Category Archives: Uncategorized

Beacon Peak Hike, Death Valley

We’ve had a very calm year, which is always good.  Dennis and I went to Las Vegas over my spring break as a jumping off point for hiking in Death Valley.  Las Vegas was…interesting, most especially people watching and discovering that Red Bull with vodka is the college kids drink of choice, so much for the war on drugs. Hiking in Death Valley was fantastic and it was great to be sweating in the sunshine in March .

My niece was married in Bay View, Michigan Labor Day weekend so that along with daughter Leigh starting a “real job” in Madison August 1^st  was enough excitement for the whole year. 

Leigh is finance and operations director for the United Council of UW Students.  (I had to look that up to get it right.)  The Council is supported by voluntary contributions from University of Wisconsin students and the mission is to lobby & advocate for the students. Right now the hot issues are university funding, limiting tuition increases and a Wisconsin “Dream Act.” That smashes my stereotype I was thinking Wisc. is way too cold to have undocumented high school graduates.

Leigh & Dennis Madison, WI

I was concerned about the finance part of Leigh’s job.  This is a kid who passed algebra by spending her every lunch hour with the teacher.  Leigh says not to worry: “It’s all QuickBooks Mom.”  Leigh seems to be flourishing in Madison.  It does seem like kids grow up later now.  Twenty-five years old and Leigh is for the first time in her own apartment with a salary, health insurance benefits and her very own bills to pay. Hooray!!

Leigh drove to Indianapolis for Christmas so we are having a very quiet holiday season. The first with just the two of us in 25 years! Dennis only has 2 days off work so we plan to spend any spare time cross-country skiing and catching up on sleep.

Jan skiing Mica, Rd.

The Spokane community college libraries have been re-organized and the public library will be getting a new director.  This means we are both either are under new management or soon will be.  There is never a dull moment in library land.

Spokane Falls Community College Library

Anonymous historian

As I put the pictures together for my presentations it is great to remember all the wonderful things we saw and all my friends in the BUTE Modern Langage Department. 

Slide Shows 

We are home now and our trip has come to an end. I will be editing and linking photos from Croatia and Vienna that I didn’t have time to include.

Dennis says his favorite trip was our trip to Felsorakos He is ready to go back to Croatia and see all the places we didn’t have time to explore. Where Budapest is concerned his favorite thing was Margaret Island, the island city park that sits in the middle of the Danube. “Hikes, ancient ruins, river views and beer, how can you beat that?” Dennis did think they could improve the food available. The hot dogs and pizza weren’t that great and we couldn’t find gelato there.

Leigh’s favorite thing in Budapest was the zoo. She especially liked the Elephant House. I’m sure her favorite trip was Croatia but I will ask.

My favorite place in Budapest was the Castle in Buda especially the less traveled north side. The think I am missing the most is being able to walk in Pest and find narrow streets with interesting 19th century building and the occassional odd ter (square) with a statue or a fountain or both. As I walked up to Rosaurers I missed the variety of postage stamp size yards in my neighborhood. Instead of long expanses with lawns and trees on house would have a mini-vinyard and a vegetable garden, another was all planted in flowers, then a lawn with flower pots or a mini-orchard. Of course there were the occassional weedy neglected yards, the ugly graffitied walls and some badly neglected housing estates but the urban area provided so much variety I never got tired of exploring.

On returning our single story building and wide lawns seem like so much unnecessary space.  I can’t hold the shovel anymore because I have done too much weeding the last two days.  I find I really miss the mass transit whisking me to the big city any area with no effort on my part. Of course I am glad to get back to hiking around “Near Nature Near Perfect” Spokane.

There were too many possible illustrations so I compiled a favorites slide show. These aren’t always the best pictures but they illustrate some beautiful, typical or just plain quirky things in Budapest. It also includes the beautiful Croatia. http://picasaweb.google.com/Janwingen/Favorites

My last official act was to close out my university bank account. I would have just withdrawn my balance and let it go but Zsuzsa insisted that I needed to close my account as part of my check-out from the university. My bank is on the university campus and all university staff have accounts where salaries are directly deposited and bank statements are sent to college e-mail.

Zsuzsa did the translation and I could tell right away things weren’t going as planned. Bank managers were called both in person and on the phone. It seems that you can’t close your account if it has been active in the last 30 days. Even if I hadn’t been withdrawing money like crazy while traveling with Leigh & Dennis my last pay check was deposited in June.

The solution was for me to authorize Zsuzsa to close my account. In a truly Hungarian manner a handwritten document was composed on the spot with Zsuzsa and the bank clerk struggling over the correct wording. Hungarian really is a difficult language even for Hungarians. The document included my birthday, passport number, Zsuzsa’s birthday and her bank account number and of course I have no idea what else. The handwritten document was xeroxed and I signed 2 or 3 copies of the document each one was signed twice.

I’m not the only exchange faculty at the university and it seemed so odd that they didn’t dive in to the file drawer and pull out the correct fill in the blank form. Almost as quaint as when the bank clerk used pen and paper rather than a calculator for my final balance.

After deactivating my debit card the bank clerk calculated all the fees I will incur for maintaining the account I am not allowed to close. It took almost two hours but I was given my cash and I bid farewell to Hungarian bureaucracy.