Our timing seems to be great. Today is the last day of "French Days" at Budapest's Central Market. Unsure of what exactly this meant, I of course made it my mission to find out. The Central Market is Budapest's main market, and it was created with the purpose of doing quality-control checks on food that was being sold by farmers. There was some kind of competition over who got to design the building, and different artists/architects submitted their proposals. A panel of judges voted, and then ka-boom: the Central Market was built (a long time ago)! The market now has "Tourism Days" where they pick a theme of some sort (i.e. "French Days") in order to attract more than the usual amount of regulars and tourists.
Sadly, it was extremely to tell what was French about anything in the market. The market is very large and has two floors. It is all in a square shape, with the second level only going around the outer edge of the square, so that you can look down at all the stalls below. The market is somewhat divided into sections for meats, vegetables, etc. but this organization may be out of date - it was a little hard to tell. All the stalls on the ground level are selling fresh veggies and raw meats and fishes for the most part. On the second level, you have more prepared food as well as lots of tourist shops. I decided to be adventurous and chose to spontaneously get something that looked like a red bell pepper stuffed with cabbage (or perhaps it was sauerkraut). It was definitely sour. It tasted a little bit funny but it wasn't bad. I don't think I would get it again, but I'd never seen it before so it was a great $1.5 experiment/snack!
Then after some more walking we finally found a gyro place...I have been craving gyros since we got here!! The gyro was not as great as I expected it to be, but satisfying nonetheless. A 500 ml bottle of Fanta at the gyro place cost 350 FT (200 FT/$1). Around the corner was a little grocery store, where a 1 L bottle of Fanta cost 285 FT. Yes, please! I think Fanta tastes better in Europe...and seriously it is Europe's Coke. Everybody drinks it here, all the time.
After all of our food stops, we began the tedious trek out to the Pálvölgyi cave. It is one of the longest caves in Hungary. Budapest is sometimes called the "City of Caves" because there are more than 250 caves underneath the city! These caves were formed by the thermal waters that also feed the baths the Turks created here when they were in Budapest. It took us four different pieces of public transportation to finally get there, and when we arrived I found out that essentially nothing on the English version of the website was correct. Not that it was a huge deal, but it is a major tourist attraction in Budapest, so you'd think the current information would be up...? One of the reasons I chose to go to this cave over the others is because you get to walk through 500 meters of it (which is nothing considering how HUGE it is, I think something like 2200 meters...), the tour is 50-60 minutes, and it cost 785 FT. And tours start on the hour. So we get there and the lady tells us that the tours start at 3:15, and they close at 4 (so it's obviously not going to be a 50-60 minute tour). The price had also increased to 800 FT. So all that threw me off a little, but it had taken so much time to get there that of course we decided to pay a little more and still go on the somewhat shorter tour.
While we waited I had a glass of Hungarian wine (Hungary is apparently also famous for wine). It was nothing special, but helped pass the time while I FINALLY wrote postcards to some people back home. I have been so bad at postcards during this trip...
The cave tour began and aside from Laura and I there were 4 other Hungarians. Our guide was (at least) bi-lingual, but I swear she would talk for like three or four minutes in Hungarian, while Laura and I started at the wall, and then she would talk for like 30 seconds in English!!! I felt a little jipped, I'm not gonna lie...If it was just in English, the tour for sure would have been like 20-25 minutes. The caves were cool but all electronically lit and they had set up a sound system. So we definitely listened to Enya while we wandered through the extremely well lit passages. Many rock formations were labeled/named as animals, which the guide said was to help their cavers find their way. This might be true, but it felt like a tourist trap to me to distinguish their cave from the other caves here. Thus, the tour was a bit lame and a disappointment, but at least we got to see it, and - and - it was only $4. So really, nothing to cry about.
There was another option for exploring the caves where you could full on Spelunk (look it up) with overalls, a headlamp, etc. where you get to crawl through narrow passageways and get dirty and stuff! I really wanted to do that but it was quite a bit more than $4 and Laura wasn't up for it. Aside from that, getting information in English was SO HARD!!! The lady gave me a brochure on it that didn't have any contact information but said that there were "USUALLY" tours on M/W/F that started "sometime in the afternoon". SERIOUSLY? Hahaha you have to just laugh at these things...Since we are leaving Monday night I didn't think I would have time to take the inconvenient trip by myself to the caves again to go on this tour, so that didn't happen. It just sounded like a cool thing to do to me.
The day was quite warm and there are so many gnats here. Sometimes I feel like I am swimming through them. I even make the motions at times when there is an especially large cluster in my way because otherwise they just hit you in the face and it's gross! Laura said I looked like a weirdo, but I'm OK with that. I'm not a bug person.
There is also a lot of cotton in the air. All of this sometimes makes it so that you can't yawn when you want to for fear of breathing in gnats and cotton! Yuck.
Laura was tired of walking around aimlessly, didn't want to go back to Bernhard's (I didn't either), and didn't really want to spend money - which quite limits things available to entertain us. We settled on the teahaz again because it was so cheap and delicious, it's a great place to just sit and talk and pass the time. We went back to our bean bags, which in the late afternoon was not occupied with couples yet, got more delicious tea, and we split an Armenian chocolate cake. Which was incredible. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on those bean bags, really proud of ourselves for finding a 'favorite' spot and going to someplace twice in one city for the first time!
Eventually, we strolled back to Bernhard's where I finally ate my leftovers from that Italian place the first night with some Hungarian wine that Bernhard shared with us. He tried to share another type of Hungarian wine with us but somehow did not have a wine key. We spent far too long battling with a plain corkscrew trying to get the darn cork out, but to no avail.
After dinner, we had plans to go with Bernhard to meet up with his friends Dirk (from Germany) and Jimmy (from the US, working at the embassy here). Dirk and Jimmy were both really nice, and we chatted with them for about an hour and a half waiting for Dirk's CouchSurfer to arrive (she was out on the town). Finally Dirk said we should go on without him and he would meet up with us later. So the rest of us set out...
Another thing Budapest is famous for (I know this is like the fourth thing - they're famous for a lot, I guess!) are places called ruin pubs. This is where people invade evicted, run down, ready to be demolished buildings, and turn it in to a scrappy pub. I don't think they have to pay rent for these undesirable buildings, and they stay there until the police find out about them and kick them out or decide to destroy the building. They are down super random streets and are usually hard to find unless you know some one. I'm not sure how much of this story has changed with the times - some of these places seem pretty secure in their set up, but they keep the vibe grungy.
The first one we went to was awesome!!! I love ruin pubs, I think they're so cool. It was mostly outdoors, only the bathrooms were inside. There was also a completely empty room not being used inside, which they maybe use in colder weather. However all the drinks were served outside. The open courtyard was surrounded on two sides by this dilapidated building, and the other two sides with ply wood. There were also rafters set up, graffiti everywhere, the ground was gravel, and chairs and tables were mismatched (Bernhard says these places literally will get their furniture from a dumpster sometimes). It sounds kind of gross but it's totally fun and crazy! I've never seen or even heard of a pub like this. Needless to say the bathrooms were straight up filthy...but I have a thing for taking pictures of cool graffiti, especially words/phrases/really interesting pictures. In my head I'm going to turn it into a sweet exhibit someday, but given my extremely limited artistic talent realistically it'll just look like weird pictures on some wall of some future dwelling. Anyway there was a good graffiti picture which made using it acceptable in my mind.
Beers here were $2 - fantastic. One comforting thing (I guess) is that terrible, cheap beer tastes the same in every country. You can always count on that. Soon, Dirk came with his CouchSurfer named Michelle who is from Singapore but lives/studies in New York. He also brought another friend named Mark, and our little group stayed at this ruin pub for a little while before moving on to the next one. This next one was extremely similar (as I think they all probably are), but the two we went to are supposed to be two of the better ones in Budapest. One of the reasons I know this is because in Budapest, ruin pubs aren't called ruin pubs, they're just called bars. So when I asked Bernhard if he knew of any good ruin pubs, he didn't have an answer because he didn't understand that I was just asking for a good bar. So, I joined a group on CouchSurfing for people in Budapest, and posted a discussion item asking for good ruin pub suggestions. I got 4 responses for a total of 10-15 links, names, and other helpful information!!! I was astounded. Our access to information and the helpfulness of strangers is so incredible, it never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, both of the places we went were on the list of recommendations!
At the second ruin pub, I got into a very long conversation with Mark about soccer which was really fun. It is so cool to relate to people over soccer, even if you know close to nothing else about them. Jimmy ended up falling asleep there which apparently is typical of him...weird haha. I should note that I was sitting in the back seat of a chopped-in-half really old junk car. That was the bench. These places are awesome. We ended up staying out until 330, and by the time we got home it was 4 AM. We tend to have one really late night per city.
I feel like we've done pretty much what there is to do in Budapest, but we still have 3 days left. It is really nice to not be rushed and I don't think we'll be bored...but really we don't know how we're going to fill up three more days! I think it will start by sleeping in though...
Accomplishments:
Went to ruin pubs!
Travel Tip:
Going to the same place twice feels great - like you're starting to settle into a city. Don't think you always need to be doing something new.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Pest Side
Since we pretty much covered the Buda side yesterday, today we headed for the Pest side.
Bernhard got a booklet of 10 transportation tickets for his CSers to use (very nice of him!). It is common knowledge if you do your Budapest research that ticket checkers on public transportation check tickets "more than people would like". Haha. Anyway, we carried them with us for safety and planned to use them if we got caught. Not very good, but...that's just what we did. And it seems like that's what lots of people do. And my other rationale is that seriously, if cities are going to spend all the time and money to create a working public transportation system, that should include strict methods of checking that people have paid for it. Otherwise they are just asking to be ripped off. It is just too tempting to hop on for a couple of stops if you don't think anybody's going to check. The tram is going that way anyway...
As luck would have it, on our first tram ride of the day we were approached by a man in a dark coat and a white ticket checking badge. Then Laura put on a most admirable show. Aside from being genuinely surprised by some random person speaking to her in Hungarian, once she figured out he was a ticket checker she showed him our tickets and had him walk her through exactly how to validate it. It was a great performance.
Anyway, we walked the rest of the way to our first destination, Heroes Square, which is where they have a lot of statues of different rulers or Hungary dating back quite a long time. Heroes Square is right at one of the edges of City Park (which is a huge park...in the city...). After walking around this area for a while, it was time to set out on another Napi Menu mission.
After even more walking, down some random side street, we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, aka a Napi Menu written out on a chalkboard. This Napi Menu was less than $4 for 3 courses, which was all we needed to know. I should mention that at the Italian place a couple of nights ago, I got bolognaise. And then last night when the girls made dinner, they made bolognaise. So imagine my joy when the main course of the Napi meal was...bolognaise. I probably need to change my diet somewhat. At least it's moved on from beer/cheese/chocolate/waffles? We only got the two course meal, so before the bolognaise we were served with a delicious pork and vegetable soup! I practiced my Hungarian with the waiter. Well, I only really know one word, which is 'thank you', pronounced kuh-suh-nuhm. The first time I said it to him though I said nuh-suh-kuhm which was embarrassing. I tried!
After lunch we walked back to the Heroes Square area to the Szechenyi Baths to ask questions. It is difficult to navigate through websites translated from Hungarian to English, so I wanted to ask them questions in person. That was very difficult though. The first lady spoke basically no English, though this is one of the top tourist attractions in Budapest, and the second guy struggled to help me but did very well answering my questions. I felt really badly for having so many questions but I appreciated his effort to help me a lot!
The Heroes Square area also has some random things close by, such as a zoo, a "fun park", a trampoline, tons of balloons being sold, as well as other knickknacks and restaurants. It seems like Budapest has a lot of seemingly random entertainment things dotting the city.
Last stop in this area was to meander through the castle area. But at this point, we've seen so many castles that this one seemed to pale in comparison.
Then we started taking the tram back to Bernhard's place. We stopped outside of the train station, and decided to jump off to reserve our couchettes for our train ride to Poland. I sent my CS requests to people in Poland a couple of nights ago. Yesterday I got a response from somebody that they could host us the whole week - this is awesome! Talking to him more, he wanted to know when our train was coming in. When I looked up the train, I found out that it was a 10 hour train ride!!! I thought it would be like 3 or 4! So good thing I looked that up! Anyway we decided to take an overnight train, hence needing to reserve a couchette (place to sleep).
After our bitter experiences with this train station a few days ago, I thought maybe it would be better today. It wasn't. It was a maze trying to find the signs to where the international ticket center was. So many unclear signs, turns, passageways through souvenir and restaurant areas, and finally, finally we arrived in this dingy corner at the back of the station and reserved our couchettes. That train station is just a mess. It wins the Worst Train Station Of the Trip So Far award hands down.
Then we went home and waited for Bernhard to get home from work. The Canadian girls left this morning so it's down to just us three. We told him we wanted to get some cheap, delicious Hungarian food. So he took us to a "lunch room" buffet and we ordered some different dishes. Needless to say, it was TERRIBLE! It was even expensive by Hungarian standards too since we got like 5 different things to taste. After we were about half way through, Bernhard decided to tell us that this is the place people go when they need something filling and cheap - it is not actually considered to be good food. I was like, seriously why would you bring us here?!? Good thing Hungary is cheap in general, because I LOVE eating, and bad food is a gastronomic waste of my time, money, and taste buds. Ugh. And all I really wanted was a cheap little gyro too...Oh well. At least I got to try some working class Hungarian food?
Bernhard redeemed himself by taking us "up a big hill to a statue" which just happened to be a HUGE hill with a super famous/important statue. This is the hill that the city's citadel is on. The statue is of a woman holding a peaceful palm tree branch. The statue is important because when communism ended in 1989 (not that long ago!!!) it replaced a statue of a Russian holding a gun. Yikes. Anyway, I had read that the city was amazing to look at during the night time, when it's all lit up, and it definitely was. We could see all the places we've walked so far and the castle hill area (with the National Gallery Museum and the Fisherman's Bastion), the famous Chain Bridge, and the parliament really looked fantastic lit up. Unfortunately, my camera is old/lame so I was not able to get any good pictures of it. Hopefully Laura got some. So we spent some time on the hill looking out at the panoramic view of the city and goofed off by taking mustache pictures. Let me explain: when your hair is long enough, you can trap it between your upper lip and your nose, and then you have a mustache. Some exceptions: A) Your name is Laura, and your nose points upwards which makes it very difficult to make a mustache, or B) You are a boy with not-enough-hair, in which case you must borrow hair from a girl with long hair (ergo Bernhard used Laura's hair much more successfully than she did). This must sound ridiculous! But the pictures are hilarious!
I didn't realize that communism was in Hungary until so recently. What I learned about the statue really impressed me; I think it is so neat that this part of the world has changed so much so recently and that we are able to safely travel all these different places.
Anyway, we had a really funny and enjoyable walk back to Bernhard's place. I think with 5 CSers he was a little overwhelmed, and with just the two of us he started to open up a lot more which was great. At the bottom of the hill, close to his house, he took us to a tea house (called "Teahaz"). They had an amazing selection of teas! They also had an area of the tea house where you had to take your shoes off and then you sit on beanbags at your table. It cost around $3.5 for a pot of tea that could serve 6 cups of tea. You typically order one pot per person. Then you sit there for as long as you like, sipping, lounging, chatting. It is glorious. The three of us continued having fun and interesting conversations, but it was a little bit awkward because the area we were sitting in had two couples also on bean bags making out with each other and just in general being very cuddly. So I felt a little out of place, but we just kept to ourselves haha. As we were leaving the teahaz, they offered us fortune cookies and they said there were English and Hungarian cookies. I asked for a Hungarian cookie - thinking it was somehow different from the English cookie (but really it just meant the fortune itself was in Hungarian) so Bernhard came to my rescue and made sure I got an English fortune.
That was the day...After such a mellow tea experience it was quite easy to go to bed.
Quotes:
Laura: "Hilary looks cute and I look dumb, so people tend to like us..."
Hilary: "Little do they know..."
Laura: "We're scamming their system!!!"
Accomplishments:
Finally ate some food I didn't like.
Travel Tip:
It's convenient to be more experimental in cheaper countries.
Bernhard got a booklet of 10 transportation tickets for his CSers to use (very nice of him!). It is common knowledge if you do your Budapest research that ticket checkers on public transportation check tickets "more than people would like". Haha. Anyway, we carried them with us for safety and planned to use them if we got caught. Not very good, but...that's just what we did. And it seems like that's what lots of people do. And my other rationale is that seriously, if cities are going to spend all the time and money to create a working public transportation system, that should include strict methods of checking that people have paid for it. Otherwise they are just asking to be ripped off. It is just too tempting to hop on for a couple of stops if you don't think anybody's going to check. The tram is going that way anyway...
As luck would have it, on our first tram ride of the day we were approached by a man in a dark coat and a white ticket checking badge. Then Laura put on a most admirable show. Aside from being genuinely surprised by some random person speaking to her in Hungarian, once she figured out he was a ticket checker she showed him our tickets and had him walk her through exactly how to validate it. It was a great performance.
Anyway, we walked the rest of the way to our first destination, Heroes Square, which is where they have a lot of statues of different rulers or Hungary dating back quite a long time. Heroes Square is right at one of the edges of City Park (which is a huge park...in the city...). After walking around this area for a while, it was time to set out on another Napi Menu mission.
After even more walking, down some random side street, we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, aka a Napi Menu written out on a chalkboard. This Napi Menu was less than $4 for 3 courses, which was all we needed to know. I should mention that at the Italian place a couple of nights ago, I got bolognaise. And then last night when the girls made dinner, they made bolognaise. So imagine my joy when the main course of the Napi meal was...bolognaise. I probably need to change my diet somewhat. At least it's moved on from beer/cheese/chocolate/waffles? We only got the two course meal, so before the bolognaise we were served with a delicious pork and vegetable soup! I practiced my Hungarian with the waiter. Well, I only really know one word, which is 'thank you', pronounced kuh-suh-nuhm. The first time I said it to him though I said nuh-suh-kuhm which was embarrassing. I tried!
After lunch we walked back to the Heroes Square area to the Szechenyi Baths to ask questions. It is difficult to navigate through websites translated from Hungarian to English, so I wanted to ask them questions in person. That was very difficult though. The first lady spoke basically no English, though this is one of the top tourist attractions in Budapest, and the second guy struggled to help me but did very well answering my questions. I felt really badly for having so many questions but I appreciated his effort to help me a lot!
