Vienna Soakage

That's a pretty lame pun to say that it's quite wet here in Vienna, what with the multi-day storm rolling through, but it's also a reference to sausage so that's making me hungry. I don't know just how I feel about this title. I get a little bit introspective when it's raining and I can't go anywhere. The forecast says that there's rain in store tomorrow too, so I think that I'd better just get used to it.

The day after I wrote that last post, I took a train out of Pecs. After I left I regretted not having a chance to see the wine region of Hungary, but I only met people who wanted to see it the day after I bought the ticket.I guess that's ok... I've seen wine and vine before and honestly I think that I've been drinking too much lately so it's just as well that I didn't get it started before noon while 'touring'. The other night while I was writing my blog I had a beer at dinner and brought home two beers that I thought that i would share with whomever was around. Nobody was there so I just drank them myself... and then I realized that over the evening I had 1.5 liters of beer while alone (1 beer is .5L here, .3L back home). Drinking by one's self is my definition of alcoholism so I've been a bit self conscious of it ever since.

The train ride to Vienna was pretty brutal. It was about 85+ degrees in the car and the windows didn't go down. It was also a 7 hour ride. I got in really late after checking into the hostel, met some people, and went out to a bar. So much for sobriety. The place was pretty cool and besides serving a number of novelty shots that I can't afford, some of them immolated, they also had a cool new bar game. There's a vertical log, a single hammer, and a box of large nails. 10 of us stood around taking turns trying to knock our nails in with the claw end of the hammer. It took a long time but got a lot of laughs.

The next morning my alarm battery fell out so I got going pretty late and did a walking tour of the city by myself. It's a stunningly beautiful city. Seriously, sometimes while I was wandering I got a little misty thinking about the power and history vested in this wonderful place. The first stop was the Stephansdom, a mighty 13th century Gothic church and the center point of the city. Besides having such a prominent location, it was also important in commerce. On the front of the church are some crude carved circles that were once used to standardize the size of loaves of bread, and some iron bars used to regulate cloth width. I'm sure that the clock, once installed, was pretty important in people's lives as well. I've heard of other Austrian towns that levied clock taxes on every house with a line of sight to the clock. I guess that it's important to have a tall clock tower in such a case.

The interior of the church was stunning as well. It was really built to let in as much light as possible and even on a cloudy day like today it was much brighter than any of the churches in Hungary. The statues were nice too. I did't go very far in though since the bulk of it is pay only but the nave was good enough for me.

After that I wandered around town for a bit marveling at the clean streets, hordes of tourists meshed with locals, and the many expensive stores. The next stop was the Hofburg: the downtown center of administration for the Habsburgs. I'm a little fuzzy on some of this history, but as I understand it, the Habsburgs were a clan that defeated the ruling Bavarians in the 13th century and then spead their power throughout central and eastern Europe over 5 centuries with a mix of strategic marriages and armed conflict. I don't really know what happened to them... maybe nationalism, revolution, and a couple world wars dislodged them? Their Hofburg is now the house of the Austrian presidency and several congressional related rooms.

Naturally the Hofburg building was awesome, what I saw of it, and was surrounded by statues of Hercules performing his 8(?) epic tasks to prove his worth. There are a couple museums of the royal chambers inside but I didn't want to pay so I kept on walking around specifically not looking at my map. I found a great rose garden with fountains and sat for a while before leaving to find a sandwich. There are gyro shops everywhere as in the rest of Europe and the Middle East. I think they're not so good here though. I found out the other day that the gyro was invented in 1971 in Berlin by a Turkish immigrant. Before that gyro/kebab meat was always served on a plate with rice. The inventor put the meat and toppings in bread so that drunk people could buy them as they walked by.

The weather got pretty foul so I wandered back home and found a message from Jowen (who I traveled with in Egypt and Syria) that he's also in Vienna. It would be really cool to meet up with him but unfortunately I missed him and he's moved on to the Czech Republic. We're going to see each other in Prague in a few days if all goes well. This is going to be great. Jowen started his trip the day before me and he was the first person that I met in Egypt. Surely I'll gain great perspective and shared wisdom from an encounter. Till then I'll just have to keep enjoying Vienna. Poor me.

Pest Controlled

This week I managed to leave Budapest, but not after enjoying it just a bit longer. I keep thinking that I need to be headed somewhere. That somewhere is Asia but how do I get there? When should I buy my second 1 way plane ticket of the trip? And where should I fly from? A while back I received a very tempting invitation to visit Amsterdam and I'd like to do that before I head out East but I've got to research this plan some more. Immediately after writing that and getting some tips on the weather, I got a ticket to Bangkok on 9/26 for $515. It's a 13 hour flight. That's a solid deal and good arrival/departure times all thanks to Hipmunk.com. If you haven't seen this travel site, check it out. It's awesome in it's simplicity.

So, on Wednesday I met up with my Hungarian friend Peter. He's one of the guys that I met in Macedonia. I think that we've got a lot in common... like we're both programmers, we've both played a particular obscure videogame (DotA), and yet we love to hike. Strange stuff. He's also pretty easy to talk to because his English is outstanding. Peter knows a friend who works at the Budapest zoo and could get us in for free, so Sofie and I met Peter in the middle of town and we headed out there.

The zoo was pretty decent. We walked around to the side and found a gate guarded by some union lackeys who let us in after looking up Peter's friend. I guess that my favorite part was the giraffes eating food out of kid's hands... their heads are huge. The trained seal show was pretty killer too. Those guys can balance a basketball on their heads like nothing I've ever seen. After getting a little langosh we all went back to Sofie's place so that she could check her email to see if she got a job at a kindergarten she interviewed at. It wasn't clear whether she had the job, but Peter had to get going and we called it a night.

The next day Sofie and I went to the botanical garden that's near her apartment. It wasn't especially nice, but it claimed to be the oldest in the world and was generally pleasant. My favorite part was the cactus garden hidden away in a greenhouse. I was looking forward to the orchid room, but it was a bit chaotic. Later that night we went to a small cafe on the other side of town to see Greg's band perform. One of their members took the wrong bus and could not make it, so they each performed songs that they wrote and I had a lot of fun. Afterwards we hit a couple bars and then took a fresh bottle of tequila to one of their houses to fuel a 4am dance party. An Irish girl showed me a new way of drinking the stuff... lick cinnamon off the wrist, take the shot, and bite an orange. I like it but I think that it's just supposed to be used with gold tequila.

The next day was somewhat special... it's St. Istvan Day. He's the king that founded Hungary around 1000 AD, and this is their big patriotic holiday. Most stores and restaurants were closed so we did a little home cooking and then saw the fireworks over the Danube later that night. They were pretty great, especially because of the setting, but apparently half the fireworks money went to help the flood victims from a few months before so it was a halfhearted show. I love it. Also, I got in touch with Peter and he invited me to meet up with him the next day.

So that was it, my way out of Budapest. Took long enough! Sofie went out to meet with the kindergarten people again that morning and there found out that they wanted to hire her full time, as she wanted. If she didn't get the job, she was going to have to return to Oregon. That would be too bad, but now they're paying her a good salary, like $670 a month when rent costs $215 for half of a nice apartment. It's a good wage here. I had lunch ready when she came home and she made a cake in celebration of her newfound job. I'm going to miss her good attitude but I said goodbye anyways and made my way to the bus.

Peter lives in a small village with his parents near to the larger town of Székesfehérvár. That's a mouthful. It's a pretty rural place that vaguely reminds me of New England in some way. The tallest building in town is a church steeple on the highest ground and most of the homes have large gardens. Both of Peter's parents are school teachers and he's got 2 siblings, a younger boy and girl. He met me at the bus station and we walked around the town for a bit before he drove us back to his house in the village.

His German cousins have a house very nearby and they are currently staying there for a short holiday. That night Peter and I played some Uno with his 15 year old sister, Abigale, and played some computer games together. My netbook isn't too good for this application so this activity didn't last too long.

The next day I went out for a walk with Peter and his cousin Stephan. Stephan is a university student also and is a nice guy. We saw pretty much the whole village and walked out to a small field to see the local quarry which is a lot less impressive than it sounds. Later in the day Peter and I went to town to get a crossover cable and more wine. The wine here in Hungary is by far the best that I've had on the trip. Peter got a bottle of Tokai dessert wine where they dry grapes on the vine and then mix several baskets of the dried grapes with fresh white wine to leech the sugars away. It's crazy delicious. When we got home the family had a big meal of goulash and pasta cooked over an open fire. It was really really good, but not quite what I was expecting. Goulash here is a kind of potato and beef soup but at restaurants it's a tomato/wine sauce with beef in it. Peter says that there's a different name for the red kind but they call it goulash so as not to confuse the tourists. I've got to get the recipe for the red stuff.

Peter's mom fed me with a vengeance... she made mushrooms cooked in cream with paprika, lots of meat and cheese platters, some kind of chicken liver. I ate the liver, but I grimaced a bit doing so. I just can't say no to that kind of challenge. She also made a traditional Hungarian desert where they wind a string of dough around an oiled rolling pin on a stick, then roll it in sugar and roast it over a fire while turning it. The sugar caramelizes and keeps the moisture in. It's very nice and tastes like a less fatty churro.

The next day we played some games of horse and 33 at their basket ball court and then I had to say farewell. Peter helped me find the bus going to Pecs (pronounced pay-ch), a smallish but beautiful city in the southwest of Hungary. It's in a low land area that tends to have milder weather and longer summers than the rest of the land. Most of the drive was through endless rolling hills of sunflower fields. Very pretty, but difficult to photograph from the dirty bus windows. I hear that there is a huge wine region nearby that's worth taking day-trips by train from Pecs.

I checked into a nice hostel that I found after walking around for a while. My foot was kind of hurting and I didn't want to walk around much for the rest of the evening so I declined to go out to a bar with some of the guys at the hostel. I don't know how I hurt it, but it had been hurting for a couple days when I went to Sziget festival. I think there's something wrong with the arch of the foot, but it seems to SLOWLY be getting better. I've got a bit of a limp these days. Still, the walk to the hostel was very lovely if a bit painful.

The next day I slept in late and then went out for a walk. The city was an important administration center for the Turks while they were in charge of Hungary for 150 years, but it is much older than that even, being founded by the Romans. Later on it because an important center of early Christian activity and today is a rather expensive university town overflowing with tasteful architecture and shaded walking streets. I saw the 'mosque church' which was obviously a mosque before being converted after the Ottomans left. Also I got to see the outside of a great Catholic cathedral here but refused to pay $6 to enter. I don't pay to go into religious buildings that were built with donations. That's a scam IMO.

Later that night I went to an outdoor bar with several other hostel dwellers to see one of the hostel workers DJ. We sat around on some cushions, enjoyed some beers and strong local red wine, and eventually went home. The folks in this picture are 2 geography majors from Germany and Belgium named Federica and Vanessa. The Korean girl is actually from Uzbekistan and was clearly pleased that I was able to name 2 cities in her home country (Samarkand and Tashkent; thanks dad). She says that it's a nice enough place and that backpackers ought to visit, even though it's a huge pain in the ass to get a visa. Some day It'll change though.

The next day (today), I got a train ticket to go to Vienna the next day. I guess I'll try to visit Prague afterwards. I hear that Berlin is crazy cheap from a lot of backpackers so maybe I'll head there at some point. I heard that there's a hostel called 'Generator' with 600+ beds for 6 euros a night. The place is said to be full of underground artist communities and the single best city in Europe. That's what most all of the Europeans say at least. I guess that I've got to go, but only for a short time I think.

Sziget Festival in Budapest

After I wrote that last piece, I went out on a walk by myself to see some more of the city. I didn't really see too much... just the nearby church of St Stephen's Basilica. This is actually a story I know. The Magyar (what Hungarians call themselves) were a fierce warrior tribe from central Russia (Ural Mountains) that terrorized much of Europe with raids that led as far as Spain. They were defeated at a significant battle in 955, converted to Christianity, and apparently decided to settle down afterward. In the year 1000, on Christmas Day, Stephen was crowned the first king of Hungary and the nation was founded. My last post had a pic of a statue of Stephen on a horse. Anyways, the basilica that shares his name was surely not built in his time, but I can't say what the story of it is. Later that night I met Sofie for dinner.

The next day the hostel kicked me out because all of the rooms were reserved for people going to the Sziget festival and I refused to make reservations. No worries. I moved my stuff back to Sofie's place and cooked lunch. I've been doing a lot of cooking here and I've gotten to learn a few new dishes. Sofie taught me how to make curry soup, one of my new favorites.

To make that one you soak 1.5 cups red lentils in water while you prepare. Chop fine half a head of cauliflower, a couple small potatoes, garlic, and ginger. Sauté 1tb each cumin and coriander seeds in butter, add all the veggies and a couple cups of water. Toss in a curry powder blend (2tbs) and let it simmer for an hour or so. Add a big pinch of nutmeg and pepper for good measure. It comes out pretty thick and tastes better and better as leftovers. I'm really just writing this down so that I'll remember it in the future.

Another one she taught me, a Hungarian classic she claims, is a kind of veggie casserole. Chop up a head of cauliflower, boil it till soft, and lay it down in a casserole dish. Cover it in minced garlic, sour cream, diced ham, and cheese. Bake until browned. Simple huh? I'd add in some black pepper and nutmeg if I did it again. I showed her how I make sautéed veggies in soy sauce, rice vinegar, and white wine. One of my favs.

Later that night the two of us went out to the other side of town to meet up with her friends at a bar. Well, I guess that we met up at a train station, had a couple beers on the steps, and then walked to the bar but whatever. There was a popular Hungarian band playing that night that had a couple beat boxers, and sort of did mainstream tunes with traditional lyrics in a rap style. Even if I didn't get the humor of it all, they were great performers and well worth the $3 cover.

The next day was a big one. Finally the day of the Sziget (Island) festival had arrived. Sofie and I walked over to my friend Ben's apartment in the center of town to get ready. He had been attending the festival every day with his girlfriend and brother but was still energetic about the final day of the festival that we would attend together. Despite the fact that he had so many friends and loved ones at the festival, he spent most of the whole day with us. What a guy. I talked about Ben and his friend Peter in one of my posts about Macedonia, but Ben is a student studying international relations at a college here in Budapest. A lot of that has to do with history lessons and he answered a good number of my questions about some local history. I tried not to talk about that all the time with Sofie around though, it would be too boring.

We took a couple buses and trains out to the festival grounds, on a small island up the river. The festival was huge... I hear that almost 400k people attended over the 5 days and a lot of them camped there too. There were many stages all very far apart and lots of food vendors, free art classes, yoga, games, night clubs, seating areas, clothing shops, and everything else under the sun... all for very reasonable prices. A pint of beer was $2.50. The first show we caught was Danko Jones. I liked their last album but wasn't too impressed by the show.

The next performer on the main stage was Billy Talent. They were simply amazing and not only played very well but also had good a good report with the crowd. All the other bands weren't as personable. I know their songs very well so I had to separate from my group and get into the middle of the crowd for maximum rocking. I took some good blows in a few mosh pits and finally make my way to a meter from the front and center. I didn't really intend to go there... I was just pushed. It seems that there is a sorting method to the crowd according to height and the front was not only suffocating with heat, sweat, and pressure, but also was populated by massively tall people. It was awesome nonetheless.

Sofie, Ben, and I filled up on some langosh and saw some of the Kasabian performance. They were good of course, but didn't wow me in the same way. We actually walked away for most of the show and explored the festival grounds while drinking a lot of cheap beers. We also did the responsible thing and had a lot of water as well. This is the fourth or fifth Sziget festival that Ben's gone too and he knows the grounds pretty well. They had stages of different sizes for every type of music... ska, classical, karaoke, and lots more rock. It really had something for everyone though I suspect that a lot of people were there just for the festival atmosphere and camping.

Of course we had to attend the final act and highlight of the festival, Muse. I first heard of them on a college radio station in 2000 with a song called 'Time is Running Out' and I was very pleased that they fit it into the act. Of course it was great to see them play their songs and they used plenty of exotic instruments, lasers, and florescent sunglasses but the didn't really say anything between songs and that always annoys me. Perform for me, monkeys!

After the show we had some more drinks with Ben and his GF as well as his younger brother Andrew. He had a hip flask filled with a local favorite, Unicum, which is a lot like Jagermeister but more bitter. We also made it out to a small acoustic show in a tent. Ben felt the wind pick up, claimed that it would rain and that we should duck into that tent, and a couple minutes later it was pouring. Being from California, I can't read thew weather because we don't have so much of it. It cleared up before we walked home and passed out at Ben's place.

In the morning Ben prepared a traditional Hungarian breakfast of bread, cheese, and a lot of different preserved meats. Pretty awesome. I felt quite beat up and Sofie and I spent most of the afternoon loafing about her place and cooking veggies. It was a fine day and in the evening we went for a scenic walk across one of the bridges to see some of Buda. Not so much to say about the day, but I have even less for the next day, today.

Today Sofie went to Margrit Island to lead a yoga class for a couple of her friends. She's been taking a yoga instructor course every day for a month and really knows what she's doing. My ankle's been hurting for a few days and I just wanted to write so I went off to a cafe to write this post instead. I also got in touch with Peter and tomorrow we're going to hit the zoo where his friend can get us in for free and then I dunno what we'll do, but I'm sure that I'll like it.

A couple of notes. First off, sorry for not having more pictures with people in this post. I'll fix that next time. Also, Ben read my blog and informed me that it is illegal to drink in public here in Budapest... it's just that the law is almost never enforced and nobody acts like it exists. Hungary is certainly a respectable country and not some kind of wino's paradise, or so I've been told. Also, I've noticed that some of my post text is being hidden behind pictures in some browsers, like Chrome and Firefox. It looks like it's not an issue on IE, but I'll look into it some more.

Bumming Around Budapest

I've been here in Budapest for quite a while now and I just can't seem to get bored of it. Not yet at least. I thought that I would need to kill some time before the concert by going to another city for a while, but I seem pretty content to stay here until the show.

After I write the last post while I was exploring the city by myself for the day, I walked around the city for about an hour before I ran into a friend in front of the British embassy. Well, he recognized me because me had met a few days previously at a bar with Sofie. I managed to recall his name, Mark, and he invited me to come back to his apartment with some of his friends and to have a bite for dinner. Naturally I accepted. Some of his friends from Slovenia were visiting, and he himself is originally from Spain. They invited me to come with them to a small outdoor concert that night by the river, but I had to go back and meet Sofie first since she doesn't have a phone.

With Sofie in tow I made my way to the festival but we failed to find them since my phone ran out of credit and I couldn't send any texts. What a pain. We met up with her other friends Greg and Saci (Hungarian nickname pronounced shotsy). Hungary doesn't have any laws against drinking in public... even on public transit... and so its very popular to bring drinks and to hang out in a particular park in the middle of down town with a large pond, lots of cement steps to sit on, skate ramps nearby, and often live music playing for free. There's also good free bathrooms of course. Also there was her friend Mercy, who's an art student from Iran. He's a nice guy. After we ran out of beer we went back to the festival and managed to find our friends as well as some typically unhealthy fair food. It was a great night.

That night we had invited Greg and Saci to have dinner at Sofie's place the next day so we spent the better part of the day shopping at the market, cooking, and cleaning. After they got there we ate, talked, and played music for hours. Greg's a very talented musician and he taught me a new song on the ukulele (Silver and Gold by Joe Strummer). He's currently a student, though a pretty old one, and since he's been studying here for 6 years he is nearly fluent in Hungarian. That's a very difficult feat since it's one of the few non indo-european languages that aren't Asian. They say that it was carried here from Siberia a few thousand years ago. Sofie also demoed a song that she is writing for her violin and I played my normal set. I think that we also fit in a few games of Uno as well. That was pretty much all that happened that day.

The next morning we got a little bit more ambitious and walked to the Buda district on the other side of the river. Like I said earlier, Buda is the traditionally more expensive and at times regal part of the city. We walked up to the castle overlooking the river first. I don't know what i would call it a castle exactly since it's really a huge palace overlooking the city from a hill that happens to have some old castle parts scattered about, but it's a really really pretty place filled with great parks, elaborate fountains, and swarms of tourists. Today the palace is home to a museum that I haven't visited. Oddly I didn't take any pictures of the palace so here's something else.

My favorite building in the city is probably the Mathias Church which is a very short walk away from the palace. It's in an elaborate Hungarian Gothic style and has some smaller castle like structures shielding it from the rest of the city. I don't know who built the church but the smaller stuff was built by the fisherman's guild a long long time ago. I really need to get a guide book so that I can elaborate on the history a bit more.

Also on the way we got a lot of good views of the parliament building along side the river. It's design is based on the British Parliament building, but it's 1 meter larger. Take that original designer! I hear that it's possible to buy tickets for a tour of the building, but you have to be in line at 6 am. That's not going to happen. After the exhausting walk, we cooked some dinner, took in a movie, and called it a night.

Sofie's house mate is out of town, and that's why I can stay at their apartment, but I'm not to be there when she gets back. The trouble is, it's had to say when that's going to happen. So working on the best guess I checked out of the apartment and into a hostel. It's not as cheap (especially since all the prices are up for the music festival) but there's good company and fresh conversation to be had. I met a couple Australian girls and went out walking with them. It was their day to vote so we went to the embassy of Australia to fulfill their civic duty. Apparently in Australia it's mandatory to vote though they don't have to while on vacation. I was able to enter the embassy after they coached me in pretending to be Australian. You just need to say "no worries" with a certain drawl and then keep your mouth shut; it worked.

Later that night a Dutch girl at the hostel cooked dinner for the lot of us. The group of us also polished off a few bottles of wine (it's super cheap here) and then headed out to the park to continue socializing. Suffice to say it was an entertaining night.

The next morning I went out wth Tim and Josh, who I met in the park the night before. We did the traditional walk out to Buda; to the castle, fisherman's bastion, and then wandered around the town getting generally lost. Also we hit up Margerit Island, the place with the fountain that's timed to classical music. It's really cool. I got to try some of the 'sandwiches' they sell at the shops. All these shops make dozens of these sandwiches in the morning and then close as soon as they've sold most of them. They're small and open face, on a slice of whole grain bread, and have different toppings like roast beef with horseradish, curry egg salad, peppery pate, tuna salad with slices of lemon, and dozens of other flavors. They look pretty fancy and go for about $0.50 each.

Later that night we all cooked dinner back at the hostel and again had no small amount of wine and laughs. Three Spanish guys joined us after dinner and showed us how they do homemade tapas. It's a lot simpler than the stuff at the restaurants. I was up till 6 am that night... a personal best in a while.

Wow, I was tired this day. I wanted to keep it simple so Sofie came over to the hostel and we went out to a nearby park for a 'swim'. Actually it was a fountain where timed jets of water come out of the cement floor and it's mostly kids that play in it, but that doesn't bother me. I can join in too. After that we sunned on the grass and later that night met up with Saci, Greg, and some others at the park. At the park there was some live music and a woman coaching people on how to do a kind of circle dance. I went to bed early and that was that.