Sunday, July 29, 2007
From Slovakia to Austria
Meghan:
So yes, we admit Bratislava, Slovakia is a slightly random place...but we must say, we really loved it.
We spent our time there at "Juraj's Hostel" which we found on the internet. After reading some reviews about it, people kept commenting that Juraj, the man who lives and owns the hostel, is very eccentric...and let us tell you, he lived up to everything people said. Juraj took quite a liking to Laura and I, probably because we were the only ones who would sit and listen to his mumblings, so he provided constant commentary on the sanitary conditions of the two other hostels in Bratislava. He was always mumbling about "infectuous diseases" at the other hostels and how if people spent the night at another hostel and then tried to come "infect" his hostel, he wouldn't let them stay...he was on to their game (the other owners of these infected hostels are polish and juraj is not very fond of polish people). Little did he know that by the end of our stay Laura would have some mysterious bumps on her arm from the beds at his hostel. He made our stay interesting to say the least.
Bratislava itself was interesting to see especially when you would look out across the city to a bunch of level, high rise buildings that just screamed communism. Everything through the city has communist remnants and its kind of a strange feel. It is just weird to imagine that ten years ago these people were allotted 2 hours of television a week and now they are trying to embrace capitalism.
We only spent 2 days in the city but our time was very well spent. One day, we woke up early to go hunt down a coffee shop. With our caffeine buzz, we were really gung-ho to "see the city". We had our map, our walking shoes and decided to begin our tour of the city at the castle. The castle was a little bit of a hike as it sits on top of a hill, overlooking old town bratislava and the Danube. As we climbed up to it, we got passed 4 times by little red, disneylandish trams full of old german tourists who enjoyed waving at the two panting american girls. At the top, we took in the castle and rather than touring the indside like all the other people, we tried to figure things out ourselves and managed to only find the castle well. Don't get me wrong, the giant hole in the ground with a bucket and string dangling down it was pretty hard to discover and for some reason, no one else seemed interested in it, but Laura and I just werent feeling the castle and decided to leave.
Perhaps it was something in the air, or perhaps it was just thirst...but we gave up our grandiose plans of sightseeing when we passed a pub on our way down from the castle and saw that beer was cheaper than water. Despite being only noon, we sat down to a nice cold, half liter of pilsner and some weird looks from the waiter (not too sure if women here order big mugs of beer here...). It was so good and refreshing that our one beer led to us having our own pub crawl through bratislava culminating at the "slovak pub" where we proceeded to buy shirts that the bartenders had on which say something we aren't too sure of in slovakian. It was a much more culturally enlightening experience in the slovak pubs than a day of sightseeing could ever have been.
So about 5 beers later...and us being slightly intoxicated...we stumbled upon a sushi bar. Bad idea to eat sushi in slovakia, right? wrong. We thought that it sounded like an amazing idea since we hadn't eaten all day (beer=food in slovakia) and there was bound to be fish in the Danube river, right? From what we remember, it was a pretty good meal and our waiter probably thought we were crazy as we kept trying random things and then ordering more.
Between pub crawls, good ol' Juraj, wells, slovakians, sushi and everything else we managed to pack in...we had a great time. We continue to be fascinated by the things we are seeing and the differences from country to country. Its crazy to see the difference between Austria and Slovakia...nieghboring countries where after WWII, one embraced capitalism while the other embraced communism. To see how people live in Slovakia compared to here in Vienna, just an hour up the Danube, is pretty astounding.
Laura:
Vienna
We arrived in Vienna about an hour and a half after leaving Bratislava by way of the hydrofoil down the Danube River; the highlight was sitting on the boat in the Vienna Canal, waiting for the water to fill up so we could continue on our way. We had a really good time exclaiming to each other in excitment at how much higher the water level had gotten from the last time we looked (this happened about every five minutes...I think the people around us were starting to get annoyed). We had decided to take the hydrofoil because it sounded way sweeter than the train, but once we got off we realized a little research may have been a good call...the boat dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we lugged our bags around for a good half hour before amayingly spotting a lone cab that rescued us and took us to our hostel.
We have spent the past two days exploring Vienna and for the most part we are fairly impressed (though that may be due to the frequent Starbucks that dot the city). Yesterday we went to the Palace and walked through the gardens that included miles of tree covered paths, Roman statues, floral designs, a labrynth, and the imperial zoo. It was beautiful, and while we had intended on touring the actual inside, the immense lines of tourists abruptly put an end to that plan. Travelling in a more Western, touristy city is definitely a different experience in comparison to our travels in Eastern Europe, where we tended to be the only foreigners, and he fact that its late July is not helping matters. We kind of miss the weird looks we would get for being the onlz tourists...it was a thrill to feel as though we were in a completelz different world, where as here we are two of a zillion backpackers.
