I left for Austria on May 10, and will be returning for Christmas vacation on December 16th, a period of 220 days. Therefore, today, my 110th day, is the half way point, and roughly the 1/3 point for my entire internship. It is so hard to believe that I've been here for 110 days. So, I've decided to reflect on what has changed, and what has stayed the same since I've been here.
Before I left I had only ever been in 3 countries (Canada, US, Mexico). Now I'm up to 11 (Canada, US, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary) with realistic plans to visit at least 6 more (England, France, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, Greece).
Before I left the longest I had ever been out of Canada was for 11 days, now I've already surpassed that 10x's!
Before I left I had been on a train only a handful of times (max 8), now I take 3-4 trains a day, 5 days a week. (If when I return to Canada I never ride a train again I will be eternally grateful)
Before my 'foreign' friends were Canadian students at Queens who were born in the Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Africa etc.. but had been living in Canada for the majority of their life. Now I know people from all over the world, and they actually live there! I have coworkers from Columbia, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Uruguay, the Czech Republic, and India!
Some things that have stayed the same: I download all of my TV (with the exception of the BBC), I live mainly on a diet of spaghetti, biscuits, ice cream, and Diet Coke, and I see all the big movies in the theatre (in English).
Things I miss:
- family/friends
- 430 1/2 (my old home in Kingston)
- the river
- incandescent light
- timbits
- polite waitresses
- catching random bits of conversations in public
- good reliable produce
- fluffy white bread (they have it but it can be hard to find)
- whole wheat pasta
- open stores/banks (a sight I rarely see anymore)
- buying things on Sunday
- driving
- Swiss Chalet
- unlimited Internet
- the drugstore isle of the grocery store
Things I don't miss:
- flying insects (there are so few 'bugs' here that NONE of the windows have screens)
- KSTs
- Matlab
Hopefully the next 110 days are filled with as much travel, fun, and adventure as the previous 110. They will include: the return of the students (new friends?), Oktoberfest in Munich, Neuschwannstein in Füssen, Halloween in Paris, Christmas fairs in Salzburg and Vienna, and many other things that'll just pop up along the way.
Aug 27, 2007
Aug 21, 2007
Liptovský mikuláš, Slovakia
It's been forever since I've posted so I'll give a quick update before I talk about my hiking trip in Slovakia.
Visit from Home
On the weekend of the 10th my friend Pat from Brockville, who is also a Queen's engineer, came to visit Vienna while on his "Friends in Europe" tour. On Saturday we went to the Wurstelprater, the big amusement park in Vienna, with the intention of going on the Reisenrad, the large ferris wheel built in 1897 from which you can see the entire city. However, it was €8, so we decided to go on rides instead. The amusement park was like something from the 50s or 60s, it almost felt like we were on a movie set. We deiced to go on a horror house ride with paper maché werewolves and vampires, it was so bad that it was well worth the money, if only for the laughs.
Saturday night MA, Pat, and I went to the outdoor movie theater at Rathaus where they play operas every night during the summer. We snuck into the VIP section where we watched 'Carmen' from our comfy padded VIP stools and ate some great food.
The rest of the weekend was basically spent showing Pat everything I had managed to see over the past 3 months, and then some. One of the new things we saw was the Stephansdom catacombs. In the 'old' section there were shelves containing all the priests and bishops since who knows when. There were also lots of containers containing all the organs of the Habsburgs, whos bodies are kept in the Imperial crypts on the other side of the city, and whos hearts are kept in silver jars in another church. The guide said that a few years ago the seal on one of the jars broke and it stunk so bad that it was days before people could go down to fix it. The 'new' section of the catacombs looked much older because it was in its original condition from the 1700s whereas the 'old' catacombs from the 1500s had been cleaned up in the 70s, and looked it. The 'new' section contained large rooms, some filled with stacked bones, and some untouched, filled with the remains of bodies, clothes, and coffins. It was really cool, exactly what I expected to see. The tour guide said they closed the catacombs after one of the plagues when the smell of rotting bodies prevented people from entering the cathedral.
Pat ended up staying until Wednesday morning when he left for Budapest. The weekend was a lot of fun, but it reminded me of what I'm missing, and how hard September will be when everyone else goes back to school.