The Heroes Square area also has some random things close by, such as a zoo, a "fun park", a trampoline, tons of balloons being sold, as well as other knickknacks and restaurants. It seems like Budapest has a lot of seemingly random entertainment things dotting the city.
Last stop in this area was to meander through the castle area. But at this point, we've seen so many castles that this one seemed to pale in comparison.
Then we started taking the tram back to Bernhard's place. We stopped outside of the train station, and decided to jump off to reserve our couchettes for our train ride to Poland. I sent my CS requests to people in Poland a couple of nights ago. Yesterday I got a response from somebody that they could host us the whole week - this is awesome! Talking to him more, he wanted to know when our train was coming in. When I looked up the train, I found out that it was a 10 hour train ride!!! I thought it would be like 3 or 4! So good thing I looked that up! Anyway we decided to take an overnight train, hence needing to reserve a couchette (place to sleep).
After our bitter experiences with this train station a few days ago, I thought maybe it would be better today. It wasn't. It was a maze trying to find the signs to where the international ticket center was. So many unclear signs, turns, passageways through souvenir and restaurant areas, and finally, finally we arrived in this dingy corner at the back of the station and reserved our couchettes. That train station is just a mess. It wins the Worst Train Station Of the Trip So Far award hands down.
Then we went home and waited for Bernhard to get home from work. The Canadian girls left this morning so it's down to just us three. We told him we wanted to get some cheap, delicious Hungarian food. So he took us to a "lunch room" buffet and we ordered some different dishes. Needless to say, it was TERRIBLE! It was even expensive by Hungarian standards too since we got like 5 different things to taste. After we were about half way through, Bernhard decided to tell us that this is the place people go when they need something filling and cheap - it is not actually considered to be good food. I was like, seriously why would you bring us here?!? Good thing Hungary is cheap in general, because I LOVE eating, and bad food is a gastronomic waste of my time, money, and taste buds. Ugh. And all I really wanted was a cheap little gyro too...Oh well. At least I got to try some working class Hungarian food?
Bernhard redeemed himself by taking us "up a big hill to a statue" which just happened to be a HUGE hill with a super famous/important statue. This is the hill that the city's citadel is on. The statue is of a woman holding a peaceful palm tree branch. The statue is important because when communism ended in 1989 (not that long ago!!!) it replaced a statue of a Russian holding a gun. Yikes. Anyway, I had read that the city was amazing to look at during the night time, when it's all lit up, and it definitely was. We could see all the places we've walked so far and the castle hill area (with the National Gallery Museum and the Fisherman's Bastion), the famous Chain Bridge, and the parliament really looked fantastic lit up. Unfortunately, my camera is old/lame so I was not able to get any good pictures of it. Hopefully Laura got some. So we spent some time on the hill looking out at the panoramic view of the city and goofed off by taking mustache pictures. Let me explain: when your hair is long enough, you can trap it between your upper lip and your nose, and then you have a mustache. Some exceptions: A) Your name is Laura, and your nose points upwards which makes it very difficult to make a mustache, or B) You are a boy with not-enough-hair, in which case you must borrow hair from a girl with long hair (ergo Bernhard used Laura's hair much more successfully than she did). This must sound ridiculous! But the pictures are hilarious!
I didn't realize that communism was in Hungary until so recently. What I learned about the statue really impressed me; I think it is so neat that this part of the world has changed so much so recently and that we are able to safely travel all these different places.
Anyway, we had a really funny and enjoyable walk back to Bernhard's place. I think with 5 CSers he was a little overwhelmed, and with just the two of us he started to open up a lot more which was great. At the bottom of the hill, close to his house, he took us to a tea house (called "Teahaz"). They had an amazing selection of teas! They also had an area of the tea house where you had to take your shoes off and then you sit on beanbags at your table. It cost around $3.5 for a pot of tea that could serve 6 cups of tea. You typically order one pot per person. Then you sit there for as long as you like, sipping, lounging, chatting. It is glorious. The three of us continued having fun and interesting conversations, but it was a little bit awkward because the area we were sitting in had two couples also on bean bags making out with each other and just in general being very cuddly. So I felt a little out of place, but we just kept to ourselves haha. As we were leaving the teahaz, they offered us fortune cookies and they said there were English and Hungarian cookies. I asked for a Hungarian cookie - thinking it was somehow different from the English cookie (but really it just meant the fortune itself was in Hungarian) so Bernhard came to my rescue and made sure I got an English fortune.
That was the day...After such a mellow tea experience it was quite easy to go to bed.
Quotes:
Laura: "Hilary looks cute and I look dumb, so people tend to like us..."
Hilary: "Little do they know..."
Laura: "We're scamming their system!!!"
Accomplishments:
Finally ate some food I didn't like.
Travel Tip:
It's convenient to be more experimental in cheaper countries.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Buda Side
It was a slow-ish morning but by 11 we were on the road. The first day in a new city tends to be the Walking Day, and today we literally walked for seven hours. Not including the hour that we stopped for lunch...we were on our feet for seven hours. Exhausting!
In those seven hours though, we did quite a lot. We went to the Castle District, which is home to basically all of the attractions on the Buda side (most of the youthful, energetic city vibe is found on the Pest side). This means we went to the Buda Palace, saw the National Gallery, went to the Fisherman's Bastion, and saw the Mathias Church. From the top of the hill we could see all of Pest, including great views (in the great weather!) of the Parliament across the Danube River and the famous Chain Bridge.
Getting to the top of Castle Hill though was a little bit of an adventure. We walked alllll the way up the Buda side of the river, and we knew where the hill was, obviously, but we couldn't see a way to get up it. Finally I saw some stairs across the road, but as we got closer we saw a sign that said you couldn't climb the stairs to access the castle. So we kept walking. Then we found this train type thing that you could pay to take you to the top of the hill, but we thought - there must be a free way to walk up. So we walked under this exhaust-fumed-filled bridge to the back of the hill. There, it felt kind of like a video game. We would see stairs, walk up them, check out the view, look for more stairs, and just keep going up as long as we didn't hit any dead ends. So we finally made it to the top, but we really did do it entirely backwards. Weird.
The views were great but we didn't want to pay to go into anything, so there wasn't all that much to do. There was touristy stuff around, and I actually bought my plate super early! Exciting - now I don't have to worry about it for the rest of my time here. They also had a "make your own photo-postcard machine" which I'd never seen before and loved. The machine takes 6 pictures of you, and then you pick which picture you like the best. Then it puts that picture in the middle of 6 different postcards, and you pick which postcard you like the best. Then you can pay a lot of money ($3.5) and get a postcard to send to people. I'm sure this machine exists somewhere else but it was a first time thing for me. Laura and I played with it and did everything up to buying an actual postcard. Looking at the other touristy things was fun too. Even though you can tell their really overpriced and poorly made, it's still fun to see how these little trinkets change from country to country.
When we walked down from the hill, it was lunch time. After a bit more walking, I noticed a chalkboard with an advertisement for a "Napi Menu". Good thing I had read about Napi menus the day before!! They are the best thing ever! Napi means Daily, and the Daily menus are two or three course meals for REALLY, ridiculously cheap prices. So even though we couldn't understand what the menu items were, we decided to be both frugal and adventurous and took a seat at this little restaurant.
The waiters explained to us that the two courses were fruit soup (Whaaaat?!!) followed by fried turkey with rice and vegetables. Sold! Oh yeah, and this cost $4.5. Hungary is awesome.
Fruit soup was a huge adventure!! How have I never, ever heard of fruit soup before? It was like drinking a sugary, fruity broth with chunks of cherries, huckleberries, blackberries, strawberries, and who knows what other kinds of fruit in it. And it had whipped cream on the top. It really seemed like more of a dessert. Anyway it was really cool to try! It was funny because Laura and I were both a little skeptical after just hearing about it, but we're both huge fans now. The fried turkey was delicious and moist, and the rice with vegetables was really just thick rice with peas. We also tried a Hungarian beer, which like any local, cheap beer in a country not known for good beer, was terrible.
Then we decided to start the long walk back to Bernhard's place, since we didn't really have anything else to do. But somehow we ended up taking a wrong turn or following a wrong road, and ended up at the "Island Bridge". All the bridges here obviously have real names, but we have renamed the four main bridges: "Green Bridge", "White Bridge", "Famous Bridge", "Island Bridge". But we decided to cross Island Bridge, and get off halfway and go to Margaret Island (why we named it Island Bridge).
Margaret Island was amazing! It was like Green Lake, but - and I hate to say this - like a million times better. It's a WHOLE island, in the middle of northern Budapest, with practically no development on it, just runners, bikers, roller bladers, and walkers. It was amazing! Everybody there was being so healthy. And there were SO many people running it almost seemed like there was a marathon going on or something. It was crazy! And they have a track turf rubber lane that goes all the way around the island, since that is better material that cement or gravel to run on. But aside from that rubber lane, everything else is essentially au naturale. We found a couple of random statues, and there's a random water park, a hostel, and a petting zoo - some weird things! But really, mostly it was just people working out. And it's an island, duh, so there were also tons of kayakers in the water. So so so cool.
Finally we figured it was time to start the now even longer walk back to Bernhards. Sure enough, it took us a full two hours to get back there! But when we arrived, the Canadian girls were making pasta and garlic bread for everybody. What an awesome thing to come home to.
After a family dinner with the five of us (Hiro left in the afternoon), we played the longest game of Uno ever! Then, I spent a few hours looking up different things to do the rest of the week. It seems like there is so much to do here, and we are supposed to have great weather for most of our time here!
Quotes:
"I don't know." - Bernhard (this is his answer to 90% of our questions lol).
Accomplishments:
Shaved my legs! Woo!! Skirt time tomorrow!
Bough postcards & stamps finally.
Travel Tip:
Walking is a good way to get to know the city.
In those seven hours though, we did quite a lot. We went to the Castle District, which is home to basically all of the attractions on the Buda side (most of the youthful, energetic city vibe is found on the Pest side). This means we went to the Buda Palace, saw the National Gallery, went to the Fisherman's Bastion, and saw the Mathias Church. From the top of the hill we could see all of Pest, including great views (in the great weather!) of the Parliament across the Danube River and the famous Chain Bridge.
Getting to the top of Castle Hill though was a little bit of an adventure. We walked alllll the way up the Buda side of the river, and we knew where the hill was, obviously, but we couldn't see a way to get up it. Finally I saw some stairs across the road, but as we got closer we saw a sign that said you couldn't climb the stairs to access the castle. So we kept walking. Then we found this train type thing that you could pay to take you to the top of the hill, but we thought - there must be a free way to walk up. So we walked under this exhaust-fumed-filled bridge to the back of the hill. There, it felt kind of like a video game. We would see stairs, walk up them, check out the view, look for more stairs, and just keep going up as long as we didn't hit any dead ends. So we finally made it to the top, but we really did do it entirely backwards. Weird.
The views were great but we didn't want to pay to go into anything, so there wasn't all that much to do. There was touristy stuff around, and I actually bought my plate super early! Exciting - now I don't have to worry about it for the rest of my time here. They also had a "make your own photo-postcard machine" which I'd never seen before and loved. The machine takes 6 pictures of you, and then you pick which picture you like the best. Then it puts that picture in the middle of 6 different postcards, and you pick which postcard you like the best. Then you can pay a lot of money ($3.5) and get a postcard to send to people. I'm sure this machine exists somewhere else but it was a first time thing for me. Laura and I played with it and did everything up to buying an actual postcard. Looking at the other touristy things was fun too. Even though you can tell their really overpriced and poorly made, it's still fun to see how these little trinkets change from country to country.
When we walked down from the hill, it was lunch time. After a bit more walking, I noticed a chalkboard with an advertisement for a "Napi Menu". Good thing I had read about Napi menus the day before!! They are the best thing ever! Napi means Daily, and the Daily menus are two or three course meals for REALLY, ridiculously cheap prices. So even though we couldn't understand what the menu items were, we decided to be both frugal and adventurous and took a seat at this little restaurant.
The waiters explained to us that the two courses were fruit soup (Whaaaat?!!) followed by fried turkey with rice and vegetables. Sold! Oh yeah, and this cost $4.5. Hungary is awesome.
Fruit soup was a huge adventure!! How have I never, ever heard of fruit soup before? It was like drinking a sugary, fruity broth with chunks of cherries, huckleberries, blackberries, strawberries, and who knows what other kinds of fruit in it. And it had whipped cream on the top. It really seemed like more of a dessert. Anyway it was really cool to try! It was funny because Laura and I were both a little skeptical after just hearing about it, but we're both huge fans now. The fried turkey was delicious and moist, and the rice with vegetables was really just thick rice with peas. We also tried a Hungarian beer, which like any local, cheap beer in a country not known for good beer, was terrible.
Then we decided to start the long walk back to Bernhard's place, since we didn't really have anything else to do. But somehow we ended up taking a wrong turn or following a wrong road, and ended up at the "Island Bridge". All the bridges here obviously have real names, but we have renamed the four main bridges: "Green Bridge", "White Bridge", "Famous Bridge", "Island Bridge". But we decided to cross Island Bridge, and get off halfway and go to Margaret Island (why we named it Island Bridge).
Margaret Island was amazing! It was like Green Lake, but - and I hate to say this - like a million times better. It's a WHOLE island, in the middle of northern Budapest, with practically no development on it, just runners, bikers, roller bladers, and walkers. It was amazing! Everybody there was being so healthy. And there were SO many people running it almost seemed like there was a marathon going on or something. It was crazy! And they have a track turf rubber lane that goes all the way around the island, since that is better material that cement or gravel to run on. But aside from that rubber lane, everything else is essentially au naturale. We found a couple of random statues, and there's a random water park, a hostel, and a petting zoo - some weird things! But really, mostly it was just people working out. And it's an island, duh, so there were also tons of kayakers in the water. So so so cool.
Finally we figured it was time to start the now even longer walk back to Bernhards. Sure enough, it took us a full two hours to get back there! But when we arrived, the Canadian girls were making pasta and garlic bread for everybody. What an awesome thing to come home to.
After a family dinner with the five of us (Hiro left in the afternoon), we played the longest game of Uno ever! Then, I spent a few hours looking up different things to do the rest of the week. It seems like there is so much to do here, and we are supposed to have great weather for most of our time here!
Quotes:
"I don't know." - Bernhard (this is his answer to 90% of our questions lol).
Accomplishments:
Shaved my legs! Woo!! Skirt time tomorrow!
Bough postcards & stamps finally.
Travel Tip:
Walking is a good way to get to know the city.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Bernhard - CS #13 | Arrival Mishaps
We slept in til 11, just because we could. Travel days are usually also catch-up-on-sleep days. The only thing on our agenda was, naturally, more food.
We had heard from multiple people about a restaurant called Deewan (D1) which was an all you can eat Pakistani restaurant. The catch is that the restaurant was a "Pay as you wish" place. It was customary to pay only 3 or 4 euros for an entire meal there! Laura and I couldn't wait. We arrived around lunchtime, so it was moderately busy. Nobody talked to us, nothing was in English, so we just watched and followed. I think the restaurant makes a lot of different things, but only serves 6 main dishes per day in mass quantities. Today they had 1) rice, 2) a chicken dish, 3) beans, 4) a potato dish, 5) something gross, and 6) something unknown but OK. Before we knew it, we had simply picked up plates, loaded them with variations of the 6 entrees, and sat down. Free tap water is notoriously hard to get in Europe. But, on a tray next to the kitchen were glasses of tap water, neatly arranged. We watched, and soon we had just taken a glass of tap water for ourselves. Still, nobody has talked to us. We had no clue if we were doing anything here right, but assumed we must be if we weren't in trouble yet. We both went back for seconds, I also got salad and some custardy dessert thing, and we both got more glasses of water. It was delightful. The only time anybody really paid us any attention was when we finished our meals. Somehow, within 5 seconds of putting our fork from our last bite down, somebody would come and whisk away our plates! It was amazing! Then we were really confused how people paid. I went and spied and found out where the cash register even was, and Laura saw that people were just handing some coins to the guy by the cash register and walking out - before he even had a chance to count them. So it was literally "Pay as you wish" - there were no prices. Crazy!! Laura and I left around 5 euros each, which still felt like we were stealing food. Oh yeah, and this restaurant's slogan is "Good Food, Good Mood" - which I have lovingly adopted as one of my own life mottoes. It is so true :)
Then it was ice cream time. We had also heard from a couple people (a recommendation from one local makes it a good recommendation, a second, unrelated recommendation from another local makes it a Must-Do) about an ice cream place called Zanoni & Zanoni. We knew exactly where it was because we'd passed it many times just walking around. We acted like pros on the public transportation system, zipped into Zanoni's, got some Amazing ice cream, sat at their cafe for about 4 minutes, and then decided that we didn't really have time to sit there any longer. We hadn't packed yet and our train left in about 2 hours and we were currently in the city center, half an hour away from Veronika's flat!
Somehow, we ended up doing our fastest packing job yet and were on our way to "Meidling Station" a little over an hour before our train was supposed to leave. One problem: we didn't know where Meidling Station was, but we decided it couldn't be that hard to find because it was a freaking international train station! We found a map of the metro system and found a Meidling Station stop. Thrilled, we arrived with half an hour to spare! Except that...looking around, it just seemed too quiet and too slow-paced to be a train station, even for a random Tuesday afternoon. As we climbed the stairs to the ground level, we didn't see any signs to trains. Ut oh....So we asked some police officers, "Where are the trains please? We are scheduled to leave for Budapest in half an hour." They didn't' quite have good enough English, but one police officer took us to a BIGGER map of the metro system, one that we had never seen before in our WEEK in Vienna, and pointed out ANOTHER Meidling station that was also called some other name and was farther away, and partially back the way we just came. Exasperated, we thanked him and flew down the stairs. When the metro came, we got on, but still couldn't see this Meidling Station on a map - because on this map it was called its second name. WHY Vienna has two stations named the SAME thing and why the international train station has TWO names and WHY the name is written on the map is NOT the same one that comes up when you search for the station on a computer is all quite beyond me.
So - we arrived with 15 minutes to spare - which is still really good for us considering some of our mad dashes through train stations. We even had time to get our European East Eurail validated. This is good because now all of our passes have been validated and we don't need to worry about that anymore. Once we were on the train, it was a very easy ride and soon we were in Budapest.