So moving on, we skipped the palace interior and started trekking across the citz toward St. Stephan´s Cathedral and the historical heart of Vienna (for some reason the metro never dawns on us as an option). But thank god for our walking, becuase otherwise we would have completelz missed the activitz that took up the rest of our daz! We ran across a huge flea market and decided to "check it out"- long storz short, we discovered an amaying open food market and spent the next three hours feasting on grilled salmon and fresh fruit before buying four different kinds of hummus and vegetables for dinner (for some reason the market was predominantlz Middle Eastern, and I thought Meghan was going to faint with excitment when she spotted a vendor selling Turkish Delight....we of course got some, but we were good this time and maintained some self control when it came to portion).
So zea, we didnt make it to the Cathedral that afternoon. But after dinner we went on our nightlz stroll and ended up walking to the historical section, anzwaz. We got to see the gorgeous gothic stzle cathedral of St. Stephan then, as well as discover an entire section of cobble stoned streets closed off for pedestrians. It was then that we felt as though we got the essence of Vienna, and it reallz is a wonderful citz, full of its old buildings and historz. Todaz after our venti coffees at Starbucks we went to the Leopold Museum, an art museum primarilz dedicated to the works of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Kolo Moser. We also attempted to go to mass, but on our waz to the church got completelz lost and didnt quite make it. We arent doing so well in terms of sticking to a plan in this citz, but we decided we wouldnt understand anzthing that was going on anzwaz, so we are postponing that activitz until we get to an English speaking countrz. And speaking of Sundazs, everzthing here is closed, including the grocerz stores, so I leave zou now in pursuit of dinner.
So yes, we admit Bratislava, Slovakia is a slightly random place...but we must say, we really loved it.
We spent our time there at "Juraj's Hostel" which we found on the internet. After reading some reviews about it, people kept commenting that Juraj, the man who lives and owns the hostel, is very eccentric...and let us tell you, he lived up to everything people said. Juraj took quite a liking to Laura and I, probably because we were the only ones who would sit and listen to his mumblings, so he provided constant commentary on the sanitary conditions of the two other hostels in Bratislava. He was always mumbling about "infectuous diseases" at the other hostels and how if people spent the night at another hostel and then tried to come "infect" his hostel, he wouldn't let them stay...he was on to their game (the other owners of these infected hostels are polish and juraj is not very fond of polish people). Little did he know that by the end of our stay Laura would have some mysterious bumps on her arm from the beds at his hostel. He made our stay interesting to say the least.
Bratislava itself was interesting to see especially when you would look out across the city to a bunch of level, high rise buildings that just screamed communism. Everything through the city has communist remnants and its kind of a strange feel. It is just weird to imagine that ten years ago these people were allotted 2 hours of television a week and now they are trying to embrace capitalism.
We only spent 2 days in the city but our time was very well spent. One day, we woke up early to go hunt down a coffee shop. With our caffeine buzz, we were really gung-ho to "see the city". We had our map, our walking shoes and decided to begin our tour of the city at the castle. The castle was a little bit of a hike as it sits on top of a hill, overlooking old town bratislava and the Danube. As we climbed up to it, we got passed 4 times by little red, disneylandish trams full of old german tourists who enjoyed waving at the two panting american girls. At the top, we took in the castle and rather than touring the indside like all the other people, we tried to figure things out ourselves and managed to only find the castle well. Don't get me wrong, the giant hole in the ground with a bucket and string dangling down it was pretty hard to discover and for some reason, no one else seemed interested in it, but Laura and I just werent feeling the castle and decided to leave.
Perhaps it was something in the air, or perhaps it was just thirst...but we gave up our grandiose plans of sightseeing when we passed a pub on our way down from the castle and saw that beer was cheaper than water. Despite being only noon, we sat down to a nice cold, half liter of pilsner and some weird looks from the waiter (not too sure if women here order big mugs of beer here...). It was so good and refreshing that our one beer led to us having our own pub crawl through bratislava culminating at the "slovak pub" where we proceeded to buy shirts that the bartenders had on which say something we aren't too sure of in slovakian. It was a much more culturally enlightening experience in the slovak pubs than a day of sightseeing could ever have been.
So about 5 beers later...and us being slightly intoxicated...we stumbled upon a sushi bar. Bad idea to eat sushi in slovakia, right? wrong. We thought that it sounded like an amazing idea since we hadn't eaten all day (beer=food in slovakia) and there was bound to be fish in the Danube river, right? From what we remember, it was a pretty good meal and our waiter probably thought we were crazy as we kept trying random things and then ordering more.
Between pub crawls, good ol' Juraj, wells, slovakians, sushi and everything else we managed to pack in...we had a great time. We continue to be fascinated by the things we are seeing and the differences from country to country. Its crazy to see the difference between Austria and Slovakia...nieghboring countries where after WWII, one embraced capitalism while the other embraced communism. To see how people live in Slovakia compared to here in Vienna, just an hour up the Danube, is pretty astounding.
