August

It is simply shocking that August is already over! We definitely made the most of it, and here are the highlights. Not represented in the pictures: a trip to the revolving sushi restaurant to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday, my first visit to a chiropractor because of a very sore back, a couple of visits from the plumber to install a new kitchen faucet, Jeff joined every conversational Spanish group in the DFW metro, Clay started his Ninja Warrior class, Max started his yoga class, Arrow Academy orientation, my mom came to stay with the kids for a week, Weston got to work with the Scouts at the Highland Village Balloon Festival, Ruth and Weston's first cross country meet, Weston attended Boy Scout leadership training, and Ruth started college classes at the local community college.

I took a beaded bracelet class at the library and produced this lovely piece.

We had a better-than-average time at Walmart.

Jeff finished up his bartending class and
got to do an externship at The Magnolia Hotel in Dallas.

 

We visited the Giant Eyeball in Dallas.

Max got to go to Lego Mindstorms camp while at Nana Camp.

We spent several lovely days out in the Davis Mountains.

I had an essay featured on the Art of Simple blog.

The younger boys and I got to spend a day with Granny.

We had a barn/playroom built in our backyard.

We attended a back-to-school party with Arrow Academy at a super cool splashpad.

I turned 41 and received sweet cards and drawings from the kids and
gardening supplies, including these awesome Sloggers, from Jeff.
We also ordered dessert using Door Dash and had brunch at Nico's.

Jeff and I became locally famous by making it into the Flower Mound
activities catalog, which featured a picture from the dance class we took a while back.

We successfully shopped for new school clothes.

Jeff took a motorcycle class at Harley and became a licensed motorcycle rider.

I cooked enough food to feed an army in preparation for being out of town.

The boys started their classes at Arrow, which include
things like History, Science, Art, Robotics, P.E.,
Speech and Debate, Dance, and Guitar.
Clay has been belting out Bubba Shot the Jukebox all week,
even though the only thing they are supposed to be
practicing is tuning the instrument. Such an overachiever!

Jeff and I celebrated our 20th anniversary in Costa Rica.

We started school, and I can hardly believe we have kids in each of these grades.

Max started saxophone lessons.

The entire family supported the Aggies for the first game of the football season.

   

Friends and Fun in Lima

One of the things Jeff has been working on as part of the process to become a diplomat is being able to show fluency in Spanish. So, he has been working with a few tutors on italki. There is one tutor he has been meeting with consistently for months. She is Venezuelan, but she lives in Lima, and it was a privilege for  us to meet up with her and her family for a day of fun. We met at a lovely park (Parque Maria Reiche) where much of the landscaping is designed to look like the Nazca drawings. Eventually, we all headed out to grab some lunch in a small, local restaurant with delicious food. After lunch, we decided to Uber into the city center to see the Circuito Magico del Agua, an impressive display of fountains and flowers in the Parque de Reserva. It was a wonderful day, and we had so much fun! Interestingly, in the course of our conversation, we found out that Ruth's italki Spanish tutor, who is Venezuelan but lives in Argentina, is the cousin of the husband of Jeff's tutor. It's such a small world! When we had said "Adios" to our friends, we headed back to our apartment for dinner. After dinner, Jeff and I went for a walk along the malecon, while the kids opted to stay at the apartment reading and playing games. Our walk took us through a large, fancy shopping area, where we popped in to a restaurant overlooking the ocean called "Popular" for pisco sours. Unexpectedly, we also ordered a dessert called "Ponderacion." We ordered it simply because of the vague description on the menu, thinking it would be a fun surprise, which it definitely was.

Nazca lines landscaping

Wheat tea (or something similar),
which was served with our lunch

Circuito Mágico del Agua

Water Tunnel
(Just before this picture was taken,
my oldest son ran his hand along
 the outside of the fountain, 
causing the water to fall inward 
and effectively soaking us
 and also causing the
attendant to blow his whistle!
I did not kill the child, but he
had better produce an
 amazing Mother's Day gift!)

Gardens at Parque de Reserva

Other diversions at Parque de Reserva

A fun day with friends!