So Budapest is probably the most exciting place we've been so far, just because it is the most challenging so far. It throws me back to my SAS days of being utterly confused. As soon as we got off the train, people were hounding us to come get in their taxis or stay at their hotels. The languages there are Hungarian and a little bit of German, which means that English is actually on quite a few signs because not that many people around the world know Hungarian and German. (In other places where they had multiple romance languages, less stuff was in English it seemed like). And this sounds terrible, but we didn't even know what their currency was (it's the Forint) or what the conversion rate was (it's 200 FT = $1). This reminded me a lot of Viet Nam or Thailand, where you are spending hundreds or thousands of "units" but really it's only a few dollars. So much getting used to was in order, in the world away from romance languages and euros :) This is what gets my traveling adrenaline going! I love it.
We had a tough time nailing down really specific details with our host - he said he might be at the train station to meet us if he could get off work in time, but if he wasn't, to make our way to his place, and to call him on his cell phone if anything went wrong. Except that he didn't leave his cell phone number and all of his CS pictures were far away shots so we couldn't even really tell what he looked like! OH YEAH, when we looked up our train it said we were stopping at the "Deli Pu" station at 18:45, on the Buda side of Budapest, and that's where he was planning on meeting us. Except that our train stopped once at 18:41 and again at 18:49 - and did NOT go to the Deli Pu station at all. It spit us out at the "Keleti Pu" station, which is on the Pest side of Budapest, where there was little to no chance of our host actually being there. Great. so now what?
We struggled through 3 visits to the information office, who couldn't really tell us anything useful because of language barriers. We found a tourist office that was closing, but a kind man there gave us a map and told us which bus to take to get to our host's general area. But we didn't have any money. The tourist shop man said we could buy tickets from the newspaper stand. We went to the newspaper stand and asked where an ATM was in the train station. The lady said there WASN'T one. How could there NOT be an ATM in an international train station? So I figured she just must not have known where it was or must not have understood us, because come on, there had to be a freaking ATM, so we could buy a freaking bus ticket, so we could freaking find out host.
And at this point, nice tourist shop man had left and we'd already been to the information office 3 times.
Here, you just have to laugh, take a deep breath, and think, "OK, what next?"
Next: we FOUND the ATM, but the slot where you put your card in was pushed really creepily far back into the machine. It looked like it was going to eat it and never give it back. We found that very strange and did not put our cards in. I hung around and watched somebody else attempt to use the machine and he also thought that was weird, which confirmed that it probably was not normal.
So, next: I thought - screw it. Let's just take the bus. Our host for sure isn't here, we know where the bus is, and which direction to take it, and where to get off, so let's just get on and hope that we don't get caught. Which is what we did. We just stole a little bit of public transportation, got off 4 stops later, and quickly found our hosts' flat. PHEW. Still no money - but at least we had arrived.
When we walked into his flat, we were greeted by our host, Bernhard, and three other CouchSurfers. Two were Canadian girls named Sherilee and Mandy, and one was a Japanese guy named Hiro. Between the 5 of us I felt like Bernhard was running a youth hostel! It was crazy. And all five of us were sleeping in the same room. There was no floor space, just backpacks, everywhere.
Bernhard is a consultant not much older than us who was born in Hungary but has citizenship in Germany as well. He spent 4 months volunteering in Peru, has one brother, and hosts quite a lot - other than that I don't know too much about him. I think he was a little overwhelmed with so many CSers invading his house, so he was pretty quiet while we were all jabbering away.
We sat around chatting and getting to know each other, and soon Bernhard led our group to dinner. We went to a mediocre Italian place and nothing very exciting happened at dinner.
When we got back, I read the Budapest section of the European travel guide book that the Canadians brought, which was helpful since I didn't really know anything about Budapest. (Laura and I split up countries to research and Hungary was one of her countries).
After a long day, I was ready for bed. It was so funny, that room just stuffed full of 20-somethings from around the world...
Quotes:
Group: "So, are you going back to Japan soon?" (To Hiro, who hasn't been back much over the last 4 years)
Hiro: "Yes. I need to make baby."
Everybody burst out laughing...
Group: "Well, first do you need to make girlfriend?"
Hiro: "Yes yes, first I need to make girlfriend, then I need to make baby."
Accomplishments:
Found our host.
Travel Tip:
It would be good to know the currency and conversion rate before you arrive in a country. Also, trying to arrive during working hours so that things like tourist offices will still be open is smart.
Stay calm, stay optimistic, stay clear-headed. It will work out.
Nice People Alert:
Tourist Shop Man - for giving us a map and actually telling us something useful and helpful!
We had heard from multiple people about a restaurant called Deewan (D1) which was an all you can eat Pakistani restaurant. The catch is that the restaurant was a "Pay as you wish" place. It was customary to pay only 3 or 4 euros for an entire meal there! Laura and I couldn't wait. We arrived around lunchtime, so it was moderately busy. Nobody talked to us, nothing was in English, so we just watched and followed. I think the restaurant makes a lot of different things, but only serves 6 main dishes per day in mass quantities. Today they had 1) rice, 2) a chicken dish, 3) beans, 4) a potato dish, 5) something gross, and 6) something unknown but OK. Before we knew it, we had simply picked up plates, loaded them with variations of the 6 entrees, and sat down. Free tap water is notoriously hard to get in Europe. But, on a tray next to the kitchen were glasses of tap water, neatly arranged. We watched, and soon we had just taken a glass of tap water for ourselves. Still, nobody has talked to us. We had no clue if we were doing anything here right, but assumed we must be if we weren't in trouble yet. We both went back for seconds, I also got salad and some custardy dessert thing, and we both got more glasses of water. It was delightful. The only time anybody really paid us any attention was when we finished our meals. Somehow, within 5 seconds of putting our fork from our last bite down, somebody would come and whisk away our plates! It was amazing! Then we were really confused how people paid. I went and spied and found out where the cash register even was, and Laura saw that people were just handing some coins to the guy by the cash register and walking out - before he even had a chance to count them. So it was literally "Pay as you wish" - there were no prices. Crazy!! Laura and I left around 5 euros each, which still felt like we were stealing food. Oh yeah, and this restaurant's slogan is "Good Food, Good Mood" - which I have lovingly adopted as one of my own life mottoes. It is so true :)
Then it was ice cream time. We had also heard from a couple people (a recommendation from one local makes it a good recommendation, a second, unrelated recommendation from another local makes it a Must-Do) about an ice cream place called Zanoni & Zanoni. We knew exactly where it was because we'd passed it many times just walking around. We acted like pros on the public transportation system, zipped into Zanoni's, got some Amazing ice cream, sat at their cafe for about 4 minutes, and then decided that we didn't really have time to sit there any longer. We hadn't packed yet and our train left in about 2 hours and we were currently in the city center, half an hour away from Veronika's flat!
Somehow, we ended up doing our fastest packing job yet and were on our way to "Meidling Station" a little over an hour before our train was supposed to leave. One problem: we didn't know where Meidling Station was, but we decided it couldn't be that hard to find because it was a freaking international train station! We found a map of the metro system and found a Meidling Station stop. Thrilled, we arrived with half an hour to spare! Except that...looking around, it just seemed too quiet and too slow-paced to be a train station, even for a random Tuesday afternoon. As we climbed the stairs to the ground level, we didn't see any signs to trains. Ut oh....So we asked some police officers, "Where are the trains please? We are scheduled to leave for Budapest in half an hour." They didn't' quite have good enough English, but one police officer took us to a BIGGER map of the metro system, one that we had never seen before in our WEEK in Vienna, and pointed out ANOTHER Meidling station that was also called some other name and was farther away, and partially back the way we just came. Exasperated, we thanked him and flew down the stairs. When the metro came, we got on, but still couldn't see this Meidling Station on a map - because on this map it was called its second name. WHY Vienna has two stations named the SAME thing and why the international train station has TWO names and WHY the name is written on the map is NOT the same one that comes up when you search for the station on a computer is all quite beyond me.
So - we arrived with 15 minutes to spare - which is still really good for us considering some of our mad dashes through train stations. We even had time to get our European East Eurail validated. This is good because now all of our passes have been validated and we don't need to worry about that anymore. Once we were on the train, it was a very easy ride and soon we were in Budapest.
So Budapest is probably the most exciting place we've been so far, just because it is the most challenging so far. It throws me back to my SAS days of being utterly confused. As soon as we got off the train, people were hounding us to come get in their taxis or stay at their hotels. The languages there are Hungarian and a little bit of German, which means that English is actually on quite a few signs because not that many people around the world know Hungarian and German. (In other places where they had multiple romance languages, less stuff was in English it seemed like). And this sounds terrible, but we didn't even know what their currency was (it's the Forint) or what the conversion rate was (it's 200 FT = $1). This reminded me a lot of Viet Nam or Thailand, where you are spending hundreds or thousands of "units" but really it's only a few dollars. So much getting used to was in order, in the world away from romance languages and euros :) This is what gets my traveling adrenaline going! I love it.
We had a tough time nailing down really specific details with our host - he said he might be at the train station to meet us if he could get off work in time, but if he wasn't, to make our way to his place, and to call him on his cell phone if anything went wrong. Except that he didn't leave his cell phone number and all of his CS pictures were far away shots so we couldn't even really tell what he looked like! OH YEAH, when we looked up our train it said we were stopping at the "Deli Pu" station at 18:45, on the Buda side of Budapest, and that's where he was planning on meeting us. Except that our train stopped once at 18:41 and again at 18:49 - and did NOT go to the Deli Pu station at all. It spit us out at the "Keleti Pu" station, which is on the Pest side of Budapest, where there was little to no chance of our host actually being there. Great. so now what?
We struggled through 3 visits to the information office, who couldn't really tell us anything useful because of language barriers. We found a tourist office that was closing, but a kind man there gave us a map and told us which bus to take to get to our host's general area. But we didn't have any money. The tourist shop man said we could buy tickets from the newspaper stand. We went to the newspaper stand and asked where an ATM was in the train station. The lady said there WASN'T one. How could there NOT be an ATM in an international train station? So I figured she just must not have known where it was or must not have understood us, because come on, there had to be a freaking ATM, so we could buy a freaking bus ticket, so we could freaking find out host.
And at this point, nice tourist shop man had left and we'd already been to the information office 3 times.
Here, you just have to laugh, take a deep breath, and think, "OK, what next?"
Next: we FOUND the ATM, but the slot where you put your card in was pushed really creepily far back into the machine. It looked like it was going to eat it and never give it back. We found that very strange and did not put our cards in. I hung around and watched somebody else attempt to use the machine and he also thought that was weird, which confirmed that it probably was not normal.
So, next: I thought - screw it. Let's just take the bus. Our host for sure isn't here, we know where the bus is, and which direction to take it, and where to get off, so let's just get on and hope that we don't get caught. Which is what we did. We just stole a little bit of public transportation, got off 4 stops later, and quickly found our hosts' flat. PHEW. Still no money - but at least we had arrived.
When we walked into his flat, we were greeted by our host, Bernhard, and three other CouchSurfers. Two were Canadian girls named Sherilee and Mandy, and one was a Japanese guy named Hiro. Between the 5 of us I felt like Bernhard was running a youth hostel! It was crazy. And all five of us were sleeping in the same room. There was no floor space, just backpacks, everywhere.
Bernhard is a consultant not much older than us who was born in Hungary but has citizenship in Germany as well. He spent 4 months volunteering in Peru, has one brother, and hosts quite a lot - other than that I don't know too much about him. I think he was a little overwhelmed with so many CSers invading his house, so he was pretty quiet while we were all jabbering away.
We sat around chatting and getting to know each other, and soon Bernhard led our group to dinner. We went to a mediocre Italian place and nothing very exciting happened at dinner.
When we got back, I read the Budapest section of the European travel guide book that the Canadians brought, which was helpful since I didn't really know anything about Budapest. (Laura and I split up countries to research and Hungary was one of her countries).
After a long day, I was ready for bed. It was so funny, that room just stuffed full of 20-somethings from around the world...
Quotes:
Group: "So, are you going back to Japan soon?" (To Hiro, who hasn't been back much over the last 4 years)
Hiro: "Yes. I need to make baby."
Everybody burst out laughing...
Group: "Well, first do you need to make girlfriend?"
Hiro: "Yes yes, first I need to make girlfriend, then I need to make baby."
Accomplishments:
Found our host.
Travel Tip:
It would be good to know the currency and conversion rate before you arrive in a country. Also, trying to arrive during working hours so that things like tourist offices will still be open is smart.
Stay calm, stay optimistic, stay clear-headed. It will work out.
Nice People Alert:
Tourist Shop Man - for giving us a map and actually telling us something useful and helpful!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Delicious Meals
This morning we had something glorious to look forward to. Heather, who also likes to cook/bake, invited us over to enjoy a traditional American breakfast with her!! Laura's favorite meal is breakfast and I just love food, so we were more than happy to oblige. Seriously, what a happy way to wake up - with the first thing on your agenda to go eat delicious home cooked breakfast food with somebody from your home country :)
My mouth I think started salivating walking up the stairs to Heather's flat. It definitely started salivating when I saw the huge plate of fresh blueberry muffins, the huge plate of fresh baked biscuits, and the growing stack of pancakes next to Heather who was still working at the stove. She was also making us fresh gravy. There was fruit and fruit juice, butter, syrup, and honey...it was AMAZING! A little embarrassing is that we had told Heather about how much we eat and so she had cooked and baked an especially large amount to try at satiate our appetites. How embarrassing! There was so much food there! Nonetheless, we tried to live up to our reputation. Laura did eat at least twice as much as me though - pretty impressive. Everything was delicious though and we spent a leisurely 3 hours chatting and munching on Heather's incredible breakfast!
Hegan was also there running around which was lots of fun to see :) He is such a cute little boy. Finally, when it got to be 1:30 PM Laura and I figured we should get on with our other errands. As we were making our way to the door, Hegan came up to me with his arms outstretched and holding a disc-like yellow toy. I picked him up and he threw it to the ground and kicked and whimpered to get put down. So I put him down, thinking he had dropped it on accident (silly me). He picked it up and raised his arms to be picked up again. Of course I obliged and he happily threw his toy on the floor again. This happened one or two more times before I said to him, "Nein" regarding picking him up again. But then he just started making his beautiful blue eyes water and started to whine and I caved and picked him up again. Only to have him throw his toy on the ground AGAIN. I was being made a fool of by this cute little kid but I finally stopped! Oh kids.... :) They are so silly.
Laura and I went back to the Nachmarkt, and got our fresh raviolis for dinner which included basil raviolis, prosciutto raviolis, quattro formaggi raviolis, ricotta and spinach raviolis, and one other kind that I can't remember. We also got up-sold and bought some amazing looking/smelling fresh pesto sauce!! I LOVE markets!!!! I need to live close to one. Then Laura found a shot glass and I was feeling much more productive than yesterday. We had one errand left to do - which was to go find patches for our sad pairs of jeans that are taking out their angst at us for being worn so often by ripping holes in themselves...rude of our jeans, I think. We found a wool store that Veronika told us would probably have patches, and they did. So many things crossed off of our little to-do list!
Veronika got home soon after we did, and the three of us headed out to a grocery store. We owed her a grocery trip to restock her kitchen after feeding us that feast a couple of days ago, and we needed some supplements to our dinner - ravioli and pesto was not a complete meal. It was great fun to go grocery shopping with Veronika! She has a large basket-type thing on wheels with a dog on it, and this device is named Michelle and it's what Veronika uses to carry groceries home. Very clever - finding ways to not use a car and walk every where! I love it.
At the grocery store, we got items for an anti-pasto plate designed by Veronika. She got half of a cantaloupe, freshly sliced prosciutto, freshly sliced ham, olives, sheep cheese, some extra raviolis, some rosemary bread sticks, some olive oil, and some other stuff too I think.
At home, she refused to let us help and once again whipped up a delightful 2 course meal. She decided to start us off with just the antipasto plate so that we would eat slower and have a longer, nice meal (told you! I love her!). Her antipasto plates were a beauty. The only drawback was that the store bought olives were not as good as the Naschmarkt olives I got a couple of days ago...so perhaps olives as well as beer, fries, waffles, chocolate, and cheese has also been ruined for me?! What a scary thought. But it was a delicious and rather filling appetizer course. Then she made our raviolis, as well as two other types of noodles, and was modifying some left over bolognaise sauce. So she had all four burners going while we sat watching in awe...Soon all of our noodles were ready and we had one type of noodles with her delicious bolognaise and the other types of raviolis and tortellini noodles with our fresh pesto sauce. The pesto was also a little too salty, but good and fresh nonetheless. She brought out a bottle of red wine and we stuffed ourselves on noodles. It was beautiful. I am going to miss eating with her!! It is so much fun.
After dinner, Veronika gave us directions to an Heuriger, which means "this year's wine." Heurigers are usually located on the outskirts of the city because they are connected to vineyards. They serve really cheap, really good wine and have lots of outside seating. They are usually frequented more in the warmer months but one of the Heurigers that Veronika really likes was already open. Veronika didn't feel like coming out with us though, so Laura and I set off to find it ourselves. It wasn't too difficult to find...but the address was 222-224, and we found 227, and 225, and then we found 221 a little farther down. In between 221 and 225 was a huge empty lot filled with dirt. Pretty funny - we were like, did we do something terribly wrong?! Could it really just be a dirt pile all of a sudden...? But then we saw it down the street a little farther.
It was still very pleasant weather to sit outside. They had a well lit, mostly empty courtyard where I enjoyed a glass of red wine while Laura sipped on white wine. We sat there for probably an hour and a half or two and had a really great conversation about all kinds of things. It was a wonderful evening.
Back at Veronika's flat we ironed on our patches so that we will be able to wear real pants again tomorrow! How exciting!
Quotes:
Hilary: "What are you doing to your bolognaise sauce?"
Veronika: "Putting garlic in it, then maybe some salt...It's like a pimped bolognaise."
Hahahaha
"Two-two-two, to two-two-FOUR!" - Our chant that we made up while looking for the Heuriger.
Accomplishments:
Had a real American breakfast!
Found patches for our pants.
Travel Tip:
Bringing patches just in case you get rips and holes is probably easier than trying to find wool shops in foreign countries.
And that was about the extent of today...we officially have done everything on our Vienna list except for go to that D1 Pakistani restaurant and get ice cream at one of the places Veronika recommended to us. Looks like that's our plan for tomorrow! Food food food. That is all we do. Really.
My mouth I think started salivating walking up the stairs to Heather's flat. It definitely started salivating when I saw the huge plate of fresh blueberry muffins, the huge plate of fresh baked biscuits, and the growing stack of pancakes next to Heather who was still working at the stove. She was also making us fresh gravy. There was fruit and fruit juice, butter, syrup, and honey...it was AMAZING! A little embarrassing is that we had told Heather about how much we eat and so she had cooked and baked an especially large amount to try at satiate our appetites. How embarrassing! There was so much food there! Nonetheless, we tried to live up to our reputation. Laura did eat at least twice as much as me though - pretty impressive. Everything was delicious though and we spent a leisurely 3 hours chatting and munching on Heather's incredible breakfast!