Laura:
Vienna
We arrived in Vienna about an hour and a half after leaving Bratislava by way of the hydrofoil down the Danube River; the highlight was sitting on the boat in the Vienna Canal, waiting for the water to fill up so we could continue on our way. We had a really good time exclaiming to each other in excitment at how much higher the water level had gotten from the last time we looked (this happened about every five minutes...I think the people around us were starting to get annoyed). We had decided to take the hydrofoil because it sounded way sweeter than the train, but once we got off we realized a little research may have been a good call...the boat dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we lugged our bags around for a good half hour before amayingly spotting a lone cab that rescued us and took us to our hostel.
We have spent the past two days exploring Vienna and for the most part we are fairly impressed (though that may be due to the frequent Starbucks that dot the city). Yesterday we went to the Palace and walked through the gardens that included miles of tree covered paths, Roman statues, floral designs, a labrynth, and the imperial zoo. It was beautiful, and while we had intended on touring the actual inside, the immense lines of tourists abruptly put an end to that plan. Travelling in a more Western, touristy city is definitely a different experience in comparison to our travels in Eastern Europe, where we tended to be the only foreigners, and he fact that its late July is not helping matters. We kind of miss the weird looks we would get for being the onlz tourists...it was a thrill to feel as though we were in a completelz different world, where as here we are two of a zillion backpackers.
So moving on, we skipped the palace interior and started trekking across the citz toward St. Stephan´s Cathedral and the historical heart of Vienna (for some reason the metro never dawns on us as an option). But thank god for our walking, becuase otherwise we would have completelz missed the activitz that took up the rest of our daz! We ran across a huge flea market and decided to "check it out"- long storz short, we discovered an amaying open food market and spent the next three hours feasting on grilled salmon and fresh fruit before buying four different kinds of hummus and vegetables for dinner (for some reason the market was predominantlz Middle Eastern, and I thought Meghan was going to faint with excitment when she spotted a vendor selling Turkish Delight....we of course got some, but we were good this time and maintained some self control when it came to portion).
So zea, we didnt make it to the Cathedral that afternoon. But after dinner we went on our nightlz stroll and ended up walking to the historical section, anzwaz. We got to see the gorgeous gothic stzle cathedral of St. Stephan then, as well as discover an entire section of cobble stoned streets closed off for pedestrians. It was then that we felt as though we got the essence of Vienna, and it reallz is a wonderful citz, full of its old buildings and historz. Todaz after our venti coffees at Starbucks we went to the Leopold Museum, an art museum primarilz dedicated to the works of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Kolo Moser. We also attempted to go to mass, but on our waz to the church got completelz lost and didnt quite make it. We arent doing so well in terms of sticking to a plan in this citz, but we decided we wouldnt understand anzthing that was going on anzwaz, so we are postponing that activitz until we get to an English speaking countrz. And speaking of Sundazs, everzthing here is closed, including the grocerz stores, so I leave zou now in pursuit of dinner.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Croatia
So, we spent the last week and a half being complete beach bums. in southern croatia. on the adriatic sea. in turquoise water. that felt like bath water...amazing.
Not too much to report. croatia is gorgeous. we scare ourselves when we look in the the mirror because after so many days in the sun, we look like another race.
Our first few days we spent in Split. After a long night in the Budapest airport, we got into town at 7am and found a cute, old man with a sign on the street advertising "private rooms" in his house...and obviously, in eastern europe, when a strange old man wants to take you home- you go for it. So with him chatting in croatian and us smiling and nodding, we followed him through town to a cute little apartment building where he set us up quite nicely with a room. We spent our time walking to the beach, picking up dinner at the local farmers market (where we constantly got ripped off but still paid about 2 dollars for an entire watermelon) and making up for our lost time on the mediterranean.
As hard as it was to leave Split, we decided to journey south to the very bottom tip of Croatia to Dubrovnik. We spent all day on a ferry travelling down the coast, stopping periodically at different islands to drop people off. Eventually, we got to our port, hopped off the ferry, and this time got in some random woman's car who told us she had "private accomodation". Again, it worked out nicely as we could walk to the beach and had a small balcony where we would dine and read our books.
We stayed in the main town but ventured over to the old town of dubrovnik which is surrounded by fortress walls and streets of white marble. Its preserved in its venetian
atmosphere and we enjoyed strolling around the marble streets and tiny alleyways. During this strolling, we
managed to find a movie theater that happenned to be playing the new Harry Potter. We were pretty happy although
the socalled theater felt like a 5th grade assembly hall.
Dubrovnik highlights included us renting a kayak one day. After getting weird looks as tried to gracefully board our neon orange boat, we proceeded to paddle hard for a good 15 minutes out to the open sea where we then ate all our snacks and floated around waving at the boats that passed for a few hours. Then, we turned around and ferociously paddled ourselves back to shore. whew...its a hard life we lead. Another day, we
found a random boat to take us to some island claiming it had a "sandy beach" (most beaches in croatia are pebble). It turned
out to be another perfect day with turquoise water and a sand bar that stretched out 50 meters. We hitched a ride back around
sunset which made the day impossibly more perfect.
