Budapest: Good work, black cat.

It was a bright, sunny day as Dustin, Jen, Tymona, Nicole, and I walked alongside the Hungarian Parliment building. Dustin noticed a black cat walking on the far side of a fence, and conversation followed with something about glitches in matrices and all sorts of crazy things. There was also a pack of pigeons nearby, and since the pigeons had been relentlessly annoying me earlier in the day regardless of how many rocks I threw at them, I was a bit bitter toward these unintelligent feathered curses. So, I said, "it would make my day if that cat attacked one of those pigeons." Almost on cue, the cat snuck up behind a bush and settled into what looked like attack mode. This can't be happening! we whispered amongst ourselves. Suddenly the black cat pounced, the rat-of-the-sky flapped its wings frantically and tried to fly, but the cat caught it about a foot, maybe thirty centimeters for my European or Canadian readers, off the ground. The black hunter then ran away with the filthy meat in its mouth. The words I spoke before the event happened were indeed true, because that sight made my day, and it made my weekend. Budapest: what a great place!

A cat having the courage to do what I desire to do to pigeons is not the only reason we rode fifteen hours in trains, travelling well over a megameter, to get to Budapest. Saturday we went about exploring the city, seeing things like "Hero's Square," which was a square with a bunch of statues of Hungarian heros; the Cave Church, which is a church built into the side of a mountain; the Parliment Building, which I can only assume is where the Hungarian Parliment meets; a nice church or two; and the original bridge that linked the former cities of Buda and Pest.

Sunday we decided we would try to find an English church. The endevour was rather simple on the Internet, and we easily located the church. The endevour was not so easy in real life, and eventually we gave up and settled for a Hungarian Lutheran church. It was swell and I'm pretty sure they had a good choir, but I really would have liked to attend an Easter Sunday in English. Later in the day, we trekked out to who knows where, gambling on the public transit system with our time. Lady Luck was smiling at us as we beat the proverbial casino and arrived at our intended destination a quarter hour before the last tour. The destination was a cave, which was pretty interesting. At this point I wonder, during the course of this blog, how many things I've described as "interesting" without any further explanation. Well, add one more I suppose.

Terschelling, Netherlands: Class Excursion to a Dutch Island

So here it is: my account of Terschelling.

We, as a whole N-Spice group, all twenty of us, took a train past Leeuwarden and hopped on a boat to one of the Dutch Islands called Terschelling. We arrived on Friday mid-morning, and we had the afternoon to do whatever we wanted. Dustin and I wondered off in search of adventure, and found it in the form of a large natural trail that eventually ended up at a string of large sand dunes. After hour upon hour of fighting our ways through thistlebushes and fording small rivers, we arrived at the sand dunes that lined the coast. It was quite the sight.

Friday night we were given the okay to build a fire on the beach. It was quite a night. We roasted marshmallows, tackled people, played freeze-tag, and told stories. On the way home, Aloisa, the program director, had something go wrong on her bike, so she had to ride on Dustin's and my tandem bike. Three people on one bike, now that is an adventure!

Saturday afternoon we could once again do whatever we pleased. A group of us went to some Cranberry Wine store where we could taste the wine, and of course buy it. I wasn't too impressed, so I came back empty handed. The next place we went was a cheese store where the owners made their own cheese. The lady was a bit unfriendly in my opinion, so I easily justified my "Dutch" urge to not buy anything.

Sunday after our ad hoc church service, I spent my day like at least one day of every good vacation should be spent: doing absolutely nothing. I read a little bit, I napped a little bit, I meandered around and talked to people a little bit, and it was a wonderful afternoon. We tried to have another camp fire Sunday evening, but the wind was blowing hard and all of the fire wood was damp, so the fire never grew very large, which made a very cold excursion. We eventually gave up and settled for the heat of the hostel.

And Monday we trekked home.

Copenhagen: Isn't that close to Sweden?

Copenhagen is like a very old king. One can still sense that at one time he was proud and majestic, commanding respect from everybody that set eyes upon him; but now he has lost his splendor, only a remnant remains of what he once was. You can see this in his buildings: all of the great buildings all had great domes or wonderful spires that are now all green and ugly. When I was looking at them, I could imagine that the now green adorments used to gleam and reflect the sun in a brilliant copper shade. (Think about the Statue of Liberty: currently it is a dull green, but when it was constructed it was a brilliant copper.)

Maybe I missed something big, but Copenhagen doesn't have much to offer. While we walked around the city, we saw the changing of the guard in which their guards wear big, black, fuzzy hats which are in themselves amusing, and apparently the guards think so too - or are just very unprofessional - because almost every guard I observed frequently cracked smiles, and one didn't even try to surpress his constant smile. Later, we saw what was a more impressive part of the changing: a small band of guards playing instruments and walking down the street. It was like a mini parade! After we witnessed the guards, we walked around the center and witnessed the old buildings I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Also, they have a statue in Copenhagen called "The Little Mermaid." It was about the calliber of the "Mannekin Piss." Okay, maybe you haven't been reading my past posts, or don't remember my thoughts on the little peeing statue, so I'll make my Little Mermaid statue thoughts explicit: it was just a small statue of a mermaid sitting on a rock in their harbor; nothing too impressive but blown way out of proportion. If one were to judge by the souvenier shops and post cards rather than seeing it in person, one would be led to think it is amazing.

Because of this apparent lack of interest in the city and the cold, dry weather that comes with travelling north, we were done sight-seeing a little bit too early in the day. We needed an alternate plan, so we decided on seeing if we could get to Sweden. So that is exactly what we did: we took the ten-minute stroll down to Copenhagen's central train station and took a look at the schedule boards. It turns out that there is a train that is destined for Malmo, Sweden every twenty minutes, so we hopped aboard. Malmo was less impressive than Copenhagen, but the fact that I can say I was in Sweden made the mini-adventure worth it.

In the evening, we went to the local Irish Pub. Of course Copenhagen has an Irish Pub, because as mentioned in a previous post it is the calling and mission of the Irish to create an Irish haven in the midst of every major and semi-major city in Europe. Before you start thinking I'm a drunk, we went to the Irish Pub because we noticed that they were showing "El Classico," a soccer game between two big-name Spanish Teams: Real Madrid and Barcelona. It was quite fun, and there were a few fans that started to get excited, which made it even better.