Switzerland ~
22 September
Our 10:30am train out of Salzburg, Austria on Tuesday was the latest morning one we’ve caught yet. We were able to wake up at a reasonable time and get ready and packed in a decent way instead of frantically folding and rolling our things and fitting them back into our bag, hoping nothing was being left behind.
As a matter of fact, I was nearly done packing in Prague when Rhonda came into the bedroom and handed me my watch that I’d left in the bathroom. I’d left it right next to my glasses but still missed it. I was so thankful she saw it there on the window sill!
It helps that we don’t have much with us. Each has an airline-approved sized carry-on suitcase and a shoulder bag or backpack. Not much room for extras! I’m the only one who has purchased any souvenirs so far and that’s only been postcards.
I didn’t mention last blog that the Schloss Mirabel was where The Sound of Music was filmed. At least the exterior and garden shots. We didn’t walk the entire gardens because they were huge. We did walk through the Schloss (German for ‘castle’), into the inner court, and out the front entrance. The interior wasn’t open for tourists and I’m not even sure it usually is. The rooms looked more like offices or apartments.
We walked back to the motel and had a lovely supper. I think we were almost two hours sitting there. I’m thankful we had Rhonda with us to walk us through the European Fine Dining experience. We’d have look as if we were right off the farm otherwise. Nothing majorly different, just little things like: do we eat the salad right now because he set it off to the side (right now); should we ask for more water or let him see the pitcher is low (he saw it); why are there two napkins at each plate (one for tucking into collar of shirt one for wiping mouth); proper use of knife and fork (fork in left hand tines down, knife in right, load up back of fork and transport to mouth with left hand, tines down. Eat entire meal this way); do we ask for the check or will he bring it (we asked for it).
I never before understood what people meant when they referred to European lifestyles as a different culture. There’s enough different to qualify it as a different culture. I learned that when I pay for something, I don’t hold my hand out for the change. There’s a medium-sized tray that they put the money and receipt in and you take it from there. Although the postcard lady in Salzburg waited for me to put out my hand. Maybe it was because I stuck it out there halfway, remembered, and yanked it back.
Another difference is the bathroom lighting. Every single home, motel, or hostel I’ve been in so far (with the exception of here in Switzerland) has the light switch on the outside of the room. You must turn on the light before entering the room or you’ll be in the dark. We were sixteen hours in Budapest before I figured that one out.
Something else they do here that I’m seriously thinking of implementing at home for the kids at least is their method of bed-making. There is a fitted sheet, a pillow in a case, and a duvet folded in fourths sitting on top. The duvet is in a case similar to a pillow but closed with buttons or a zipper or the end folded over. So to make the bed, you fold the duvet back up and plump the pillow. How simple is that?
I’m doing a quantity of writing on this trip between this blog and a hand-written diary I’m keeping. In Salzburg, I stood at the deep window-sill and wrote at the open window in front of me, the cool night breeze gently wafting around with and the quiet city streets four floors below. I took a picture.
That’s another thing different in Europe. Their first floor is called the lobby or ground floor. Floor #1 is up one flight of stairs. So the number on our door key was 301 but we were on the fourth level; the third floor.
Our train went from Salzburg to Zürich and we caught another one that went to Lausanne but got off at Yverdon where our friend Heidi met us. She and her son Liam (nearly 4 years old) drove us to their home in the village of Donneloye (pronounced “Donna-lou-wah) about fifteen minutes away.
Heidi is a native American and she and Rhonda have been good friends for years. She (Heidi) married a Swiss and has been living here ever since. Ralph is a great guy with a wonderful sense of humor. They have three sons and a darling baby girl.
They live half a block from the two older boys’ school and they come home for lunch each day. Switzerland has very good public schools and home schooling is unheard of here. Since this is in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, the boys’ classes are all in that language. Heidi has taught them English from infancy and Ralph has taught them his native Swiss-German, so they’re growing up tri-lingual. Heidi says the two older boys will talk to each other in French and they are all supposed to respond to her in English and to Ralph in Swiss-German.
Little Liam sat on the couch with Rhonda, handed her a book and asked her to read him a story. Rhonda opened it and said she didn’t think she could. He asked if it was in French and she said it was. He encouraged her to try (everyone else he knew could read French, why not Rhonda?) She explained that the only books she could read were ones in English. He quickly offered a Berenstein book about the great honey hunt, ran to get it, and snuggled down for the story.
During the car drive to the house, he asked Mom if she could drive a car. Mom said she could but not in this country. He had trouble with that, too. Every other grown-up could drive a car here, why not her? Mom tried to explain but I don’t think she got anything across.
We haven’t had a chance to get to know the older boys yet because we got here just before chores and bedtime. We know all we need to know about sweet little Alinya….a darling seven-month-old baby girl with a heart-melting smile.
~23 September ~
I’m rather ashamed to admit that we slept in again this morning but at least we got up at 8am instead of 10:30.
Hanus and Dylan had already left for school but Liam came upstairs and visited while we tidied up before coming down. Rhonda and I heard him ask Mom, “Why are you so old”?
“Because I’ve lived a long time,” Mom answered.