We quickly got into a routine of morning runs, days spent in the sun on the beach and evenings eating fresh fish washed down by wine. we
were spoiled.
We originally had planned on staying in dubrovnik just a few days, but found ourselves still there a week later ...still unsure how to get out of the country as croatia seems to be lacking in frequent public transportation. In the end, we found a cheap flight and as we write this, we find ourselves in a thunderstorm in bratislava, slovakia. It feels good to be out of the heat and we are excited to explore the city.
Cheers.
Not too much to report. croatia is gorgeous. we scare ourselves when we look in the the mirror because after so many days in the sun, we look like another race.
Our first few days we spent in Split. After a long night in the Budapest airport, we got into town at 7am and found a cute, old man with a sign on the street advertising "private rooms" in his house...and obviously, in eastern europe, when a strange old man wants to take you home- you go for it. So with him chatting in croatian and us smiling and nodding, we followed him through town to a cute little apartment building where he set us up quite nicely with a room. We spent our time walking to the beach, picking up dinner at the local farmers market (where we constantly got ripped off but still paid about 2 dollars for an entire watermelon) and making up for our lost time on the mediterranean.
As hard as it was to leave Split, we decided to journey south to the very bottom tip of Croatia to Dubrovnik. We spent all day on a ferry travelling down the coast, stopping periodically at different islands to drop people off. Eventually, we got to our port, hopped off the ferry, and this time got in some random woman's car who told us she had "private accomodation". Again, it worked out nicely as we could walk to the beach and had a small balcony where we would dine and read our books.
We stayed in the main town but ventured over to the old town of dubrovnik which is surrounded by fortress walls and streets of white marble. Its preserved in its venetian
atmosphere and we enjoyed strolling around the marble streets and tiny alleyways. During this strolling, we
managed to find a movie theater that happenned to be playing the new Harry Potter. We were pretty happy although
the socalled theater felt like a 5th grade assembly hall.
Dubrovnik highlights included us renting a kayak one day. After getting weird looks as tried to gracefully board our neon orange boat, we proceeded to paddle hard for a good 15 minutes out to the open sea where we then ate all our snacks and floated around waving at the boats that passed for a few hours. Then, we turned around and ferociously paddled ourselves back to shore. whew...its a hard life we lead. Another day, we
found a random boat to take us to some island claiming it had a "sandy beach" (most beaches in croatia are pebble). It turned
out to be another perfect day with turquoise water and a sand bar that stretched out 50 meters. We hitched a ride back around
sunset which made the day impossibly more perfect.
We quickly got into a routine of morning runs, days spent in the sun on the beach and evenings eating fresh fish washed down by wine. we
were spoiled.
We originally had planned on staying in dubrovnik just a few days, but found ourselves still there a week later ...still unsure how to get out of the country as croatia seems to be lacking in frequent public transportation. In the end, we found a cheap flight and as we write this, we find ourselves in a thunderstorm in bratislava, slovakia. It feels good to be out of the heat and we are excited to explore the city.
Cheers.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Budapest, Hungary
Meghan:
alright- to pick up from where we left off last...(passed out on the train riding into Hungary)
We find ourselves in the intricate city of Budapest which is split right down the middle by the Danube river (all of these places we vaguely remember learning about in like 6th grade...but now wish we had paid more attention in class rather than who was going to be on our dodgeball team during recess). The hungarians, who we have found suprisingly chill, creatively named one side of the river Buda and the other side...(go ahead, take a guess...)- Pest. Laura and i have found ourselves suprisingly enamored with this strange city and people despite the lack of starbucks (which they easily make up for with lots of hippie coffee/tea shops) and intimidating old women who keep trying to talk to us in hungarian. Budapest has an earthy, free spirited vibe that Laura and I have been basking in (our "traveler" look...which is actually more on the homeless looking side...kind of makes us blend in here...sweet).
Our first day we spent walking around, per the usual. We just wander and wander, looking at all the old buildings surrounding us. Our attempts to absorb the scenes of the city around us tends to be accompanied by endless tripping on the cobblestone (we swear they made it uneven just so they would be entertained by the tourists). It is suprisingly hard to walk, talk and look around here...rough life. Anyways, gorgeous city.
