Mark’s Blog

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Buda-Pesh

Buda-Pesh…still feels weird saying it that way, but do as the Hungarians do, right? I remember Kelly Schwartz, who served here in the past with the Canadian Infantry and called it Buda-Pesh. I asked him finally, “why do you say it like that?” His response, “that’s how you properly say it”… I had no clue what to expect from Budapest. Honesty, I dropped it on the itinerary as we were close to it from a destination we wanted to see,...

Party City in Prague

Prague was beautiful, similar to Edinburgh, with narrow streets and magnificent monuments. However, it had more color, literally, as the buildings were colorful, and more youthful energy… The city buzzed with young people aged 15-22, who appeared quite young to be there alone or in small groups. While the legal drinking age in Czechia is 18, I guess ID checks are rare. At night, the city became busier, with clubs, casinos, strip clubs, and parties flooding the streets. Prague had...

Life

En route to our 7th country in the last 27 days, you start to notice several similarities despite the miles that separate each nation: food & drink, community, social problems, daily routines, and technology, just to name a few. We are all experiencing similar lives: getting groceries, connecting with people, eating well, laughing together over drinks, walking past the homeless and using our phones as our distractors. Instead of driving to work, Europeans use the metro; instead of drinking in...

Berlin, the “Grey City”

Since I used up the max. character count in my Insta post, I thought I’d share my L5 here. Liked: I love war history, so walking through this infamous city is intriguing and eerie.  Loathed: The German stare. They look at you blankly with no expression and hold that gaze. You don’t know if they like you, or hate you but they are definitely judging you in one way or another…Germans.   Laughed: Kinnon and I are playing catch in...

Home is Where the Hygge is: Copenhagen

Denmark. Ahh, my soul country! I could not wait for Denmark. It was among the top 3 countries we were venturing to. I read the “Little Book of Hygge” and “Lykke” years ago and was fascinated with the Danish culture and way of life: quiet, slow-paced, present and connected—the opposite of my ADHD personality. So here we were in the Danish capital, Copenhagen and it lived up to my expectations. First off, it is hard to believe that 1.4 million...