Really!! In what reality is this my life?!!

Seriously! There are so many time I think to myself, "Who would have thought?" So here is the reality of the past few weekends in my life. 2 weekends ago ISB had their homecoming so the teams from Paris came up to play against them Friday and Saturday. I have some dear friends that do YL in Paris- the Usrey's. Since they are AMAZING YL leaders they decided to take the 3 hour drive and come watch their friends play. Bonus for me cuz they got to come and see my apartment, we shared some tea and then after the games we went out to eat! Liesl joined us after the games and we went to Le Klepto(sound a little shady-i know!). We had such a great time and the older lady and gentleman next to us seemed to really enjoy our fun as well:) Here we are after enjoying a nice long dinner together!

Then last weekend it was off to Hungary for a ladies weekend with the all the women who either work for or has a spouse who works for YL in Europe. We stayed in a cute little town called Szentendre which is just outside Budapest. The 3 of us who came from Brussels had a very early start-we met at 5:30 AM to drive to the airport. When we got there and checked in the woman asked us if we would be willing to get bumped because they had overbooked. It would mean we would actually get a direct flight(instead of the layover one we had) and we would get 175 euro. I said yes but turned to Liesl and Janet and cynically said, "yeah but they never actually need you to get bumped-they always just ask." and the lady behind the counter started laughing at me. She told us to go to our regular gate and if they needed us to be bumped they would let us know there. So we were sitting there enjoying some lagging conversation(it was too early) when we hear our names called over the loudspeaker! I started to actually believe that perhaps we would get bumped since they usually only call the people who actually do get bumped. SO we walk up to the counter with smiles on our faces thinking we are about to get a direct flight and 175 euros only to be told they don't need us to get bumped-BUMMER!!! so we had to have a layover in Munich which ended up being like 2 hours longer than it was supposed to be because of fog there. Anyway we got to Budapest 2 hours late but it was well worth it when we stepped outside to GORGEOUS weather!!
Here is a picture of me in one of the little alley streets in Szentendre.

When we went up this alley we smelled something wonderful and found this little stand with a long line. So we paid our 300 whatevers(I don't remember what the money was called) and got this funnel cake like thing that was lovely!! This is my friend Kate pointing out our scrumptious pastry.

There were tons of little churches in the town- they were all really quaint but this one had these beautiful fall leaves out front!

This is just at one of the shops selling painted pottery.

Saturday night we went into town to eat at a Hungarian restaurant. It was really cool. The main room had tons and tons of musical instruments hanging from the ceiling and walls. We were in a smaller rooms that had doors to close it off. Apparently they had been warned that YL women are loud:) Here is my little table. Again I ate with the Usreys(2 weekends in a row!) as well as Kristy. Kristy did a great job of entertaining us with here hysterical stories!

SO that really is my life. Yes I do work in between the many travels:) It still amazes me the places I have gotten to see and experience while I have been here. But I have to say that the best part of last weekend was just being with women who totally "get it." They know exactly what I go through on a daily basis-living in another country and doing ministry. 4 times while we were there we got together and did worship and then our friend Paula talked to us. She challenged us with the question, "Who do you run to?" The last day we all got to celebrate the things God has done in our lives over the past year. It was truly a privilege to sit in a room full of beautiful, wise, Godly women and cry with them and cheer with them over the things God is doing in and around them. What a blessing! It is always good to be reminded of the bigger picture when sitting in the midst of it.