The next day, after finding an amazing coffee shop called "California Coffee Company" which we have proceeded to go to at least once a day, Laura and I decided to completely give ourselves over to the the hungarian culture and embrace all that is budapest by going to the hungarian bath house. It is this huge, old communist building where most hungarians are members, but you can get a day pass to use the baths. Once you go in, you change into your swimsuit (apparently, up until recently, it was a nude thing) and then they show you to the thermal baths. The place is like a maze, with pools of different temperatures in every direction. Some are hot, others are lukewarm; some have medicine in them to heal different parts of your body, some just had a lot of old people sitting in them; some are outside and some are inside...it was crazy-but it was the most relaxing day we have had in a long time. Amongst the baths are steam rooms and suanas. Basically, we spent the entire day being stared down by old hungarian men and women while we ran from pool to pool. The best was when we got into an empty pool that has some caution sign in front of it in hungarian which we of course couldnt understand. We were suprisde when we walked on the weird ramp into the water to find that it was a giant whirlpool pool with jets that shoot you in a circle! it was like a ride at a water park! Some of the best things were the sauana and steam rooms because we finally could sweat all we wanted and it didnt matter...the hungarian baths were absolutely awesome. This culture knows whats up. We are thinking we should try and get one started back in California.
The next day we decided to leave our comfort zone of pest and venture across the danube to the buda side...crazy-i know. The Danube has nine bridges that cross it, so we picked one and had one of those moments where we were like "wow, we are walking across a bridge over the danube right now...in hungary...weird". As we looked up we could see the huge palace on top of the hill. We hiked up to it and then ventured through the streets of buda looking at all the cool buildings. Underneath buda is an intricate labyrinth that was originally made by thermal pools, but was then home to cavemen, then dug out and used as a secret military headquarters during the world wars. It was so cool, we got to go underground and walk through it. I kind of freaked out that there was no oxygen but quickly forgot about it when we saw that in one of the secret rooms was a fountain of not water, but wine. yum.
Laura:
Budapest Part II
Wednesdaz afternoon we met a guide and a group of tourists all around our age at the train station, where we all got on a bus and proceeded about 10 minutes outside of the citz center for our caving adventure. We were given overalls that resembled space suits and helmets equipped with halogen lights, and then the group of us were led to the cave enterance. We spent the next two and a half hours or so literallz crawling on our hands and knees along pathwazs that led throughout the cave into various "rooms" where we would turn off our lights and sit in pitch darkness where I couldnt see mz hand directlz in front of mz face. I was a little worried Meg was going to freak out due to the lack of oxygen, especiallz when our guide began comparing our situation to that of being in space, but luckilz she held it together. It was all in all exactlz what I wanted in a caving experience...lots of squeezing through little holes, banging our helmets on low ceilings, and sliding down rocks on our stomachs into darkness without any end in sight. We both loved it.
And then that was the night I thought Meghan and I were going to die. It was about 4am, and I was sleeping soundly until I heard a noise coming from the window of our room. We were on the second floor of a building that was located on a back street of the city, and we had left the window open when we went bed that night, thinking there was no way anyone would reach the window. But as I woke up, still half asleep, I looked at the window just in time to see two hands and a dark figure begin to climb inside our room. At first I thought it was Meghan, and I thought to myself, "now what's she doing," but then I looked over and saw that she was still sleeping beside me. I FREAKED OUT. I'm pretty sure I almost had a heart attack. I started shaking Meghan, screaming at her that someone was coming through the window and to run. We jumped out of bed, both screaming our heads off, and ran through the hallway of our hostel, her in the lead and me following right on her heels. Between screams, however, we heard some girl's voice drift down the hall repeating, "English?...English?" We stopped screaming and looked at each other in confusion. As it turns out, the intruder was not some creepy drunk guy coming to attack us, but rather this stupid drunk chick who was staying in the room next to us. Apparently her two roomates had gone home with guys they had met out at the bars, leaving her without a key, and she thought she was climbing into her room, not ours. We couldnt believe she had gotten up there from the street, and she assured in a drunken slur that she was "a ridiculously good climber." I could have killed her. Needless to say, we slept with the window locked from then on. We considered climbing through her window the next night to give her a taste of how it felt, but unfortunately she was leaving Budapest the next day.
Thursday was a pretty lazy day...we walked around the citz for about an hour looking for a used English bookshop we had read about in Lonely Planet. Once we found it the effort was well worth it. The walls were lined with used books for sale and we felt like kids in a candy shop (books have become our primary source of entertainment and we value them like gems). Just when I thought we were going to be looking in there for three hours my eye caught sight of a book title that left Meghan and I feeling like coming to Budapest was a sign. See, we had read the first three books in this historical fiction series, but were feeling extremely unfullfilled in life knowing that books 4, 5 and 6 were still out there. Low and behold, this random secondhand bookshop in the middle of Budapest, Hungry, had, of the series, books 4, 5 and 6. It was amazing (I really hope our friends will still hang out with us when we come home after reading this). We couldnt refrain from buying all three of the series, plus three more unrelated books, to haul around with us for the next couple of weeks....if i ever complain about our bags being heavy you can just tell me to shut up.