Date night at Popular

Five trips around the sun, One trip around the world

Claycito,

You are five today! And, it's also the one year anniversary of the start of our RTW trip. You are a trooper and are always up for an adventure! You have walked a million miles on your little legs, eaten and enjoyed an amazing array of exotic foods, slept in more new houses/beds than we can even count, navigated subway stations and other various forms of transportation, had your picture made with innumerable statues (and Asians!), tried out words and phrases in different languages, and made friends wherever you have been. And, you have done it all with an almost-constant smile your face. You are one of the happiest, easiest-to-get-along-with people I have ever known. And, you genuinely love to travel. (You even wanted a world birthday cake this year!) It has been so much fun experiencing the world with you, not only in the last year, but in the last five.

During this last year you have really gotten good at writing, and you often write special little notes for everyone in the family. You love more deeply than anyone I know, and nothing makes you happier than doing nice things for the people you care about. You are a giver, a sharer, and a helper. You are always thinking of others, and you never tire of giving hugs and kisses and other forms of affection. Recently, Dad took you out for some one-on-one time and offered to do anything you wanted to do. Your immediate response was to request to get a surprise for everyone else, which Dad had to agree to before you would pick anything for yourself. Selflessness is at your very core, and I truly believe you make the world a better place. I don't think I'll ever be the kind of kind, generous person you are, but you make me want to try.

You were eager to do school work this year, just like the other kids. You worked hard on writing, reading, math, history, and Chinese. You are a smart boy and have a fantastic memory. You impressed us the other day by writing the Chinese character for "four," without any prompting and after quite a long break in the regular study of the subject. Sometimes you do take your self-imposed school work a little too seriously, though, and Dad and I have to insist that you take a break to go play. You are really looking forward to being in Kindergarten this next school year and to participating with a CC class back in Texas.

At this point in your life, you are hoping to be "a cowboy in a rocket ship, shooting bows and arrows" when you grow up. It seems like a good goal. You have big plans for the design of your rocket, which include making sure there is a spot for every person in your immediate and extended family and a bucket of each person's favorite things, which you have detailed mental catalogs of. You also plan to have plenty of "weaponary," just in case we come across any bad guys. There's definitely something to be said for preparedness. I'm sure you learned everything you need to know about rocket ships from your friend Watta JJ, because she seems to know everything about everything, and she's always willing to share her knowledge. She's a good friend.

You got to ride a horse for the first time this year, and you had a blast. You also became quite a good little swimmer, and it won't be long before you can handle the pool without Dad or me being in the water. Throughout the year, you have had opportunities to play rugby, soccer, hockey, and a few other sports, but you have decided you'd like to play good ol' American baseball when we get back to the States. I bet you'll be the cutest baseball player to ever grace the field. (You know for sure that you DON'T want to play football. I suspect it's just too rough for your gentle tastes.)

Clay, I can't believe you're 5! I am so thankful for you and proud of you! I love your big heart and your big smile. You bring joy to every day and to every corner of the earth you touch. You are a blessing to me and to everyone who knows you. Happy Birthday, sweet boy! Have fun being a whole hand full!

Hugs and kisses and lots of love,
Mom

My favorite five boy
(who insisted on having his whole name on his cake,
and who requested Africa and Venice to be on top)

Xi'an

On Sunday, we took the high-speed train from Beijing to Xi'an, which cruised along at a speed of about 300 km/hour (186 mi/hour). It was a five-hour ride, but we hardly noticed because the ride was so smooth and comfortable, especially from our first-class seats.

Since the forecast for Monday was "dust," with a big fuzzy cloud drawn on the weather map, and since we were tired from traveling and sightseeing in Beijing, we decided to just stick close to our apartment that day. The pollution problem here is real, and most days look like "dust" to me, even when the forecast doesn't mention it, so if they call it out, you know it's serious.

On Tuesday, we decided to visit Tang Paradise, which was essentially a large park, with a lake in the center. We had been expecting shows and parades and activities but had to settle for just a nice walk in the park and a look at the new year's decorations, which were still scattered throughout the grounds. It wasn't very forienger-friendly, so we may have just not understood what was going on, which was a problem that plagued us even before we arrived. We actually waited for quite a long time for a bus that never arrived and ended up just walking the three miles to the park. The best part about that, though, was that we got to have lunch at a truly authentic Chinese place, where the use of English wasn't an option. We ordered blindly by pointing to the table next to us, and we ended up with a delicious beef, noodle, dumpling, and green onion soup, which we ate with chopsticks. (Yes, we ate soup with chopsticks!) It was awesome! The owner was so happy to have us and was completely impressed with Weston's ability to count in Chinese. He then thought Weston ought to be able to act as a true translator for us, but eventually gave up chatting when he realized Weston couldn't get much beyond numbers. At the end of the day, we successfully caught the bus back to our apartment and decided to reward ourselves by going out to dinner. We went in the first restaurant we saw, which happened to be a real-deal (not Americanized) Chinese buffet. We had the option to fill our plates with cooked foods or raw foods that we could cook ourselves at our table. We got to try lots of interesting things, and we had a great time.

