Friday afternoon – heading home

I’m in Frankfurt airport now on my way home  My meetings originally scheduled for today actually got pushed in to yesterday.. which is allowing me to come home a day earlier… very glad..now I won’t miss Gabe’s lacross game !

This  week has been REALLY full and interesting . I’m enjoying getting to know the people and landscape of Eastern Europe again.. I hadn’t been in Slovakia, Hungary or Slovenia in over 30 years..They’ve change so much. All were cool and interesting places full of very smart people.. The countryside was beautiful in Spring green… even some flowers this early in the year.. lots of opportunity here. Even with the economy in question, the sense of growth here is strong.

Andrej’s going to help me remember what we did this week.. but here’s my quick recollection of our 1600KM drive…

Sunday – Vienna.. hung out with my host family from 1979-80 year abroad.. great to reconnect. Worked late, 5 hours sleep.

Monday – drove to Bratislava, 3 media interviews,one meeting with university professors,  one university talk, two employee meetings, drove to Budapest, had dinner with old freind Zoltan, caught up on work , 5 hours sleep

Tuesday – meetings in Budapest 2 (or 3) media interviews , 1 employee meeting, one university talk, drove to porterocz slovenia – arrived late, skipped dinner, worked on talk, 4 hours sleep

Wednesday – presentation for 1000 clients, meetings with clients all day, 5 media interviews, drove to Ljubljana one ieee/University talk – dinner with freinds. 3 hours sleep

Thursday – ealry morning flight from Ljubljana to Kracow poland, Quick lunch with freinds, then three back to back employee meetings, and one media interview. Quit dinner in town with Andrej..

Friday.. first real sleep of the week (8 hours !)  changed return flight.. now heading home..

ok.. gotta run

they’re boarding.. glad to be heading home

nite all, nite sam

-me

Thursday night Kracow

Andrej and I left the hotel this morning at 545 am..once again I was seeing beautiful Slovenia without the benefit of son..but I really love the place.    As we drove to the airport  i marveled at how close everything was around here.

the airport lounge was busy even though it was hardly 6AM.. we looked at Slovenian trinkets.. this guy is their national poet.

the irport launge offered beer for breakfast.. why not ?

checking out the local newspapers..

eeek I’m in one !

we transfered at vienna and got in the large puddle jumper for the trip to Poland.

the flight over was uneventful ( i slept).. then we got a quick cap to IBM)

hari took andre j and me to lunch…

then it was back to the lab for 6 hours of great meetings/

 

Andrej and I then caught a cap back to our hotel and then ventured out in search f food and adventure

first stop was the famous dragon sculpture.. a beautiful bronze of a dragon that occasionally shoots fire. it used to be in response to an sms message.. now it seems to do it on a timer. I absolutely  need to build one like this of Champ !!!!

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i left a samstone on the sculpture.. just .. cuz !

then we walked downtown in search of food…. there Easter fare was getting set up in the old town village square.. It was small but still looked magical .

the town is beautiful.. just as I remember it !

 

ok.. I need more than 4 hours sleep tonight.. so I’m going to bed.. more tomorrow !!!

nite all. nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – Slo day

Oooops.. just saw this didn’t publish yesterday.. sorry !

 

Just spent a really wonderful day in Slovenia… where you Say ? Slovenia is like OZ.. a place only few come to.. but anyone who does will surly fall in love with the place.. it reminds me of new zealand in that it’s it’s own little world.. with great geographic diversity, .. and all in all awesomeness. Everyone I met here was a) smart, b) nice and c) pretty happy.. can’t ask for better than that.. with a population of just about 2 million its pretty tiny.. but has the highest GDP in eastern Europe..
I was here once 33 years ago and the place has changed remarkably.

I spent teh day meeting with clients, ibm folks, journalists and students..

Here are the folks from ‘Take a bite out of science’ a science promotion tv show for kids and other humans.. they were just so great.. they asked great questions.we tied out the electric pickle experiment with a a red pepper and a hot dog.. fun and smelly

here’s the view of Croatia from the balcony..

after the IBM forum.. we headed back to Ljubljana to the university.. I got a good view of the coastline by day..

There’s was a nice crowd at the technical university tonight. It was an IEEE meeting.

i enjoyed given my talk there.. what a great group of folks. Three of them I’d met in belgium 2 years ago now that’s a small world. Here I am with Andrej’s son Jore who goes to school here.

afterwards a couple of us went out for dinner and Jore took me for a quick tour around Ljubljana at night.. what a gem !

ok.. time for just 4 hours sleep…

miss my homies.. love to all

nite all, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night (late) – What the Heck ?

Greetings from Portaz in Slovenia.. I’m right at the Croatian border.. In fact, I can see the lights of Croatia from my room in the hotel. It was a longggg fun day. My buddy Andrej had lined up a bunch of talks with IBMers, Students and journalist.s.. Tomorrow it’s all Clients.. which will be fun..

Hungary was a real treat..t eh people are great, the landscape is great.. the language is… er… impenetrable. I like to think that I’m pretty good at languages.. but I don’t even recognize a single word of spoken Hungarian.. .. The one word I recognized on a sign today was ‘heck’.. and who knows what that really means.. what the heck anyway.. everyone I spoke to today was more fluent in English than I am !..

Here are some signs from the university technology park where I spent the day.. here’s the Citadela by day.

diu

After leaving Budapest , Andrej and I had a good long (7 hour ) drive down to Slovenia.. We stopped at lake

yudtegxtdytewgciuewhdiuewyduwgtdiuewdxajdoiedi8yewdiuewyd7ewyd9ew87yd98ewyde98w

or.. at least that’s what it sounded like.. it was beautiful and idyllic.. like the rest of the Hungarian countryside.

Sam is there now…

Then we reached Slovenia.. also very beautiful.. but in a different way.. very much like Austria..

We stopped breifly to meet andrej’s very nice wife and daughter.. and see his house.

We greabbed a traditianal snack.. then made the 2 hours drive more to here…

now it’s 2 am and I need to sleep. More in the morning..

big talk tomorrow.. hope it goes ok !

nite all, nite sam

-me