After that we rented bikes and cruised around the city on a bikepath that follows the Danube river, and spent the night at a hookah bar we had found, reliving our memories of Istanbul. Today was spent at the torture museum which tells about the Secret Police during Communist rule in Hungry. The building in which the museum is located is the actual building used by the secret police during that time, and when we went underground we saw authentic torture and prison cells. We visited the museum gift shop on our way out and found it extremely odd that they were selling candles in the shape of Stalin's head....so odd, in fact, that we each bought one. Not too sure what I'm going to do with it now that I think about it. Tonight we have no home, as we have a flight to Split, Croatia at 6am and apparently have to be there 2 hours early. So we wasted a few hours this evening going to see the movie Miss Potter (we were all set to go see Harry Potter until we were informed it was dubbed in Hungarian), and now we are going to waste a few more hours reading in a coffee shop until we have to pick up our bags and 10pm and head to the airport. Wow, it is going to be a long night.
alright- to pick up from where we left off last...(passed out on the train riding into Hungary)
We find ourselves in the intricate city of Budapest which is split right down the middle by the Danube river (all of these places we vaguely remember learning about in like 6th grade...but now wish we had paid more attention in class rather than who was going to be on our dodgeball team during recess). The hungarians, who we have found suprisingly chill, creatively named one side of the river Buda and the other side...(go ahead, take a guess...)- Pest. Laura and i have found ourselves suprisingly enamored with this strange city and people despite the lack of starbucks (which they easily make up for with lots of hippie coffee/tea shops) and intimidating old women who keep trying to talk to us in hungarian. Budapest has an earthy, free spirited vibe that Laura and I have been basking in (our "traveler" look...which is actually more on the homeless looking side...kind of makes us blend in here...sweet).
Our first day we spent walking around, per the usual. We just wander and wander, looking at all the old buildings surrounding us. Our attempts to absorb the scenes of the city around us tends to be accompanied by endless tripping on the cobblestone (we swear they made it uneven just so they would be entertained by the tourists). It is suprisingly hard to walk, talk and look around here...rough life. Anyways, gorgeous city.
The next day, after finding an amazing coffee shop called "California Coffee Company" which we have proceeded to go to at least once a day, Laura and I decided to completely give ourselves over to the the hungarian culture and embrace all that is budapest by going to the hungarian bath house. It is this huge, old communist building where most hungarians are members, but you can get a day pass to use the baths. Once you go in, you change into your swimsuit (apparently, up until recently, it was a nude thing) and then they show you to the thermal baths. The place is like a maze, with pools of different temperatures in every direction. Some are hot, others are lukewarm; some have medicine in them to heal different parts of your body, some just had a lot of old people sitting in them; some are outside and some are inside...it was crazy-but it was the most relaxing day we have had in a long time. Amongst the baths are steam rooms and suanas. Basically, we spent the entire day being stared down by old hungarian men and women while we ran from pool to pool. The best was when we got into an empty pool that has some caution sign in front of it in hungarian which we of course couldnt understand. We were suprisde when we walked on the weird ramp into the water to find that it was a giant whirlpool pool with jets that shoot you in a circle! it was like a ride at a water park! Some of the best things were the sauana and steam rooms because we finally could sweat all we wanted and it didnt matter...the hungarian baths were absolutely awesome. This culture knows whats up. We are thinking we should try and get one started back in California.
The next day we decided to leave our comfort zone of pest and venture across the danube to the buda side...crazy-i know. The Danube has nine bridges that cross it, so we picked one and had one of those moments where we were like "wow, we are walking across a bridge over the danube right now...in hungary...weird". As we looked up we could see the huge palace on top of the hill. We hiked up to it and then ventured through the streets of buda looking at all the cool buildings. Underneath buda is an intricate labyrinth that was originally made by thermal pools, but was then home to cavemen, then dug out and used as a secret military headquarters during the world wars. It was so cool, we got to go underground and walk through it. I kind of freaked out that there was no oxygen but quickly forgot about it when we saw that in one of the secret rooms was a fountain of not water, but wine. yum.
Laura:
Budapest Part II
Wednesdaz afternoon we met a guide and a group of tourists all around our age at the train station, where we all got on a bus and proceeded about 10 minutes outside of the citz center for our caving adventure. We were given overalls that resembled space suits and helmets equipped with halogen lights, and then the group of us were led to the cave enterance. We spent the next two and a half hours or so literallz crawling on our hands and knees along pathwazs that led throughout the cave into various "rooms" where we would turn off our lights and sit in pitch darkness where I couldnt see mz hand directlz in front of mz face. I was a little worried Meg was going to freak out due to the lack of oxygen, especiallz when our guide began comparing our situation to that of being in space, but luckilz she held it together. It was all in all exactlz what I wanted in a caving experience...lots of squeezing through little holes, banging our helmets on low ceilings, and sliding down rocks on our stomachs into darkness without any end in sight. We both loved it.