Hegan was also there running around which was lots of fun to see :) He is such a cute little boy. Finally, when it got to be 1:30 PM Laura and I figured we should get on with our other errands. As we were making our way to the door, Hegan came up to me with his arms outstretched and holding a disc-like yellow toy. I picked him up and he threw it to the ground and kicked and whimpered to get put down. So I put him down, thinking he had dropped it on accident (silly me). He picked it up and raised his arms to be picked up again. Of course I obliged and he happily threw his toy on the floor again. This happened one or two more times before I said to him, "Nein" regarding picking him up again. But then he just started making his beautiful blue eyes water and started to whine and I caved and picked him up again. Only to have him throw his toy on the ground AGAIN. I was being made a fool of by this cute little kid but I finally stopped! Oh kids.... :) They are so silly.
Laura and I went back to the Nachmarkt, and got our fresh raviolis for dinner which included basil raviolis, prosciutto raviolis, quattro formaggi raviolis, ricotta and spinach raviolis, and one other kind that I can't remember. We also got up-sold and bought some amazing looking/smelling fresh pesto sauce!! I LOVE markets!!!! I need to live close to one. Then Laura found a shot glass and I was feeling much more productive than yesterday. We had one errand left to do - which was to go find patches for our sad pairs of jeans that are taking out their angst at us for being worn so often by ripping holes in themselves...rude of our jeans, I think. We found a wool store that Veronika told us would probably have patches, and they did. So many things crossed off of our little to-do list!
Veronika got home soon after we did, and the three of us headed out to a grocery store. We owed her a grocery trip to restock her kitchen after feeding us that feast a couple of days ago, and we needed some supplements to our dinner - ravioli and pesto was not a complete meal. It was great fun to go grocery shopping with Veronika! She has a large basket-type thing on wheels with a dog on it, and this device is named Michelle and it's what Veronika uses to carry groceries home. Very clever - finding ways to not use a car and walk every where! I love it.
At the grocery store, we got items for an anti-pasto plate designed by Veronika. She got half of a cantaloupe, freshly sliced prosciutto, freshly sliced ham, olives, sheep cheese, some extra raviolis, some rosemary bread sticks, some olive oil, and some other stuff too I think.
At home, she refused to let us help and once again whipped up a delightful 2 course meal. She decided to start us off with just the antipasto plate so that we would eat slower and have a longer, nice meal (told you! I love her!). Her antipasto plates were a beauty. The only drawback was that the store bought olives were not as good as the Naschmarkt olives I got a couple of days ago...so perhaps olives as well as beer, fries, waffles, chocolate, and cheese has also been ruined for me?! What a scary thought. But it was a delicious and rather filling appetizer course. Then she made our raviolis, as well as two other types of noodles, and was modifying some left over bolognaise sauce. So she had all four burners going while we sat watching in awe...Soon all of our noodles were ready and we had one type of noodles with her delicious bolognaise and the other types of raviolis and tortellini noodles with our fresh pesto sauce. The pesto was also a little too salty, but good and fresh nonetheless. She brought out a bottle of red wine and we stuffed ourselves on noodles. It was beautiful. I am going to miss eating with her!! It is so much fun.
After dinner, Veronika gave us directions to an Heuriger, which means "this year's wine." Heurigers are usually located on the outskirts of the city because they are connected to vineyards. They serve really cheap, really good wine and have lots of outside seating. They are usually frequented more in the warmer months but one of the Heurigers that Veronika really likes was already open. Veronika didn't feel like coming out with us though, so Laura and I set off to find it ourselves. It wasn't too difficult to find...but the address was 222-224, and we found 227, and 225, and then we found 221 a little farther down. In between 221 and 225 was a huge empty lot filled with dirt. Pretty funny - we were like, did we do something terribly wrong?! Could it really just be a dirt pile all of a sudden...? But then we saw it down the street a little farther.
It was still very pleasant weather to sit outside. They had a well lit, mostly empty courtyard where I enjoyed a glass of red wine while Laura sipped on white wine. We sat there for probably an hour and a half or two and had a really great conversation about all kinds of things. It was a wonderful evening.
Back at Veronika's flat we ironed on our patches so that we will be able to wear real pants again tomorrow! How exciting!
Quotes:
Hilary: "What are you doing to your bolognaise sauce?"
Veronika: "Putting garlic in it, then maybe some salt...It's like a pimped bolognaise."
Hahahaha
"Two-two-two, to two-two-FOUR!" - Our chant that we made up while looking for the Heuriger.
Accomplishments:
Had a real American breakfast!
Found patches for our pants.
Travel Tip:
Bringing patches just in case you get rips and holes is probably easier than trying to find wool shops in foreign countries.
And that was about the extent of today...we officially have done everything on our Vienna list except for go to that D1 Pakistani restaurant and get ice cream at one of the places Veronika recommended to us. Looks like that's our plan for tomorrow! Food food food. That is all we do. Really.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Closed
Today was slow, long, hot, dehydrating, and thoroughly unproductive. Heather had told us that everything would be closed on Sunday, and she was NOT kidding.
Our first stop was to this restaurant called D1 which serves all you can eat Pakistani food. It's a buffet where you "pay as you wish". So most people pay only 3 or 4 euros and stuff their faces. And this restaurant's motto is "Good Food, Good Mood", which is now my newest personal motto. We found the restaurant, only to find that of course, it is closed on Sundays.
Next.
Well, we had to find lunch somewhere else so we got some street food. I got a chicken kebap (kebap is my new favorite word here, I love the spelling). It was delicious and filling as far as street food for 2.9 euros go!!! I got it shaved fresh off the spit, with yogurt sauce and veggies and a little hot sauce and it was yummmmy. We topped our lunches off with ice cream. Seriously, people are eating ice cream here 24/7, regardless of age, weight, time, or weather. Ice cream, 24/7. We sat in the sun and ate our cones and then tried to find souvenirs.
This was the most draining part of the day. We walked around until about 3:30 PM up and down streets looking for souvenir shops (which were open, by the way) but neither of us liked anything we saw there. It was very disheartening, since we are running out time here (we're planning on leaving tomorrow). We called shopping quits and when back to the Naschmarkt to get some fresh food to make our host dinner.
We arrived at the Naschmarkt, which was of course closed on Sundays.
Frustrated with our lack of productivity we decided to call it a day. Heading back to Veronika's, I found a plate I liked better than anything else I'd seen at the freaking tram stop that connects Veronika to the main city area. I can't believe it was just there the whole time! I got it so that my annoying search for it would be over, and we went back to her flat. After feeling dehydrated all day, I downed 3 glasses of water in a row. While we waited for Veronika to get home from work, Laura and I began catching up on the most recent Grey's Anatomy episodes - because, yes, Veronika has all of this season downloaded. Love it! We finished the 2nd to last episode and had just started the most recent episode when Veronika got home. We put the show on hold and chatted with her for a while.
She told us a lot about her family, and I always really respect those conversations. Not everybody is willing to talk about their families, but it is so interesting for me to hear and learn about. Aside from her family, we also had quite a long discussion about World War II which was extremely interesting as well. And also, today just happened to be the Austrian Presidential election day. So Veronika explained to us some of their political things and told us about each of the candidates. It was awesome talking with her about all of these important, real things. These kinds of conversations make me love CouchSurfing even more - who else can you just have an open dialogue about these types of things with? I'm sure you could find people, but having hosts that are willing to share with you their life, their culture, and things about their country and their country's history just makes me so happy. That is really how learning about other lifestyles and countries and making connections happen. Having a broad knowledge base about how things function and operate in other places is so valuable. So it was a wonderful early evening to counteract our mediocre day.
After our conversation wrapped up, we watched a few more minutes of the Grey's Anatomy episode while Veronika got ready to go out to dinner with us. She walked with us to this place called the Tunnel. It is a place that Nathalie had told us about, and Veronika verified that it was in fact a cool and cheap place to go eat. It was a pleasant 20 or 30 minute walk to the restaurant and it was really a great place. It had outside seating, two stories inside, and in the back there was a concert venue area. Laura and I were planning on staying for the evening because there was supposed to be live rock/jazz music starting at 9 PM.
Veronika helped translate the menu for us, and Laura and I in our creepy way ordered the same thing as usual. It was a cous-cous-esque dish mixed with minced meat and topped with cheese. It also came with salad and tzatziki (they eat tzatziki here plain like something in between a yogurt and a salad). We also got little white wine spritzers and later I tried some of their house wine. The place was so ridiculously well priced that I actually ended up spending more than I would have at a normal restaurant because I bought so much freaking food. By about 2/3 of the way through my main meal, I was already full, but kept charging ahead. What can I say, it was good! I have totally abandoned by "stop eating when you're full" philosophy and it is really taking a toll on my belly! After dinner, I got a reasonably priced dessert which turned out to be a huge bowl of fruit (bananas, apples, and pineapple chunks) served with a scoop of strawberry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was not the simple, quasi healthy dessert I had anticipated but of course I ate all of it anyway. Yum. Once again feeling like rolling instead of walking, the three of us walked back home. (The concert was canceled due to health reasons).
Since we really hadn't accomplished what we wanted to today, we asked Veronika if we could stay another night. She said that was fine (yay!). Laura messaged our Budapest host that we would now be a day later, and that was that. The joys of flexibility!!!
Quotes:
"I'm not going to force you to go, I'm just saying you'll regret it if you don't." - Veronika, about an ice cream place.
Accomplishments:
NOTHING.
(Well, I got my plate).
Travel Tip:
Save the walking tours for days when everything is closed...?
I'm just hoping I'll be hungry again by tomorrow morning since of course we have planned our whole day around food...
Our first stop was to this restaurant called D1 which serves all you can eat Pakistani food. It's a buffet where you "pay as you wish". So most people pay only 3 or 4 euros and stuff their faces. And this restaurant's motto is "Good Food, Good Mood", which is now my newest personal motto. We found the restaurant, only to find that of course, it is closed on Sundays.
Next.
Well, we had to find lunch somewhere else so we got some street food. I got a chicken kebap (kebap is my new favorite word here, I love the spelling). It was delicious and filling as far as street food for 2.9 euros go!!! I got it shaved fresh off the spit, with yogurt sauce and veggies and a little hot sauce and it was yummmmy. We topped our lunches off with ice cream. Seriously, people are eating ice cream here 24/7, regardless of age, weight, time, or weather. Ice cream, 24/7. We sat in the sun and ate our cones and then tried to find souvenirs.
This was the most draining part of the day. We walked around until about 3:30 PM up and down streets looking for souvenir shops (which were open, by the way) but neither of us liked anything we saw there. It was very disheartening, since we are running out time here (we're planning on leaving tomorrow). We called shopping quits and when back to the Naschmarkt to get some fresh food to make our host dinner.
We arrived at the Naschmarkt, which was of course closed on Sundays.
Frustrated with our lack of productivity we decided to call it a day. Heading back to Veronika's, I found a plate I liked better than anything else I'd seen at the freaking tram stop that connects Veronika to the main city area. I can't believe it was just there the whole time! I got it so that my annoying search for it would be over, and we went back to her flat. After feeling dehydrated all day, I downed 3 glasses of water in a row. While we waited for Veronika to get home from work, Laura and I began catching up on the most recent Grey's Anatomy episodes - because, yes, Veronika has all of this season downloaded. Love it! We finished the 2nd to last episode and had just started the most recent episode when Veronika got home. We put the show on hold and chatted with her for a while.
She told us a lot about her family, and I always really respect those conversations. Not everybody is willing to talk about their families, but it is so interesting for me to hear and learn about. Aside from her family, we also had quite a long discussion about World War II which was extremely interesting as well. And also, today just happened to be the Austrian Presidential election day. So Veronika explained to us some of their political things and told us about each of the candidates. It was awesome talking with her about all of these important, real things. These kinds of conversations make me love CouchSurfing even more - who else can you just have an open dialogue about these types of things with? I'm sure you could find people, but having hosts that are willing to share with you their life, their culture, and things about their country and their country's history just makes me so happy. That is really how learning about other lifestyles and countries and making connections happen. Having a broad knowledge base about how things function and operate in other places is so valuable. So it was a wonderful early evening to counteract our mediocre day.
After our conversation wrapped up, we watched a few more minutes of the Grey's Anatomy episode while Veronika got ready to go out to dinner with us. She walked with us to this place called the Tunnel. It is a place that Nathalie had told us about, and Veronika verified that it was in fact a cool and cheap place to go eat. It was a pleasant 20 or 30 minute walk to the restaurant and it was really a great place. It had outside seating, two stories inside, and in the back there was a concert venue area. Laura and I were planning on staying for the evening because there was supposed to be live rock/jazz music starting at 9 PM.
Veronika helped translate the menu for us, and Laura and I in our creepy way ordered the same thing as usual. It was a cous-cous-esque dish mixed with minced meat and topped with cheese. It also came with salad and tzatziki (they eat tzatziki here plain like something in between a yogurt and a salad). We also got little white wine spritzers and later I tried some of their house wine. The place was so ridiculously well priced that I actually ended up spending more than I would have at a normal restaurant because I bought so much freaking food. By about 2/3 of the way through my main meal, I was already full, but kept charging ahead. What can I say, it was good! I have totally abandoned by "stop eating when you're full" philosophy and it is really taking a toll on my belly! After dinner, I got a reasonably priced dessert which turned out to be a huge bowl of fruit (bananas, apples, and pineapple chunks) served with a scoop of strawberry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was not the simple, quasi healthy dessert I had anticipated but of course I ate all of it anyway. Yum. Once again feeling like rolling instead of walking, the three of us walked back home. (The concert was canceled due to health reasons).
Since we really hadn't accomplished what we wanted to today, we asked Veronika if we could stay another night. She said that was fine (yay!). Laura messaged our Budapest host that we would now be a day later, and that was that. The joys of flexibility!!!
Quotes:
"I'm not going to force you to go, I'm just saying you'll regret it if you don't." - Veronika, about an ice cream place.
Accomplishments:
NOTHING.
(Well, I got my plate).
Travel Tip:
Save the walking tours for days when everything is closed...?
I'm just hoping I'll be hungry again by tomorrow morning since of course we have planned our whole day around food...
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Slovakia
The joy of being in Europe is that you are often times only a short bus or train ride away from an entirely different country. This morning Laura and I decided to catch a bus for 11 Euros roundtrip to go to Slovakia for the day! Bratislava is only an hour away from Vienna, so we were just like, 'why ever would we not do that?' (This is the cute way Nathy would speak).
We read that the buses were hourly and knew that there was a bus at 930 and 1130 AM, so naturally we assumed there would be a 1030 AM bus as well. We get to the station at 10:10, buy our tickets, and the lady informs us that the next bus is in fact at 11:30 AM. So with some time to kill, we ask for a suggestion of what to do. She tells us about a mall that is 'one stop away', but she didn't specify a direction. So we took the U-bahn one stop in the direction that we had just came from, wandered aimlessly, didn't see any mall, and then took the U-bahn forward two stops to go one stop in the other direction from the bus stop (hope that makes sense). There we found the mall as soon as we got up the escalators. We got some breakfast food, which usually consists of yogurt and maybe something else. I finally found my Kiri cheese and bread stick combo snack packs. Probably designed for 8 year olds but I LOVE Kiri cheese and I only ever see it in Europe (and Egypt. That was unexpected). Then we went on a search for spoons, and ended up taking miniature ice cream spoons from some ice cream shop that was just opening up and had their spoons out. Very thrifty of us.
By then it was time to head back to the bus. The bus left right on time and literally took exactly an hour to get to Bratislava. It dumped us off at the city center, and we spent the day...guess what....wandering! What do we always do? This all must sound so incredibly repetitive. Sorry.
Bratislava was sweet though! Such a cool day trip. It started off by me really having to go to the bathroom. For the first time on our whole trip I paid to go to the bathroom; it was only 20 cents so it wasn't bad. It's worth writing about though because apparently my 20 cents rented me a Western toilet AND - AND - literally 3 pieces of single-ply toilet paper. Excuse me, but honestly, who can accomplish anything with 3 single-ply pieces of toilet paper?!?! What a joke. Luckily, yours truly ALWAYS carries toilet paper with her, for reasons like this. Enough bathroom talk...
It was hot and sunny and it was a weekend day so there were lots of people out walking, eating ice cream, selling stuff, performing, touring...it was very lively. In the city center there was some kind of event going on where there was a big stage set up at one end of it. People and groups took turns singing, dancing, and playing music. The best was this dance troup of young to adolescent girls performing to...Michael Jackson. It seemed somehow a little inappropriate, but downright hilarious to watch. They adolescent girls were in all black with one white-gloved hand, and the seriously young girls were in all white with one black-gloved hand. It was outrageous.In the middle of the square were tons of stations for kids that basically were like coloring-book stations. Some of the tables also had chess sets on them for the big kids. On the outskirts of the square were all the touristy vendor shops selling everything under the Slovakian sun. After the city center, we walked through a restaurant/cafe area and under St. Micheal's Gate, which is one of the last original gates to the old city. Then we walked around the outskirts of the Old City and eventually ended up at the castle. You can walk into the castle grounds and get really great views of the Danube River and of the Old City of Bratislava. Other than that, there wasn't a ton to see in the city, it was really just a fun place to walk around for an afternoon. The city does have a lot of statues up around it which are neat to see. One in particular, called the Working Man, is very famous (somehow...? I think just because people liked it the most). It is a man coming out from the sewer resting his chin on his hands and smiling. I have to admit I haven't seen a statue quite like that before.
