's easy for you to say - but I have a baby and a pregnant wife! Then I started thinking about it, and realized that we could actually save a lot of money by camping, and maybe we could even go to the seaside, as Rosemary had asked me earlier in the year to take her to the coast.
So, I mentioned the idea to Rosemary, and figured out that if we bought a bigger tent, then we could fit Nathaniel's bed and Rosemary and I into it, and Balázs could sleep in our other tent with our friend Dani from church, who happened to be off from work that week.
So, on Monday, at 1am we left Eger for Zagreb, spent some time there, and then drove down to Plitvice Lakes National Park, about 2 hrs south.

We got to Zagreb at about 6am, and had breakfast there, and let Nate run around a bit. He slept most of the way in the car, although he was pretty excited and knew something was going on, that we would get him out of bed in the middle of the night to go somewhere.
Rosemary and I had been to Zagreb before, so we knew our way around, which made being there really enjoyable. Its a much smaller city than Budapest, but very nice, clean, and has a lot of parks.

We then drove down to Plitvice Lakes, where we camped the first night.

 

Croatian food is great, and we ate a lot of Ćevapčići and Ražnjići, but we were on a budget, so we also heated up canned food we brought from Hungary over a fire. Nate liked being in the tent - and it was funny waking up every morning with him standing and watching us, waiting for us to wake up.

Here are pictures from Zagreb:
And here are some from Plitvice:

Cars

The biggest industry in Eger is automotive, which is obviously struggling and lots of people have lost their jobs here, including many people in our church.

GM has announced that they are going to end their Pontiac brand.
Personally, I don't mind. I know that Pontiac is an iconic American car, but they really haven't made anything great in quite a few years. Most of their cars just look like other GM cars with different body trim on them, but you pay more for them than for a Chevy.

Even though GM is having a hard time these days, Fiat seems to be doing great.

GM Europe entered talks recently over the possibility of selling the Opel and Vauxhall brands to Fiat. Fiat has also been trying to buy up Chrysler - which is almost bankrupt.

As of last year, the Zastava auto factory in Kragujevac, Serbia no longer produces Yugos, but they have started producing cars for Fiat. Serbia is providing a trade-in deal for anyone who can push, pull, or drag in their old Yugo. This way they can produce and sell more cars and get the old, unfit cars off the roads.
The cars being produced in Serbia are the same as the Fiat Punto, but carry the name Zastava Z10.
Apparently its going pretty well for them, because the factory has more orders than they can keep up with. Zastava seems to be one of the only auto factories around with that problem!
The other day, as I was walking around in town, I noticed a car dealership that is selling the new Zastava/Fiat cars here in Eger:

Today - Ma

Today:

• Was Women's Day in many countries of Europe - mostly the former communist countries.
  The poster to the right is a Soviet-era Women's Day poster from Russia.
  Happy Women's Day to all the ladies out there!
  
• I found out that Balázs knows off the top of his head the exact size of the Eger plaza (mall).
  We were talking about a mall in Debrecen, and Balázs asked, "Is that mall bigger than the Eger mall, because the one here is 19,000 square meters."
  We were impressed. He can't find Peru on a map, but he knows the exact dimensions of the mall.
• The Volvo Kupa ended today in Eger, with Hungary playing the final match against the USA.
  Despite my rooting for the US, Hungary won the match 13-4. Congrats Hungary.
  However, it wasn't enough for them to win the tournament, which was won by Serbia.
  Here are the final standings:
  1. Serbia
  2. Hungary
  3. Romania
  4. USA
  I spent a lot of time trying to think up a good excuse for why the US lost, but in the end I gave up - they lost, really bad. Oh well, life goes on.
  Maybe I should start rooting for another team. Hajrá Szerbia!

