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arrived in Budapest yesterday. Interesting and beautiful (in a Hapsburg, classical way, like Vienna) but also still suffering from a communist hangover (burned out factories, lots of graffiti, decay etc.).
We brought rainy weather from Denmark, alas, but much nicer today. The view from our window in Art'Otel is great!
that's the parliament building on the Pest side of the Danube in the picture.
More to come...
Malcolm had his first turns on a big boy bicycle this weekend - well, nearly a bicycle:
It doesn’t have a front wheel or independent steering, but it does allow him to accompany us on longer rides instead of just riding along in the Burley. It hooks onto the seatpost of my bicycle.
We’re planning to do lots of rides this summer. Where we live in Birkerød is very well-connected by bike routes to the National cykelruter that cross Sjælland (our province/island) and the rest of Denmark. And since you are usually never very far from train transport, we can always hop the train for the return if the weather is lousy or Malcolm is too tired to stay in the saddle. We will have to plan our routes carefully to ensure that we get good rides in while still enjoyable for a four year-old.
Back this week from an unplanned, nine-day trip back to Seattle, courtesy of Susan’s team in Redmond who apparently had some travel budget left over for the year. It was our first time flying business class on the direct SAS flight, which is a godsend with a 3.5 year-old as he slept almost the entire way both directions and as a result showed few symptoms of jet lag… Tusind Tak MS!
I had a bit of reverse culture shock on return: The cars and streets are huge, the trafffic is terrible, and supermarkets just freak me out with blazing lights and miles of refrigerated and freezer aisles. It seems like they’re in such a hurry to use every last bit of energy. And traffic has gotten worse: At some Microsoft buildings, they are valet parking cars three deep and paying people to use public transit. Definitely not the Danish way of doing things (that would be taxing people when they drive so they will use public transit or bicycles, both of which are easy to do and readily available here).
On the other hand, I was reminded of why we love the Northwest so much: The beautiful benign climate and lush greenery, the scent of lilac and blossoms in the air, dramatic scenery with mountains and sea. The easy-going and friendly people. And the fantastic local ales at the Elysian and Pike breweries… perfick!
We had a great time hooking up and getting re-acquainted with friends: Two lovely Sundays with friends and their kids (thanks Susan and Alex and Sarah and Steve!), dinners (thanks Alan and Elizabeth, John and Jackie, and Parry!) and lunch (KC and Francois!).
Plus Susan and Malcolm got back to visit the family & farm in South Dakota for a few days (thanks Jorgensons!). That’s alot of shout-outs, but all deserved. We really miss our friends!
we also toured around the old neighborhood in Capitol Hill and a few others like Seward Park and Green Lake when visitng friends –
The Danes I know and others who only visit Redmond/MS campus really get a very skewed view of the area. They think it is all like antiseptic, suburban Redmond. I dragged one recent transplant from DK/friend of mine to our old neighborhood and pubs, and he thought it was “hippy… like Christania”. Well not exactly, but definitely the more interesting and loveable part of town.
and we visited the Seattle Aquarium where we watched feeding time and window washing 
, great fun.
Sigh. More snaps are here…
When we returned to Copenhagen, it was about 10 deg C warmer than when we left – Danish summertime is here! The trees in our yard are in full bloom and the small birds have set up house like they always do under the terra cotta tiles in our roof.
and for something completely different: it’s off to Budapest in 1.5 weeks! Stay tuned…
NB: I sat next to a really cool Norwegian guy VegarStokset on the flight home. He’s a Communications/PR guy for Norwegian oil company Hydro and he’s directly responsible for creating documentaries on some of the cool stuff they’re working on like The World’s Longest Undersea Pipeline (from Norway to UK) – featured on The Discovery Channel’s “Building the Biggest” series, and he just won an award for his short film ‘The Traveller’ starring Ian Wright (from TV’s Lonely Planet). Today we received DVDs of his shows and some other material – cool!! You can see a 9–minute MPEG of Vegar’s award-winning film here.