“My dad is old,” Liam shared.
“I think I’m a bit older than your dad,” Mom replied. “I’m likely twice as old as him.”
“No,” Liam objected. “He’s forty.”
“Well, I’m seventy-seven,” Mom assured him, “and that’s about twice his age.”
“No.” Liam was staunchly loyal to his dad. “Forty is older than seventy-five.”
Rhonda and I were in the next room trying to smother our howling.
The boys have half days every Wednesday so after they came home for lunch we went on a sight-seeing tour. Ralph and Heidi have a seven-passenger van so we all piled in (except Ralph who had gone to work) and set off for the Nestlé chocolate factory and the Gruyeres cheese facility.
I don’t know if that’s the only Nestlé factory in Switzerland or not or if that was the original factory. What I do know is the very air is perfumed with chocolate. What a place to live in! There is a self-guided tour but you can’t see much of the factory itself. We watched a film of the process and then meandered through the exhibits. The best part is that on your way out, there are trays of samples and no one there to monitor how much each one takes.
There is a gift shop, of course, and I got a couple postcards of Switzerland.
We went a little further to the Gruyeres cheese factory. Again, I don’t know if that’s the only factory or if there are more. For a fee, about 7 euros, we went on a tour. We each had a device that looked like an elongated phone handset as our guide. We typed in the numbers that corresponded with our preferred language and then listened as we progressed from one numbered area to another. We could see most of the process through windows from above.
Liam wasn’t too sure about the salt baths. At first he thought is sounded sort of interesting. Heidi asked if he wanted to be in there for eight days. He decided it wasn’t as appealing as it first appeared.
We each received a sample of cheese that had a slice of cheese aged six months, one aged eight months, and one aged ten months. I had had a slice of eight months aged cheese the day before at supper so I elected to save my cheese for a snack on the train later.
We had enough time to drive up to the Château de St Gruyeres. It’s a fairy tale village with the cobblestone streets, window boxes full of geraniums, and lace curtains in the windows. The dates over the doors tell when the building was built or renovated or something. The oldest date I saw was 1594. Since it was a distance from the castle, I’m guessing it isn’t the oldest.
There is a fountain in the center of the road where we filled our water bottles. It looked decorative what with geraniums planted above it sprinkling the water with their petals and the deep basin beneath. I saw Heidi filling her bottle so when in Rome….. It was cool, clear, and delicious
It looks something like what Williamsburg is; where you can go to see how people lived in centuries gone by. What it really is, is a village where people live and work. There are shops of every kind, motels, and even a retirement home.
We didn’t go into the castle but there was a walkway around it a little lower than the base that we followed. It was a spectacular experience to look out over the valley to our left and then look up at the looming castle walls to our right.
We came back home for Hanus’ soccer practice, supper, and then Bible study. The study starts at 8:15pm here. That makes for less rush during supper but it keeps the children up later. Everyone spoke French at this study with the exception of us three and Heidi. Ralph prayed in English but spoke in French; Heidi prayed in English and spoke in French but then repeated in English. It was very special.
Ralph figured out the problem I was having with accessing their wireless; we visited for about an hour over cups of tea/coffee, and then headed for bed.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Prague and Salzburg
Prague ~
First of all, please note the link to my pictures on the sidebar to the right. You’ll need to sign up with Snapfish to view but it’s free and easy to do. I’ve captioned all the pictures and you can see them as a slide show.
The camera program was simple to get. I slid Mom’s camera card into the slot and Windows grabbed what it needed from the internet. How easy was that?
Friday was a long day of somewhat frustrating travel after a short night. We were met at the Prague train station by Jeff, the man of the home where we stayed the weekend. Bless his kind heart, he came all the way to the station to escort us to his home. It involved a seven-minute walk from his house to the bus stop, a fifteen-minute ride on a bus, and a fifteen- to twenty-minute ride on the metro to get to us. Then we rode the metro back to the bus, the bus back to his stop and then the seven-minute walk up to his house. Whew! I think it was about 11pm when we hit the beds.
Next morning, I woke up to hear Mom talking with Debi, the woman of the house, and thought, “Mom’s always first one up early,” and checked my watch. 10:30am. What?!
We had a bite to eat and did computer stuff; blog, train schedules, hostels, email, etc. At a late lunch, Debi asked if we wanted to tour Prague and offered to guide us. Rhonda and I jumped at the chance. Mom’s been here before and wasn’t interested in sore feet and aching legs. It was a beautiful afternoon and a beautiful city.
We rode the bus and metro to the National Theater (I called it the National Museum in the pictures and will change that) where you see the big horse statue. The long avenue down from there is Wenceslaus Square which you see in pictures of Soviet parades and student demonstrations in Prague.
From there, we went to another square that I don’t remember the name of but that’s where the Apostle Clock is. You ought to look that up, too. Interesting clock and interesting story about the man who designed it.
I can’t do the buildings justice. They were very old. Centuries old. Under Communism, they weren’t kept up very well and they were painted dull grey. Prague is now in a constant state of restoration. One of the pictures I posted has a huge advertisement across the front of a building. Debi told us that they figure if the building is going to have a great cloth covering it during restoration, they may as well put an advertisement on it.