Ma:

• Nőnap volt számos európai országban – főleg a volt-kommunista országokban.
  A fenti poszter egy Szovjet nőnapi poszter.
  Boldog nőnapot kívánok a hölgyeknek!
• Kiderült, hogy Balázs fejből tudja, hogy pontosan hány négyzet méter az egri pláza.
  Beszélgettünk egy debreceni plázáról, és Balázs megkérdezi, „Az ottani pláza nagyobb mint az itteni? Mert az itteni 19 ezer négyzet méter.”
  Tyű. Le voltunk nyűgözve. Nem tudja hol van Peru egy térképen, de pontosan tudja, hogy hány négyzet méter az Agria Park.
• A Volvo Kupának ma lett vége itt Egerben, és az utolsó meccs Magyarország – USA volt.
  Az USÁért való drukkolásom ellenére, Magyarország nyert 13-4. Gratulálok, kedves magyarok.
  Viszont, ez még nem volt elég ahozz, hogy Magyarország megnyerje a tornát, amelyet Szerbia megnyerte.
  Ez volt a torna végeredménye:
  1. Szerbia
  2. Magyarország
  3. Románia
  4. USA
  Jó sokáig próbáltam kitalálni egy jó kifogást arra, hogy az USA miért nem nyerte meg, de végül feladtam. Verést szenvedtek, egész rendesen. Nem baj, ezt is túl fogom élni.
  Lehet hogy mostantól fogva egy másik országért kéne drukkolnom. Hajrá Szerbia!

Volvo Kupa

Eger is not a football (aka soccer) town, in fact, it would be fair to say that Eger's football team sucks. They are so bad that they are in a low-level group that play's against such "powerhouse" teams as Bekölce and Egercsehi. You get the idea.
However, the big sport in Eger is waterpolo, and the Eger team is very good. So good that the city built for them one of the best and biggest water polo stadiums in the country, where the Eger city team often plays against national teams from other countries, like Ukraine and Italy to name some off the top of my head.
This weekend is a big waterpolo event in Eger - the Volvo Kupa - in which the national teams of Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and the USA are having a small tournament.
Tomorrow afternoon is the finale: Hungary vs. USA. One of the reasons its such a big deal is because Hungary beat the US in the summer olympics in Beijing to win the gold medal.
I'm hoping to make it out to the match after church - too root for the US, of couse - but I'm not sure I'll be able to make it; plus, according to the news it might already be sold out.
Hajrá USA!

Eger nem igazán egy foci-rajongó város, sőt jogos azt mondani, hogy az egri foci csapat béna. Például, olyan csoportba vannak, amiben olyan "hatalmak" ellen játszanak mint Bekölce és Egercsehi. Tehát, ja.
Viszont, Egerben a vízilabda az igazi sport, és ez egri csapat nagyon jó. Annyira, hogy a városi önkormányzat építette nekik az egyik legjobb vízilabda csarnokot az országban, ahol Eger városának a csapata játszik más országok válogatott csapatai ellen, mint Ukrajna és Olaszország - csak hogy kapásból mondjam egy-két példát.
Most hétvégén, nagy sportesemény van Egerben - a Volvo Kupa - amiben a magyar, román, szerb, és USA-i válogatott csapatoknak lesz mérközés.
Holnap lesz a finálé: Magyarország - Egyesült Államok. Ez azért is érdekes, mert a magyar csapat legyőzte az amcsi csapatot a pekengi olimpiában, és így nyertek meg az aranyérmet.
Remélem, hogy gyüli után el tudok menni - az USÁért szurkolni, természetesen - bár nem valószínű hogy tudok menni, sőt azt is mondták a híradóban, hogy lehet hogy már nem lehet jegyet kapni.
Hajrá USA!

Sophisticated Belgrade

I ran across this video on Youtube. Its an advertisement for tourism in Belgrade from the 80s.
I wonder why they don't make tourism adverts like this anymore...

Zbogom, Yugo!

It is the end of an era.
The Zastava auto plant in Kragujevac, Serbia stopped production of the Yugo car last Thursday.

Its kind of hard to be sad about this, considering that I had just assumed they stopped making Yugos a long time ago - kind of like when Ronald Reagan died; I was sad, but I was mostly surprised that he had actually still been alive until then! Like 6 months before his death I even asked someone - Hey, Ronald Reagan already passed away, right? And they said - Yea, I think so...
Turns out that they've been making Yugos (although less and less) all the way up until last Thursday, which means that the Yugo not only outlived the Trabant, it also outlived the country it was named after!