After our self-guided and thoroughly uneducated tour, we went to go sit at a traditional Slovakian restaurant in a sunny cafe area. I got something called Devil's Toast which was really interesting and delicious. It was a big, thick piece of bread with some kind of tomato sauce on it, chunks of pork, and then cheese over the top of it. It was very filling. We also tried traditional Slovakian beer (of course) which tasted terrible. OK not terrible, just plain and watery, and, well...terrible, compared to Belgian or Munich beer. The waiter also brought a bread basket which we happily attacked especially after I found olive oil and vinegar on the table. When we got our bill it was more than what we were expecting. Our waiter seemed really nice and explained to us that the bread actually cost a euro. Ok, not a big deal, we did eat it all...He walked away and I was redoing the math again in my head and it just wasn't tying out. I grabbed a menu and saw that what I ordered was 6.5 euros. So I walked up to our waiter who was in a group of 2 or 3 other waiters and asked him very nicely to please explain it to me again. It was a little awkward but if there is one thing I hate when traveling it's getting ripped off. And if I somehow wasn't getting ripped off, I wanted to understand why, because the numbers just weren't tying out. He understood my question and went away for a second. He brought me another menu, where my exact same meal was listed at 7.9 euros!!! I told him that was a little weird, because I bought my meal with the understanding that it was only 6.5 euros (yeah, I'm frugal, I know). He explained to me then that what he was showing me was a "new" menu and I had been looking at an "old" menu. As politely as I could I told him, "You should really consider putting the "new" menus out on the table, so that people know what they're paying for." SERIOUSLY. After that I dropped it - I was full and 1.4 euros is nothing to get too upset about. I was just very confused.
To prove that we went to Slovakia, even if just for a day trip, I got my plate and Laura her shot glass. I've never seen a plate like the one I got in Slovakia, it's really cool. Their traditional ceramics are really pretty so I was excited about that. Then we ended up having a few extra minutes and I needed to mail a letter back to the States. We found Bratislava's post office which was quite hidden and through many series of dark double doors. The lady spoke no English and I played charades with her and managed to get an envelope and a stamp to the United States. Success.
Then we headed back to our bus, which again, came and left right on time. So impressed with everybody's public transportation EXCEPT for Seattle's. Blah. We went back to Veronika's flat in Vienna to regroup and get ready to meet up with Heather. She was able to pawn off adorable little Hegan to the Husband for the evening so she could come and have a girls' night out on the town with us. We met up with Heather around 10 as dressed up as possible (i.e. jeans and a clean shirt, cute shoes optional). Heather wanted to take us to some "beach bars" along the Danube River but they were all closed because it's not late enough in the year. It wasn't cold out and we had a great stroll along the river at night. It took us about 45 minutes to figure out where we wanted to go that would be open - a Mexican place in the city center area. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the city center, but Heather couldn't remember exactly where the restaurant was. The area is so full of tourists that asking people wasn't very fruitful. Obviously Laura and I had no idea. We knew we were close by and in the right place, but somehow it took us another hour of wandering to find this place!!! The good news is that I really loved walking around such a busy, people and light filled area on a Saturday night in Vienna, it was very, very pleasant. Also, since we didn't order our first drinks until 12:30, we saved quite a bit of money since the bars close at 2 AM (we thought they stayed open later, but we were wrong). Laura and I split a pitcher of a deliciously fruity strawberry daiquiri and we girl-talked for the next hour or so. Then we went to a couple of other bars but since they were all closing Heather hopped in a cab with us and helped us get home (so we avoided any more Night Line drama)! It is always a treat to have other people go out and about with you and show you around and help speak the language for you...:) So we had a good time paling (is that a word?) with Heather - she is full of interesting stories, and since she is an American living in Vienna she has some different perspectives that are also really fun to learn about.
Quotes:
"You should really consider putting the new menus out on the table." - Me, to the Slovakian waiter.
Accomplishments:
Day trip to Slovakia - CHECK!
Travel Tip:
Keep an eye out for awesome day trips!
[I think these are getting lamer and lamer as this trip goes on...]
We read that the buses were hourly and knew that there was a bus at 930 and 1130 AM, so naturally we assumed there would be a 1030 AM bus as well. We get to the station at 10:10, buy our tickets, and the lady informs us that the next bus is in fact at 11:30 AM. So with some time to kill, we ask for a suggestion of what to do. She tells us about a mall that is 'one stop away', but she didn't specify a direction. So we took the U-bahn one stop in the direction that we had just came from, wandered aimlessly, didn't see any mall, and then took the U-bahn forward two stops to go one stop in the other direction from the bus stop (hope that makes sense). There we found the mall as soon as we got up the escalators. We got some breakfast food, which usually consists of yogurt and maybe something else. I finally found my Kiri cheese and bread stick combo snack packs. Probably designed for 8 year olds but I LOVE Kiri cheese and I only ever see it in Europe (and Egypt. That was unexpected). Then we went on a search for spoons, and ended up taking miniature ice cream spoons from some ice cream shop that was just opening up and had their spoons out. Very thrifty of us.
By then it was time to head back to the bus. The bus left right on time and literally took exactly an hour to get to Bratislava. It dumped us off at the city center, and we spent the day...guess what....wandering! What do we always do? This all must sound so incredibly repetitive. Sorry.
Bratislava was sweet though! Such a cool day trip. It started off by me really having to go to the bathroom. For the first time on our whole trip I paid to go to the bathroom; it was only 20 cents so it wasn't bad. It's worth writing about though because apparently my 20 cents rented me a Western toilet AND - AND - literally 3 pieces of single-ply toilet paper. Excuse me, but honestly, who can accomplish anything with 3 single-ply pieces of toilet paper?!?! What a joke. Luckily, yours truly ALWAYS carries toilet paper with her, for reasons like this. Enough bathroom talk...
It was hot and sunny and it was a weekend day so there were lots of people out walking, eating ice cream, selling stuff, performing, touring...it was very lively. In the city center there was some kind of event going on where there was a big stage set up at one end of it. People and groups took turns singing, dancing, and playing music. The best was this dance troup of young to adolescent girls performing to...Michael Jackson. It seemed somehow a little inappropriate, but downright hilarious to watch. They adolescent girls were in all black with one white-gloved hand, and the seriously young girls were in all white with one black-gloved hand. It was outrageous.In the middle of the square were tons of stations for kids that basically were like coloring-book stations. Some of the tables also had chess sets on them for the big kids. On the outskirts of the square were all the touristy vendor shops selling everything under the Slovakian sun. After the city center, we walked through a restaurant/cafe area and under St. Micheal's Gate, which is one of the last original gates to the old city. Then we walked around the outskirts of the Old City and eventually ended up at the castle. You can walk into the castle grounds and get really great views of the Danube River and of the Old City of Bratislava. Other than that, there wasn't a ton to see in the city, it was really just a fun place to walk around for an afternoon. The city does have a lot of statues up around it which are neat to see. One in particular, called the Working Man, is very famous (somehow...? I think just because people liked it the most). It is a man coming out from the sewer resting his chin on his hands and smiling. I have to admit I haven't seen a statue quite like that before.
After our self-guided and thoroughly uneducated tour, we went to go sit at a traditional Slovakian restaurant in a sunny cafe area. I got something called Devil's Toast which was really interesting and delicious. It was a big, thick piece of bread with some kind of tomato sauce on it, chunks of pork, and then cheese over the top of it. It was very filling. We also tried traditional Slovakian beer (of course) which tasted terrible. OK not terrible, just plain and watery, and, well...terrible, compared to Belgian or Munich beer. The waiter also brought a bread basket which we happily attacked especially after I found olive oil and vinegar on the table. When we got our bill it was more than what we were expecting. Our waiter seemed really nice and explained to us that the bread actually cost a euro. Ok, not a big deal, we did eat it all...He walked away and I was redoing the math again in my head and it just wasn't tying out. I grabbed a menu and saw that what I ordered was 6.5 euros. So I walked up to our waiter who was in a group of 2 or 3 other waiters and asked him very nicely to please explain it to me again. It was a little awkward but if there is one thing I hate when traveling it's getting ripped off. And if I somehow wasn't getting ripped off, I wanted to understand why, because the numbers just weren't tying out. He understood my question and went away for a second. He brought me another menu, where my exact same meal was listed at 7.9 euros!!! I told him that was a little weird, because I bought my meal with the understanding that it was only 6.5 euros (yeah, I'm frugal, I know). He explained to me then that what he was showing me was a "new" menu and I had been looking at an "old" menu. As politely as I could I told him, "You should really consider putting the "new" menus out on the table, so that people know what they're paying for." SERIOUSLY. After that I dropped it - I was full and 1.4 euros is nothing to get too upset about. I was just very confused.
To prove that we went to Slovakia, even if just for a day trip, I got my plate and Laura her shot glass. I've never seen a plate like the one I got in Slovakia, it's really cool. Their traditional ceramics are really pretty so I was excited about that. Then we ended up having a few extra minutes and I needed to mail a letter back to the States. We found Bratislava's post office which was quite hidden and through many series of dark double doors. The lady spoke no English and I played charades with her and managed to get an envelope and a stamp to the United States. Success.
Then we headed back to our bus, which again, came and left right on time. So impressed with everybody's public transportation EXCEPT for Seattle's. Blah. We went back to Veronika's flat in Vienna to regroup and get ready to meet up with Heather. She was able to pawn off adorable little Hegan to the Husband for the evening so she could come and have a girls' night out on the town with us. We met up with Heather around 10 as dressed up as possible (i.e. jeans and a clean shirt, cute shoes optional). Heather wanted to take us to some "beach bars" along the Danube River but they were all closed because it's not late enough in the year. It wasn't cold out and we had a great stroll along the river at night. It took us about 45 minutes to figure out where we wanted to go that would be open - a Mexican place in the city center area. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the city center, but Heather couldn't remember exactly where the restaurant was. The area is so full of tourists that asking people wasn't very fruitful. Obviously Laura and I had no idea. We knew we were close by and in the right place, but somehow it took us another hour of wandering to find this place!!! The good news is that I really loved walking around such a busy, people and light filled area on a Saturday night in Vienna, it was very, very pleasant. Also, since we didn't order our first drinks until 12:30, we saved quite a bit of money since the bars close at 2 AM (we thought they stayed open later, but we were wrong). Laura and I split a pitcher of a deliciously fruity strawberry daiquiri and we girl-talked for the next hour or so. Then we went to a couple of other bars but since they were all closing Heather hopped in a cab with us and helped us get home (so we avoided any more Night Line drama)! It is always a treat to have other people go out and about with you and show you around and help speak the language for you...:) So we had a good time paling (is that a word?) with Heather - she is full of interesting stories, and since she is an American living in Vienna she has some different perspectives that are also really fun to learn about.
Quotes:
"You should really consider putting the new menus out on the table." - Me, to the Slovakian waiter.
Accomplishments:
Day trip to Slovakia - CHECK!
Travel Tip:
Keep an eye out for awesome day trips!
[I think these are getting lamer and lamer as this trip goes on...]
Friday, April 23, 2010
Veronika - CS #12 | Fat N Happy
The benefit of staying with a host who hates to sleep? We got the luxury for the second day in a row of waking up to breakfast! She'd made us fried eggs, toast, and hot chocolate this morning. So wonderful!
We had arranged to meet Heather at 1030 AM so we set out to go find her. Thankfully, Heather's directions to her flat were quite good and we found it with no problems. Heather is 26 years old, but has been living in Vienna for about 2 years (she is originally from Florida). She also has one of the cutest one and a half years old kid I have ever seen!! Heather was thrilled to have Americans to talk with and graciously offered to give us a walking tour of the inner city. We hadn't explored that area at all yet, so we walked past the University, the Rathaus (City Hall), the Parliament, and through the Museum Quarter. The Museum Quarter is kind of like a big square surrounded on three sides by national museums. Outside of one of the museums was one of the strangest art pieces I have ever seen. It was a hugely enlarged lady wearing a red bikini, lying on her back. The weird part: all of her limbs and her head had been cut off, leaving large red stumps. So very weird. That is art? Really?
We then walked down a very busy and popular shopping street called Mariahilferstrasse. We found an Italian cafe to eat at and got lunch there. Laura and I each got pizzas. It was an Italian place (and Heather says that since Austria is so close to Italy the Italian places there are under a little bit of pressure to be authentic and delicious), so the pizzas came whole and uncut. As I was trying to cut mine, I noticed that it seemed difficult and the pizza kept sliding around on the plate. We were sitting at a rather small, circular table. Next thing I know, Laura's plate and pizza were sliding off the edge of the table as she was trying to cut it. She flailed and tried to save everything. CRASH. The plate shattered on the floor. So much for quiet, nice Americans lol. Good news though - the pizza was completely saved, free of any glass shards, and now laid on the table exactly where it had been just 30 seconds before, just sans plate. When the waiter came over, who didn't see the commotion, that is what he saw: an entire pizza sitting on the table and a broken plate underneath our small table. I was laughing so hard and I suppose Laura was embarrassed because Heather told us we both turned quite red. It was pretty funny. Laura would save the food...
After lunch, Heather wandered with us and took us to this really cool Mozart statue. In front of the statue is a big green grassy patch. In this green rectangle though were yellow flowers that formed a treble clef. It was so cool - I love flower designs like that! It made for a very nice picture, Mozart above this yellow floral treble clef.
By this time it was early evening and Laura and I were due to meet our next host, Veronika, soon. We parted ways and ended up arriving at Veronika's doorstep at the exact same time that she was getting home from work. We were trying to figure out which button to press, and she comes up on her bike and says, "I think you guys are looking for me."
Veronika is also 26, working 3 jobs and eventually hoping to finish her PhD in social anthropology. She is my CouchSurfing-cooking soul mate! This lady LOVES to cook, and I had an amazingly fun time watching her cook and talking about cooking and cooking related things (like "Julie and Julia"). She does like to be in control of her kitchen though so helping her was essentially out of the question. She worked quickly, efficiently, and simply - and somehow prepared simply gorgeous meals with the appearance of exerting little to no energy. It was crazy impressive! Given that Laura and I eat a lot, we connected with Veronika, who also likes to eat a lot. It was fantastic.
Veronika had been planning and preparing our Friday night dinner for about a week, and it was a real treat. She made us this homemade minced meat dish (a lot like meatloaf) that had onions and garlic in it...and that was WRAPPED IN BACON! That came along with mashed potatoes, a wonderful cool, crisp salad, and homemade tzatziki sauce. And it was served with white wine. It was incredible. Laura and I just sat in the kitchen chatting away with Veronika about food while we salivated and soaked up all the delicious smells. Veronika also helped keep our mouths busy before dinner by serving us hot, fresh peppermint tea. Fresh as in picked from her parents' garden. So good, I think it's my new favorite kind of tea! Soon we were ready for our feast though and we gobbled it up with little hesitation.
Oh, and there was dessert too, naturally. Chocolate mousse. Homemade, fluffy, chocolatey, amazing chocolate mousse. After our large and filling dinner, we still easily managed to eat more than half of this huge bowl of chocolate mousse. I haven't laughed that much in an evening in quite a while. We just couldn't contain ourselves and thought it was endlessly amusing how capable of devouring food we were. It was kind of mind blowing. Of course I felt like rolling instead of walking anywhere afterward...I just keep telling myself I have "X" number of weeks to work it off. But now that number is down to 8...
Although it was quite difficult to summon the energy to move after dinner, Heather had kindly let us drop our bags off at her apartment before we wandered the city for the day, and we had left them there wit intentions of getting them after dinner with Veronika. But eventually we did stop eating and took the trams to Heather's place. After picking up our bags, we headed back to Veronika's. However, somehow, the Night Lines are a little different from the normal Day Lines on the tram system...so we ended up getting dumped off at some last stop that we weren't planning on going to--not at the stop we needed to be at to transfer. The nice things about trams is that you can just follow the tracks back. So we walked along the tram tracks until we found a stop with the tram we needed to get back to Veronika's place. It was a really lame accidental adventure...Carrying all of our bags around in the dark and trying to figure out the Night Line trams. Anyway we finally made it back safe, don't worry!
Quotes:
Hilary: "How many servings was that supposed to be?" (Asking about the meatloaf-type dish)
Veronika: "Oh...the book says half a kilogram makes 4 to 6, but I made a whole kilogram."
Hilary: "Are you saying that the three of us just ate 8 to 12 portions of meat?"
Laura: "Plus everything else?"
Veronika: "Yes."
WE ARE COWS!!! Fat and Happy cows.
Accomplishments:
Figured out how to use the trams (ignore the Night Line detour)...until today we had just been using the Underground transportation systems in each country, somehow the above ground stuff seems more intimidating.
Travel Tip:
Consider the fact that Night Lines might be different and plan accordingly.
We had arranged to meet Heather at 1030 AM so we set out to go find her. Thankfully, Heather's directions to her flat were quite good and we found it with no problems. Heather is 26 years old, but has been living in Vienna for about 2 years (she is originally from Florida). She also has one of the cutest one and a half years old kid I have ever seen!! Heather was thrilled to have Americans to talk with and graciously offered to give us a walking tour of the inner city. We hadn't explored that area at all yet, so we walked past the University, the Rathaus (City Hall), the Parliament, and through the Museum Quarter. The Museum Quarter is kind of like a big square surrounded on three sides by national museums. Outside of one of the museums was one of the strangest art pieces I have ever seen. It was a hugely enlarged lady wearing a red bikini, lying on her back. The weird part: all of her limbs and her head had been cut off, leaving large red stumps. So very weird. That is art? Really?
We then walked down a very busy and popular shopping street called Mariahilferstrasse. We found an Italian cafe to eat at and got lunch there. Laura and I each got pizzas. It was an Italian place (and Heather says that since Austria is so close to Italy the Italian places there are under a little bit of pressure to be authentic and delicious), so the pizzas came whole and uncut. As I was trying to cut mine, I noticed that it seemed difficult and the pizza kept sliding around on the plate. We were sitting at a rather small, circular table. Next thing I know, Laura's plate and pizza were sliding off the edge of the table as she was trying to cut it. She flailed and tried to save everything. CRASH. The plate shattered on the floor. So much for quiet, nice Americans lol. Good news though - the pizza was completely saved, free of any glass shards, and now laid on the table exactly where it had been just 30 seconds before, just sans plate. When the waiter came over, who didn't see the commotion, that is what he saw: an entire pizza sitting on the table and a broken plate underneath our small table. I was laughing so hard and I suppose Laura was embarrassed because Heather told us we both turned quite red. It was pretty funny. Laura would save the food...
After lunch, Heather wandered with us and took us to this really cool Mozart statue. In front of the statue is a big green grassy patch. In this green rectangle though were yellow flowers that formed a treble clef. It was so cool - I love flower designs like that! It made for a very nice picture, Mozart above this yellow floral treble clef.
By this time it was early evening and Laura and I were due to meet our next host, Veronika, soon. We parted ways and ended up arriving at Veronika's doorstep at the exact same time that she was getting home from work. We were trying to figure out which button to press, and she comes up on her bike and says, "I think you guys are looking for me."