And then that was the night I thought Meghan and I were going to die. It was about 4am, and I was sleeping soundly until I heard a noise coming from the window of our room. We were on the second floor of a building that was located on a back street of the city, and we had left the window open when we went bed that night, thinking there was no way anyone would reach the window. But as I woke up, still half asleep, I looked at the window just in time to see two hands and a dark figure begin to climb inside our room. At first I thought it was Meghan, and I thought to myself, "now what's she doing," but then I looked over and saw that she was still sleeping beside me. I FREAKED OUT. I'm pretty sure I almost had a heart attack. I started shaking Meghan, screaming at her that someone was coming through the window and to run. We jumped out of bed, both screaming our heads off, and ran through the hallway of our hostel, her in the lead and me following right on her heels. Between screams, however, we heard some girl's voice drift down the hall repeating, "English?...English?" We stopped screaming and looked at each other in confusion. As it turns out, the intruder was not some creepy drunk guy coming to attack us, but rather this stupid drunk chick who was staying in the room next to us. Apparently her two roomates had gone home with guys they had met out at the bars, leaving her without a key, and she thought she was climbing into her room, not ours. We couldnt believe she had gotten up there from the street, and she assured in a drunken slur that she was "a ridiculously good climber." I could have killed her. Needless to say, we slept with the window locked from then on. We considered climbing through her window the next night to give her a taste of how it felt, but unfortunately she was leaving Budapest the next day.
Thursday was a pretty lazy day...we walked around the citz for about an hour looking for a used English bookshop we had read about in Lonely Planet. Once we found it the effort was well worth it. The walls were lined with used books for sale and we felt like kids in a candy shop (books have become our primary source of entertainment and we value them like gems). Just when I thought we were going to be looking in there for three hours my eye caught sight of a book title that left Meghan and I feeling like coming to Budapest was a sign. See, we had read the first three books in this historical fiction series, but were feeling extremely unfullfilled in life knowing that books 4, 5 and 6 were still out there. Low and behold, this random secondhand bookshop in the middle of Budapest, Hungry, had, of the series, books 4, 5 and 6. It was amazing (I really hope our friends will still hang out with us when we come home after reading this). We couldnt refrain from buying all three of the series, plus three more unrelated books, to haul around with us for the next couple of weeks....if i ever complain about our bags being heavy you can just tell me to shut up.
After that we rented bikes and cruised around the city on a bikepath that follows the Danube river, and spent the night at a hookah bar we had found, reliving our memories of Istanbul. Today was spent at the torture museum which tells about the Secret Police during Communist rule in Hungry. The building in which the museum is located is the actual building used by the secret police during that time, and when we went underground we saw authentic torture and prison cells. We visited the museum gift shop on our way out and found it extremely odd that they were selling candles in the shape of Stalin's head....so odd, in fact, that we each bought one. Not too sure what I'm going to do with it now that I think about it. Tonight we have no home, as we have a flight to Split, Croatia at 6am and apparently have to be there 2 hours early. So we wasted a few hours this evening going to see the movie Miss Potter (we were all set to go see Harry Potter until we were informed it was dubbed in Hungarian), and now we are going to waste a few more hours reading in a coffee shop until we have to pick up our bags and 10pm and head to the airport. Wow, it is going to be a long night.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
We've been stationary, so this blog is a little boring.
Brasov:
note: this keyboard has the y and z switched. also, we dont feel like blogging so this might suck.
so, we arrive in brasov to be greeted by this crazy woman named Maria who owns the hostel we are stazing at along with her two daughters. she grabbed us the second we stepped of the train, leads us around the train station, secures a cab and sends us on our way to the hostel in one giant whirlwind while having constantly been talking this whole time about how she hasnt slept in three days. once we got to the hostel, her daughters then immediately begin their speech on everzthing to do in the area. Laura and I were exhausted and found ourselves completelz spacing out onlz to be called back to realitz bz the girls asking us if we are okay.
brasov is another small town, up in the mountains of romania. however, this small town seems to think it rivals hollywood as one of their main "attractions" is the sign on the mountain that sazs BRASOV...in giant white hollywood letters. We would crack up everytime we saw it. we stayed there for a week...which was a long time for us but it was nice to not have to be packing up our stuff constantly and getting on trains.
One of our days we ventured to a famous romanian castle called Peloj. It was gorgeous but what made it stunning was the setting it was in. Beautiful green hills and mountains all around it, and then this picturesque castle right in the middle of it all. The castle itself wasnt extremely huge or ornate, but it was very interesting to see the different design styles on the inside. speaking of the inside, it took laura and i quite a while to figure out how to even get into the castle. we found the "foreigner entrance" where there were mass amounts of tourists hovering around the door. not cool. so we tried to find another way in and stumbled upon the "romanian entrance". we tried to sneakily saunter through, thinking that if we just kind of smiled and nodded maybe it would work, but as soon as we got like 10 feet from the door this woman started shaking her head at us and pointing to the foreigner sign. lame. back at the foreigner entrance, a bunch of people were being let in so we just kind of followed them in...only to be turned away again because apparently it was the israeli group. you have to wait til you hear your language called and onlz then can zou be let in. english of course was the last group which was easilz distinguishable by the couples in tevas and cameras around their necks, loudly yelling to eachother to get them a coke from the nearest drink stand.
