Trees and Train Tickets

First the trees. Mike took some pictures this week of the beautiful flowering trees and shrubs in our neighborhood. It seems the entire city is blooming. Hungarians sure know how to grow lovely plants! And it smells wonderful when we step out the front door!
Now for trains. Monday we went down to the train station to buy tickets for our trips to Budapest and Ukraine. First we bought our Budapest tickets with no trouble. The communication was good with the ticket clerk and it looks like we got what we need to go to Budapest this weekend. Mike will preach in the morning service at a church there that is considering starting INSTE.
Next we went to the international ticket window. We started trying to tell the lady what we wanted. She noticed that Mike was referring to some notes he had jotted down with dates and places on it and she asked for the note. From there she started working...and working...and working. It took us what seemed like 45 minutes to get our tickets. Every now and then she would stop and ask a question and we would try to answer her. While we were waiting, other people got in line behind us. When heard them talking in English, we started talking with them. They were two American students along with their English-speaking Hungarian friend. When the ticket agent tried to explain something to us that we couldn't understand, the Hungarian friend kindly stepped in and helped us out. When we finally got our tickets, we stepped away from the counter to examine them so our new friends could get their own tickets. We think we have what we need.
Well, we travel to Ukraine the last week of May to visit Tammy Swailes and get a look at how the INSTE office is set up there. Tammy tells us that our little adventure buying tickets is just the beginning of the bigger adventure of traveling to Ukraine. Pray for us!