Vienna and Budapest (part 1)

My apologies for this very long post. You many want to read it in small installments. There. You've been warned.


Last I left off, we were heading out to a beer garden called at the Augustine Monastery in Salzburg. Those monks certainly brew good beer! The giant outdoor seating area outside the monastery reminded me a little bit of the patio at St Sulpice bar in Montreal. We met up with a crew of English speakers (American, Irish, Scottish) and when it started to storm (no surprise to us.. it rains every day!), we went with them to an Irish Pub where we found a very large group of Austrian males who had just finished their compulsory army service. Needless to say, they were a rowdy bunch. Their English was decent so we talked a bit. Definitely a really fun night.

VIENNA
Thursday morning it was off to Vienna. Smooth and comfortable train ride allowed for a few more hours of much needed sleep. Unfortunately, once we arrived in Vienna, things were a little less smooth. It turns out that there are 2 streets outside the train station that begin with "Maria"-something-or-other. We took the wrong one and no one seemed to be able to show us on the map where we were or how to get where we wanted to go. Eventually, once we realized the error, we went back to the train station and started again in the right direction. Found the hostel, checked in, ran into someone we had met in Cesky Krumlov, and decided to head out to one of the museums. 25 minutes of walking later, we realize that yet again we have gone the wrong direction, though this time we found ourselves in front of a palace that we hadn't planned on seeing. We looked at it for a few minutes, then decided that since it was sunny, we would go next to the Belvedere gardens and palace. I am pleased to say that there has been no more major directions confusions since that more.. and though it did give a rough start to Vienna, we ended up really liking Vienna.

The Belvedere gardens weren't so impressive.. pretty, but we've actually seen nicer this trip, I think in Prague. The artwork inside the Palace was beautiful though. Lots of Gustav Klimt, including his famous piece "The Kiss". Jordana and I decided that since we were in Vienna we needed to go see the opera and so we set off to find out about the standing room only seats. At the opera house they directed us to a line that was already formed (5:45pm for an 8:30 performance). We got in line. Around 6:15, the line began to move. Once we got our tickets, people ran up the stairs to the balcony, where we stood in another line. Around 7:15, they moved the rope and people ran for the balcony rows where we were supposed to quickly claim a place by throwing down a sweater or something. We caught in and did as everyone else was doing. Went out and grabbed a salad from the supermarket for dinner (fresh vegetables... so good...). The opera was called Werther and it was quite enjoyable. It was in French, which meant I understood a bit, but there were English subtitles, so I understood it all. I especially liked watching the musicians since we could see right into the pit. We walked back to our hostel after the opera and I was amazed to see so many people out on the patios at 11pm on a Tuesday night. Vienna certainly seems to be a happening place.

Wednesday we walked back to the inner ring of the city and made a few stops in clothing stores. Jordana found some deals but I didn't buy anything (why should shopping here be any different than my experiences shopping with my sister back at home?? :0). We walked through the park in the center of the ring, looked at the various monuments and beautiful buildings. At noon we found ourselves in front of a huge clock they had 12 different figures pass by as it played music. Very cool. Next we set off to see the Hunderthaus, a low income housing development that was designed by a famous artist. Very colourful and almost made me think of Alice in Wonderland (though I don't know why). We stopped by the Kunst museum as well, but only looked outside. We headed back to the main area in time to catch a tour through the old synagogue in Vienna. Apparently amongst the oldest synagogues in Europe, it was the only one in Vienne to have escapes Kristalnacht. The exterior looks like an apartment building, but inside is a beatiful synagogue as well as the offices for the Jewish community centre. After the synagogue, we walked over to a holocaust memorial called in the Judenplatz, which is a monument that looks like a library turned inside out. Interesting concept. Nearby, we wandered into an art gallery, where a man was displaying his father's artwork. His father was a concentration camp survivor and after the war had painted some incredibly haunting yet beautiful pieces. We spent a while talking with the son and encouraged him to bring the exhibit to Toronto (its already traveled to many other cities). We decided we had energy for one more museum and went to see the Modern Art Museum in the Museums Quartier (a GIANT complex of museums). There was a ton of Polke (who I think had a great sense of humour in his art) and not much else. I think I liked the elevators more than I liked the artwork.. but that tends to happen when I see modern art. The best was the room with 4 different projectors creating blue pannels on each wall. To me, that's a sign that the laptop isn't loading and not a piece of art, but hey, everyone is a critic.
Exhausted from all of our walking, we headed back to the hostel, picked up groceries and made a delicious stirfry for dinner. We ate in the garden and hung out with some of the other travellers. Eventually we went over to another nearby hostel (Wombats) to hang out in their bar, but soon called it an early night.

BUDAPEST
Jordana somehow convinced me to take a 6:45am train to Budapest so that we could get there in time for an 11:00am bike tour that had been recommended to us by other travellers. We managed to get on the train on time and had about an hour of quiet when it was suddenly disturbed by a class of elementary school kids who got onboard. They were noisy. Very noisy. And I was sleep deprived and cranky. My earplugs helped a bit, but I was not happy. And of course, the train was delayed, so that meant extra time with the noisy munchkins. Oh well. We did manage to get in before 11, jumped on the metro and went straight to the bike tour with our big bags (which we were about to store in their office). The bike tour lasted 3 hours or so and we went all over the city, both in Buda and Pest, learning about the history of the various statues and buildings as we went. I really really REALLY enjoyed it. We saw the Heroes Square, the Parliament, the Chain Bridge, Buda Castle, and much more. Way better than trying to walk to everything and not have any explanation as to what each thing was.
After the bike tour, we checked in to our hostel and could think of no better thing to do than head off to one of the Hungarian Baths we had seen on our bike tour. It had both indoor and outdoor pools of different temperatures, heated by the thermal water drilled from deep below (something like that anyway.. smelled a bit like sulfur). The building itself had very interesting architecture and soaking in the water was very relaxing. My feet actually looked clean for the first time since the trip started (I'm sure you are really wanted to know that). I tried to make Jordana come in the steam room with me but she said she felt like she was being suffocated. I tended to agree but stayed in for about 5 minutes anyway. In the outside pool, we met some guys from Toronto who we ended up eating dinner with later on. We decided we would head out to a bar with them that night, but we needed to go back to our hostel first. Unfortunately, when we went to the appointed meeting place, they weren't there. As it turned out later, we had gone to the wrong Burger King to meet them (totally my fault.. though we did stop by their hostel the next day and left a note with a friend of theirs, apologizing for the screw up). We ended up going back to our hostel, got a recommendation for a different nearby rooftop bar that even had a dance floor, and hung out with some Brazillians from our hostels. Had a lot of fun dancing and hanging out.

Today we had a bit of a slow start to the morning and decided we would try to go shopping.. but I was tired and it was an unsuccessful outing. We opted next for the Fine Arts museum (since it was free) and we saw a bunch of El Greco (amongst many other artists that I had not ever heard of). We decided that we were going to go on a caving tour in the after in the thermal caves (where the water comes for the Hungarian baths..) When we went to sign up it turned out that the return time was too late on Friday evening for me, so Jordana is out there right now and I taking some down time by myself back in town. Just as well. I am looking forward to Shabbat services and dinner tonight with the people at Chabad, and tomorrow morning we will
go to the Great Synagogue. We plan to just walk around on Saturday afternoon and perhaps check out a bar on the island in between Buda and Pest on Saturday night. Sunday morning it is off to Croatia, and I am really looking forward to being outside of a major city for a few days.

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer
-Rachel