Hiking in Slovakia
On Friday José (a new trainee from Portugal) and I took the 5.5hr train to Liptovský mikuláš, Slovakia for the IAESTE International Hiking Weekend. Friday night we had a good supper of bread and some Slovakian soup (a lot like the Hungarian goulash, just better and not nearly as thick). That night we drank some decent Slovakian beer and played Uno, it was more fun than it sounds.
Saturday was the big hiking day in the Choč Hills. As there were only about 23 of us, we were driven everywhere in 2 or 3 shifts, which was really cool because you got to see the country from a local perspective. The hiking trail was really long, and it took us most of the day, until about 5pm. The pictures below show how beautiful Slovakia is, well at least the natural part.
At this point in the hike we had to hold onto the chain to prevent falling into the stream below. The path was marked "intermediate" which in Canada basically means no wheelchairs, but in Slovakia apparently means a fairly demanding hike.
About an hour or two in we took a little side path to a big waterfall. Its odd that this photo looks black and white, its just because the cliffs were grey and everything green is in silhouette, classy.
The first third of the hike was all like this, walking up a fairly steep and rocky river bed. Do you really think that the one lone railway tie would stop the large stone walls from moving together if they ever really wanted to?
After climbing up a rocky hill we came upon the second third of the hike which was through sprawling green grasslands. It was hard to understand how the landscape changed so quickly from rocky and steep to wide and green, a welcome change.
On some of the distant hills there were sheep grazing, but other than that it was just green hill after green hill as far as the eye could see.
Beyond the fields we found a little village where we stopped for some food (aka ice cream). For less than $2 I got a big ice creme sundae, which we think also may have had some alcohol in it, but we couldn't figure out where.
After the break we continued the hike past an old water mill.
After the hike we were driven to Aquapark Tatralandia which is the largest water park in Slovakia. I went on a few slides but spent the majority of my time in the 38 degree hot tubs just relaxing.
For supper we went to a fancy restaurant where I got a full meal and a beer for €6, which is really cheap. When we got back it was late and we just crashed. However, one room of girls across the hall realized that they'd been robbed! It turns out that while we'd been at the restaurant gypsies had broken into their room through their window and stolen a camera, money, and a cell phone. Things like having your hotel robbed by gypsies reminds you how far you really are from home.
On Sunday we went to the Demänovska caves of freedom. They contained thousands and thousands of stalactites and stalagmites in white, brown, grey, orange, red, and every colour in between. It was so amazing that parts almost looked fake, definitely something to see if you ever find yourself in central Slovakia.
From the caves we raced to the station, grabbing the train only a few minutes after arriving.
However, before I left I bought a pre-packaged sandwich. Bad idea... I blame the sketchy sandwich for the bloodshot eyes, sore throat, headache and cold I've had this week. But, thanks to that sandwich, I'm sitting at home right now writing this blog because I'm too sick to go to work.
Yesterday I went to the Apotheke (pharmacy) to buy medicine. In Austria you can't buy ANY medicine off a shelf, not even Tylenol. You're forced to go the Apotheke, go up to the counter, and ask the pharmacist for what you need. Thankfully normally at least one employee speaks some English. Because you never see the medicine until you've already asked for it, the boxes are oddly plain. Its weird to think that the boxes back home have been designed to catch your attention while shopping, like magazines at the checkout. I'd hope that I'd always chose the right medicine, not the flashiest, but who knows.
This weekend will be the first in a long time where I have nothing planned, I'm really looking forward to sleeping in and going to a store or two. Maybe I'll write another "random Austrian differences" post, maybe.
Visit from Home
On the weekend of the 10th my friend Pat from Brockville, who is also a Queen's engineer, came to visit Vienna while on his "Friends in Europe" tour. On Saturday we went to the Wurstelprater, the big amusement park in Vienna, with the intention of going on the Reisenrad, the large ferris wheel built in 1897 from which you can see the entire city. However, it was €8, so we decided to go on rides instead. The amusement park was like something from the 50s or 60s, it almost felt like we were on a movie set. We deiced to go on a horror house ride with paper maché werewolves and vampires, it was so bad that it was well worth the money, if only for the laughs.
Saturday night MA, Pat, and I went to the outdoor movie theater at Rathaus where they play operas every night during the summer. We snuck into the VIP section where we watched 'Carmen' from our comfy padded VIP stools and ate some great food.
