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Sunday
July 2, 2006
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Sarah and I were invited to sit in on a meeting
of Central and Eastern European Greenways
organizers held just outside Sopron, Hungary
at a forest eco-center built in the 1970s as a
mind control propaganda "Pioneer" camp for
young would-be Communist party members.
It reminded Drushko, a delegate from Serbia,
of the summer camps he attended as a child,
so he burst into song: The sound of machine
guns is more beautiful than the singing birds...

We slept in a 4-story cabin which used to
house VIP parents of select campers. To
see their building standards it's no wonder
that the Soviet Union fell--bad design, poor
ventilation, shoddy materials... it was a lot
like current US real estate development.
Getting there was slow but pleasant. All
the trains were clearly marked, racks and
straps made it easy to travel with bicycles.