Veronika is also 26, working 3 jobs and eventually hoping to finish her PhD in social anthropology. She is my CouchSurfing-cooking soul mate! This lady LOVES to cook, and I had an amazingly fun time watching her cook and talking about cooking and cooking related things (like "Julie and Julia"). She does like to be in control of her kitchen though so helping her was essentially out of the question. She worked quickly, efficiently, and simply - and somehow prepared simply gorgeous meals with the appearance of exerting little to no energy. It was crazy impressive! Given that Laura and I eat a lot, we connected with Veronika, who also likes to eat a lot. It was fantastic.
Veronika had been planning and preparing our Friday night dinner for about a week, and it was a real treat. She made us this homemade minced meat dish (a lot like meatloaf) that had onions and garlic in it...and that was WRAPPED IN BACON! That came along with mashed potatoes, a wonderful cool, crisp salad, and homemade tzatziki sauce. And it was served with white wine. It was incredible. Laura and I just sat in the kitchen chatting away with Veronika about food while we salivated and soaked up all the delicious smells. Veronika also helped keep our mouths busy before dinner by serving us hot, fresh peppermint tea. Fresh as in picked from her parents' garden. So good, I think it's my new favorite kind of tea! Soon we were ready for our feast though and we gobbled it up with little hesitation.
Oh, and there was dessert too, naturally. Chocolate mousse. Homemade, fluffy, chocolatey, amazing chocolate mousse. After our large and filling dinner, we still easily managed to eat more than half of this huge bowl of chocolate mousse. I haven't laughed that much in an evening in quite a while. We just couldn't contain ourselves and thought it was endlessly amusing how capable of devouring food we were. It was kind of mind blowing. Of course I felt like rolling instead of walking anywhere afterward...I just keep telling myself I have "X" number of weeks to work it off. But now that number is down to 8...
Although it was quite difficult to summon the energy to move after dinner, Heather had kindly let us drop our bags off at her apartment before we wandered the city for the day, and we had left them there wit intentions of getting them after dinner with Veronika. But eventually we did stop eating and took the trams to Heather's place. After picking up our bags, we headed back to Veronika's. However, somehow, the Night Lines are a little different from the normal Day Lines on the tram system...so we ended up getting dumped off at some last stop that we weren't planning on going to--not at the stop we needed to be at to transfer. The nice things about trams is that you can just follow the tracks back. So we walked along the tram tracks until we found a stop with the tram we needed to get back to Veronika's place. It was a really lame accidental adventure...Carrying all of our bags around in the dark and trying to figure out the Night Line trams. Anyway we finally made it back safe, don't worry!
Quotes:
Hilary: "How many servings was that supposed to be?" (Asking about the meatloaf-type dish)
Veronika: "Oh...the book says half a kilogram makes 4 to 6, but I made a whole kilogram."
Hilary: "Are you saying that the three of us just ate 8 to 12 portions of meat?"
Laura: "Plus everything else?"
Veronika: "Yes."
WE ARE COWS!!! Fat and Happy cows.
Accomplishments:
Figured out how to use the trams (ignore the Night Line detour)...until today we had just been using the Underground transportation systems in each country, somehow the above ground stuff seems more intimidating.
Travel Tip:
Consider the fact that Night Lines might be different and plan accordingly.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Schonbrunn
We woke up to Nathalie making us a wonderful pancake breakfast. Do you know how nice it is to travel and have the luxury of waking up to a nice breakfast? It's incredible!
Then Nathalie came with us to a copy shop literally next door to her flat. She spoke to the people in German and helped me figure out how to get online, print a reply form I needed to fill out, scan it, and email it back to the States. That would have taken me FOREVER to figure out how to do by myself using chirades. I really lucked out having her by my side and being so close to a copy shop.
With that errand done, Nathalie went to go get ready for school and Laura and I headed off to go see the Schonbrunn. It is the #1 thing countless people have recommended to us, but they all said only go if it's sunny weather. Well, today was gorgeous. Not a cloud to be forecast, and it was predicted to be 56 degrees fahrenheit. A long sleeve shirt should do the trick - but at 56 degrees I didn't think of sunscreen. That turned out to be a mistake. I now have super touristy sun burn lines where my backpack was all day. LAME. And Laura has a white strip across her nose. And of course my face looks a little like a tomatoe. Oh well.
The Schonbrunn was WAY easier to find that the Schloss Nymphenburg so Austria: 1, Germany: 0 haha. I loved it. It was so beautiful. And it was so huge that if you wandered to the right places, you didn't feel like there were a million tourists there.
The gardens, flowers, sculpted trees, scultped statues, fountains - everything was just gorgeous in our perfect-weather day. We paid 2.4 Euros to go in the kid part of the garden. We did a maze, a labrynth, and played some kid games and with some kid toys. We like acting like small children...Then we walked around for a few hours. It all looks the same in a way but it was so pretty that didn't really matter. We walked up to the Glorietta, which is a kind of panoramic viewpoint where you can look down at the Schonbrunn palace. You can also walk behind some of the huge fountains there and it feels like you are behind the scenes! It was a really incredible sight.
We met up with Nathy at a restaurant named Kolar that Meredith recommended to me. She told me they had good beer and good flatbread sandwiches, and she was not lying! The beer I got was darker and suprisingly sweet, but really good. And the flatbread (pita) sandwich I got had melted cheese, sour cream, ham, and asparagus on it. It sounded interesting and a little unusual so I ventured slightly out of my comfort zone and went for it. It was great!!! And so filling! In Vienna, everything moves pretty slowly, so our late lunch took about 2 leisurely hours. Then we moved locations to this great people-watching indoor cafe connected to a hotel. Nathy told us that we had to try this amazing chocolate marmalade cake (no complaints there) and of course I wanted to get some coffee with it :) I drink way more coffee when I'm in Europe. The cake was a bit dry but the 'crust' was chocolate and it had layers of apricot marmalade in it to help with the dryness. It was quite yummy, and by the time I'd finished that and my coffee I was stuffed! I tried to share with Laura so that we would each only have half but Nathy made us each order our own :)
Over coffee and cake and people watching while looking out at the Stephensdom we talked a lot about the difference in coffee and physical education between the U.S. and Austria. It is little things like that which makes conversing with CouchSurfers so much fun and so educational. Really sharing minute, random things about your culture. It's always fun to see what I can teach other people, what they don't know or what they thought they knew about our culture sometimes surprises me. It is really enjoyable to give them other points of view and some other facts so that they can alter their perceptions. CouchSurfing is great :)
Eventually it got to be around 6 PM and Nathy had plans to go to a movie. Laura and I didn't feel like going so Nathy walked us to the U-Bahn stop. On our way, we passed by the gorgeous Opera building and inquired about 4 Euro day-of tickets that you can get! We might do that another day. By the way, they have tons of paid men dressed up in fantastic costumes out and about in the touristy areas to sell Opera tickets. They are a lot of fun to watch :) Then Nathy showed us the "Opera Toilet". That is the WC in the Opera U-Bahn stop. It plays Opera music and the wallpaper looks like an opera house. It is really hilarious, probably the most amusing WC I've ever seen!
Laura and I had a quiet night at Nathy's flat during which I got super caught up with blogs, pictures, random CouchSurfing stuff, etc. It feels so good to finally not be behind!!
Quotes:
None today :/
Accomplishments:
Found the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Meredith recommended to me!
Travel Tip:
Maybe if you look up the weather and see that it's going to be pure sunny the whole day and you're planning on walking around outside you should consider putting on some sunscreen. Maybe.
I feel like there is so much to do in Vienna! We are planning on leaving Monday but I'm not really sure if that will happen...
Then Nathalie came with us to a copy shop literally next door to her flat. She spoke to the people in German and helped me figure out how to get online, print a reply form I needed to fill out, scan it, and email it back to the States. That would have taken me FOREVER to figure out how to do by myself using chirades. I really lucked out having her by my side and being so close to a copy shop.
With that errand done, Nathalie went to go get ready for school and Laura and I headed off to go see the Schonbrunn. It is the #1 thing countless people have recommended to us, but they all said only go if it's sunny weather. Well, today was gorgeous. Not a cloud to be forecast, and it was predicted to be 56 degrees fahrenheit. A long sleeve shirt should do the trick - but at 56 degrees I didn't think of sunscreen. That turned out to be a mistake. I now have super touristy sun burn lines where my backpack was all day. LAME. And Laura has a white strip across her nose. And of course my face looks a little like a tomatoe. Oh well.
The Schonbrunn was WAY easier to find that the Schloss Nymphenburg so Austria: 1, Germany: 0 haha. I loved it. It was so beautiful. And it was so huge that if you wandered to the right places, you didn't feel like there were a million tourists there.
The gardens, flowers, sculpted trees, scultped statues, fountains - everything was just gorgeous in our perfect-weather day. We paid 2.4 Euros to go in the kid part of the garden. We did a maze, a labrynth, and played some kid games and with some kid toys. We like acting like small children...Then we walked around for a few hours. It all looks the same in a way but it was so pretty that didn't really matter. We walked up to the Glorietta, which is a kind of panoramic viewpoint where you can look down at the Schonbrunn palace. You can also walk behind some of the huge fountains there and it feels like you are behind the scenes! It was a really incredible sight.
We met up with Nathy at a restaurant named Kolar that Meredith recommended to me. She told me they had good beer and good flatbread sandwiches, and she was not lying! The beer I got was darker and suprisingly sweet, but really good. And the flatbread (pita) sandwich I got had melted cheese, sour cream, ham, and asparagus on it. It sounded interesting and a little unusual so I ventured slightly out of my comfort zone and went for it. It was great!!! And so filling! In Vienna, everything moves pretty slowly, so our late lunch took about 2 leisurely hours. Then we moved locations to this great people-watching indoor cafe connected to a hotel. Nathy told us that we had to try this amazing chocolate marmalade cake (no complaints there) and of course I wanted to get some coffee with it :) I drink way more coffee when I'm in Europe. The cake was a bit dry but the 'crust' was chocolate and it had layers of apricot marmalade in it to help with the dryness. It was quite yummy, and by the time I'd finished that and my coffee I was stuffed! I tried to share with Laura so that we would each only have half but Nathy made us each order our own :)
Over coffee and cake and people watching while looking out at the Stephensdom we talked a lot about the difference in coffee and physical education between the U.S. and Austria. It is little things like that which makes conversing with CouchSurfers so much fun and so educational. Really sharing minute, random things about your culture. It's always fun to see what I can teach other people, what they don't know or what they thought they knew about our culture sometimes surprises me. It is really enjoyable to give them other points of view and some other facts so that they can alter their perceptions. CouchSurfing is great :)
Eventually it got to be around 6 PM and Nathy had plans to go to a movie. Laura and I didn't feel like going so Nathy walked us to the U-Bahn stop. On our way, we passed by the gorgeous Opera building and inquired about 4 Euro day-of tickets that you can get! We might do that another day. By the way, they have tons of paid men dressed up in fantastic costumes out and about in the touristy areas to sell Opera tickets. They are a lot of fun to watch :) Then Nathy showed us the "Opera Toilet". That is the WC in the Opera U-Bahn stop. It plays Opera music and the wallpaper looks like an opera house. It is really hilarious, probably the most amusing WC I've ever seen!
Laura and I had a quiet night at Nathy's flat during which I got super caught up with blogs, pictures, random CouchSurfing stuff, etc. It feels so good to finally not be behind!!
Quotes:
None today :/
Accomplishments:
Found the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Meredith recommended to me!
Travel Tip:
Maybe if you look up the weather and see that it's going to be pure sunny the whole day and you're planning on walking around outside you should consider putting on some sunscreen. Maybe.
I feel like there is so much to do in Vienna! We are planning on leaving Monday but I'm not really sure if that will happen...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Nathalie - CS #11 | Run
Our hopes of waking up at 7 and catching an 830 train to spend the day in Salzburg was a wonderful idea in theory. In reality, we were incapable of getting up before about 11. We spent the morning packing and cleaning up after ourselves. We had to catch a 1:42 train to Vienna. We didn't end up leaving until at least 1:05. At this point I was freaking out. We had to walk with all of our stuff to the subway station, buy our tickets, take the subway a couple of stops, transfer, get to the Central Station, get our Eurail tickets validated, find out if we needed reserve seats, and get to the train. Pretty much impossible.
We speed walked to the station and I tried paying with my 20 Euro note. Nope, the machien doesn't take bills that big. So Laura finds her change and we get our tickets. We scramble down to the platform, luckily a subway was already there and we hopped on. We got off two stops later and frantically tried to find where our connecting S-Bahn was. We found it, but it was too packed to get on. A few minutes later, another one came, but it was empty and nobody was allowed on. Confusing. A few minutes later, another one came and we got on. We arrived at the Central Station and went to the first ticket information counter. It was probably 1:25. We waited in line for 5 minutes but it felt like forever. We asked them if they could validate our Eurails here and they said no, we had to go upstairs. We go upstairs, find another information booth. They send us to the ticket center which is somewhere else. We run over there, and nobody speaks English. Finally they got it that we needed a stamp, and told us that the conductor on the train would stamp it. It must have been 1:38 by now. We asked them if we needed to reserve seats, and they said it was recommended not required. So we sprinted with our bags to our platform, and somehow made it on to that blasted train. With literally one, maybe two minutes to spare. I still can't believe we made it.
We had to switch trains in Salzburg, where we almost spent the afternoon (oops), and we got our Eurails validated there with ease. Then we waited for our train to Vienna. It was a very smooth transition...I'm so glad we made our trains!
Nathalie was waiting for us at the train station. She is 20 years old but has been SUPER involved in CS since she was 18. She goes to CS meetings regularly here in Vienna. She is a student and lives with 4 other people. She is the only person I have ever met that admits to hating to sleep! She speaks 4 languages (English, German, Spanish, and Russian) - sooo jealous.
After we dropped our stuff off we went to this bar/restaurant to go to one of her CS meetings. This meeting (read: a bunch of people hang out at a bar together) was focused around practicing speaking German. But since we spoke English most people just spoke English for us :) I was in a very quiet mood which was too bad because there were lots of very nice people there. Everybody was so loud and energetic - it was a great vibe. I wish Seattle was as on top of their CS meetings as Vienna is. Nathy (her nickname) says that nearly everybody in Vienna has at least heard of CS though there are only a few hundred active users. At this restaurant we got cheese dumplings which were amazing! We also tried a dumpling soup (they love their dumplings here). I didn't like the dumplings as much but the broth was really good, though very, very salty! We finally left around midnight and walked through the city back to Nathy's place. The city is described as a "big small town" and is extremely quiet, especially compared to Munich.
Today was just not my day so I went to sleep soon after we got back to her flat so that I could make tomorrow better!
Quotes:
"These are my CouchSurfers." - Nathalie, this was our introduction
Other CS guy: "These are my two CouchSurfers."
Nathalie: "Want to take them all for a walk in the park tomorrow?"
Haha, we are like pets to them...lol
Accomplishments:
Slept through our train to Salzburg.
MADE our trains to Vienna.
Tried two different dumpling dishes!
Travel Tip:
I recommend not putting yourself in a situation where you need to run with 30 pounds on your back to catch a train.
I think I am going to really like Vienna. Meredith studied abroad here for a semester so I've heard a lot about it. Meredith loved it, and I love Meredith, so I am pretty sure I will love it too :)
We speed walked to the station and I tried paying with my 20 Euro note. Nope, the machien doesn't take bills that big. So Laura finds her change and we get our tickets. We scramble down to the platform, luckily a subway was already there and we hopped on. We got off two stops later and frantically tried to find where our connecting S-Bahn was. We found it, but it was too packed to get on. A few minutes later, another one came, but it was empty and nobody was allowed on. Confusing. A few minutes later, another one came and we got on. We arrived at the Central Station and went to the first ticket information counter. It was probably 1:25. We waited in line for 5 minutes but it felt like forever. We asked them if they could validate our Eurails here and they said no, we had to go upstairs. We go upstairs, find another information booth. They send us to the ticket center which is somewhere else. We run over there, and nobody speaks English. Finally they got it that we needed a stamp, and told us that the conductor on the train would stamp it. It must have been 1:38 by now. We asked them if we needed to reserve seats, and they said it was recommended not required. So we sprinted with our bags to our platform, and somehow made it on to that blasted train. With literally one, maybe two minutes to spare. I still can't believe we made it.
We had to switch trains in Salzburg, where we almost spent the afternoon (oops), and we got our Eurails validated there with ease. Then we waited for our train to Vienna. It was a very smooth transition...I'm so glad we made our trains!
Nathalie was waiting for us at the train station. She is 20 years old but has been SUPER involved in CS since she was 18. She goes to CS meetings regularly here in Vienna. She is a student and lives with 4 other people. She is the only person I have ever met that admits to hating to sleep! She speaks 4 languages (English, German, Spanish, and Russian) - sooo jealous.
After we dropped our stuff off we went to this bar/restaurant to go to one of her CS meetings. This meeting (read: a bunch of people hang out at a bar together) was focused around practicing speaking German. But since we spoke English most people just spoke English for us :) I was in a very quiet mood which was too bad because there were lots of very nice people there. Everybody was so loud and energetic - it was a great vibe. I wish Seattle was as on top of their CS meetings as Vienna is. Nathy (her nickname) says that nearly everybody in Vienna has at least heard of CS though there are only a few hundred active users. At this restaurant we got cheese dumplings which were amazing! We also tried a dumpling soup (they love their dumplings here). I didn't like the dumplings as much but the broth was really good, though very, very salty! We finally left around midnight and walked through the city back to Nathy's place. The city is described as a "big small town" and is extremely quiet, especially compared to Munich.
Today was just not my day so I went to sleep soon after we got back to her flat so that I could make tomorrow better!
Quotes:
"These are my CouchSurfers." - Nathalie, this was our introduction
Other CS guy: "These are my two CouchSurfers."
Nathalie: "Want to take them all for a walk in the park tomorrow?"
Haha, we are like pets to them...lol
Accomplishments:
Slept through our train to Salzburg.
MADE our trains to Vienna.
Tried two different dumpling dishes!
Travel Tip:
I recommend not putting yourself in a situation where you need to run with 30 pounds on your back to catch a train.
I think I am going to really like Vienna. Meredith studied abroad here for a semester so I've heard a lot about it. Meredith loved it, and I love Meredith, so I am pretty sure I will love it too :)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Germany (Nouns)
The Glockenspiel at Marienplatz that we accidentally found while looking for a city map...go us.
The beautiful beer garden by the Chinese Tower in the Englischer Garten!
Stephanie let me borrow her drindl!
Lady Bavaria - she watches over Oktoberfest (and Spring Fest).
The Spring Fest crew: Zack, Laura, Me, Stephanie, and Betty!