Most of the buildings now are quite colorful and look in great repair. Rhonda and I gawked like the tourists we are.
We didn’t get to the castle because time was running out but what we saw made us want to return some day. I’m awed by the sheer passage of history that I saw before my eyes. I tried to grasp that where I stood, kings, nobles, and peasants had also stood in centuries gone by. The cobblestones on several streets were polished by a thousand years’ worth of horse hooves, nobles’ boots, peasants’ shoes, and wagon wheels. My footwear has very thin soles and I delighted to feel the smoothness beneath my feet. I would sort of twist or slide a little whenever we stopped just to feel it again.
Czech history is as varied and bloody as any European country. Their King Charles IV was the first Czech ruler to be made King of the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither Holy nor Roman, by the way). He was good for the country and made it prosper.
He rebuilt the Judith Bridge spanning the Vltava River and it’s now called the Charles Bridge. We crossed it - foot traffic only - and there were people performing with a box in front of each one for donations. One singer had a vibrato that I didn’t particularly enjoy but another young girl sang a stunning rendition of Ave Maria. Her pianist is blind and they sometimes sing in duet while the older one plays.
Also on the bridge is a sort of good-luck piece where legend says if you touch it, you’ll return to Prague. I don’t think my future depends on what I touch, so I passed by.
We wanted a flavor of Prague, so went into a little bakery sort of place and had an ice cream. Debi wasn’t too keen; she said the Czech version of ice cream is pretty much milk whipped as it was frozen and didn’t taste all that great. But she was pleasantly surprised by this one. Said it was much better than what she’d had before.
We had a very special Sunday worship meeting with Jeff and Debi. Dan, a Business English teacher from Nova Scotia, was also there for a total of six. Dan stayed for lunch afterwards and kept us entertained with his stories and provocative political questions. He told us of how he was escorted out of Germany last July by two policeman because his new driver’s license had no picture. He had his old, expired one with a picture but the two together weren’t enough. When Jeff asked how they could do that, Dan explained that they had the guns and he didn’t. He had quite a few stories to tell and we enjoyed hearing them.
Sunday afternoon was quiet and slow. Some napped, some took a walk, some worked online, some did all of the above. We had a good time getting to know Jeff and Debi who left their families and homeland (Washington State) to come to Czech Republic so the ministers here could have a home base instead of a dinky apartment. Just like what Don and Dudu are doing in Hungary.
Rhonda and I stayed up almost long enough to meet Peter, one of the ministers here in Czech Republic. He was an hour late getting in because the train before him had hit a person. I don’t know any more of the particulars than just that. He was coming from Vienna and walked in the door around 10:30pm. But not to worry. He got up at 5am when we did, walked us down to the bus stop, and saw us off. So we got to know him just a little.
I’m getting pretty good hopping on and off public transport and reading train/tram/bus schedules. My balance is better on the busses where the driver…well…..drives…..and the passengers stagger around.
Quick note before I move on: We’re on the train to Salzburg, stopped in a town called České Budéjovice. There’s a man on the platform sweeping it clean….but sweeping toward the wall of the building. One wonders why he doesn’t sweep it all off the edge of the platform onto the rails…
České Budéjovice, by the way, is where Budweiser Beer originally originated….or so I’m told by a reputable source. I guess the water is special there and makes for a good beer. I wouldn’t know. I don’t like beer.
Another first:
Purchased something in a language I cannot speak. Never mind that the lady was used to tourists, I purchased two postcards for 16 koruny - about one dollar. The exchange right now is $1 USD = 18 Koruny. They call them crowns in English. So each rather nice postcard was about 50 cents.
Now for the language lesson:
I figured the marks above the letters meant a different sound than without the marks. I was right. A line (or accent mark although it doesn’t mean to accent the syllable) means to draw out the sound a little longer. A mark like a carot pointed down over a “c” (č) makes it say “ch”. Over a “t” makes it say “tyuh”, over an “s” makes it say “sh”, over a “j” makes it say “yoi”, over a “z” makes it say “zh” (like a soft “j”), and over the “r“ makes a “zh“ sound together with a rolled “rr“ as in Spanish. There’s one over an “e” but I didn’t ask what it did. A “c” alone makes a “ts” sound like the German “z”; a “ch” makes a “hyuh” like the German “ch”.
Once you figure out what each letter makes, it’s easy enough to pronounce the words. Knowing what they mean is a whole kettle of fish of another color.
Also, Prague is only pronounced that way by foreigners. They and the surrounding countries pronounce and spell it “Praha”. They also pronounce and call their country Česka Republika.
“Yes” is “ano” and “No” is “ne”. I didn’t ask for any other words although I should have.
We rode the metro long enough that I’ve memorized the words that sound like Peet-soo Anat-soo. It means “get on” and get off”. They say the phrase “The train is leaving, so get on or get off.” When I asked Debi what they were saying, she told me, “Get in or out, Stupid!” Which, I guess, is what really is being said when you strip off the politeness…..
Jeff and Debi live in a suburb north of Prague called Prúhonice (I’m pretty sure that’s how you spell it) and pronounced “Pro-hoo-neet-say.
