And the leafs stay!

This year it takes unusually long for threes to loose their leaves. Because we had such a nice summer. Finland was already getting yellow, brown and golden colors on its threes. Also in London a few weeks ago the leaves were already falling. But now the year will pass by so quickly, with all upcoming events. I will first travel to Budapest tomorrow, where I'll have a short break before a meeting and a conference in Sofia. Hope to see green threes there!

Poverty and Social Exclusion

Tomorrow I leave for Finland, to attend the Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion, which is organised by the Finnish presidency. The interesting thing is that the presidency paid over thousand euro's for my ticket, to attend a meeting in which we'll talk about poverty. Anyhow, our aim is to address the link between vulnerable grous /discrimination and social exclusion, which will be a big challenge. My visit to Montenegro gave me good inspiration for this. A Montenegrin boy of 25 told me why he consciously decided to remain closeted towards his parents. Coming out would mean that he probably would be forced to leave his family home, disabling him to finish his university and thus having big consequenses for his further personal and professional development.

And it's the first time that I visit Scandinavia, I'm almost ashamed to say this!

Ramadan

Wednesday I spent a beautiful day in Ulcinj visiting a friend. The weather was beautiful and such a contradiction with the weather in Amsterdam: I got even a bit tanned during my walk along the Adriatic sea. The one-day break was of course much too short, unfortunately I had to hurry home for waiting deadlines .
As I was visiting Ulcinj during Ramadan I experienced how Muslims spent this period. My guest family didn't allow me to join the fasting, as guest I was not expected to do so. This made me feel very uncomfortable, and as a result I wasn't even hungry when my friend's mother prepared me breakfast in the morning...

Millenium

This is the Millenium bridge in Podgorica. It opened last year and the Montenegrins are really proud of it. They even use it as background for their breakfast-show on the television. It was opened together with the new tunnel to the coast of Montenegro, reducing travel time by 60%. The capital also has a new main square with fountains. Podgorica has to look like a real capital! Lesbians are still missing in this city. I have found several gays and bisexual men already, but I am really concerned about the lesbians.