The rest of the weekend was basically spent showing Pat everything I had managed to see over the past 3 months, and then some. One of the new things we saw was the Stephansdom catacombs. In the 'old' section there were shelves containing all the priests and bishops since who knows when. There were also lots of containers containing all the organs of the Habsburgs, whos bodies are kept in the Imperial crypts on the other side of the city, and whos hearts are kept in silver jars in another church. The guide said that a few years ago the seal on one of the jars broke and it stunk so bad that it was days before people could go down to fix it. The 'new' section of the catacombs looked much older because it was in its original condition from the 1700s whereas the 'old' catacombs from the 1500s had been cleaned up in the 70s, and looked it. The 'new' section contained large rooms, some filled with stacked bones, and some untouched, filled with the remains of bodies, clothes, and coffins. It was really cool, exactly what I expected to see. The tour guide said they closed the catacombs after one of the plagues when the smell of rotting bodies prevented people from entering the cathedral.
Pat ended up staying until Wednesday morning when he left for Budapest. The weekend was a lot of fun, but it reminded me of what I'm missing, and how hard September will be when everyone else goes back to school.
Hiking in Slovakia
On Friday José (a new trainee from Portugal) and I took the 5.5hr train to Liptovský mikuláš, Slovakia for the IAESTE International Hiking Weekend. Friday night we had a good supper of bread and some Slovakian soup (a lot like the Hungarian goulash, just better and not nearly as thick). That night we drank some decent Slovakian beer and played Uno, it was more fun than it sounds.
Saturday was the big hiking day in the Choč Hills. As there were only about 23 of us, we were driven everywhere in 2 or 3 shifts, which was really cool because you got to see the country from a local perspective. The hiking trail was really long, and it took us most of the day, until about 5pm. The pictures below show how beautiful Slovakia is, well at least the natural part.
At this point in the hike we had to hold onto the chain to prevent falling into the stream below. The path was marked "intermediate" which in Canada basically means no wheelchairs, but in Slovakia apparently means a fairly demanding hike.
About an hour or two in we took a little side path to a big waterfall. Its odd that this photo looks black and white, its just because the cliffs were grey and everything green is in silhouette, classy.
The first third of the hike was all like this, walking up a fairly steep and rocky river bed. Do you really think that the one lone railway tie would stop the large stone walls from moving together if they ever really wanted to?
After climbing up a rocky hill we came upon the second third of the hike which was through sprawling green grasslands. It was hard to understand how the landscape changed so quickly from rocky and steep to wide and green, a welcome change.
On some of the distant hills there were sheep grazing, but other than that it was just green hill after green hill as far as the eye could see.
Beyond the fields we found a little village where we stopped for some food (aka ice cream). For less than $2 I got a big ice creme sundae, which we think also may have had some alcohol in it, but we couldn't figure out where.
After the break we continued the hike past an old water mill.
After the hike we were driven to Aquapark Tatralandia which is the largest water park in Slovakia. I went on a few slides but spent the majority of my time in the 38 degree hot tubs just relaxing.
For supper we went to a fancy restaurant where I got a full meal and a beer for €6, which is really cheap. When we got back it was late and we just crashed. However, one room of girls across the hall realized that they'd been robbed! It turns out that while we'd been at the restaurant gypsies had broken into their room through their window and stolen a camera, money, and a cell phone. Things like having your hotel robbed by gypsies reminds you how far you really are from home.On Sunday we went to the Demänovska caves of freedom. They contained thousands and thousands of stalactites and stalagmites in white, brown, grey, orange, red, and every colour in between. It was so amazing that parts almost looked fake, definitely something to see if you ever find yourself in central Slovakia.
From the caves we raced to the station, grabbing the train only a few minutes after arriving.However, before I left I bought a pre-packaged sandwich. Bad idea... I blame the sketchy sandwich for the bloodshot eyes, sore throat, headache and cold I've had this week. But, thanks to that sandwich, I'm sitting at home right now writing this blog because I'm too sick to go to work.
Yesterday I went to the Apotheke (pharmacy) to buy medicine. In Austria you can't buy ANY medicine off a shelf, not even Tylenol. You're forced to go the Apotheke, go up to the counter, and ask the pharmacist for what you need. Thankfully normally at least one employee speaks some English. Because you never see the medicine until you've already asked for it, the boxes are oddly plain. Its weird to think that the boxes back home have been designed to catch your attention while shopping, like magazines at the checkout. I'd hope that I'd always chose the right medicine, not the flashiest, but who knows.