We rose at 4:45am to make the 5:30 bus and rode it back to the metro station. We caught the metro in good time and rode to the train station where we had to wait for about half an hour before our train information came up on the reader board. That gave me plenty of time to people-watch - my second-favorite pastime (reading being my first).
When we were on the metro, Rhonda unobtrusively pointed to a lady’s shoulder bag by my feet. I looked down and saw a small dog’s head through the zipped mesh closing the bag. A small dog was inside the equivalent of a canvas shopping bag!
There were a couple of drunks asleep on a bench in the train station a short distance away from us. Sound asleep, leaning forward, arms on thighs, and I wondered why they didn’t topple head-first onto the concrete floor. Why do drunks have better balance than the average sober person? Any sober person would have long fallen off it they tried to perch like those guys did. Along came a couple of young police and stopped in front of the one closest to us. They addressed him and got no answer. They spoke a little louder. No response. One of the policemen kicked his foot. The guy exploded awake looking for a fight, saw the uniforms and quickly subsided. A couple minutes later, I noticed he was dozing off again, slumped forward, arms on thighs but not falling off the bench. He was still there when we left.
I’ve read about derelicts and imagined what they’d look like. I saw one this morning in that station. Longish white hair, beard, and moustache going every direction, rheumy eyes, shaking hands, unsteady gait, too-big pants held up with a belt (or it might have been a bit of rope), and worn-out shirt. I was so amazed that I didn’t have a chance to look at his feet before he was past us and around the corner.
We traveled through some bee-yooo-tiful country on the train from Prague to Salzburg. I took a ton of pictures. Same deal as from Vienna to Prague. I looks like it could be Anywhere, USA but there’s something different that I can’t put my finger on.
We are now in Salzburg, Austria and will stay the night. There is internet here but it costs 1 Euro/hour. Not a bad price. The Cyber Café charges 3 Euros/hour. So I may decide to be on the internet for three hours, but not more than that.
We walked the old part of Salzburg. Again, it was amazing to think that Mozart likely ran down this street right were I was standing
We also walked across the river twice (to old town and back) and we went to the Scloss Mirabell. I have no idea how any family could live in a house (castle) that big. You’d need servants for the servants! The formal gardens there are just beautiful. Box hedges, dusty miller, marigolds, begonias, fountains, statues…..wow.
We leave tomorrow around 10am and go to Yverdon, Switzerland by way of Zürich. I’ve been in three large European cities now and they each feel different.
Hungary seems a little more scrappy. A little more “things could happen here so hang on to your purse and passport”. Still awakening from the stupor of Communism.
Prague seemed steeped in history and struggle. Of a people freed to become what they aspire to be.
Salzburg seemed to me to have more of a small-town feel; a place of music; gentleness.
Three great cities - three people having a great time.
First of all, please note the link to my pictures on the sidebar to the right. You’ll need to sign up with Snapfish to view but it’s free and easy to do. I’ve captioned all the pictures and you can see them as a slide show.
The camera program was simple to get. I slid Mom’s camera card into the slot and Windows grabbed what it needed from the internet. How easy was that?
Friday was a long day of somewhat frustrating travel after a short night. We were met at the Prague train station by Jeff, the man of the home where we stayed the weekend. Bless his kind heart, he came all the way to the station to escort us to his home. It involved a seven-minute walk from his house to the bus stop, a fifteen-minute ride on a bus, and a fifteen- to twenty-minute ride on the metro to get to us. Then we rode the metro back to the bus, the bus back to his stop and then the seven-minute walk up to his house. Whew! I think it was about 11pm when we hit the beds.
Next morning, I woke up to hear Mom talking with Debi, the woman of the house, and thought, “Mom’s always first one up early,” and checked my watch. 10:30am. What?!
We had a bite to eat and did computer stuff; blog, train schedules, hostels, email, etc. At a late lunch, Debi asked if we wanted to tour Prague and offered to guide us. Rhonda and I jumped at the chance. Mom’s been here before and wasn’t interested in sore feet and aching legs. It was a beautiful afternoon and a beautiful city.
We rode the bus and metro to the National Theater (I called it the National Museum in the pictures and will change that) where you see the big horse statue. The long avenue down from there is Wenceslaus Square which you see in pictures of Soviet parades and student demonstrations in Prague.
From there, we went to another square that I don’t remember the name of but that’s where the Apostle Clock is. You ought to look that up, too. Interesting clock and interesting story about the man who designed it.
I can’t do the buildings justice. They were very old. Centuries old. Under Communism, they weren’t kept up very well and they were painted dull grey. Prague is now in a constant state of restoration. One of the pictures I posted has a huge advertisement across the front of a building. Debi told us that they figure if the building is going to have a great cloth covering it during restoration, they may as well put an advertisement on it.
Most of the buildings now are quite colorful and look in great repair. Rhonda and I gawked like the tourists we are.