Yesterday was our day to go out and see the famous terra cotta army, just outside of Xi'an. We had much better luck with public transportation than we had the previous day and got where we needed to go in the amount of time we expected. It's the little victories! The museum was such a fascinating site, and we enjoyed seeing some of the 3000 warriors that have been excavated so far. Each one of them is unique, and the excavating process seems so interesting. We were very glad we made the effort to go and see it and definitely felt it was worth it. We got back to our apartment late in the afternoon and decided we just needed a break from Chinese food, so we took ourselves down to the Pizza Hut on the corner. We're all about adventure, but sometimes people just need something sort of familiar, that doesn't require chopsticks!

We were ready to jump fully back into the Chinese food scene this morning, which was great, because we had already booked a food tour with Lost Plate. Our guide met us at the subway station, and we crammed into two little tuk tuks and headed off to hit some VERY local joints and try some TRULY authentic local cuisine. Our first stop was at a tiny hole-in-the-wall, where the same family has been making the same "thousand layer pancakes" for over fifty years. There was one table in the middle of the room, just big enough for our group and two other people. The cooking station was literally just a couple of feet away. The pancakes were more like large dumplings and were filled with meat and onions and green vegetables, before being smashed between two griddles and cooked to perfection. They were fantastic--easily my favorite Chinese food, so far. Our next stop was at an even smaller place, where the line stretched down the block. There were no tables inside, but there were a few tiny tables with stools (think preschool classroom) scattered along the sidewalk and down an alleyway. There we had soup made with beef, potatoes, red carrots, cabbage, green onions, cornstarch, and plenty of anise. One version also had a spicy pepper sauce in it. After that we took some time to digest, as we walked through the market. Oh my! I'm not even sure I can describe it. It was wild! We saw everything you can imagine and probably lots of things you can't. All the usual foods were for sale, right alongside the home goods and underwear. We also saw several dentists, a chiropractor, and tables of sex toys thrown in for good measure. But, our favorite stop was a pet store specializing in one particular type of pet: crickets. I have never, ever been in a store like that before. There was one whole wall, filled with tiny cages, which contained the "singing" crickets. The special "fighting" crickets were kept on the counter in boxes. The owner tried to get a couple to fight for us but ultimately concluded that it was just too cold outside to get them riled up. I promise you, I am not making this stuff up! In addition to the critters themselves, there were also a great many accessories to make pet crickets comfortable, just like you would find in any pet store. When we had finished gawking in the market, we continued our food tour. (Because you know how looking at buckets of maggots and trailers full of raw livers will really cause you to work up an appetite!) Our next two stops were for true street food, in the market. We had stone bread, which is a sort of savory, flat cornbread, which is cooked under hot stones, that leaves it indented and pocked. Our guide told us this recipe is the oldest known Chinese recipe. Before we had time to finish those, we grabbed some persimmon cakes, which was the only sweet food we had on the tour, and which we were told is truly unique to Xi'an and dates back to the Ming Dynasty. They were very much like fried fruity doughnuts, but the method of frying them was pretty interesting. They scooped the dough into large metal ladle-looking spoons, which they then submerged in boiling oil for a couple of minutes. Our final stop led us to another teeny mom-and-pop place, where we were invited to participate in the noodle making with the proprietary family. While we made noodles, our guide went next door to order some dumplings, so that we ended up with sour soup dumplings and noodles with beef and greens. By that time, we were nice and stuffed, so we couldn't finish everything. When our tour was done, we received gift bags with chopsticks, spices, recipes, and postcards, and we got to keep our tea thermoses we received and used earlier in the day. It was such a fantastic experience! If you are ever visiting Xi'an and you're feeling adventurous, you must put this tour on your list of things to absolutely do.