This weekend will be the first in a long time where I have nothing planned, I'm really looking forward to sleeping in and going to a store or two. Maybe I'll write another "random Austrian differences" post, maybe.
Aug 6, 2007
Budapest and la Cucaracha
My trip to Budapest was the last of the big city IAESTE trips for the summer, but I have plenty more traveling being planned for the fall. Six of us left from Vienna on Friday, meeting up with two others on the train (Lori and Ada, both from Canada with internships in southern Austria). The transition from Austria to Hungary was very evident, exaggerated by a quick change in weather. In Austria we passed a wind farm and little villages with upkept train stations. When we passed into Hungary the clouds rolled in and the buildings became grey, with many appearing abandoned. What were we getting ourselves into?
We arrived at the beautiful Keleti railway station located in Pest. As some of you already know Budapest is actually made up of 2 main parts Buda and Pest, divided down the center by the Danube.
This was the first, and only, old-fashioned covered terminal station I had ever been in. I thought it was really cool, like something out of an old movie (or Harry Potter). The only downside of the station was the fact that, like most things in Budapest, it was in serious need of repair.
The hostel arranged through IAESTE Budapest was the worst place I've ever had the misfortune of sleeping in. The building was old and run down. The hallways looked like modern art, patched with at least a dozen different colours of tiles. I guess they just used whatever they had lying around at the time. 
The rooms were run-down and ours had cockroaches! Nothing like opening your bag in the morning only to see a few cockroaches come running out. All I thought was 'I hope they weren't crawling on my toothbrush, please God, anything but the toothbrush'.
After a hearty supper of bread and goulash served out of a 90L pot on the floor we headed out on a hike to the citadel on Gellért Hill where we could lookout over the city.
One of the focal points of the citadel is the large Liberty Statue. Szilvia, my Serbian/Hungarian coworker said people in Budapest refer to the statue as the 'bottle opener' due to its shape.
It was raining a bit, as you can see in the photo, but just enough to cool us off. We could also see the city below. Thanks to the darkness and the rain, all my photos turned out blurry. This photo I stole from Ada.
After the citadel some people went to the bar but we decided to walk back, hang out with the cockroaches, and get some sleep because we were dead tired and it was already well past midnight.
The next morning we went on the BudaQUEST, basically a tour of the city in small groups with some trivia questions we had to answer. Our group gave up on the trivia pretty quickly deciding instead to just see as much as we could.
For 500HUF (€2 or $3) you could hold it. When Ada and Lori were up holding the falcon it just sat contently, staring at the camera. When I held it it did nothing but stare me down, I think it was planning an attack, deciding how to kill me and make off with my body before its trainer could react. The falcon's name was as menacing as it's stare, "Chirpy". Needless to say I survived Chirpy's death stare to live another day.
From the bastion we went to Buda Castle just a few minutes away where we sat to eat a lunch of buns and cat food (aka pâté). The castle was built during the time when Hungary was part of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire and it was easy to see. It was one of the only majestic Vienna-scale buildings in Budapest. Too bad it was heavily destroyed in WWII, with the remaining interiors gutted and burned by the communist government in the 1950s, because they symbolized the lavishness of the old Habsburg 'regime'. However, the exteriors have been mostly restored and the gardens were we sat to eat were very nice.
A statue in the gardens of Chirpy. 
From there we walked throughout the city stopping at a street festival and some other important buildings. One building we passed along the way looked really aqukward, like it was going to fall over, but none of us could really understand why.
That building is also a perfect example of Budapest. Beautiful, but chipping away, in desperate need of refurbishment.
In the subway (the second oldest in the world, second only to London) there was a really creepy advertisement for the Hungarian circus.
We took the subway to Heroes' Square, with its centre piece, the Millennium Monument. Now, step out of your North American mindset and figure out what a 'millennium' monument built back in 1896 would commemorate.
That's right, apparently the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar in Hungarian) was founded in 896AD! by these guys, the heads of the seven Magyar tribes.
We came upon this creepy statue of the 12th century chronicler "Anonymus" it is apparently good luck to touch his pen.
The highlight of the park, by far, was the Széchenyi Medicinal Baths. The cost of admission was covered by IAESTE, but it was less than €5. For that price we got access to every pool, hot tub, and sauna in the place.
