Category Archives: Travel

Months after the fact, here are the pictures I took this summer while in Halstatt, Austria. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. It’s a beautiful place. I was reluctant to leave and look forward to going back at some point.

It’s hard for me to believe, but it’s been almost twenty five years since my second attempt at college.

The first attempt was brief, in 1987, immediately after graduating college. In retrospect I simply had no motivation. I dropped out and took a number of strange jobs. Some were fun but there was nothing that I cared to make a career out of. And so, two years later, I was ready to go back, and this time I was motivated — knowing full-well what the alternatives looked like.

My second attempt was entirely different than the first. I learned a lot, and met a lot of interesting people. One of these people was Emrah, a fellow student in the Computer Science department at Highlands University in my hometown. Emrah and I became friends even though it was, at times, humbling to hang out with the guy. He despised programming and math but was unquestioningly better than I was at both of them. He often encouraged me to have fun with him instead of studying for exams, but then he’d ace the exams and I’d barely get by.

After graduating from college, Emrah alternatively lived in California and his native Istanbul, where I have long intended to visit him, especially after moving to Denmark (Istanbul is only a three and a half hour flight away.) I finally managed it over Easter. It had been sixteen years since I’d seen Emrah. A lot has changed, but I still enjoy his company a great deal.

Read More →

In early September, my aunts Donna and Kay took their respective husbands Clarance and Frank on a European river Cruise. Their point of embarkation was Budapest, so we flew down to meet them and see them off. We were joined by Lisbeth’s parents, which was fantastic, because yes, they’re fun to travel with, but also we had our hands full with our two girls and needed all the help we could get.

I had very little idea what to expect. I knew that Hungary has been hit hard by the recession, and that wages are quite low, so I expected to see outward signs of poverty. I’d also heard from several people that it’s a great, clean, and afffordable city.

We saw almost no evidence of hard economic times. Nothing like Porto, or Dublin, for example. We saw only a few people begging in four days, so that surprised me. And it is indeed a clean vibrant city, with lots to see. For some reason it feels like a bigger city than it is. It feels more like London than Copenhagen, even though it’s much closer to Copenhagen in size.

Budapest is also quite affordable. Not dirt cheap, but very reasonable, especially by European standards. I particularly enjoyed the restaurants. There are a lot of them to choose from, and the quality of the food and service was quite high given the price. Plus I had what might be the best steak I’ve ever had (I’m not a big steak fan, but wow) on Ráday Street — a must-see stretch of sidewalk cafes that goes on and on for blocks.

At first it’s tempting to assume that the Hungarians in Budapest speak English pretty well. In restaurants, for example, they seem pretty fluent. But this is an illusion that often goes away once you stray off the subject of the menu.

Lisbeth found this out the hard way one night, on an urgent quest for diapers and baby-food. Read More →

Last month we traveled to Portugal with my parents for a seven-day river cruise. We flew to Porto (a city I must admit I’d never heard of before) and sailed from there up the Douro river, in the heart of Portuguese wine country. I learned a lot. For one thing, Portuguese sounds nothing like Spanish in my opinion.

Porto is surprising. It’s pretty big for one thing — especially for a city I didn’t know existed. It is second only to Lisbon in size, with about 1.3 million people.

Porto is a city of sharp contrasts. The airport is modern and pleasant, with a metro line that takes you downtown quietly and efficiently. The metro stations reminded me a little of Copenhagen’s metro stations. And then you climb the stairs to the street and BAM! – there’s the contrast. Porto is full of beautiful old buildings… many of which have clearly been abandoned and some of which appear ready to be condemned. Read More →

When we were still in New Mexico last month we attended a church retreat in El Porvenir. I took these on the last night, as kids made smores (kids don’t just roast marshmallows anymore, apparently.)

Mom and dad were here for two weeks and we filled that time pretty well with moving, but we also went to Stockholm, which was neat because none of us had ever been there before. (And considering how much traveling Lisbeth has done, that’s pretty surprising.)

We opted to take the train instead of fly even though flying was cheaper. The train is just more relaxing, and gave us a chance to see the Swedish countryside, which is very pretty, with a lot of hills and rocky outcroppings (which you certainly don’t see very often in Denmark.) Plus it’s a fast train. It goes about 200 kph, or  124 mph, which means it only takes about five hours to get to Stockhom.

Read More →