I'm sorry for the long post and the massive brain dump (and the lack of pictures). Our internet here is atrocious, so I just had to throw it all out there in one giant session (though, truth be told, the internet has failed at least a dozen times while I've been trying to write this, and it has taken hours to get it posted). If you stuck with me through this, thanks. I know your time is valuable, and it means a lot to me that you are using some of it to be a part of our journey!

*Pictures here.

Chillin' in China

After nearly a week on the train, our plan for today was nada. We wanted to let everyone sleep in, run around outside, chat with family in Texas, and just chill. And, that's just what we did. We chose this particular apartment on Air BnB because of it's proximity to a wonderful park, with walking trails, playgrounds, sport courts, and open grassy areas. The boys had a ball playing there most of the afternoon, and they even met some friends. I never ceased to be amazed at how well kids can get on at the playground with other kids they can barely communicate with. Hide-and-seek is universal. I think one of the great benefits of traveling is seeing that kids (and all other humans) are essentially the same the world over and are therefore easier to get along with than our close-mindedness and ignorance sometimes deceive us into believing.

One thing we didn't plan on was finding a Chinese market set up across the street this morning. That was an added bonus. We had so much fun looking at all of the beautiful, interesting, and, frankly, odd things in each of the booths, and we bought most of our groceries for the week, which included baby bok choy, cilantro, garlic, red peppers, corn on the cob, onions, bean sprouts, broccoli, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, quail eggs, duck eggs, chicken eggs, pork, rice, homemade noodles, grilled chicken skewers, fried chicken legs, and a variety of savory Chinese flatbreads. We passed on the hog's head, the live chickens, and the dental services. It was a great day and a perfect way to recover from our long train ride.

The Chinese Market

The vendor at the market cut the skin and off our pineapple and
removed the eyes, leaving us with just edible fruit that looked like art.

Lunch from the market: a sesame cake, a spinach/dill cake,
grilled chicken on a skewer, and Chinese flatbread.

Clay was so proud of himself for helping to shuck the corn.

Clay says he "runs like fire" when he pushes the merry-go-round.

Our boys made fast friends with a group of Chinese boys,
and it was so fun to watch them all play together,
just as if there were no language barrier whatsoever.
(To be fair, the boys spoke a little English, and Weston was able to use some of his Chinese.)

Double Digits

Dear Weston,

It's your 10th birthday, which is so very hard for me to believe! It doesn't seem that long ago that you were just a little boy. Now, you are a young man. This year, your birthday falls on Thanksgiving, and we are certainly thankful for you. You are smart and funny and talented in so many ways. You fill our days with joy and make us so proud. You are rough-and-tumble, but also sensitive and thoughtful. You are a hard worker, but you also love to relax and have a good time. You are the best of everything!

We are currently traveling around the world, and you have eagerly and enthusiastically embraced all of the new situations and experiences we have encountered. You always look forward to trying the local cuisine, no matter how ridiculous or unusual it seems, and you always try to learn a phrase or two of the local language. You have been most looking forward to our visit to China and have taken it upon yourself to try to learn as much Mandarin as you can before we get there. I have been particularly impressed with the care and attention to detail you show when you practice writing the seemingly complicated characters.

You have also, not surprisingly, been very interested in local sports--both as an observer and player. For your birthday, we gave you tickets to a Rugby World Cup match in Wales, which you thoroughly enjoyed. We also got to see a shinty match in Scotland, which was very interesting and exciting (not to mention, rough). You may have enjoyed that even more than rugby. You have played every sport that has presented itself, with anyone willing to play, on playgrounds and campgrounds throughout Europe, proving not only your athleticism but also your ability to quickly and easily make friends. One group of boys you played football (soccer) with in Wales even came up to Dad and me to tell us what a good "mate" they thought you were. Your true sport love still remains American football, though, and you look forward to watching games (even Aggie games!) when we can get them. And, we were able to get a pro game today, in honor of your birthday, which you were very excited about. You are continuing your tight end training (with a few tweaks to particular localities), as it's possible to do so, while we're on the road. When you are training, you are singularly focused and unquestionably dedicated.

