February 3

Lindsay Says:
Quick revisit to Budapest featured the much-faded glory of the Gellert Hotel but since we don’t do luxury, it was really quite nice plus the thermal baths were just the ticket for achy travelers. Nilda Bullain was certainly not faded; I recognized her beautiful long, dark hair from behind, even after 20 years.

Crossing into Slovakia, I remarked that a small town we were passing through seemed abandoned. Chuck said Slovaks work many hours, then keep to themselves. “But the shutters are pulled!” “Well, if every fifth person was an informer, you learned to be very private and those habits remain.” I can’t wait to learn how one organizes here.

Dave Says;
After soul-killing exhaustion of sleepless transatlantic flight (I long to cross by ship again!) we woke up in the Gellert Hotel, swam around in the healing waters and were refreshed!

Nilda Bullain stayed with us in Toledo TWENTY YEARS ago – she’s a leader in Europe and beyond in the effort to build a legal and political infrastructure that can permit and facilitate non-profits and a voluntary sector. LOTS of possibilities for future conversations.

And lots and lots of surprise overlaps in this big and crazy world. Here are two: Nilda stayed with us twenty years ago when she was in Ohio with a project to teach the skills of democracy. AND Chuck Hirt, the Executive Director of the Central and East European Citizens Network and an organizer of the ECON network, who picked us up from lunch with Nilda….knows her and worked closely with her six years ago!

Here’s another…as we drove through snowcovered fields and villages between Budapest and Brinska Bistrica, Slovakia where Chuck lives, we discovered that he is very close friends with the Cincinnati Ohio cartoonist Jim (?) whose house was bought by our good friends Mike Marcotte and Mary Claire Rietz!

(cue the Disney music…”it’s a small world after all….”)

I’ll try a couple photos…us with Chuck’s delightful high school junior daughter Zuska (sp?) at the Slovak restaurant tonite (venison; cherry sauce; cabbage; potato noodles….) and Lindsay on the balcony of our room in Budapest, looking at the Danube. Maybe one or two more if I can work it. (sorry couldn't work pic's)

PLEASE COMMENT – it’s like a postcard from home…