What I Have Been Up To !!!
Sorry I have been very very very busy these past few weeks and have note updated my journal for a long long time. I just got home from Budapest 2 days ago. It was a fascinating and beautiful city. I was especially interested in seeing the effects that communism had on a country. I can see why Hitler called Vienna a pearl among all cities, Budapest was rich in culture but the building are dark and everything has a kind of sleepy and wet feeling. Vienna's building appear bright and alive, I can now understand why Hitler said that. Budapest was certainly beautiful in its own way a beauty you can't forget. I would say the beauty is more of character however, there is such a strive to push forward to make things better. All the Hungarians I spoke with emphasized that they wanted a better economy, better prices, better wages, a better community life. The city is so rich in history, I really must go back someday to visit some of the museums I missed. One of the museums I missed was the Communist Headquarters, you can tour a communist prison where several revolutionists were actually tortured and killed. I am not sure why but that area of history is exceedingly interesting to me now. If I were to try to guess, I would have to say its because of the character of the people. There is a sort of silent standard that you can't miss, it just breathes with the people. I believe that God has given me a huge appetite for people, cultures, and languages for a reason. Whatever happens I know I will never ever stop traveling or trying to learn about cultural customs. What attracts me is beauty has so many different types. I come from a very strong Scandinavian background the landscape in Norway is gorgeous with the mountains running right up against the ocean, the mist in the wooded hills, with small cottages puffing smoke its nearly a fairy tale setting. Then there is an African setting, wide and open. Long waving shafts of grass. To borrow the words of one of my favorite writers...
"I believe." writes Doris Lessing, "that the chief gift from Africa to writers ,white and black, is the continent itself, its presence which for some people is like an old fever, latent always in their blood; or like an old wound throbbing in the bones as the air changes. That is not a place to visit unless one chooses to be an exile ever afterwards from an inexplicable majestic silence lying just over the border of memory or of thought. Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape."
"I believe." writes Doris Lessing, "that the chief gift from Africa to writers ,white and black, is the continent itself, its presence which for some people is like an old fever, latent always in their blood; or like an old wound throbbing in the bones as the air changes. That is not a place to visit unless one chooses to be an exile ever afterwards from an inexplicable majestic silence lying just over the border of memory or of thought. Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape."