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Published: March 13th 2006
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Leaving the warm comforts of our Slovakian family, we traveled next to
Budapest, Hungary. For me (Chris) saying goodbye to Bax was a bit sad. When I was young I had a German Shephard named Smokey who looked quite similar to Bax. I kept thinking Smokey had somehow embodied Bax so he could play with me just one more time, so I was a bit regretful to leave. Nonetheless, as all travelers do, we moved on.
Arriving in Budapest, we were quite exhausted, yet our legs moved as if possessed toward what we believed was our new temporary home. When we turned onto the street harboring our quarters, we wandered aimlessly about trying to identify something akin to a hostel--we found nothing. Building 6, our destination, was an apartment complex situated next to a finger beautification clinic. Gazing upon Building 6 with astonishment, we examined the listings of residents on a doorbell panel next to the front entrance hoping to see "HOSTEL" somewhere, but we gave up and sought the help of the nail salon employees. We pointed helplessly at the address printed on a sheet of paper for our hostel; one of the women decided to call the number
on the paper. After a bit of frustrated conversation on the phone, our knight in shining nail-polish led us, while still on the phone, into the building next door, past a crew of construction workers, and up a few flights of stairs to a door that, to us, appeared quite dormant. Our nail-polish savior left us to fend for ourselves at this point, and after trying to get the attention of the ghosts behind the door and perusing the building that seemed to be undergoing renovation, we finally decided to leave. When we opened the door to exit the building, we encountered a woman claiming to be the one that answered the phone before.
The woman was an employee of the organization that ran our now abandoned hostel, and, quite dazed, we followed her quite willingly to another hostel as she gave us a small tour of the neighborhood. When we arrived to our replacement hostel, we peered into a room full of comfortable beds; however, much to our dismay, we were informed that our bedroom was to be the kitchen and our beds fold-out cots with spring undersides that didn't quite latch onto the metal frames under pressure.
We were further informed that we would be paying 10 euros per night per person for the wonderful accomodations. Now, I believe it was simply our fatigued disposition, and perhaps a bit of shellshock, at that moment that made us comply without much hesitation, but a few hours later we decided we would only be staying for one night instead of our planned two nights--tomorrow we would leave for
Vienna, Austria.
We dropped our bags and ventured out into Budapest with no particular direction. We were tired and feeling somewhat indifferent to the wonders of travel. We walked past grand buildings which we barely noticed and over a bridge against the cold wind toward a large hill supporting a famous citadel and a beautiful view on all sides. After a short rest we headed back down the hill, "skiing" down the snowy slopes instead of walking along the beaten paths--this was, of course, much faster and much more fun! We walked back to our hostel (kitchen), made some rice, played some cards, talked to another traveler, and fell asleep. In the morning, we negotiated our departure with the hostel host, and left for Vienna.
Vienna was wonderful. Our
hostel was cozy and filled with Germans who were quite friendly--yes, there are such things as friendly Germans--and spoke English quite well. The buildings were grand and so were the sites--we were quite pleased but equally cold. The city center is filled with restaurants galore, cathedrals, museums, and a great palace. We came upon an extremely large natural history museum filled with specimens of all the animals and rocks of the world--some very patient people with interests in monotony kindly catalogued thousands of insects for the world to see. Continuing on, we wandered over to the palace of Vienna where we found ourselves being solicited by people in capes selling tickets to a Mozart/Strauss concert taking place that same night. After a bit of bargaining, we caved and decided to purchase two tickets for 20 euros a piece. The concert was two hours from commencing, so we explored a cathedral near the concert venue and sat in a cafe for the remaining time enjoying the decorative coffee drinks and chatting about nothing in particular. Two hours later we left for the concert with high expectations.
The venue was quite small, packed with proportionally small seats, and looked upon a
stage that was also quite small. We scratched our heads as we wondered where the ballet dancers we were promised would be dancing; they danced in a horizontal line from one side of the stage to the other. Each time they spun I was afraid a misplaced foot would kick one of the violinists causing Joseph Hadyn's Surprise Symphony, but unfortunately, this didn't happen. Don't misunderstand, though, the music was quite nice, but two hours of Mozart and Strauss in a cramped venue for 20 euros just wasn't worth it to me.
So we went back to Switzerland to reunite with our Swiss Miss for fun in the snow! The snow only stopped a few times during our short stay, accumulating to something like a foot and a half of snow, but in many areas it seemed like a lot more. So what did we do? We slid down steep slopes on trash bags (hitherto referred to as snowbagging)! Let me tell you, it doesn't get any more fun than this. We went down forward, backward, sideways, upways, downways, on foot, off foot, in pairs, in triplets, and ocassionally, we actually made it down the slope on the bag,
Me and a golden statue of Strauss
We went to a Strauss/Mozart concert in Vienna! This picture was taken outside the concert hall where Strauss conducted many concerts. but mostly we tumbled down. Fun!
Then we left for Paris...
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