The angle of the sun wasn’t perfect for this photo, but it turned out to be an unexpected highlight during our hike around Thurso today.

Is this the Hogwarts Express? 🚂🧙

At least we had the perfect weather at that moment (every five minutes it changed between sun and rain) and also a perfect place for a nice view of the Jacobite Steam Train passing the Glenfinnan Viaduct.

With a backpack full of stuff for two weeks, we managed to walk 11km on the West Highland Way in 2:35h. I feel it in my legs, but the views and the experience are worth it.

London is on a whole different scale when it comes to size. It has roughly the same population as Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt combined, and those cities are already quite large. 🤯

I can’t quite recall it being this enormous when I visited briefly during a language learning trip some years ago.

From The Shard, everything appears so tiny, it almost gives the impression of being fake.

After some cold and rainy weeks, it’s a quite warm and sunny again, but probably for the last time this year.

In my second apartment, I really like sitting in the winter garden (more some kind of balcony or loggia but with windows) in the evening and looking outside. The neighbors aren’t very close, and you can see the sky well. It’s very relaxing to sit here in the dark, thinking and enjoying the time.

If you haven’t already noticed (though why would you?), I have finally merged my homepage into my blog. Why? Well, I believe it doesn’t make much sense to keep them separate. My homepage had only a few pages, and elements such as my “About Me” page and collections of things I use are well-maintained on my blog as well. Some pages were also deleted during this process, but I made an effort to preserve links where possible.

In my opinion, it’s more beneficial for me to consolidate most of my content on my blog, reserving a separate site for a professional portfolio. However, I’ve already set this up at jlelse.com.

In general, I hope this change will cause less confusion in the future and reduce the complexity of my online presence and self-hosting.

After two weeks of traveling by train at a maximum speed of about 120 km/h, sitting in a 230 km/h train is mind-blowing. 🤯

But I would have needed a flight if these trains didn’t exist. 🌱

This will be my accommodation for the next 15 hours. Tomorrow morning I’ll be back in Budapest (from Bucharest) and hopefully catch a train that will take me back home by tomorrow evening.

Let’s see if the air conditioning is still made to work at some point and if I have to share this compartment with someone or if I have it all to myself.

I’m still on vacation. It’s hot most days, but it’s interesting to get to know a new country and visit some places from my mother’s youth. I will write a more detailed report when I return. 😊

I just want to give a quick shout out to my online friend Žan. He’s been blogging for a long time (I still remember when we shared a gifted WordPress web host 8 (?) years ago 😄). Now he has shared some of his blogging insights and tips on his relatively new personal blog.