Your love of sports doesn't keep you from also exercising your brain. You are tremendously smart, and it is such a joy to get to participate in your school days and watch your amazing brain in action. You were a CC Memory Master again in the spring, which is such an impressive accomplishment. You also got to go to State in PSIA Storytelling, which was something you had been aspiring to do for a couple of years. You won 6th place and brought home a coveted State medal. You absolutely LOVE Math and look forward to that class above all others. You just recently started the Pre-Algebra book and are thrilled with the new challenges it presents. You also play with numbers and number puzzles all the time and can often be found calculating on some obscure problem, just for fun. You are considering participating in Math Counts when we get back to the States. And, though Math is your true academic love, we have also seen you blossom in many other subjects this year, as well. For instance, you have developed a genuine love of reading and have read all the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter books in the last six months, and you are currently working your way through the Chronicles of Prydain. Honestly, there was a time a few years ago when I didn't know if you would ever read a book purely for your own enjoyment. I'm so glad you have discovered this love and that you have become a such a voracious reader.

You are starting to play around with ideas for your future, and though you don't have any specific plans, you've talked about maybe wanting to work on cancer research or bringing back wooly mammoths, when you're not playing football. You definitely seem to gravitate toward math and science disciplines, at least at this point in your life. I can't wait to watch your passions develop in the next few years. I know that whatever you become, you'll be a great one!

You are a very hard worker and are committed to taking care of business before indulging in pleasure. You make it your goal each day to be the first one up, so that you can knock out a couple of school subjects before the official start of the school day. You also very often get busy working on the dishes after a meal, without being asked. And, sometimes you even volunteer to give Clay a bath. You are very good at looking for ways to help, and we all appreciate that quality in you.

It's hard to put into words how much I love you and how proud I am of you. You are a delight and a treasure, and I'm so thankful to get to do life with you. You make every day more fun and interesting, and you give really great hugs. I hope you have the very best birthday! Double digits looks good on you!

Love,
Mom

Two whole handfuls

A new watch wrapped in coffee filters.
Because that's how we roll in our minimalistic world.

Day Off

I have previously alluded to the fact that we have set up our homeschool schedule a little differently this year. Instead of having "days" of school, we have "sessions." We always try to start a session* by 8:00 am and finish by 12:00. In this way, we can finish two sessions in a day. The typical weekly schedule we set up, by mutual consent of all parties involved, has us doing two full days of class (four total sessions), followed by a half day, followed by two full days, and then a full day completely off. For us, for now, this seems to be a good balance of work and play. We work on weekends, if that is when the school days fall, unless there is a particular event or activity we want to do that only happens on those days. All that to say, we have been working since we arrived in Wales, and today was our first full day off, so we took the opportunity to explore our surroundings and just have some fun.

First up on the agenda was a horse riding lesson for Ruth at a local stable. Ruth has worked very hard this summer, researching riding facilities in various places and contacting them to find out about the possibility of riding. This is the first one that has worked out, and she was so thrilled to be back in the saddle, even though it was an English saddle, and she had been used to primarily riding Western in the States. She did a fantastic job, and we all had so much fun watching her!

After that, we took the long way home (but, really not that long), so that we could drive along the Welsh coast, which is absolutely beautiful! We are looking forward to more opportunities to visit the coast and beaches throughout our stay here.

Once we had had our lunch, the boys helped me pick apples from the tree in our yard. I then peeled, cored and sliced them, dusted them with sugar and cinnamon, and baked them, with the goal of producing (at the kids' request) something akin to the baked cinnamon apples at Chili's. The jury happily claims that I got pretty close.

When that was done, we decided to head over to the leisure club, access to which is a perk of staying in this house. It is a lovely space and has plenty of fun things for everyone to enjoy. The little boys spent most of their time trying out the bikes and other ride-on toys, while the older two enjoyed the big-enough-for-big-kids swings. There was also a pony paddock, a goat enclosure, and a delightful duck pond, as well as a very nice indoor pool, which we did not take advantage of this time but will definitely do another time. The weather was amazing, so we didn't rush to leave.

In order not to stray too far from our ancient Greek theme, though, Jeff and the kids watched a movie that Jeff loved as a kid called Asterix and the Twelve Tasks, which is an animated twist on the twelve tasks of Hercules (who is the Roman version of the Greek god Heracles).