We didn’t get to the castle because time was running out but what we saw made us want to return some day. I’m awed by the sheer passage of history that I saw before my eyes. I tried to grasp that where I stood, kings, nobles, and peasants had also stood in centuries gone by. The cobblestones on several streets were polished by a thousand years’ worth of horse hooves, nobles’ boots, peasants’ shoes, and wagon wheels. My footwear has very thin soles and I delighted to feel the smoothness beneath my feet. I would sort of twist or slide a little whenever we stopped just to feel it again.
Czech history is as varied and bloody as any European country. Their King Charles IV was the first Czech ruler to be made King of the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither Holy nor Roman, by the way). He was good for the country and made it prosper.
He rebuilt the Judith Bridge spanning the Vltava River and it’s now called the Charles Bridge. We crossed it - foot traffic only - and there were people performing with a box in front of each one for donations. One singer had a vibrato that I didn’t particularly enjoy but another young girl sang a stunning rendition of Ave Maria. Her pianist is blind and they sometimes sing in duet while the older one plays.
Also on the bridge is a sort of good-luck piece where legend says if you touch it, you’ll return to Prague. I don’t think my future depends on what I touch, so I passed by.
We wanted a flavor of Prague, so went into a little bakery sort of place and had an ice cream. Debi wasn’t too keen; she said the Czech version of ice cream is pretty much milk whipped as it was frozen and didn’t taste all that great. But she was pleasantly surprised by this one. Said it was much better than what she’d had before.
We had a very special Sunday worship meeting with Jeff and Debi. Dan, a Business English teacher from Nova Scotia, was also there for a total of six. Dan stayed for lunch afterwards and kept us entertained with his stories and provocative political questions. He told us of how he was escorted out of Germany last July by two policeman because his new driver’s license had no picture. He had his old, expired one with a picture but the two together weren’t enough. When Jeff asked how they could do that, Dan explained that they had the guns and he didn’t. He had quite a few stories to tell and we enjoyed hearing them.
Sunday afternoon was quiet and slow. Some napped, some took a walk, some worked online, some did all of the above. We had a good time getting to know Jeff and Debi who left their families and homeland (Washington State) to come to Czech Republic so the ministers here could have a home base instead of a dinky apartment. Just like what Don and Dudu are doing in Hungary.
Rhonda and I stayed up almost long enough to meet Peter, one of the ministers here in Czech Republic. He was an hour late getting in because the train before him had hit a person. I don’t know any more of the particulars than just that. He was coming from Vienna and walked in the door around 10:30pm. But not to worry. He got up at 5am when we did, walked us down to the bus stop, and saw us off. So we got to know him just a little.
I’m getting pretty good hopping on and off public transport and reading train/tram/bus schedules. My balance is better on the busses where the driver…well…..drives…..and the passengers stagger around.
Quick note before I move on: We’re on the train to Salzburg, stopped in a town called České Budéjovice. There’s a man on the platform sweeping it clean….but sweeping toward the wall of the building. One wonders why he doesn’t sweep it all off the edge of the platform onto the rails…
České Budéjovice, by the way, is where Budweiser Beer originally originated….or so I’m told by a reputable source. I guess the water is special there and makes for a good beer. I wouldn’t know. I don’t like beer.
Another first:
Purchased something in a language I cannot speak. Never mind that the lady was used to tourists, I purchased two postcards for 16 koruny - about one dollar. The exchange right now is $1 USD = 18 Koruny. They call them crowns in English. So each rather nice postcard was about 50 cents.
Now for the language lesson:
I figured the marks above the letters meant a different sound than without the marks. I was right. A line (or accent mark although it doesn’t mean to accent the syllable) means to draw out the sound a little longer. A mark like a carot pointed down over a “c” (č) makes it say “ch”. Over a “t” makes it say “tyuh”, over an “s” makes it say “sh”, over a “j” makes it say “yoi”, over a “z” makes it say “zh” (like a soft “j”), and over the “r“ makes a “zh“ sound together with a rolled “rr“ as in Spanish. There’s one over an “e” but I didn’t ask what it did. A “c” alone makes a “ts” sound like the German “z”; a “ch” makes a “hyuh” like the German “ch”.
Once you figure out what each letter makes, it’s easy enough to pronounce the words. Knowing what they mean is a whole kettle of fish of another color.
Also, Prague is only pronounced that way by foreigners. They and the surrounding countries pronounce and spell it “Praha”. They also pronounce and call their country Česka Republika.
“Yes” is “ano” and “No” is “ne”. I didn’t ask for any other words although I should have.
We rode the metro long enough that I’ve memorized the words that sound like Peet-soo Anat-soo. It means “get on” and get off”. They say the phrase “The train is leaving, so get on or get off.” When I asked Debi what they were saying, she told me, “Get in or out, Stupid!” Which, I guess, is what really is being said when you strip off the politeness…..
Jeff and Debi live in a suburb north of Prague called Prúhonice (I’m pretty sure that’s how you spell it) and pronounced “Pro-hoo-neet-say.
We rose at 4:45am to make the 5:30 bus and rode it back to the metro station. We caught the metro in good time and rode to the train station where we had to wait for about half an hour before our train information came up on the reader board. That gave me plenty of time to people-watch - my second-favorite pastime (reading being my first).
When we were on the metro, Rhonda unobtrusively pointed to a lady’s shoulder bag by my feet. I looked down and saw a small dog’s head through the zipped mesh closing the bag. A small dog was inside the equivalent of a canvas shopping bag!
There were a couple of drunks asleep on a bench in the train station a short distance away from us. Sound asleep, leaning forward, arms on thighs, and I wondered why they didn’t topple head-first onto the concrete floor. Why do drunks have better balance than the average sober person? Any sober person would have long fallen off it they tried to perch like those guys did. Along came a couple of young police and stopped in front of the one closest to us. They addressed him and got no answer. They spoke a little louder. No response. One of the policemen kicked his foot. The guy exploded awake looking for a fight, saw the uniforms and quickly subsided. A couple minutes later, I noticed he was dozing off again, slumped forward, arms on thighs but not falling off the bench. He was still there when we left.
I’ve read about derelicts and imagined what they’d look like. I saw one this morning in that station. Longish white hair, beard, and moustache going every direction, rheumy eyes, shaking hands, unsteady gait, too-big pants held up with a belt (or it might have been a bit of rope), and worn-out shirt. I was so amazed that I didn’t have a chance to look at his feet before he was past us and around the corner.
We traveled through some bee-yooo-tiful country on the train from Prague to Salzburg. I took a ton of pictures. Same deal as from Vienna to Prague. I looks like it could be Anywhere, USA but there’s something different that I can’t put my finger on.
We are now in Salzburg, Austria and will stay the night. There is internet here but it costs 1 Euro/hour. Not a bad price. The Cyber Café charges 3 Euros/hour. So I may decide to be on the internet for three hours, but not more than that.
We walked the old part of Salzburg. Again, it was amazing to think that Mozart likely ran down this street right were I was standing
We also walked across the river twice (to old town and back) and we went to the Scloss Mirabell. I have no idea how any family could live in a house (castle) that big. You’d need servants for the servants! The formal gardens there are just beautiful. Box hedges, dusty miller, marigolds, begonias, fountains, statues…..wow.
We leave tomorrow around 10am and go to Yverdon, Switzerland by way of Zürich. I’ve been in three large European cities now and they each feel different.
Hungary seems a little more scrappy. A little more “things could happen here so hang on to your purse and passport”. Still awakening from the stupor of Communism.
Prague seemed steeped in history and struggle. Of a people freed to become what they aspire to be.
Salzburg seemed to me to have more of a small-town feel; a place of music; gentleness.
Three great cities - three people having a great time.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Budapest
Budapest, 15 - 17 September
I still don’t have a camera program but I will write and then post the pics whenever I get them. We’re at a place in Prague that has wireless so I should be able to get something.
After I posted the last blog, we went back to the hostel and waited for our ministers who are working in Hungary. They took us on a tour of Budapest…or as much of one as a person can get when the weather is akin to the Pacific Northwest in winter only as warm as fall. The rain came down gently but thoroughly, running down my forehead, into and out of my eyes, off the end of my nose, down my cheeks, dripping off my chin and ear lobes and wriggling its way down my shirt front. The ministers had umbrellas and kept trying to shield me from the worst but in reality, the umbrellas were the smaller, fold-up size and the rain ran off the edge of it and onto my head, down my face….
Mom and Rhonda both had hoods on their coats so the weren’t as soaked as I was. Anyone who knows me knows that I’d prefer the rain to a hat or hood and I had no problems with the rain except that my glasses kept getting fogged up and water-streaked. I had a hood on my coat, too, but didn’t remember until it was pointless.
Two more of our ministers met up with us at the….oh, I can’t remember the name of the coffee house but it was built in the very beginning of the 1900s and very elegant. Quite high-brow. We came in one door, inhaled deeply as we slowly goggled our way through and left out the other door.
We went to a spa that had been built by the Romans. There are four different kinds of water there and doctors in Hungary actually prescribe sessions at a particular spa. You can also pay the equivalent of $15 for a day in the waters and massages. That may also include saunas, too, I didn’t ask. The building was built around the end of the 1800s, was magnificent outside and stunning inside. It is illegal to take pictures inside, so we didn’t. The grounds were beautiful with well-manicured lawn and flower beds.
We saw quite the stocky dude in a Speedo there. I got a picture of him.
The Hungarians love flowers and they lined the city streets, windows, and sidewalks. I got pictures of that, too.
We viewed the king’s castle on a hill overlooking the Duna (Danube) on the Buda side and saw most of the parliament building on the Pest side. Our hostel was on the Pest side of the river, by the way.
I learned that there are actually three parts of Budapest, not two. Old Buda, Buda, and Pest. Old Buda was the extent of the Roman conquest to the south of the city.
I also learned how to properly pronounce Budapest. It’s not like describing a particularly annoying monk but “Booda- pesht” The “s” alone makes the “sh” sound. Followed by a “z”, it makes the “s” sound. I also learned how to say ‘yes’ (Phonetically:‘eegan’) and ‘no’ (phonetically: nem). Goodbye is Viszontlátásra; Thank you is Köszönöm; Hello (Good day) is Jó napot kívánok. Don’t let the marks scare you. Each mark makes each vowel say a particular sound and only that sound. The hard part comes when you learn that ‘a’, ‘e’, and ‘I’, makes only two sounds (one with and one without the accent) but the ’o’ and ’u’ each make four…for a total of fourteen vowel sounds. And you complain about learning to spell in English!
