three cities - 12 days!

What can I say, this is the last night in Budapest and in some ways I agree with another blooger who thought the natives were a bit unfriendly! Some of the people who are in tourism and hospitality just couldn't cut it back in Australia and we're pretty laid back!

And... that's nothing to say about the reliability of the IT equipment in these "former Soviet Countries! I started this blog 3 days ago and there's been no computer working in that time.

However, since last I wrote I've pounded the cobbles, and taken in enough Cathedrals and Castles to satisfy me until the next trip!

Probably one of my most vivid memories/bizarre moments on the trip was on my Birthday, I ventured off to Karlovy Vary - Carlsbad, the Spa Town about 200 KM from Prague, ...more cobble stones, more shops hawking for the Tourist $, but pretty. Stunning architecture. ...Anyways, we were at this crystal factory, (yet another grab for the tourist $!) and at midday the town hall siren sounded, I was in the car park of this factory and 3 or 4 women were running towards the factory with these little lunch pails (like you see in the movies)... Oh isn't that sweet I think to myself, they're bringing their mens' lunch to them! Then the PA System got started. (It blared out all over the town didn't understand the Czech), but this very strident, urgent, officious voice kept repeating what sounded like a warning and then a couple of ambulances drove past! Kind of eerie really. I never did get to ask the tour guide what the PA was saying!

He was one of the less well presented of the tour guides, kind of unwashed, greasy hair, blah, blah - you get the picture, even though I was very impressed by the fact he was translating into French, English & Spanish. That's one of the traps I realize now with travelling in the "shoulder season" there's not enough punters to have the trips in one language, so for example today we had two guides, 1 for the 3 English Speaking & the 2 Germans and the other for the 2 italians and the 4 French! Makes for a pretty disjointed commentary!

The Train Trip from Prague to Vienna was an experience. In the Czech Republic, they seem to have taken lessons from the US airlines with overbooking! They have one First Class carriage with 10 cubicles with reserved seating six seats in each cubicle. You may have 125 people who have paid for First Class tickets, but you can issue them with a resvered ticket, and it's still first come best dressed. The woman sitting in "my" seat thought she was sitting in her seat (her ticket proved it!), but my ticket said she was sitting in "my" seat! When I went to another cubicle there were four Viennese guys returning from a business trip with reserved tickets and two of their tickets had the same reserved seats as the couple from Uruguay and the funny little Austrian man (who kept repeating the name of the station when we passed each and every station to the mirth of the Uruguayans & myself!) I was sharing the cubicle with! The Viennese guys didn't care, they just trooped off to the Dining car and drank beer, and smoked the whole journey. One of the guys had pretty good English and it seems Ausstralians aren't too much hated over here and some of the natives and the tourists even know where Adelaide is!!!

Vienna is just stunning and I will break my resolution to only ever go back to the same place once and I think maybe I'll spend another 3-4 days there if I manage to get to Europe again next year!

Salzburg was just so stunning! Love the Alps, even though it was just a taste. The "Sound of Music" thing wasn't pushed too hard, which was nice.

Szentendre an Artist's, Writer's Village about 20 kms from Budapest is pretty cute too and lots of artists' studio and shops where you can buy prints etc, not just the standard water colours pumped out in an hour that you can see on any Street in any City of Europe. (as well as the usual bags of paprika, fridge magnets, little bits of "porcelain", lace doilies etc) I've managed to find two prints pretty similiar to the one that got "Lifted by the friendly pick pocket" when I was in the transit lounge in Gatwick in '97. So... There will be some new Peter Costello sponsored art work in my office when I go home!

If you feel inclined you should be able to go into my gallery and take a look at just 13 of the best of the 500 or so I've taken and will cull when I get back to a computer with some sort of memory and a broadband internet connection!

I'll be back in Adelaide in a little under 36 hours!!

Ciao!

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