larsivi

For the second time this year, I've been to the eastern parts of Europe. Last time in May, I went to visit h3r3tic in Poland, whereas I this time I played the role of the tourist in Prague and Budapest, although the D connection was far from lost. Through some lucky travel configuration, I was able to meet and travel with Kris, the project lead of Mango, for all of the week I spent there.

Kris is a truly inspirational and intelligent individual with some long and solid experience in the software business. He has worked with major (and legendary) actors in the business, ridden the dotcom wave, developed software in many languages and for the full range of hardware. Being a Scot on the bottom, he's also just a really funny and cool guy.

The weather was wonderfully warm and comfortable during the whole period, and we were able to experience cold drinks on both the Vltava (Moldau) and Donau (Danu) rivers, sweat while sightseeing the enourmous castles of the two cities, see the umpteen churches, basilicas and synagogues and experience some cultural awakening (at least on my part, as I went to the two first truly high quality classical concerts (both in Prague) and my first ever opera (with preceding ballett) in the Hungarian state opera in Budapest (imagine rows of plush and gold boxes, and you get the picture)).

The trip with night train from Prague to Budapest showed us some of the less than helpful bearucracy, and a couple of spy movie sequences as we we're waken twice to show "Passporte! Passporte! Hurry, the train is waiting!".

Nice and talkative locals told of us the less than perfect conversion from communism to capitalism, and the jury is still out on whether they will succeed in their assimilation into the European Union. The sad and recent events in Budapest starting the day after we left, shows that there are huge problems still to solved, in this case in the Hungarian economy and politics.

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