We went to “the coffee house in Hungary” and had an elegant bowls of tea, coffee, lovely cakes, and great visiting. Those cups of tea were as large as my cereal bowls at home only shaped more steeply on the sides and had a handle. Two more ladies joined us there; one more minister and a visitor from New Zealand. We were nine sitting around two tables pushed together.
If ever you feel like spending money like a rich man - dealing in thousands of monetary units - come to Hungary. Their forint is the base. There is no fraction like we have fractions of our base dollar. So a public transport ticket good for 24 hours cost 1,500 forints. Our hostel room was around 11,000 forints for one person for two nights. One dollar will get you about 180 forints, so the subway ticket was just over eight dollars and the hostel was around $61 for two nights.
Some of you will wonder who the ministers are. I only use first names on this blog and they are Ann, Jessedith, Bree, Rachel, and Heidrun. When I told them that I don’t use last names, they exploded with laughter and exclaimed, “ ‘Sisters from Hungary’ says it all!!”
We left there and traveled by train north to a home for supper and mid-week Bible study. Dessert came after the study and the man of the house drove us back to the hostel so we wouldn’t get lost on public transport.
You really have to ride public transport to get the true feel of the lower side of life. We were beset by fast-talking ladies trying to sell women’s underwear, of all things. One lady had her hands inside the undies to better show off the superb cut and quality of cloth. I was somewhat tempted just to have a souvenir.
A man got right in our faces at the self-serve train ticket kiosk. I didn’t understand a word he said but I knew he was begging for money. The ministers acted as if he didn’t exist and he left to badger someone else.
We were going through one subway when I got distracted by a Korean yelling to the crowd, kicked a nearly-empty bowl (large sized) of some sort of foodstuff, slid on the remains in an unplanned split, and very nearly landed on my kiester. I was saved by the convenient arm of one of the ministers. I can’t remember who it was but I thanked her profusely.
There was a well-dressed young lady on one of the surface trains that I know for a fact wasn’t wearing a bra. She had both her blouse and her leather jacket unbuttoned to four inches above her belly button.
I was talking to Rachel on a tram when she suddenly interrupted me asking me to stand still so she could get something off my face. What she attempted to wipe off my face was my mole. I told her that; she apologized and explained she thought it was some pollution and wanted to get it off my face. Pollution?? It’s so bad there that it lands on your face?
What else? You really should look up Hero’s Square, the Shoe Memorial, and Lady Liberty. The internet can do far more justice than I can recounting their symbolism and history.
(Rhonda’s notes)
We hardly noticed the rain with all the visiting we were doing with the ministers which make up many English colonies. All communication was made in various forms of English. Sweet, unforgettable fellowship. A highlight for sure! Dudu and Don are Canadians who felt moved to purchase a home in Budapest for the ministers to have a place to stay. They are very useful there and stay 6 months in Hungary and the other 6 months on Vancouver Island. Their life and generosity is inspiring. Mom and her girls are getting along fine enjoying this adventure that’s full of opportunities to laugh or cry. One of these nights we’ll get a good rest. In the mean time the train rides are soothing and relaxing. After a Eurorail mishap this morning we are on our way to Vienna with purpose. Hoping to get our Eurorail passes in hand and get up to Prague before day’s end.
6:00pm Friday, Sept 17th ~
We have been on the rail line from Vienna to Prague since 4pm in first class. Wow! First class! I think the second class from Budapest to Vienna about did Mom in what with sharing a six-compartment cubby with two other women and the air conditioning being more miss than hit in this muggy weather. It sure was a new experience, though. Ever ask someone if they want to change seats and help someone get their luggage down with neither of you saying a word the other understands, yet communicating completely?
One of the ministers gave us advise when we were in Czech Republic. “Don’t cough, spit, or sneeze,” she cautioned, “you might be saying something without knowing it.”
Czechs have even more marks above their letters than the Hungarians do.
The scenery looks like Anywhere, USA except for the buildings. The crops are planted a little differently here, too. I can’t describe it much more than that the fields are narrower with different kinds of vegetations planted next to each other. It just feels different somehow.
I just looked out the window and saw what looked like bunkers or tunnels of some kind. They seemed more bunker-like than tunnel-like. A reminder of the years the Czech Republic spent under the Iron Fist.
More firsts for me:
*First time on a tram.
*First time on a subway (metro here).
*First time standing up holding on to those straps on the tram and metro. It’s a little harder than it looks! One tram started before I was quite ready and I almost landed in Mom’s lap, complete with two suitcases and my shoulder bag.
*First time purchasing something (a bottle of water) totally in German. And he understood me just fine.
*First time paying for something in Euros. Not the first time paying in foreign currency because I’ve done that in Canada. Euros are worth $1.40 each but it still seems as if I’m using Monopoly money.