The place was like a paradise fom ancient Greece or Rome. The three outdoor pools were heated a bit, making them far warmer than any swimming pool at home, let alone the river, but the trainees from Central America and the Mediterranean were shivering! We weren't allowed to bring a camera inside, but I found this photo online.
Inside there were large rooms with baths of varying temperatures, we went on a tour sampling each one then moving on. There were rooms with 38°C pools, a basin of icechips to take into the hotter saunas, a 15°C pool to give old men heart-attacks upon exiting the hot saunas, and much much more. Some of the rooms had huge plaster domes (seen in the picture of the front of the building), and some had carved stonework making them feel like old Turkish baths. However, this place could really use a few million dollars in renovations. Some of the domes had nets below them to catch falling flakes of paint (and chunks of plaster?).
Here we are in the lobby all relaxed and soft from the mineral water which feeds the baths. From left to right is Anon (Hong Kong), Lori, MA, me, and Ada. As you can see I had a very international weekend, spending almost all my time with Canadians.
After the baths we went to a Hungarian restaurant where we got an amazing meal of schnitzel, beef, and lamb on potatoes and sauerkraut. It was one of the best meals I've had in Europe. That night we went to a bar on an island in the Danube called 'Cha Cha Cha'.
There was really nothing planned Sunday so we (the 4 Canadians) decided to tour on our own and see the things we missed the day before.
Randomly Lori had heard that Budapest had the largest European synagogue. So, we tracked it down. The Dohány Street Synagogue was big, but no where near as large as most European basilicas or cathedrals. However, every surface was meticulously decorated. The highlight of the visit: wearing a yarmulka (yamaca).
In the back there was a small graveyard and a large 'weeping willow' memorial for the 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust. Most of the leaves on the willow bear the name of someone who died in the holocaust.
From the synagogue we walked to St.Stephen's Basilica, one of the most impressive churches I've seen so far. As it was Sunday, the there was a mass going on so we could only enter by the side aisle, but we still managed to get some great pictures. I have to admit that the cool picture of the dome is another one of Ada's.
To get a good idea of the size of this place, click on the photo below to get the full size version. In the bottom corner you can see people standing. This place was awe inspiring with every surface covered in gold and frescoes .
In Europe you see more bronze busts than you could shake a stick at, but this one was different.
On the Danube promenade there is a unique memorial, "Shoes on the Danube Promenade", to people killed in WWII for attempting to save Hunagrian Jews by giving them Swedish passports. They were shot on the promenade, falling into the river. The shoes are made out of cast iron in styles from the 1940s.
The Hungarian Parliament is loacted on the Pest side of the promenade only a few meters from the shoe memorial. The parliament was surrounded by portable fences and police, a reminder of the protests which occured there last summer.
We walked back to the chain bridge, which was finished in the year 1849, making it the oldest permanent bridge across the Danube in Budapest. Like ALL the bridges which cross the Danube, it was bombed in WWII, and later rebuilt. The bridge was closed to traffic and instead had a sidewalk sale with vendors selling delicious food, crafts, and souvenirs.
We spent 1000 HUF (€4) on one of these desserts. It was like a large tubular cinnamin bun, but instead of cinnamin, we got a vanilla flavoured one. According to Szilvia they normally cost 200 HUF and we were ripped off, but I still think it was worth it.
From the market we made our way back to the train station, stopping in for a tour of the State Opera house. I'm still amazed by how the outdoor ceilings in Europe can be as elaborate as those inside. The picture below is of the roof at the entrance to the Opera.
The Budapest Opera looked very very similar to the Vienna Opera (a relic of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire again) just about half the size. However, it was far nicer, with much more detail and gold in the auditorium. Too bad that, unlike in Vienna, subtitles are only available in Hungarian!
My last photo from Budapest, a mix of the old and new. Hungary has only been a member of the EU since 2004, and since then has made major improvements and seen lots of growth. Give it ten years and it will rival Vienna in beauty (and hopefully cleanliness).
This weekend my friend Pat will be in Vienna, so I'll just be showing him around. I hope to get to the catacombs beneath Stephansdom and the giant ferris wheel at the Prater so I might have some cool photos to share.
Work has started to slow down and become a little repetative. Hopefully things will change soon, if not I'll ask for some extra work or just help out on other projects when I have nothing else to do. We got a new trainee at ECHEM this week named José from Portugal who will be here until April. Thats all for now, remember to post a little comment, it's nice to know who's reading.
We arrived at the beautiful Keleti railway station located in Pest. As some of you already know Budapest is actually made up of 2 main parts Buda and Pest, divided down the center by the Danube.
This was the first, and only, old-fashioned covered terminal station I had ever been in. I thought it was really cool, like something out of an old movie (or Harry Potter). The only downside of the station was the fact that, like most things in Budapest, it was in serious need of repair.
The hostel arranged through IAESTE Budapest was the worst place I've ever had the misfortune of sleeping in. The building was old and run down. The hallways looked like modern art, patched with at least a dozen different colours of tiles. I guess they just used whatever they had lying around at the time. 
The rooms were run-down and ours had cockroaches! Nothing like opening your bag in the morning only to see a few cockroaches come running out. All I thought was 'I hope they weren't crawling on my toothbrush, please God, anything but the toothbrush'.After a hearty supper of bread and goulash served out of a 90L pot on the floor we headed out on a hike to the citadel on Gellért Hill where we could lookout over the city.
One of the focal points of the citadel is the large Liberty Statue. Szilvia, my Serbian/Hungarian coworker said people in Budapest refer to the statue as the 'bottle opener' due to its shape.
It was raining a bit, as you can see in the photo, but just enough to cool us off. We could also see the city below. Thanks to the darkness and the rain, all my photos turned out blurry. This photo I stole from Ada.
After the citadel some people went to the bar but we decided to walk back, hang out with the cockroaches, and get some sleep because we were dead tired and it was already well past midnight.The next morning we went on the BudaQUEST, basically a tour of the city in small groups with some trivia questions we had to answer. Our group gave up on the trivia pretty quickly deciding instead to just see as much as we could.
After a bad start we were about to declare a mutiny and go off on our own when our tour guide 'Csabi' (a common Hunagrian guys name pronounced 'Chubby') brought us to the Fisherman's Bastion. It was like nothing I have seen anywhere else. It was almost fairy-tale-esque with seven white towers perched on the hillside all carved out of stone. 
In the courtyard there was a statue of St. Stephen, the first King of Hungary, below which there was a man with a falcon.
In the courtyard there was a statue of St. Stephen, the first King of Hungary, below which there was a man with a falcon.
For 500HUF (€2 or $3) you could hold it. When Ada and Lori were up holding the falcon it just sat contently, staring at the camera. When I held it it did nothing but stare me down, I think it was planning an attack, deciding how to kill me and make off with my body before its trainer could react. The falcon's name was as menacing as it's stare, "Chirpy". Needless to say I survived Chirpy's death stare to live another day.
From the bastion we went to Buda Castle just a few minutes away where we sat to eat a lunch of buns and cat food (aka pâté). The castle was built during the time when Hungary was part of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire and it was easy to see. It was one of the only majestic Vienna-scale buildings in Budapest. Too bad it was heavily destroyed in WWII, with the remaining interiors gutted and burned by the communist government in the 1950s, because they symbolized the lavishness of the old Habsburg 'regime'. However, the exteriors have been mostly restored and the gardens were we sat to eat were very nice.
A statue in the gardens of Chirpy. 
From there we walked throughout the city stopping at a street festival and some other important buildings. One building we passed along the way looked really aqukward, like it was going to fall over, but none of us could really understand why.
That building is also a perfect example of Budapest. Beautiful, but chipping away, in desperate need of refurbishment.In the subway (the second oldest in the world, second only to London) there was a really creepy advertisement for the Hungarian circus.
We took the subway to Heroes' Square, with its centre piece, the Millennium Monument. Now, step out of your North American mindset and figure out what a 'millennium' monument built back in 1896 would commemorate.
That's right, apparently the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar in Hungarian) was founded in 896AD! by these guys, the heads of the seven Magyar tribes.
We came upon this creepy statue of the 12th century chronicler "Anonymus" it is apparently good luck to touch his pen.
The highlight of the park, by far, was the Széchenyi Medicinal Baths. The cost of admission was covered by IAESTE, but it was less than €5. For that price we got access to every pool, hot tub, and sauna in the place.