Our last act of fun for the day was an early surprise birthday party for Weston. His birthday isn't until November, but when Jeff and I found out that some of the Rugby World Cup games were going to be played in Wales while we were here, we knew we had found the perfect gift for our sports lover. The tickets were delivered to the house today, so we spontaneously decided to turn it into a party. While Weston was in the shower, after dinner, we all hid behind the couch. When he came in, we jumped out and surprised him. He thought we were just surprising him with dessert, because he had smelled the brownies baking. He had no idea what else was coming. He was flabbergasted when he found out what was going on, and when he opened the package, his reaction was priceless!

I would say we definitely made the most of our day off and are now refreshed and ready to get back to work tomorrow.

*For those of you curious about what a session looks like, it is this:
Ruth's sessions consist of Literature, Spanish, Algebra II, and English Grammar. Weston and Max have (at their appropriate levels) Math, History, Spelling, Grammar, Reading, and Language. (This last started out as Spanish, but they both recently decided to give Chinese a go. They are both very enthused about this new venture for the moment and are working hard, so they can translate for us when we visit China next year.) And, Clay works on letter sounds and reading, as well as Math "from the green book." He also sits in on whichever classes he wants to sit in on and has learned quite a lot that way. 

So happy to be back in the saddle again

Panorama of the Welsh Coast
(Note the fish-shaped shrubbery in the far left picture)

Abundant Apples

Fun at the Leisure Club

A Big Surprise

Going Greek

This year's summer reading list has been significantly different for me from years past, as I've been preparing for and teaching Ruth's high-school level literature class. Some of the classics we've read have included Oedipus the King, Agamemnon, The Histories by Herodotus, Medea, The Birds, and, currently, The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It's not been light reading, but Ruth and I have both stretched our brains in wonderful ways and have had some fantastic discussions. As a family, we also listened to The Iliad, as we were driving into Greece earlier this summer. Additionally, Weston has been ravenously reading all the Percy Jackson books, and the boys and I have been studying about ancient Greece in our Story of the World book we use for history class. Tonight, we watched a fantastic version of The Odyssey, to go along with some of our lessons. It's starting to seem like it's all Greek to us! :) If you catch a theta or psi in any of my future writings, you'll know it's probably taken over my whole brain.

Pure Poetry

So much in homeschooling, as in life, is trial and error. We try something, and if it doesn't work, we try something else. And, we keep on doing that with every kid, until we hit upon something that works, which may not be the thing that worked for another kid. My kids are all brilliant (of course!) but sometimes, I will admit, I do feel like I am beating my head against a wall, trying to put knowledge into their heads. Last week, Weston got into the poetry lessons in his Grammar book, and I can tell you there were real tears as we tried to work through the lessons in the book. It wasn't pretty. And, I knew that game plan wasn't going to work. I was wishing (but not really) that he was old enough to relate to the scene in Dead Poets Society, where Robin William's character proclaims that "Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do..." But, then I realized, that, though Weston may not be old enough to care about wooing women yet, there is another love in his life that I might be able to use to the same end: sports. So, I tracked down a copy of "Casey at the Bat." With all my hopes of teaching rhythm and rhyme resting on this one tool, I stepped up to the plate. The subject matter was instantly tantalizing to my sports-minded student, and by the time we were done with class, he was begging me to let him read it "one more time" and to rewrite the ending to make it "better." Truly, it felt like a homeschool home run. It doesn't happen every day, but I'll take my victories where I can get them.

Veliko Tarnovo--A Pleasant Surprise

We left Romania after breakfast this morning and proceeded with something like the opposite of haste to cross the border into Bulgaria. First, we missed an important turn for a toll bridge, which put us right smack dab in the truck-only area. This was seriously frowned on by the truckers, and the next thing we knew, there was a man at our window, yelling at us in a language we couldn't even begin to understand, and indicating that we needed to move ourselves with all speed to the car area. This we accomplished, along with several others who had made the same mistake, by driving backwards about 200 feet, through heavy stand-still truck traffic, until we could exit into the car area. Finally, we made it to the toll booth and paid our fee, before continuing at a snail's pace to cross the bridge, which spanned the Danube River. Once on the bridge, we realized one lane was closed for construction and the two-way traffic was taking turns using the one lane in a somewhat unorganized fashion. It may have just been the heat or the fact that we were all hungry for lunch, but it honestly wasn't the most relaxing time we've ever had.