another one of the days we ventured to Bran castle...the home of dracula. romanians take great pride in dracula, as he defended their honor against invaders and such. bran castle was pretty cool to see, but all around it is nothing. its kind of a town solely built on tourism so besides the castle, there is pretty much just a ton of shops with dracula teeth, scary masks and haunted houses.
thinking back now to brasov, i cant really remember what we did. we havent run into many americans out here, and not very many backpackers either. its been pretty nice not having to deal with mass groups of tourists.
on a side note...my tooth is all better which is nice. now i can go back to eating lots of candy. whew. and excuse the poor write/grammar...this keyboard is really confusing.
Cluj:
After Brasov we took a train to Medeas to see my cousin Heidi perform (shes an amazing singer/songwriter and shes starting to become pretty famous in Romania). We got off the train, checked into a hotel to shower and change, and then met her at Hotel Binderboobi. I made her repeat the name about 3 times over the phone as we giggled to eachother, and then Meghan and I had another giggle fit when i repeated it to the cab driver. We were expecting a pretty laid back scene, some sort of relaxed bar environment, but as we got out of the taxi we looked up to see the one of the nicest hotels we have yet to encounter in Eastern Europe. Apparently this was a gathering for Romanian and American businesses that worked in partnership and the event was NOT casual. We glanced at eachother in horror as we noticed that everyone inside was wearing nice suits and dresses, and here we were in our cutoff jean shorts and tshirts, hair all wet from the shower and no makeup. sweet. one romanian dude wanted us to sit at his table because "now he could get as drunk as he wanted and he still wouldnt look as bad as us." he wasnt one of our favorite romanians. luckily heidi rescued us and we ended up having a great time.. there was a delicious buffet from which we proceeded to gorge ourselves and we celebrated the 4th of july watching heidi sing and then dancing to a romanian cover band who played all the classics like sweet home alabama, brown eyed girl, and big band swing music.
We spent the next few days at Heidis house in Cluj. She lives just outside the city right at the edge of a gorgeous forest, and we quickly got into a routine of getting up in the mornings for early walks through the trees. We managed to get lost finding our way back everytime, even after Meghan brilliantly set up sticks in the shape of Xs to mark our way. Lucky for us, a number of stray dogs that hang around the neighborhood would join us, and we came to rely on their sense of direction to get home. We would get to a fork in the road, stop and ponder which one to take while reasoning sensibly with eachother, start walking down one of the paths, look behind us to see the dogs walking the opposite direction, turn and follow them. So even though it at times took us a good couple of hours to get back, it was worth it...as Heidi puts it, its feels as though you are wakling in a JRR Tolkien novel with the dense ferns and birch trees.
Other than our hikes, we spent our time in Cluj relishing the fact that we were in an actual home and taking advantage of the comforts that accompany being settled. We wore sweatpants as much as possible, made countless cups of coffee and tea, cooked, read, did laundry, and watched movies (Heidi has a little tv and an old vhs, and we watched Sweet Home Alabama about 4 times). One day we had a bbq with Heidis friends- we got up at 9am and decided it would be brilliant to make some cookies from scratch. unable to find a definitive recipe for snickerdoodles (we were trying to make something new and american for the romanians), we glanced over a few different ones and eventually mixed and matched ingredients until we came up with something resembling cookie dough and rolled it around in some cinammon and sugar (and shockingly they actually turned out to be delicious). We spent so much time bbqing and preparing the food that by the time it was actually ready to be eaten we were starving. Meghan and I began devouring our shishkebabs only to realize that for every three we were eating, all the Romanian women had eaten half of one. And then when the apple pie came out, we each tucked in two whole pieces globbed with vanilla ice cream, while the others seemed content to just talk about how good it looked and just eat a few bites. It was a little embarrassing, especially after one of the women commented on how she was expecting us to be fat since we were American. Pretty sure our eating habits that night didnt help out the stereotype. It was really a nice time, though, hanging out with our new Romanian friends and spending time with my cousin (this was the first time I had seen her in 9 years), and we went to bed late, only to get up at 4:30 am to catch our 5:30am train to budapest. we got to the station around 5:20, all ready to go, and discovered thjat it actually left at 5:12. damn. so we took a cab back to Heidis, spent the day doing some more hiking and movie watching, and hung around until 2am, when we repacked our bags and headed back down to the station to catch the 3am train. Once we got on we each stretched out on the seats and passed out until our arrival in Budapest at about 10am that morning. Which is were we currently are located. The city has beautiful architecture and the Danube river that separates Buda and Pest is very impressive. But that is all for the next blog. Get excited to hear about our adventures with the Hungarian Bath houses and 4 hours crawling around in a cave. Ive been bugging meghan all trip about wanting to visit caves, and im getting giddy now just thinking about it. Until next time.....
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