Germany (Food)
A pretzel the size of my head, literally!
Lunch: Prezel, Bratwurst, and white sausage.
Eating bratwursts and schnitzel at Spring Fest!
Drinking a liter in my drindl at Spring Fest. Love it.
Spring Fest
We headed out this morning on a mission to find the Schloss Nymphenburg, the summer palace of the Royal German family. Finding the S-Bahn stop was easy enough, finding the actual castle was another story. There were no signs at the exit of the S-Bahn station. So we picked a direction, looked at a map, and then picked another direction and started walking. Soon I saw a sign that said "Nymphenburg" and really hoped that meant the place we were trying to go. After about an hour of following signs, we arrived the castle. Stephanie had said it was very reminiscent of Versailles and as soon as it came into view I could see why. It is not very tall and castle-like, but very, very wide. There was the main castle part, and then other houses built on to the main part that formed almost a complete circle (with an opening in the circle for the river and people to pass through). There was also a fountain that was on out front. This may sound arrogant, but I've seen a lot of palaces and castles and I wasn't that impressed with this one. We weren't planning on spending any money to go inside the castle, but there was a large (free) garden out back (like Versailles). We went into the garden and it was pretty, just kind of how all large gardens with old statues and fountain are. Lucky with another sunny day, we decided to just sit on a bench for a while. We had some snacks and took some naps and enjoyed being warm.
We were planning on going to the BMW Museum and the Olympic Park, but we were a little later than our intended schedule. We're also not that into cars and had been in pretty parks a lot lately, so we went back to Marienplatz to look for souvenirs. Laura really wanted her shot glass, I would get a plate if I found one I liked (otherwise I'd get my plate in Northern Germany). But most of all, we both REALLY wanted a pretty beer stein. The options and prices were overwhelming and it took us at least an hour and a half to make all of our decisions. I did in fact end up buying a plate, which was the easy part. I was having a much tougher time with the beer stein decision. As if I don't already have enough fragile stuff to carry around for the next 9 weeks. The problem was that most of the beer steins either had Oktoberfest stuff on them or a bunch of stuff for other cities in Germany. Since we're only going to three cities, and aren't here for Oktoberfest, I didn't want to get a mug representing anything I didn't do. So that ruled out quite a few. Most of the other mugs had collages of different Munich sites on it. There were very few that seemed more classic and/or slightly less touristy. Then, of course, not all of them were pretty, some had paint that looked faded, etc. Then there were a ton of different sizes. Even the small ones were around 30 Euros. Then...I found one that I really loved. It was big, probably a little taller than a foot. The paint was bright and clean. The left side had two guys in lederhosen sitting at a table drinking beer, the middle had a sign for a beer garden with a menu underneath advertising beer and pretzels, and the left side had a girl in a drindl carrying a load of liters of beer. That was my Munich: beer, pretzels, beer gardens, and drindls. I loved it. But it cost 85 Euros. I knew that I probably wouldn't drink out of it, it would just sit somewhere and look pretty. And I knew that whoever came over and saw it would go, "oh, that's so cool!" no matter if it was big or small. But, I REALLY liked the beer garden one, and I figured no matter what size I got I would have to be equally careful carrying it around. Then I used my famous justification: "This costs about what X nights in a hostel would cost." And then I bought it. That was my big splurge. I don't part with money easily, but I did really want a nice German beer stein, so I got the one I loved. The busy clerk wrapped it quasi-carelessly in a handful of paper and put it in a bag for me. No bubble wrap or box or anything...awesome. This will be an adventure.
Souvenirs bought, we went back to Stephanie's place to drop everything off and so that I could change into her drindl. We had a restful hour or so there and then got read for Spring Fest. I checked with Stephanie to make sure wearing black leggings was acceptable since I was worried I would be cold. The only shoes I had that wouldn't look absolutely ridiculous with the outfit were my gold flats. All dolled up, we went to Stephanie's favorite ice cream place for dinner (yes) where I tried lemon-basil gelatto and hazelnut gelatto. The lemon-basil was interesting, the hazelnut was downright delicious. Not filling at all though.
At the stop for Spring Fest, we weren't quite sure which direction to head (this has been our theme of Munich). Then I saw the huge Lady Bavaria statue so we started walking towards that. It was so weird because Spring Fest occurs at the same huge green park that Oktoberfest is held at, called Theresienplatz I think. Most of the park was completely EMPTY, and it was strange knowing that for Oktoberfest every inch of the place must just be crawling with festive locals and tourists. In the distance at the other end of the park, we saw some tents and carnival rides. Once inside, we checked out all the food booths and walked around looking at the rides. They had this terrible ride called "Break Dancer". It was terrible because it was covered in American flags and really corny "American" symbols. And they were playing terrible American music. It was an embarrassment...
Soon it was 7 and we went to our meeting place by the ferris wheel to meet Stephanie who had just gotten off work. She was there - which was great because she didn't know if she'd be able to get off work in time to meet us at 7. We also soon found her friend Betty and the four of us went on a German-carnival-food mission. Laura, Stephanie, and Betty all got the equivalent of elephant ears. I tried Betty's, which wasn't the typical cinnamon sugar. It had tomato sauce, cheese, and sour cream on it, and was surprisingly delicious! Yay for trying new things. I held out for a schnitzel and split another bratwurst with Laura. Both were edible but not that great. I can say I ate them though. Maybe the quality of carnival food is world-wide...?
Once our group was fed, we went into the "best" beer tent as per our lovely guides. We sat at a table and ordered 2 liters for the four of us to share. Soon it was 8, and Stephanie went to our ferris wheel meeting place to see if Zack was there. He was! Amazing what planning ahead and not having cell phones can accomplish. Zack joined our table and fit in to the chaos immediately. He is a 19 year old who went to college for a year, took a semester off to work, and is now traveling solo this semester. He is from Reno and has bright red hair. He has already been tons of places and will keep moving around until his money runs out.
We soon moved closer to where there was a live band playing because Betty's flatmate was there with some friends. The five of us sat at a table with an older German couple. From then on, the night was a total blast. The band played covers of American songs that we knew all the words to and European songs that Stephanie and Betty made fun of. We had already been told that this Tuesday night Spring Fest turnout was "lame" compared to Oktoberfest (no doubt), but as it got later, more and more people started dancing on the benches and singing along and doing other weird things. There was one guy wearing a Scream mask that was going around kissing people and dancing with them, including the poor servers trying to do their jobs. I figure by this point in their careers (they were all middle aged) they had seen every type of drunk person on the planet and a guy in a Scream mask was probably no big deal. They all handled it very well. After a few more liters and lots of laughing we were all dancing and singing on the benches too. I was having a total blast being dressed up like a traditional Bavarian girl! It was a very fun evening; I really enjoy hanging out with our CS hosts, their friends, and other random people we meet along the way. Funny how quickly and how well we all get along!
Spring Fest shuts down at 11 PM, so that's when we left. On our way out, I saw Laura do a somersault on the pavement. She claims Zack tripped her. Either way she tore a hole in her leggings and scraped her knee, which she was very upset about. We parted ways with Betty and Zack and were on the subway when Laura announced she had to go to the bathroom. Stephanie asked if she could just hold it a few more minutes (the subway stop is really close to Stephanie's flat). Laura said no and we told her to try. Then we suggested that Laura go ahead by herself (bad idea). She said she didn't have keys, but then I reminded her that she did in fact have the keys. Thrilled, Laura ran away. Minutes later, Stephanie arrived at her flat...to find it empty....no Laura. Ut oh. By now it was probably close to midnight and I had no idea how we would find her. She must be close though? I changed into my sweatpants and wandered out front of Stephanie's building calling her name. That didn't work and I was in my slippers so I figured I'd wait for Stephanie to come help. When Stephanie and I came back downstairs a few minutes later, Stephanie goes, "there she is!" Laura was down the street talking to some random people...She saw us but made no effort to come towards us, so we went to her and cattle-herded her back to Stephanie's flat. So that was exciting...losing Laura in Munich! Awesome...
Quotes:
"Don't be jealous, just do it!" - Zack, to people that are jealous of him traveling
Guy at Spring Fest: "Um excuse me, can I get a beer for you?" (What I heard - not what he actually said)
Me: "Yeah sure."
Guy at Spring Fest: "Ok great, I'd like to get one for my mom..."
Me: "Oh, wait, sorry! I don't work here!"
Guy at Spring Fest: "What? What are you doing dressed like that speaking perfect English NOT working here?!"
(This was the highlight of my night.)
Laura: "I met this couple, and I talked to them for a while, and they were soooo nice! And then I kept walking, and I found this person, and I talked to them for a while, and they were soooo nice! And then I kept walking, and I found somebody else -- "
Hilary: "And let me guess, they were soooo nice?"
Laura: "YEAH!!"
"Turkenstrasse! Turkenstrasse!" - Laura, once we found her this is most of what she said (Stephanie lives on Turkenstrasse)
Accomplishments:
Bought a beer stein! (And my plate.)
Went to Spring Fest.
Found Laura!
Travel Tip:
Do not let your friends go running off by themselves after they've had a few liters and it's midnight in a foreign city...even if they really have to go to the bathroom!
Munich was short but sweet; tomorrow we want to go to Salzburg but I don't think we will wake up in time for that...
We were planning on going to the BMW Museum and the Olympic Park, but we were a little later than our intended schedule. We're also not that into cars and had been in pretty parks a lot lately, so we went back to Marienplatz to look for souvenirs. Laura really wanted her shot glass, I would get a plate if I found one I liked (otherwise I'd get my plate in Northern Germany). But most of all, we both REALLY wanted a pretty beer stein. The options and prices were overwhelming and it took us at least an hour and a half to make all of our decisions. I did in fact end up buying a plate, which was the easy part. I was having a much tougher time with the beer stein decision. As if I don't already have enough fragile stuff to carry around for the next 9 weeks. The problem was that most of the beer steins either had Oktoberfest stuff on them or a bunch of stuff for other cities in Germany. Since we're only going to three cities, and aren't here for Oktoberfest, I didn't want to get a mug representing anything I didn't do. So that ruled out quite a few. Most of the other mugs had collages of different Munich sites on it. There were very few that seemed more classic and/or slightly less touristy. Then, of course, not all of them were pretty, some had paint that looked faded, etc. Then there were a ton of different sizes. Even the small ones were around 30 Euros. Then...I found one that I really loved. It was big, probably a little taller than a foot. The paint was bright and clean. The left side had two guys in lederhosen sitting at a table drinking beer, the middle had a sign for a beer garden with a menu underneath advertising beer and pretzels, and the left side had a girl in a drindl carrying a load of liters of beer. That was my Munich: beer, pretzels, beer gardens, and drindls. I loved it. But it cost 85 Euros. I knew that I probably wouldn't drink out of it, it would just sit somewhere and look pretty. And I knew that whoever came over and saw it would go, "oh, that's so cool!" no matter if it was big or small. But, I REALLY liked the beer garden one, and I figured no matter what size I got I would have to be equally careful carrying it around. Then I used my famous justification: "This costs about what X nights in a hostel would cost." And then I bought it. That was my big splurge. I don't part with money easily, but I did really want a nice German beer stein, so I got the one I loved. The busy clerk wrapped it quasi-carelessly in a handful of paper and put it in a bag for me. No bubble wrap or box or anything...awesome. This will be an adventure.
Souvenirs bought, we went back to Stephanie's place to drop everything off and so that I could change into her drindl. We had a restful hour or so there and then got read for Spring Fest. I checked with Stephanie to make sure wearing black leggings was acceptable since I was worried I would be cold. The only shoes I had that wouldn't look absolutely ridiculous with the outfit were my gold flats. All dolled up, we went to Stephanie's favorite ice cream place for dinner (yes) where I tried lemon-basil gelatto and hazelnut gelatto. The lemon-basil was interesting, the hazelnut was downright delicious. Not filling at all though.
At the stop for Spring Fest, we weren't quite sure which direction to head (this has been our theme of Munich). Then I saw the huge Lady Bavaria statue so we started walking towards that. It was so weird because Spring Fest occurs at the same huge green park that Oktoberfest is held at, called Theresienplatz I think. Most of the park was completely EMPTY, and it was strange knowing that for Oktoberfest every inch of the place must just be crawling with festive locals and tourists. In the distance at the other end of the park, we saw some tents and carnival rides. Once inside, we checked out all the food booths and walked around looking at the rides. They had this terrible ride called "Break Dancer". It was terrible because it was covered in American flags and really corny "American" symbols. And they were playing terrible American music. It was an embarrassment...
Soon it was 7 and we went to our meeting place by the ferris wheel to meet Stephanie who had just gotten off work. She was there - which was great because she didn't know if she'd be able to get off work in time to meet us at 7. We also soon found her friend Betty and the four of us went on a German-carnival-food mission. Laura, Stephanie, and Betty all got the equivalent of elephant ears. I tried Betty's, which wasn't the typical cinnamon sugar. It had tomato sauce, cheese, and sour cream on it, and was surprisingly delicious! Yay for trying new things. I held out for a schnitzel and split another bratwurst with Laura. Both were edible but not that great. I can say I ate them though. Maybe the quality of carnival food is world-wide...?
Once our group was fed, we went into the "best" beer tent as per our lovely guides. We sat at a table and ordered 2 liters for the four of us to share. Soon it was 8, and Stephanie went to our ferris wheel meeting place to see if Zack was there. He was! Amazing what planning ahead and not having cell phones can accomplish. Zack joined our table and fit in to the chaos immediately. He is a 19 year old who went to college for a year, took a semester off to work, and is now traveling solo this semester. He is from Reno and has bright red hair. He has already been tons of places and will keep moving around until his money runs out.
We soon moved closer to where there was a live band playing because Betty's flatmate was there with some friends. The five of us sat at a table with an older German couple. From then on, the night was a total blast. The band played covers of American songs that we knew all the words to and European songs that Stephanie and Betty made fun of. We had already been told that this Tuesday night Spring Fest turnout was "lame" compared to Oktoberfest (no doubt), but as it got later, more and more people started dancing on the benches and singing along and doing other weird things. There was one guy wearing a Scream mask that was going around kissing people and dancing with them, including the poor servers trying to do their jobs. I figure by this point in their careers (they were all middle aged) they had seen every type of drunk person on the planet and a guy in a Scream mask was probably no big deal. They all handled it very well. After a few more liters and lots of laughing we were all dancing and singing on the benches too. I was having a total blast being dressed up like a traditional Bavarian girl! It was a very fun evening; I really enjoy hanging out with our CS hosts, their friends, and other random people we meet along the way. Funny how quickly and how well we all get along!
Spring Fest shuts down at 11 PM, so that's when we left. On our way out, I saw Laura do a somersault on the pavement. She claims Zack tripped her. Either way she tore a hole in her leggings and scraped her knee, which she was very upset about. We parted ways with Betty and Zack and were on the subway when Laura announced she had to go to the bathroom. Stephanie asked if she could just hold it a few more minutes (the subway stop is really close to Stephanie's flat). Laura said no and we told her to try. Then we suggested that Laura go ahead by herself (bad idea). She said she didn't have keys, but then I reminded her that she did in fact have the keys. Thrilled, Laura ran away. Minutes later, Stephanie arrived at her flat...to find it empty....no Laura. Ut oh. By now it was probably close to midnight and I had no idea how we would find her. She must be close though? I changed into my sweatpants and wandered out front of Stephanie's building calling her name. That didn't work and I was in my slippers so I figured I'd wait for Stephanie to come help. When Stephanie and I came back downstairs a few minutes later, Stephanie goes, "there she is!" Laura was down the street talking to some random people...She saw us but made no effort to come towards us, so we went to her and cattle-herded her back to Stephanie's flat. So that was exciting...losing Laura in Munich! Awesome...
Quotes:
"Don't be jealous, just do it!" - Zack, to people that are jealous of him traveling
Guy at Spring Fest: "Um excuse me, can I get a beer for you?" (What I heard - not what he actually said)
Me: "Yeah sure."
Guy at Spring Fest: "Ok great, I'd like to get one for my mom..."
Me: "Oh, wait, sorry! I don't work here!"
Guy at Spring Fest: "What? What are you doing dressed like that speaking perfect English NOT working here?!"
(This was the highlight of my night.)
Laura: "I met this couple, and I talked to them for a while, and they were soooo nice! And then I kept walking, and I found this person, and I talked to them for a while, and they were soooo nice! And then I kept walking, and I found somebody else -- "
Hilary: "And let me guess, they were soooo nice?"
Laura: "YEAH!!"
"Turkenstrasse! Turkenstrasse!" - Laura, once we found her this is most of what she said (Stephanie lives on Turkenstrasse)
Accomplishments:
Bought a beer stein! (And my plate.)
Went to Spring Fest.
Found Laura!
Travel Tip:
Do not let your friends go running off by themselves after they've had a few liters and it's midnight in a foreign city...even if they really have to go to the bathroom!
Munich was short but sweet; tomorrow we want to go to Salzburg but I don't think we will wake up in time for that...
Monday, April 19, 2010
Maps
We had two lists (in German) of things to do in/around Munich, so our first objective was to find a map. Stephanie had given us directions to the City Hall which we "couldn't miss" and said that there would be maps at the information center there. Soon enough, we were more or less lost, because guess what? The city Hall isn't called "City Hall" in German. But, it was sunny out and we were walking past some yummy looking bakeries and nice looking shops. There were lots of people out so we figured we were probably in a good area.
Then we heard some music that sounded like bells. It was noon, and Stephanie had said the Glockenspiel was played at 11, but we had no clue where we were or if what we were hearing was in fact the Glockenspiel, or if the Glockenspiel was anywhere close to the City Hall and/or a map. We were thoroughly disoriented; maps are my savior in a new city. But we were in front of a huge, gorgeous building from which the music was coming from. There were colorful miniature statues of people spinning around and it definitely sounded like bells. This building was facing a large square which had quite a few people staring up at it, many taking pictures. So I assumed that yes, we are somewhere well-known at least, and we probably just heard the Glockenspiel.
After starting to walk away from this main square, I figured we must have missed something and that the City Hall must have been back in that huge square. Maybe we just needed to look a little closer? Sure enough, on ground level beneath the bells was a little blue "i" that globally stands for Information. In other words, one of my best friends when traveling.
