Budapest, Vienna and Prague - Even old farts know how to have fun…
Gail snapped the picture, and here we are with new friends Jonathan and Pam from St. Paul. They came with Ned. We really dug them. They “escaped” out of a tough church situation, and are only now beginning to walk in freedom and the grace of God. The church they came from was pretty heavy handed. But as you can see we baptized them into the society of sipping saints. (Always in moderation….)
America is Better!
I now want to tell you why the U.S. is better than Europe. Now Europe does have the most beautiful buildings you can possibly imagine. We can’t compete. They also have the most glorious church buildings, I mean absolutely amazing. We saw St. Stephens today in Vienna and it just blew my mind. They have the coolest city layouts, really fun to walk around and just look. So on that level we are not even close. But there are five things which keep the good old USA number One in my book. Here they are…..
#1 - The toliet paper in Eastern Europe (Krakow, Budapest, Vienna and Prague) is like wiping your butt with paper towels (pardon my graphic venacular). Come on, these guys got Chopin, you got Joseph Conrad and Freud, but you can’t make a soft toliet tissue - Come on Europe get with it!
#2 - No butter! They bring these amazing meals, like when we were in Budapest we had this goulash that was amazing. It had the best gravy. But no butter on the bread. Is it rocket science to include butter?
#3 - No fabric softener. What the heck is that about? You get out of the shower and the towel is like drying off with a sheet of like, 100 grid sandpaper. Come on - Madame Curie, but no fabric softener.
# 4 - Okay, what is with the smoking in Europe? Has anyone here ever heard that smoking will kill you? I mean people sticking sandwiches in their mouth with a cig hanging out. Every thing here stinks of tobacco. I mean come on - the Surgeon General has laid this all out for you people - ban smoking and join us in the 21st century Europe… please…
# 5 - last but not least - no wash cloth. I mean what in the heck is that all about. Do the Europeans just ignore washing certain areas of the body? I mean I just can’t fathom that they don’t get it with the wash cloth.
Anyway - here are the five reasons why we are number one. We have all these things and they don’t. I’m proud to be an American, for these reasons alone - soft toliet tissue, butter, fabric softener, smoking ban and wash cloth. Man, I can’t wait to get back to an excellent breakfast at my dear old State Street Diner, with buttered toast. Now that is progress baby!
Okay, here is Krakow’s city center. Pretty sweet eh? We really dug it here. The weather sucked, but we just opened our umbrellas and walked around. There was a really cool market there and we picked up some pretty cool stuff from the trinket shops.
Here is a shot of Budapest. This is over looking the Danube and back at the Parliment building. We had a blast in Budapest. We had a brother there who I met in Brazil this summer. He met us at the train station and took wonderful care of us. We also had really nice accomodations at our hotel an very reasonable. The high point for me was being with this brother, Imre and listening to what God is doing in Budapest. There is a heart to pray for revival, very much like what we are seeing in the Cry for Awakening. We love this guy and had dinner with him and his family the night before we left. A great guy and a delightful family.
Here is a castle in Budapest. Its design covers five different historical periods. We liked it!
I will try to post some more pictures tomorrow. It is late here.
Everyday I pray for you all. I miss Lamb a lot. And I look forward to getting back to kingdom work in New Jersey. We have been blessed but like Dorthy said… there’s no place like home, theres no place like home… there’s no place like home….
Just a few more pictures to give you some additional flavor. Here is a shot inside St. Stephen’s Church in Vienna. Really, pictures can’t take in the enormity of this place. It’s cornerstone was laid in 1129.
Here we are, sitting in a eatery opened in 1879. We had a lovely lunch together and our last meal in Vienna before heading off to our last stop before our flight back to the U.S. (Prague for like a day and a half). We really do miss you all and are very much looking forward to returning.
We will be back Monday night at about 8 P.M. Tuesday morning prayer and breakfast with Todd. Peace… the black dwarf
p.s. - thanks to kev h for the heads up on my grammatical disaster in the orginal post. It was late…
October 27th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Wow, Scott, you really are tired. Neither the filter on your id nor your grammar check are working. Why don’t you come home you tired “old fart?” We miss you here, and God has continued to work while you all have been gone. Besides, you’re missing Bon Jovi in concert at the new Prudential Center in Newark as I write this. (See upcoming post in Notes From Above Ground.)
October 27th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
A couple more things you missed since it is not the summer.
I’ll bet eastern europe is no better than Germany when it comes to:
Ice
Window Screens
Air Conditioning
and dare I mention 24 hour stores!
October 28th, 2007 at 12:56 am
“I mean, come on!”
The Stampers don’t use washcloths. Even here in the US, some people actually don’t.
It was nice talking to you on the webcam today!!!
October 28th, 2007 at 2:08 am
okay, but you must have sponges or something - right?
November 13th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
well scott…….
i can confirm that europe has all of the above…infact i think you complimented me on our toilet paper!?
you just haven’t visited to good houses!!
kathy