The place was like a paradise fom ancient Greece or Rome. The three outdoor pools were heated a bit, making them far warmer than any swimming pool at home, let alone the river, but the trainees from Central America and the Mediterranean were shivering! We weren't allowed to bring a camera inside, but I found this photo online.Inside there were large rooms with baths of varying temperatures, we went on a tour sampling each one then moving on. There were rooms with 38°C pools, a basin of icechips to take into the hotter saunas, a 15°C pool to give old men heart-attacks upon exiting the hot saunas, and much much more. Some of the rooms had huge plaster domes (seen in the picture of the front of the building), and some had carved stonework making them feel like old Turkish baths. However, this place could really use a few million dollars in renovations. Some of the domes had nets below them to catch falling flakes of paint (and chunks of plaster?).Here we are in the lobby all relaxed and soft from the mineral water which feeds the baths. From left to right is Anon (Hong Kong), Lori, MA, me, and Ada. As you can see I had a very international weekend, spending almost all my time with Canadians.
After the baths we went to a Hungarian restaurant where we got an amazing meal of schnitzel, beef, and lamb on potatoes and sauerkraut. It was one of the best meals I've had in Europe. That night we went to a bar on an island in the Danube called 'Cha Cha Cha'.There was really nothing planned Sunday so we (the 4 Canadians) decided to tour on our own and see the things we missed the day before.
Randomly Lori had heard that Budapest had the largest European synagogue. So, we tracked it down. The Dohány Street Synagogue was big, but no where near as large as most European basilicas or cathedrals. However, every surface was meticulously decorated. The highlight of the visit: wearing a yarmulka (yamaca).
In the back there was a small graveyard and a large 'weeping willow' memorial for the 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust. Most of the leaves on the willow bear the name of someone who died in the holocaust.
From the synagogue we walked to St.Stephen's Basilica, one of the most impressive churches I've seen so far. As it was Sunday, the there was a mass going on so we could only enter by the side aisle, but we still managed to get some great pictures. I have to admit that the cool picture of the dome is another one of Ada's.
To get a good idea of the size of this place, click on the photo below to get the full size version. In the bottom corner you can see people standing. This place was awe inspiring with every surface covered in gold and frescoes .
In Europe you see more bronze busts than you could shake a stick at, but this one was different.
On the Danube promenade there is a unique memorial, "Shoes on the Danube Promenade", to people killed in WWII for attempting to save Hunagrian Jews by giving them Swedish passports. They were shot on the promenade, falling into the river. The shoes are made out of cast iron in styles from the 1940s.
The Hungarian Parliament is loacted on the Pest side of the promenade only a few meters from the shoe memorial. The parliament was surrounded by portable fences and police, a reminder of the protests which occured there last summer.
We walked back to the chain bridge, which was finished in the year 1849, making it the oldest permanent bridge across the Danube in Budapest. Like ALL the bridges which cross the Danube, it was bombed in WWII, and later rebuilt. The bridge was closed to traffic and instead had a sidewalk sale with vendors selling delicious food, crafts, and souvenirs.
We spent 1000 HUF (€4) on one of these desserts. It was like a large tubular cinnamin bun, but instead of cinnamin, we got a vanilla flavoured one. According to Szilvia they normally cost 200 HUF and we were ripped off, but I still think it was worth it.
From the market we made our way back to the train station, stopping in for a tour of the State Opera house. I'm still amazed by how the outdoor ceilings in Europe can be as elaborate as those inside. The picture below is of the roof at the entrance to the Opera.
The Budapest Opera looked very very similar to the Vienna Opera (a relic of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire again) just about half the size. However, it was far nicer, with much more detail and gold in the auditorium. Too bad that, unlike in Vienna, subtitles are only available in Hungarian!
My last photo from Budapest, a mix of the old and new. Hungary has only been a member of the EU since 2004, and since then has made major improvements and seen lots of growth. Give it ten years and it will rival Vienna in beauty (and hopefully cleanliness).
This weekend my friend Pat will be in Vienna, so I'll just be showing him around. I hope to get to the catacombs beneath Stephansdom and the giant ferris wheel at the Prater so I might have some cool photos to share.Work has started to slow down and become a little repetative. Hopefully things will change soon, if not I'll ask for some extra work or just help out on other projects when I have nothing else to do. We got a new trainee at ECHEM this week named José from Portugal who will be here until April. Thats all for now, remember to post a little comment, it's nice to know who's reading.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
