Right now I am sitting in newark airport waiting for my flight. Am connecting though london heathrow on the way to budapest and praying that my suitcase joins me there as well! Then I will be in hungary until thursday, then am going to the uk for a few days for a different meeting for work. I don’t expect to update this much when I am gone but will post some pictures and info about my trip when I get back. I expect to have 1 day to see some stuff in budapest and 1 day in london.

When I first got here I had to wait a little while before I could check my bags. And was reminded once again of why so many people think americans are obnoxious when they travel. One guy jumped on the other side of the desk at check in and started looking around back there to find someone to check him in (meanwhile a lot of other people were also waiting). Didn’t work of course so he resorted to yelling about it to everyone else who was waiting quietly. Then he yelled at the woman behind the counter when she did get there. And it wasn’t even possible for him to be late for his flight yet. Other travelers outside the US just don’t seem to act out like this. Oh well…

Interesting that I have seen several non US citizens wearing vote obama buttons. Guess they officially care way more about the election than I do. I just want to stop hearing about it.

Back to waiting about an hour until I board. I like getting to the airport early, relieves some stress at least.

We stayed in dexter, maine, the lake we were on was really quiet.  Very few boats so we mostly had it to ourselves, which was great!  Saw a bunch of loons (or the same loons several times, who knows), a hawk, and a green heron while we were there.  No moose, though there seemed to be signs warning you about them everywhere. 

Had really good seafood, including lobsters that my dad got from the people who ran the boat he went deep sea fishing on.  I also got fried whole clams (not strips), which I can never find in albany, so I was excited!  The town of dexter was nice, small but it had a grocery store, a rite aid and a really good restaurant so I was happy.  More developed area than schroon lake, though that doesn’t say much.  Also did some reading, read a book of hungarian folktales by zsuzsanna palko, several of the stories were odd and several characters met very violent endings, but it was interesting.  Pictures from dexter can be found here.

Went to ll bean one day and ate at the muddy rudder (one of my favorite restaurants that I always go to when we go up there).  I love going to the ll bean factory store, so much better than the smaller retail stores.

On Friday, my dad, brook (my parents’ dog) and I went up to moosehead lake (about 1.5 hour drive) and went on a pretty easy hike (all I was up to at the time) at lily bay state park.  The area is really pretty and I hope to spend some more time up there in future.  Pictures I took when we were hiking and driving around can be found here.

On the way home we decided to take route 9 through new hampshire and vermont instead of taking the interstates (traffic was crazy on 95 on our way there, especially at the tolls, so we wanted to avoid that).  I would definitely take that drive again, it took a very similar amount of time and the drive was gorgeous.  It helped that we really lucked out with the weather (all week actually), which I was shocked by since the weather this summer has been pretty lousy in general.

Today I went to amanda’s (anna’s daughter) bridal shower at the stockade inn in schenectady.  Had a really good time, the food was really good and it’s always a nice location.

That’s it for now…  Back to work tomorrow and then grad school starts back up in about a week.  Not mentally ready for that at all yet.

My feet were killing me after all the walking.  The most walking I do is from my car into my office in the morning (the equivalent of roughly 1.5 blocks at the most), so it is not normal for me   I did manage to navigate my way through subways on my own and such, which was a first.  I have always traveled down there with other people.  I enjoy visiting the city, just not sure I could handle living there, I need space from people periodically (or frequently depending on my mood) and I don’t think nyc could provide enough opportunity for that for me.  Seems a lot of people from high school class ended up there though, not surprisingly since I grew up about an hour from there.

I read a really good book on the train, called half-life die already by mark steele.  Not new concepts to me, but were still good reminders.  A quick read.

That’s pretty much it for now.  Just mostly looking forward to vacation next week at this point!

I am pretty excited because my mom and I ordered tickets to go see steven curtis chapman and michael w smith when they come to the palace theatre in albany in november (need to take advantage when people actually come to albany!).   Last night I watched larry king live (which i never watch normally) because steven curtis chapman and his family were on talking about the recent tragedy in their family (their 5 year old daughter was accidentally killed in the driveway by a car driven by their teenage son).  It was amazing to hear them talk about how they are doing and to hear them actually talk about their faith in an honest way on cnn, of all places.