Production of the Yugo began in 1981, and for much of its lifetime, the Yugo was the cheapest car in the world - the 2007 models cost about €3500 new.
One of my aunts in California used to drive a Yugo. I remember riding around in it. It was kind of like being in a small Suzuki, just more uncomfortable.

The Zastava factory has signed an agreement with Fiat - Fiat will fix up the factory which was damaged by NATO bombing, and will be producing 2 new Fiat models, possibly up to 200,000 a year by 2010.
You can be sure though that the Yugo will not be quickly forgotten - there are still quite a few on the streets in Hungary and its estimated that 1 in 3 people in Serbia have owned a Yugo at some time in their life!
Even the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia has a Yugo, and did an interview with the BBC while driving it in downtown Belgrade. Here's the video.

The biggest problem with the Yugo being gone, is that all the jokes about them will not pass on to future generations. In that sense, this is a great loss for humanity.
Here are some Yugo jokes to help you say goodbye to the Yugoslav wonder:

• Why does a Yugo have a defroster on the rear window? To keep your hands warm while you push it.
• What do you call a Yugo's shock absorbers? Passengers.
• The new Yugo has an air bag. Before an accident, start pumping real fast.
• How do you double the value of a Yugo? Fill the gas tank.
• What do you call a Yugo at the top of a hill? A miracle.

How do you feel about the end of the Yugo era?

Shopping Abroad

One of the main things we do when traveling to any other country is spend a lot of time in a grocery store, finding local specialties and things we can't buy in Hungary.
In Slovakia, we always spend a long time in Tesco loading up on:

• certain nuts (I know, it sounds nuts...)
• Rajo brand yogurt
  
• Knedli (steamed bread)
• Ewe cheese
• Kofola (Czech and Slovak national soda - made from some coffee byproducts - its an acquired taste!)
• Slovakia brand chips (ironically made in Czech Rep.).

By this point, we know what things we can buy in certain countries, which we can't get elsewhere - sometimes American products and sometimes specific national products:

• Slovakia = Dr. Pepper
• Bulgaria = Doritos chips (they have different flavors than in the States) and Digestive cookies (Rosemary's favorite)
• Romania = Skittles (I went to the border once when I lived in Debrecen just to buy some)
• Croatia = Oreos
  
• Former Yugoslavia = Cockta

I'm sure there are many more than these.
What about you? Are there any products you make sure to buy when you visit certain places?

Sarajevo in Black and White

Back a few years ago, Rosemary and I and two of our friends, Naveen and Sunil, took a trip to Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia.
At the time I was still using a 35mm Pentax SLR camera - from 1983.
Its a great camera - no auto-focus or other automatic settings on it at all, just a simple light meter. I stopped using it a while back, because it jams up a lot, and using film just isn't practical - its a lot more work and a lot more expensive.
Recently I started getting some of our most memorable 35mm pictures digitized, and the first batch we did was the set from our ex-Yugo trip.
Here are some of the pictures from Sarajevo, which despite its sad recent history, is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities we've ever been to.
RIP old Pentax!

Not just one of the Jackson 5

We love former Yugoslavia!


We just took a short trip down through Croatia and Bosnia to Montenegro and back.
Its more than just bombed-out buildings, like many might think!

Palm trees, ancient walled cities, Turkish mosques and bridges, and lots of greasy chevapi, burek, and baklava does the body good.

Oh, and our favorite Communist dictator of the 20th century would have to be Josip Broz Tito (Gorbachev is a close second, but he disqualified himself from the #1 position because of that whole arms race thing; Nagy Imre {nem az egri polgármester} is biztos jó lett volna, csak nem volt esélye...).
You could argue over how good of a guy Tito was, but as far as dictators go, I don't think you could find a better one. Who else could keep such a diverse and mixed up group of people in total peace (and prosperity, compared to the rest of the Communist world) for 35 yrs?
It was only after Tito's death that things got all crazy down there - which I guess shows Tito's greatest failure as a leader: that he failed to raise up people who would successfully continue what he had started.
In fact, Tito did more than just keep the peace in Yugoslavia, he actually unified the people. To this day, in all the countries of former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia), you find streets and squares and memorials commemorating Marshall Tito.
The real shame is that in the West, the name "Tito" will only be remembered by most people as the name of Michael Jackson's unsuccessful older brother.