Once across the bridge, it was time to hand over the passports and figure out if we needed to purchase a vignette (a country-specific toll tag). The sign at the border crossing said you only needed one if you were a commercial vehicle moving agricultural goods, but just past the passport control offices, we saw plenty of vignette venders, as we have seen in other countries where we did need one. This made us feel a little unsure, so we stopped and bought one, just in case. The thing cost 6 Euros, and Jeff had two 5 Euro bills in his pocket. However, when he pulled out the second one, it tore, and the clerk would not take it. He came back to the car, frustrated, but we fortunately had a few Euros in the cup holder, left over from a previous bathroom stop, and we were able to get the tag and move on.

Starting to relax a bit after all the adventures of the morning, we started to look for a place to get some cash and grab a bite to eat. Our car has a built-in GPS, which we rely on for everything, but it couldn't come up with any choices for banks or ATMs within 300 kilometers. We were in a decent sized town, so we knew there must be something, and relying on our own wits and powers of observation, we did find one within just a few minutes. Lunch was not so easy to come by. The GPS was no help there either, so we just drove along in the direction we needed to go, passing closed restaurants or unsavory looking ones, until we finally found a friendly looking little dive that was actually open. There was a serious language barrier, but through pointing and gestures, we were able to order some food, which was actually quite good. While we were eating, a man suddenly starting washing our car, without so much as a word to us. We were unsure whether he wanted to be paid or if this was part of the service of the place, and we had no way to find out. So, after we finished eating and the brave souls amongst us used the hole-in-the-floor, which passed for a toilet, we tipped the man and went on our way.

Our destination for the night would have been a welcome sight, no matter what, after all the previous events of the day, but it is a lovely city, built in layers upon a hill, truly a pleasant surprise. Honestly, Bulgaria was never even on my radar of places to visit, and I may not have even been really sure where it was located before we started planning this trip. And, even then, we really only thought of it as a means to an end, a place to stop enroute to Greece. But, Veliko Tarnovo is beautiful and full of history, and we had the best meal we've had on our whole trip at a restaurant  overlooking the Yantra River. What a pleasant surprise and a happy turn of fate that we ended up here!

Our apartment is at the top of the city.
This is the view from the balcony.

Shortly after we arrived, this rainbow appeared in the sky.
It seemed like a good sign.

We walked the hundreds of steps down from our apartment to the city center.
(And, then we walked back up again after diner, while a light rain fell.)

The amazing view from the restaurant, overlooking the Yantra River

There will be lounging at the dinner table when one side of seats is a sofa.

"Biscuit Cake" for dessert. Oh my!

Bucharest

Our last stop on our Romanian tour is Bucharest, and I don't mind telling you, we are glad we came, but it hasn't been the most awesome stop of our European tour. It is a large, noisy, dirty, ugly, smelly, run-down city. But, it isn't all negative.

Here are some positives:

1. We are very much enjoying deciphering the Romanian language, which, as a Romance language, more resembles the Spanish and Portuguese we have more practice with.

2. This apartment has air conditioning in the living room and master bedroom, which we are super thankful for, as this is the warmest stop we've had so far (high 80s), and this allows us to shut out some of the street noise at night.

3. There was a real-deal bag of ice in the freezer when we arrived. If you haven't traveled much in Europe, you may not appreciate the true value of this.

4. There is a single comforter on the master bed. Romania has been the first country we've visited where this has been the case. Every other place has had two twin comforters instead. (Top sheets have also not been prevalent in our travels, though the last two places we visited did have them.)

5. You can park wherever you want--whichever direction and at whatever angle strikes your fancy, completely blocking in other cars, in the middle of a lane of traffic, on the sidewalk. There don't seem to be any rules about this at all. You are only limited by the driver's daring and imagination. (Additionally, lanes for traffic tend to be more of a suggestion than something that needs to be strictly adhered to.)

6. This is the cheapest country we've visited so far. As an example, we were able to park for several hours, in a popular part of town, for around the equivalent of US$1.

We did also get to visit the natural history museum, which the kids really enjoyed, though the taxidermy work left a little to be desired. (We actually saw googly eyes glued on some of the animals!)

The adventure continues tomorrow, as we head to Bulgaria.

Our statue lover at the natural history museum

The Natural History Museum (Antipa)

Just park wherever/however you want!