I love the song Yours by steven curtis chapman, he just released a new verse for it after his daughter died:

And I’ve walked the valley of death’s shadow

So deep and dark that I could barely breathe

I’ve had to let go of more than I could bear

And I’ve questioned everything that I believed

Still even here in this great darkness

Comfort and hope come breaking through

As I can say in life or death God we belong to you 

 

Now I’m done with classes until september 2nd when the next semester starts. 

So 1 day until class is over and 12 days until I leave for vacation.  Going to dexter, maine for a week with my parents and can’t wait!  Planning on doing some kayaking, hiking, relaxing/reading and shopping at LL Bean (of course! it would be wrong to go to maine and not go there!).  Had fun kayaking with my mom on sunday up at schroon lake, the weather held out long enough for us to have fun (it rained slightly for a bit, but it wasn’t bad) and I really like my kayak purchase!

A little more cramming to do for my exam tonight and then I can relax! 

Took a break this evening to watch a couple movies.  Both of them hungarian films I netflixed.  Really enjoyed both of them.  The first one was called a long weekend in pest and buda, which was about a man who left Hungary in 1956 and came back 40 years later to see a dying woman he had loved years ago and found out he had a grown daughter (his wife at home wasn’t overly thrilled with the situation, understandably).  Parts of the movie aren’t overly uplifting but I enjoyed it and thought the music and scenery were very well done.  Was even more interesting because I recognized several of the places in the film.

The second movie was called kontroll, which was pretty funny and fairly disturbing at the same time.  It takes place entirely in the budapest metro.  I recognized parts of it, though luckily my experiences there bore no resemblance to those in the film!  I was actually impressed by how nice the subway was when I was there, i much prefer it to nyc.  Anyways, the movies were definitely different, really enjoyed them though.  I actually understood some parts of the hungarian without reading and other parts I could pick out the words after reading subtitles, so I am slowly progressing! 

Off to read and then go to sleep… 

Mostly the same old stuff, working, grad school, etc.  The weekend before last I went to boston with my friend val and we had a good time   I love boston!  Saw the dark knight while we were there, which I loved!  Was insane how many people went to see it, huge crowds waiting more than an hour before it started!

This past weekend I bought a kayak at llbean (when I probably should have been studying, oh well, this was more fun).  Picked up this one and am looking forward to using it during vacation and hopefully a few weekends before the summer ends.  My parents came up yesterday to help me pick it up because I don’t have a roof rack on my car yet (that’s the next purchase…).

This past week I read Journey to a Revolution by Michael Korda, which was an extremely interesting book about the hungarian revolution in 1956, read that in a few hours one evening.  I also read the book Embers by Sandor Marai (I feel bad leaving the accent marks out of the author’s name but I can’t figure out how to do that on here), which was an amazing book, translated from the Hungarian.  Really well written and interesting story, one of the best books I have read in a while.  It was relatively short and only took me about 4 hours to read saturday evening.  Probably should have been studying but I find it easier to get through grad school when I allow myself to procrastinate sometimes…or else I would go insane with work all the time. 

My goals for the ~4 weeks off between classes are to read war and peace, a book I picked up on Hungarian history, Celestial Harmonies by Peter Esterhazy (another Hungarian author), and work on my Hungarian more.  I have to fit these things in when I have time (I can’t wait for grad school to end, I really hate it!).  Probably noticing the hungarian theme here (with the exception of war and peace, obviously), I have become pretty obsessed with reading whatever I can get my hands on at the local libraries.  Once I exhaust that I will be searching through amazon…going with the free stuff first

Oh yeah, I also got into a car accident last week, though I am fine (my car has minor damage to the bumper).  Made for a long morning, but could have been much worse.

That’s it for now…

Anyway, on to happier topics.  I found out yesterday that I passed the PE exam in env’l engineering, so I am pretty excited about that   No more 8 hour exams for me (that I know of…)!

Other than that, mostly just keeping busy with work, grad school, etc.  Obviously haven’t been busy blogging…can’t believe it’s been that long since my last entry, I just lose track of time when I get really busy.

Off to finish some stuff off at work before heading off to cleveland for a few days.