In the tourist information office though, all of the maps were for sale. How ridiculous! Every city has free maps somewhere, if you just know where to find them...There also weren't any just plain maps, just Munich guide books with way too much information in them for our 48 hours here and lots of pamphlets advertising guided tours. I had the clever idea to go talk to somebody at the information desk. On the counter taped in front of her was a city map. Hallelujah. It cost 0.40 Euros. Lame. I had seen somebody outside with a "Free Map & Guide" booklet which I assumed was for Munich (this company does "Free Map & Guide" booklets for tons of major cities, so I recognized what it was from a distance. When I told the tourist information lady this, she said she didn't know where they had gotten it, perhaps at a hotel. Well, whatever, we needed a map so I'd pay 40 cents for it if I had to. Then she just handed me a city map and a subway/S-Bahn map. I asked her if these were 40 cents together, because the counter clearly said that just the map was 40 cents. Then she said, no, she had just given them to me for free, and if she was going to charge me for them she would have asked for 40 cents! She came across as a little snappy but I said thank you very much and shuffled away with my new free treasures. I loooove free treasures.
Also, I don't think I've written about this yet, but I am trying to collect maps from each city we visit. I like it when they look worn or have places circled on them or stuff written on them as a testament to what we did there. I plan on using all my maps to make some homemade wallpaper someday. In my head it looks sweeeeet! So getting a map was good for multiple reasons.
Once oriented and after the information shop, we realized that we were in Marienplatz, Munich's famous square, and that the building we were in, the "Rathaus" was the City Hall, and the music we heard was the Glockenspiel. So we accidentally accomplished quite a lot!
We wandered the streets to go take a look at the Hofbrau house. Everybody we talked to (the man on the train and Stephanie) said that it was exclusively filled with tourists, but nonetheless, everybody would ask if we went there. Stephanie said we could just go take a picture of it and that would suffice (since Laura and I aren't really into tourist traps). So we took a look and I took some pictures. The inside of it was huge, well lit, and mostly empty. There was live music playing and the walls were colorfully painted. It reminded me of a church...for beer. Nobody could really tell us why the Hofbrauhaus was famous so we read a little bit about it at the information office. Apparently, in the olden days, you had to have a special license to brew beer and the Hofbrauhaus held the only license for around 200 years. This means it was pretty much the only place to drink in Munich and became well known for its beer. Later on, just before World War II really got going, the Hofbrauhaus was the location of the first large meeting of Nazis. So there is some interesting history behind the place.
That seen, we walked to the Englischer Garten. It is the biggest garden/park in Europe and one of the biggest in the world. We were told to go see the Chinese Tower, somewhere in the middle of the garden. It was a perfect day for strolling the garden paths. It was sunny and warm, and tons of people were out. A lot of old people and a lot of miniature people with mommies and strollers in tow. There were lots of streams, creeks, miniature water falls, ponds, lakes, etc. We eventually reached the Chinese Tower, which oh-so-conveniently happened to be in the middle of an enormous beer garden! I think this was the first "real" beer garden I've ever seen, and it was beautiful. I've seen little beer gardens at festivals like Bumbershoot but not one like this. There were just sprawling green tables and green benches in a loose circle. The circumference of the circle was filled with pretzel and bratwurst shops (as well as a host of other German food) and of course beer stands. People at each table had a huge mug filled with a liter of beer, usually one per person. And that's what they were doing on a random Monday afternoon, just sitting in the sun in this huge garden drinking enormous beers together. Fantastic. Laura and I got a pretzel the size of my head, a 1/2 meter long bratwurst, and a white breakfast sausage and split all of that. I was very brave and ordered for us in German. It was really scary, even though it was very few words. I know Europeans generally think Americans are either terrible at languages or too lazy to try out the local languages (which is all true), so I just said what I could, terrible accent and all and hoped they understood and/or appreciated my effort. To my surprise, they either didn't pick up on my American accent or didn't know English (again, not tourist season) so they responded to me in German. At that point I had no clue what to do and just looked at the numbers on the cash register. Still, I am glad I tried it! It's a little scary, but fun to try. I really enjoy learning a few words from the country I'm in. And seriously, ordering one of anything requires 3 words, "one" "food item" "please". It was quite a hearty lunch so it filled me up with my portion of our liter of beer. A delicious lunch and very cheap. Also, I think it was mostly locals there which was cool. I heard little to no English, and it's not tourist season yet so it definitely felt very German. We sat at our table in the sun for a while, each of us fell asleep at some point. It was wonderfully lazy.
When we finally decided to peel ourselves off of our table, we saw a lake on the map that we started aiming for. While we were walking away from the beer garden, I saw something in bushes. I have a bad habit of looking at the ground a lot when I walk, but every once in a while it pays off by me finding some really cool random thing (usually small coins). But today, my eyes were caught by the glint of sun on clear glass. A BEER MUG. Surely, it must be broken, I though, since it looks quite carelessly (read: drunkenly) thrown into the bushes. If you were going to take it away from the Beer Garden, wouldn't you be more careful about stealing it...? Anyway I rushed over to it and found it to be dirty, but whole. It was a large, one liter mug (the kind that everybody drinks out of here). It had the famous Hofbrauhaus logo on it with "Munchen" written beneath. Very plain and basic, but I loved it. A similar mug in the HB shop would cost 8.9 Euros (I checked). So it's not like I found something extremely valuable. It looked like it had been sitting in the dirt and leaves for a while, so I decided to adopt it and carefully put it in my bag. Yay! I really couldn't decide if this was stealing or not. But when you get a beer from the beer garden, as we just had, they give you a token. When you return your mug and the token, they give you a Euro back. Not a sizable incentive for NOT stealing, but it was something. We obviously didn't have our token before, and everybody there had only spoken German to us. My German was definitely insufficient to explain that I found it and didn't steal it. Also, it looked pretty worn so I figured they'd been missing it a while and had probably gotten over it. Later I asked Stephanie's opinion and she said that there are soooo many of these mugs that they really wouldn't care about losing one. Conscience cleared!
The lake was beautiful and reminded me a lot of Green Lake. There were a lot of runners and bikers going around, and there were tons of ducks and swans and at least one peddle boat meandering through the water. We duck-watched for a while which was surprisingly amusing. These were the funniest ducks I've ever seen! A lot of them were fighting with each other and chasing others out of the water. Then some would venture on to land, only to get thoroughly involved in a high-speed chase with one of the many leash-less dogs running around. Incredibly funny to see a small little fluff-ball chase a duck around. Oh yeah, and some of the ducks were HUGE! Like 3 normal small ducks could fit in one of these ducks. We walked all the way around the lake and ended up finding an entirely different map of the park that extended much further than we originally thought. This place was really, really huge. But we decided to head back to the center of town and get on with our now early evening.
We walked to Maximillenium Platz, a round-about with a big statue at the end of a street filled with all the big name designers. There was also this incredibly gorgeous building that wasn't on our map and we had no idea what it was used for. Later, we asked Stephanie and she said that the really, really smart students in Germany get to live in this building, completely paid for by the German government. It is not a dorm though, only a few special students get put up there. They also get a cleaning lady, and somebody to wash their clothes etc all courtesy of the government. Crazy!
We told Stephanie that we would make dinner for her - I really love cooking - so we went to a grocery store and got some essentials. Back at Stephanie's place, Laura helped me chop vegetables and I made pasta with seasoned chicken and pesto, and also a delicious seasoned vegetable dish with lemon zest. Laura and I also bought a bottle of white wine for the three of us and it was such a cute little meal. I was much happier with the way things turned out this time around than I was when I cooked for Arthur. Everything just tasted better. Poor Stephanie had a 12 hour day at work with no time to even eat lunch, so she came home around 9 and we had ourselves a little feast. The benefit of hosting CouchSurfers even if you're busy - they'll (I'll) cook you dinner!
After dinner, Stephanie kindly helped us find places on the map to go visit and we worked out a rough itinerary for tomorrow. She also showed us the female equivalent of Lederhosen. It's a dress outfit called a Drindl, and Stephanie let me try it on! It was so much fun to dress up, and the outfit was so cute. These typical Bavarian outfits are now only worn at the Spring Festival and at Oktoberfest. Since it fit me and since Stephanie was going to be coming from work to meet us at Spring Fest tomorrow, she said I could wear it to Spring Fest! You can imagine my excitement :) Oh, also there was an American boy named Zack who requested to surf Stephanie's couch. Obviously she was already booked but I sent him a message via CS to let him know our plans tomorrow in case he wants to meet up. We'll see what happens with that.
Quotes:
"Something famous is happening right now!" - Laura, upon hearing the Glockenspiel and seeing all the people crowded in Marienplatz.
"Wow, you're really filling out." - Jon, upon seeing my new chubbiness via a Skype video chat :/
Accomplishments:
Found a map.
Spoke German.
Found a Hofbrauhaus beer mug.
Cooked a delicious dinner.
Travel Tip:
I think it is really good travel etiquette to learn the basic words and try to use them even if it makes you feel silly!
Going to bed is always fun when you have a beer festival to look forward to the next day...
Then we heard some music that sounded like bells. It was noon, and Stephanie had said the Glockenspiel was played at 11, but we had no clue where we were or if what we were hearing was in fact the Glockenspiel, or if the Glockenspiel was anywhere close to the City Hall and/or a map. We were thoroughly disoriented; maps are my savior in a new city. But we were in front of a huge, gorgeous building from which the music was coming from. There were colorful miniature statues of people spinning around and it definitely sounded like bells. This building was facing a large square which had quite a few people staring up at it, many taking pictures. So I assumed that yes, we are somewhere well-known at least, and we probably just heard the Glockenspiel.
After starting to walk away from this main square, I figured we must have missed something and that the City Hall must have been back in that huge square. Maybe we just needed to look a little closer? Sure enough, on ground level beneath the bells was a little blue "i" that globally stands for Information. In other words, one of my best friends when traveling.
In the tourist information office though, all of the maps were for sale. How ridiculous! Every city has free maps somewhere, if you just know where to find them...There also weren't any just plain maps, just Munich guide books with way too much information in them for our 48 hours here and lots of pamphlets advertising guided tours. I had the clever idea to go talk to somebody at the information desk. On the counter taped in front of her was a city map. Hallelujah. It cost 0.40 Euros. Lame. I had seen somebody outside with a "Free Map & Guide" booklet which I assumed was for Munich (this company does "Free Map & Guide" booklets for tons of major cities, so I recognized what it was from a distance. When I told the tourist information lady this, she said she didn't know where they had gotten it, perhaps at a hotel. Well, whatever, we needed a map so I'd pay 40 cents for it if I had to. Then she just handed me a city map and a subway/S-Bahn map. I asked her if these were 40 cents together, because the counter clearly said that just the map was 40 cents. Then she said, no, she had just given them to me for free, and if she was going to charge me for them she would have asked for 40 cents! She came across as a little snappy but I said thank you very much and shuffled away with my new free treasures. I loooove free treasures.
Also, I don't think I've written about this yet, but I am trying to collect maps from each city we visit. I like it when they look worn or have places circled on them or stuff written on them as a testament to what we did there. I plan on using all my maps to make some homemade wallpaper someday. In my head it looks sweeeeet! So getting a map was good for multiple reasons.
Once oriented and after the information shop, we realized that we were in Marienplatz, Munich's famous square, and that the building we were in, the "Rathaus" was the City Hall, and the music we heard was the Glockenspiel. So we accidentally accomplished quite a lot!
We wandered the streets to go take a look at the Hofbrau house. Everybody we talked to (the man on the train and Stephanie) said that it was exclusively filled with tourists, but nonetheless, everybody would ask if we went there. Stephanie said we could just go take a picture of it and that would suffice (since Laura and I aren't really into tourist traps). So we took a look and I took some pictures. The inside of it was huge, well lit, and mostly empty. There was live music playing and the walls were colorfully painted. It reminded me of a church...for beer. Nobody could really tell us why the Hofbrauhaus was famous so we read a little bit about it at the information office. Apparently, in the olden days, you had to have a special license to brew beer and the Hofbrauhaus held the only license for around 200 years. This means it was pretty much the only place to drink in Munich and became well known for its beer. Later on, just before World War II really got going, the Hofbrauhaus was the location of the first large meeting of Nazis. So there is some interesting history behind the place.
That seen, we walked to the Englischer Garten. It is the biggest garden/park in Europe and one of the biggest in the world. We were told to go see the Chinese Tower, somewhere in the middle of the garden. It was a perfect day for strolling the garden paths. It was sunny and warm, and tons of people were out. A lot of old people and a lot of miniature people with mommies and strollers in tow. There were lots of streams, creeks, miniature water falls, ponds, lakes, etc. We eventually reached the Chinese Tower, which oh-so-conveniently happened to be in the middle of an enormous beer garden! I think this was the first "real" beer garden I've ever seen, and it was beautiful. I've seen little beer gardens at festivals like Bumbershoot but not one like this. There were just sprawling green tables and green benches in a loose circle. The circumference of the circle was filled with pretzel and bratwurst shops (as well as a host of other German food) and of course beer stands. People at each table had a huge mug filled with a liter of beer, usually one per person. And that's what they were doing on a random Monday afternoon, just sitting in the sun in this huge garden drinking enormous beers together. Fantastic. Laura and I got a pretzel the size of my head, a 1/2 meter long bratwurst, and a white breakfast sausage and split all of that. I was very brave and ordered for us in German. It was really scary, even though it was very few words. I know Europeans generally think Americans are either terrible at languages or too lazy to try out the local languages (which is all true), so I just said what I could, terrible accent and all and hoped they understood and/or appreciated my effort. To my surprise, they either didn't pick up on my American accent or didn't know English (again, not tourist season) so they responded to me in German. At that point I had no clue what to do and just looked at the numbers on the cash register. Still, I am glad I tried it! It's a little scary, but fun to try. I really enjoy learning a few words from the country I'm in. And seriously, ordering one of anything requires 3 words, "one" "food item" "please". It was quite a hearty lunch so it filled me up with my portion of our liter of beer. A delicious lunch and very cheap. Also, I think it was mostly locals there which was cool. I heard little to no English, and it's not tourist season yet so it definitely felt very German. We sat at our table in the sun for a while, each of us fell asleep at some point. It was wonderfully lazy.
When we finally decided to peel ourselves off of our table, we saw a lake on the map that we started aiming for. While we were walking away from the beer garden, I saw something in bushes. I have a bad habit of looking at the ground a lot when I walk, but every once in a while it pays off by me finding some really cool random thing (usually small coins). But today, my eyes were caught by the glint of sun on clear glass. A BEER MUG. Surely, it must be broken, I though, since it looks quite carelessly (read: drunkenly) thrown into the bushes. If you were going to take it away from the Beer Garden, wouldn't you be more careful about stealing it...? Anyway I rushed over to it and found it to be dirty, but whole. It was a large, one liter mug (the kind that everybody drinks out of here). It had the famous Hofbrauhaus logo on it with "Munchen" written beneath. Very plain and basic, but I loved it. A similar mug in the HB shop would cost 8.9 Euros (I checked). So it's not like I found something extremely valuable. It looked like it had been sitting in the dirt and leaves for a while, so I decided to adopt it and carefully put it in my bag. Yay! I really couldn't decide if this was stealing or not. But when you get a beer from the beer garden, as we just had, they give you a token. When you return your mug and the token, they give you a Euro back. Not a sizable incentive for NOT stealing, but it was something. We obviously didn't have our token before, and everybody there had only spoken German to us. My German was definitely insufficient to explain that I found it and didn't steal it. Also, it looked pretty worn so I figured they'd been missing it a while and had probably gotten over it. Later I asked Stephanie's opinion and she said that there are soooo many of these mugs that they really wouldn't care about losing one. Conscience cleared!
The lake was beautiful and reminded me a lot of Green Lake. There were a lot of runners and bikers going around, and there were tons of ducks and swans and at least one peddle boat meandering through the water. We duck-watched for a while which was surprisingly amusing. These were the funniest ducks I've ever seen! A lot of them were fighting with each other and chasing others out of the water. Then some would venture on to land, only to get thoroughly involved in a high-speed chase with one of the many leash-less dogs running around. Incredibly funny to see a small little fluff-ball chase a duck around. Oh yeah, and some of the ducks were HUGE! Like 3 normal small ducks could fit in one of these ducks. We walked all the way around the lake and ended up finding an entirely different map of the park that extended much further than we originally thought. This place was really, really huge. But we decided to head back to the center of town and get on with our now early evening.
We walked to Maximillenium Platz, a round-about with a big statue at the end of a street filled with all the big name designers. There was also this incredibly gorgeous building that wasn't on our map and we had no idea what it was used for. Later, we asked Stephanie and she said that the really, really smart students in Germany get to live in this building, completely paid for by the German government. It is not a dorm though, only a few special students get put up there. They also get a cleaning lady, and somebody to wash their clothes etc all courtesy of the government. Crazy!
We told Stephanie that we would make dinner for her - I really love cooking - so we went to a grocery store and got some essentials. Back at Stephanie's place, Laura helped me chop vegetables and I made pasta with seasoned chicken and pesto, and also a delicious seasoned vegetable dish with lemon zest. Laura and I also bought a bottle of white wine for the three of us and it was such a cute little meal. I was much happier with the way things turned out this time around than I was when I cooked for Arthur. Everything just tasted better. Poor Stephanie had a 12 hour day at work with no time to even eat lunch, so she came home around 9 and we had ourselves a little feast. The benefit of hosting CouchSurfers even if you're busy - they'll (I'll) cook you dinner!
After dinner, Stephanie kindly helped us find places on the map to go visit and we worked out a rough itinerary for tomorrow. She also showed us the female equivalent of Lederhosen. It's a dress outfit called a Drindl, and Stephanie let me try it on! It was so much fun to dress up, and the outfit was so cute. These typical Bavarian outfits are now only worn at the Spring Festival and at Oktoberfest. Since it fit me and since Stephanie was going to be coming from work to meet us at Spring Fest tomorrow, she said I could wear it to Spring Fest! You can imagine my excitement :) Oh, also there was an American boy named Zack who requested to surf Stephanie's couch. Obviously she was already booked but I sent him a message via CS to let him know our plans tomorrow in case he wants to meet up. We'll see what happens with that.
Quotes:
"Something famous is happening right now!" - Laura, upon hearing the Glockenspiel and seeing all the people crowded in Marienplatz.
"Wow, you're really filling out." - Jon, upon seeing my new chubbiness via a Skype video chat :/
Accomplishments:
Found a map.
Spoke German.
Found a Hofbrauhaus beer mug.
Cooked a delicious dinner.
Travel Tip:
I think it is really good travel etiquette to learn the basic words and try to use them even if it makes you feel silly!
Going to bed is always fun when you have a beer festival to look forward to the next day...
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