Pictures from October

Beautiful fall evening!
These first two weeks of October have been extremely busy for us. We will post on this shortly...

Our wonderful friends Tonya, Mary & Anna! Their dad is a pastor at a very cool, local Greek Catholic church and their family also owns a restaurant that serves traditional Transcarpathian cusine.

We met them at a cafe very close to our apartment.

Posing with Tato.

Getting ready to go to out. Solomiya digs her purple converse sneakers. Thank you to cousin Sophia!

 

 

 

 

Family Pics

 

All pictures taken by the lovely and talented Mary Blyashyn !

Just for the silliness of it all...

Pretty much every week we run into something (clothing, notebooks, dishes, etc...) that has some English wording on it. Probably 90% of the time, it doesn't make sense or is just plain silly. It's like the people at the factory said, "Hey, lets throw these English words on this kitchen tray, because everyone likes English". There is one such kitchen tray (you know, for like carrying cups of coffee from the kitchen to the living room) at the Life English office. It says on it: 'The story of fruit'. And it goes on to describe some poetic, silly things about apples or something...

We were in a store and found these notebooks and just had to take a pic:

'Romantic Style' & 'Young Couple with Glasses' (just in case you needed a caption to the picture on your notebook).

'Water' - 'Drink' (ha ha drink it).

'Predator Lifestyle' (who is this chick anyway? and is she a predator?).

'Style Horses' & 'Maximum Speed' (you gotta be careful on these things- maximum speed warning).

Uzhhorod's 1,119th Birthday Celebration

Yes, you read that right- 1,119th birthday of the city of Uzhhorod (makes the US seem pretty young) celebrated this year on the last weekend of September.

Pictures from the festivities:

Tons of vendors were grilling and selling all kinds of meat and potatoes. Here we have some pork and some sausage, potatoes and of course cabbage salad (no meal is complete without it). Solomiya was sitting in her stroller and just dropped something on the ground- that's what I'm looking at.

You can (kind of) see one of the grills they use in the background, to the left of S. She was quite enjoying herself.

Walking over the pedestrian bridge and trying to get a good picture of the banner hanging up. Tons of people were out celebrating on this beautiful afternoon. We ran into so many we knew: students from the English school, friends from church and 3 different families I have worked with or currently are working with (therapy wise, that is).

The river Uzh.

I know, I chopped part of Mike's head off in this photo, but S looks pretty cute.

The Banner! In yellow it says, 'Uzhhorod- 1,119 years'. On the right it says the dates (29 - 30 of September) and where it will be held (by the big post office).

No celebration in Uzhhorod is complete without some karaoke. A local radio station set up the stage and various people were singing traditional, Ukrainian folk music to celebrate the day, right? No, they were singing "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics and "I Love Rock 'n Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

What follows is an onslaught of pictures as we try to capture a family photo.

Almost... wait where's Solomiya?

Nope, not quite right.

So close, just that darn hat is in the way. Sorry, but it was windy/chilly and she had to wear it or else the local babushkas would start yelling at us to put a hat on that poor baby.

Contact Information

Mailing Address:

Mike & Annie Hallenbeck
vul.  Henerala Svobody, 7/22
Uzhhorod 88009
UKRAINE

Mailing Address if you want to get all crazy and write it in Cyrillic (not recommended, unless you are a calligrapher or have experience writing in Cyrillic):

Галенбек Михайло і Ганна
вул. Генерала Свободи, буд. 7, кв. 22
м. Ужгород 88009
UKRAINE


Phone Number: 845-345-1776
*if our computer is on, we will receive your call; if not, it goes to voicemail
**we are 7 hours ahead of EST

Email:
Mike: mjhallenbeck@hotmail.com
Annie: ahallenback@gmail.com

Skype: mjhallenbeck

Facebook:
Mike Hallenbeck
Annie Hallenback

If you would like to send us some tangible love, we would welcome:
JIFF peanut butter
The latest issue of Bon Appetite
A cool car magazine with no hoochie mamas on the cover
or spoons (Solomiya loves to play with them)

Morning Walk to "Work"

We have had some requests for pictures that show you all what we see on a daily/weekly basis. And so we bring to you....

"Annie's morning walk to work" (2 days a week) in pictures: (which I am sure you will find quite thrilling)

Waiting for the #7 bus to come. Yes, the billboard is advertising crab-flavored potato chips.

I take the #7 into the center of town (about a 20 minute ride with all the stops) and walk (another 20-25 minutes) the rest of the way.

I love this cobblestone road. If you take a left here, you can go up to the castle.

Continuing my walk.

Crossing over the river. Usually there are many people standing in the river and fishing.

Heading down another busy road.

Almost there. I guess this area would be considered a little neighborhood. Lots of houses and bumpy, dirt roads.

I turn down this street and walk another 500 feet to my destination: patient's home.

On my way back to the center of town, I like to walk a different way. I head down another cobblestone street.

Once again, LOVE the cobblestone.

I head up this road and take it into the center of town where I catch the #3 bus home. It is quite a nice walk; just have to look out for crazy, stray dogs (most of the stray dogs are harmless) and little Roma children asking for money (I try to give them something to eat instead, like a bag of cookies my client gave me- healthy, I know...)

And completely unrelated material, S skyping with Grandpa!

THANK YOU!

How can we even begin to thank you all.

7 1/2 months in and we are continually bombarded with your prayers, your kind notes and emails, your financial support each month, your advice, your phone calls, your Skype calls, your shipments of peanut butter....

Thank You- we would not be here without you. It is the most amazing thing to be living your dream - to be doing what God wants you to be doing - with a huge group of people standing behind you, supporting you and cheering you on.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We wish that you all could be here; that you could meet the people here and see first hand what you are a part of.

Thank you.

We pray that God will bless you and your family. We pray that God will provide what you need every day. We pray that we will never take you and your sacrifices for granted.

Thank you.