28 August 2019
We celebrated Laura’s birthday at breakfast, and both she and Erik opened my gifts of US currency and coins. Laura almost immediately remembered what she could do with a US bill, and folded hers so that Lincoln would smile or frown depending on which way you tipped the bill. Here you can see how she did it.
Then, goodbye from the Hareskov station, and into Copenhagen. At Bo’s recommendation I took the metro into the airport. This way I had tried all the kinds of rail: commuter train, regular train, and metro.
The Copenhagen airport was a breeze, especially with a totally automated check in, including the checked bags, which you’d weigh, scan, and submit yourself. I bested myself in precision from the last flight. If it was only “99.25%” then, this time it was a full 100.0% down to the last decimal. I didn’t get a picture of my second bag, but I do think it was at 20.0 kg too (the weight limit for Norwegian Airlines).
On my way to the gate, I found “Anders And” comics!!! When we lived in Greenland for two years, from when I was 3 to when I was 5 years old, these Danish “Anders And” comic books and magazines were my absolute favorite “reading.” We still have a stack of them at home, and I still remember most of them all. They were well thumbed through then, and so I spent probably an hour at the airport looking through the compilations there for ones that had bits that I knew and remembered (even after all these years). I don’t think I revert to a 4 year old often, but I certainly did here. As the picture shows, I got two of the little Hans Christian Anderson books that I remembered, as well as a newer one with illustrations of similar quality. For all of these illustration is key since after all I don’t speak Danish. (Mama probably has the two Hans Christian Anderson books somewhere, but now I have them for my own bookshelf.)
So, my meticulously selected bookshelf for Hungary has grown: I am as satisfied as before.
The Bible
Don Quixote
a Harvard Classics big volume of English Poetry “From Tennyson to Whitman”
a thick Danish “Anders And” comic book
Hans Christian Anderson stories and Troldeliv
I almost missed getting on the plane because I was occupied by writing my first post on this website. But I didn’t. The flight was uneventful. The were huge towering clouds over Germany.
Getting the on the right train at Ferihegy station took a moderate amount of waiting, carrying 50kgs up and over and down the overpass from one side of the tracks to the other 2-3 times, a lot of sweat dripping down my face and arms in the 85+ degree F day, asking several people if “this is the right side?”, getting on and then immediately off the wrong train, finally getting on the right train, getting some kind of additional ticket pass I needed from the conductor, moving myself and luggage a few cars down to where I was supposed to be, and trying and failing to use the train wifi to contact Emese. She did get one of the several emails I sent, but only three days later. Emese (“Emeshe“) is the registrar and student organizer at the Institute.
However, I successfully got to Kecskemét (“Goat-town”) after about an hour on the train, touched base with Emese by using the wifi at the station, and soon met her, around 8:15 . It was 10 minutes to my apartment (“flat”, one says here), where Emese showed me very thoroughly through everything: mostly working, and partially not so much (though practically all the problems are fixed and functional now). She also had some shopping to do, and showed me around the Aldi’s store a block away, where I got several things for the next day. Emese finished showing me everything shortly after 10pm. Then it was out with the good old camera stand for some pictures. Finally came what ended up being a sink-bath, because the plug in the bathtub got stuck down as I was rinsing it out, so it wouldn’t drain. There were scratch marks over the top of the plug, which inspired me to try to pry it out, but to no avail. (It is fixed now.)
At that point, I couldn’t go to sleep satisfied with the furniture layout of the flat as it was, so I spent the next 2.5 hours fixing it all.
Then I was satisfied, and I went to sleep, waking up just a bit before lunch the next day. I spent the rest of the day homebound, pulling out and sorting all the linens, blankets, etc., and doing a few other things. I was the first one in the flat by several days, and it has been nice that I pretty much have gotten everything ordered the way I want it (including the best, new(-est) mattress, and my preference of linens, pillow, and blanket). Even with three other roommates here now, only one semi-major furniture adjustment has come up.
Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch
The success of this day was made possible through scholarship funding from Derek and Nancy Morawski, of the CFS mattress fundraiser, who taught me the value of a choosing a good bed (as I did this day). Köszönöm szépen! (Thank you very much!)
P.S. If you are in western Washington, and may need to replace a mattress in the next 1-20 years 🙂 you might think of visiting one of their fundraisers near you: [https://www.facebook.com/pg/CFSSeattle/about/?ref=page_internal] (see “Events”)
Their business model means that they don’t have overhead costs that need to be supported, and when you add their core motive of fundraising for high schools and selling good sleep, the cost ordering a mattresses from them is often worth having in the back of one’s mind. From them a variety of quality mattresses can be ordered, which are then built order by the manufacturers and then delivered two following weeks.
I know all this because I worked for them last year. Only for such an excellent outlier of a company with such character could I of all people have been of all things a “mattress salesman.”
Hungary4Harmony 