The Holland Trip - Part One: Köln

The bus left my town around 4 PM and arrived to our destination in Holland 4PM the next day.

We spent the night while it was moving. I slept on the little row that was between the seats. Well, it was not really comfortable, but at least my legs were streched out and I was in a horizontal position.

The first photo was made in Köln (Cologne, Germany). It was foggy and a bit cold. We parked the bus on the bank of River Rheine and walked into the heart of the city to see the famous Dome.

The Dome was built in the center, or was it that all the rest of the city was built around the church, later on? The view from the river reveals that the Dome is jammed in among modern buildings. Some might find fascination in the meeting of the old and the new - but for me...it's rather sad. There is not enough room for the otherwise great building to show itself. It is prisoned in between a railway station, a modern music hall of some sort and other, rather ugly buildings.

And when I said the railway station was near, I meant it. See that red line of a train...?

And when you get really close to the Dome, there's another blasphemous act, this time by a shop that sells cameras, films and stuff like that.

I'll be back with less rambling and whining about, but with more interesting stuff...just wait and see...

- on schooling

Dear all,

yes, I'm back.

In fact I returned on October 13, but I was either too damn busy or too lazy to write a proper post, enhanced with photographs about my trip, or both. You decide. And I'm sorry. At the same time the fact that I have so many (paid) jobs to do makes me feel right somehow.

-

At this moment I don't envisage blogging as a regular activity, due to my duties, which, beside my normal job as a translator, at these months are and will be:

1-helping in building and renovating our house

2-pushing my son into a high-school.

He's in the sixth grade now and it's time to move on to a secondary form of education. According to the Hungarian educational system, elementary schools are for either 4, 6 or 8 years.

My son might stay here for another two years, but some recent events forced me to think otherwise.

-

As some of you might remember, my son has quite an experience in schooling. By the 4th grade he's been in three institutions, four classes and homeschooled.

When he entered this school he's in now, I thought he would stay for as long as he can - to have some rest, so to say.

But.

But.

-

He finds the lessons boring, but in another way. His classes are not challenging enough. He needs some more mental feed now. Unfortunately the level of education is set to the intelligence level of the least capable person in the class. Which is a fine thing if 80% of the class is around that particular level - which is, unfortunately the case.

I'm not saying my son is a genius, but...his mates definitely do not match him.

Teachers are forced to keep the level of education low, by laws.

So off we go.

The school we are heaading for is the second best in town.

Keep your fingers crossed.

-

More to come soon, with photos I made in The Netherlands.

High cheers to Bart, whom yes, I did meet!

See the proof below. Me and Bart in the Main Square of Amsterdam.

Reflections of a summer

Dear all, before I disappear into The Netherlands between 8-13 October, I finally managed to upload our photos to our computer. Here they are, I hope you enjoy them.

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First of all, we had lots of chicken.

We found tha many of our young hens wished to have their own litter so they started brooding. Modern technologies de-select this ability and those unfortunate little chicken all hatch in incubators, without a caring mother. But there are many people, who keep animals the traditional way. It's their choice and ours as well. It does matter where and what you buy.

Older and non-purebreed varieties however, do tend to lay a certain number of eggs and then start sitting over the eggs. Below are two of our Japanese-mixed brooding hens with their respective little flock/litter (?)

The black one (called Korom) is the dominant. She and her chicks are being fed from a plate. The barred one (Pincebogár) approaches, and notices the food.

Pincebogár keeps coming closer but she is afraid. She's mimicking a fake attack, with wings streched out, she wishes to appear bigger than she really is. Korom does not seem to care about her at all. She is relaxed, she has absolutely no fear of the other hen.
Below is a close ups of the feeding. They are given hard-boiled eggs, for the protein replacement.

Baby chicken are extremely fragile. Their legs are like threads. From time to time, they fall asleep in the middle of any activity, as this one, while standing on the plate. This is normal.

Summer also meant the continuation of the renovations in and around the house. I am standing here below in our kitchen-to-be, and mark where the electric outlets should be. Yes, those are arrows stuck into the ground. Those are supposed to mark where the sink, kitchen cabinets, and other utilities should be. We were playing a plan-a-kitchen, you know :). Practically speaking, I'm standing stand where the dishwasher will stand.

This is my DH, plastering the wall beside the front door, from the inside of the house. Note the ceiling. It's all hand made and wooden.

As for social activities, I had my 20 year high school class reunion. This photo was made in the restaurant. I am not on the photo. We had a nice quiet evening. It started with everyone telling his/her story of the past 20 years. Only classmates and former teachers were invited. Many of the class lives abroad, and one of them was here via a webcam from NYC. Zsuzsa was my best girlfriend in high school and now her husband (also Hungarian) is working at the Columbia University. She also studied and became a PhD in chemistry (was is physics?), but what with four kids...She's now an assistant to his husband. I miss her.

This is a close up of the dinner table - an all you can eat, partly supplied by us.

That's all for now.

Tomorrow 4PM our bus's heading North.

Bart, here I come.

Cheers,

SzF.