We are in Prague now, safe in the home of some friends. We had a long metro ride (there were some classy dressers), a longer bus ride (those doors beeped more annoyingly than the ones in Budapest), and a work-out of a walk to Jeff and Debbie’s four-bedroom house. It’s 11:40pm on Friday night after a long day that started at 6am on top of those bowls of tea plus the cup after Bible study.
I still don’t have a camera program but I will write and then post the pics whenever I get them. We’re at a place in Prague that has wireless so I should be able to get something.
After I posted the last blog, we went back to the hostel and waited for our ministers who are working in Hungary. They took us on a tour of Budapest…or as much of one as a person can get when the weather is akin to the Pacific Northwest in winter only as warm as fall. The rain came down gently but thoroughly, running down my forehead, into and out of my eyes, off the end of my nose, down my cheeks, dripping off my chin and ear lobes and wriggling its way down my shirt front. The ministers had umbrellas and kept trying to shield me from the worst but in reality, the umbrellas were the smaller, fold-up size and the rain ran off the edge of it and onto my head, down my face….
Mom and Rhonda both had hoods on their coats so the weren’t as soaked as I was. Anyone who knows me knows that I’d prefer the rain to a hat or hood and I had no problems with the rain except that my glasses kept getting fogged up and water-streaked. I had a hood on my coat, too, but didn’t remember until it was pointless.
Two more of our ministers met up with us at the….oh, I can’t remember the name of the coffee house but it was built in the very beginning of the 1900s and very elegant. Quite high-brow. We came in one door, inhaled deeply as we slowly goggled our way through and left out the other door.
We went to a spa that had been built by the Romans. There are four different kinds of water there and doctors in Hungary actually prescribe sessions at a particular spa. You can also pay the equivalent of $15 for a day in the waters and massages. That may also include saunas, too, I didn’t ask. The building was built around the end of the 1800s, was magnificent outside and stunning inside. It is illegal to take pictures inside, so we didn’t. The grounds were beautiful with well-manicured lawn and flower beds.
We saw quite the stocky dude in a Speedo there. I got a picture of him.
The Hungarians love flowers and they lined the city streets, windows, and sidewalks. I got pictures of that, too.
We viewed the king’s castle on a hill overlooking the Duna (Danube) on the Buda side and saw most of the parliament building on the Pest side. Our hostel was on the Pest side of the river, by the way.
I learned that there are actually three parts of Budapest, not two. Old Buda, Buda, and Pest. Old Buda was the extent of the Roman conquest to the south of the city.
I also learned how to properly pronounce Budapest. It’s not like describing a particularly annoying monk but “Booda- pesht” The “s” alone makes the “sh” sound. Followed by a “z”, it makes the “s” sound. I also learned how to say ‘yes’ (Phonetically:‘eegan’) and ‘no’ (phonetically: nem). Goodbye is Viszontlátásra; Thank you is Köszönöm; Hello (Good day) is Jó napot kívánok. Don’t let the marks scare you. Each mark makes each vowel say a particular sound and only that sound. The hard part comes when you learn that ‘a’, ‘e’, and ‘I’, makes only two sounds (one with and one without the accent) but the ’o’ and ’u’ each make four…for a total of fourteen vowel sounds. And you complain about learning to spell in English!
We went to “the coffee house in Hungary” and had an elegant bowls of tea, coffee, lovely cakes, and great visiting. Those cups of tea were as large as my cereal bowls at home only shaped more steeply on the sides and had a handle. Two more ladies joined us there; one more minister and a visitor from New Zealand. We were nine sitting around two tables pushed together.
If ever you feel like spending money like a rich man - dealing in thousands of monetary units - come to Hungary. Their forint is the base. There is no fraction like we have fractions of our base dollar. So a public transport ticket good for 24 hours cost 1,500 forints. Our hostel room was around 11,000 forints for one person for two nights. One dollar will get you about 180 forints, so the subway ticket was just over eight dollars and the hostel was around $61 for two nights.
Some of you will wonder who the ministers are. I only use first names on this blog and they are Ann, Jessedith, Bree, Rachel, and Heidrun. When I told them that I don’t use last names, they exploded with laughter and exclaimed, “ ‘Sisters from Hungary’ says it all!!”
We left there and traveled by train north to a home for supper and mid-week Bible study. Dessert came after the study and the man of the house drove us back to the hostel so we wouldn’t get lost on public transport.
You really have to ride public transport to get the true feel of the lower side of life. We were beset by fast-talking ladies trying to sell women’s underwear, of all things. One lady had her hands inside the undies to better show off the superb cut and quality of cloth. I was somewhat tempted just to have a souvenir.
A man got right in our faces at the self-serve train ticket kiosk. I didn’t understand a word he said but I knew he was begging for money. The ministers acted as if he didn’t exist and he left to badger someone else.
We were going through one subway when I got distracted by a Korean yelling to the crowd, kicked a nearly-empty bowl (large sized) of some sort of foodstuff, slid on the remains in an unplanned split, and very nearly landed on my kiester. I was saved by the convenient arm of one of the ministers. I can’t remember who it was but I thanked her profusely.
There was a well-dressed young lady on one of the surface trains that I know for a fact wasn’t wearing a bra. She had both her blouse and her leather jacket unbuttoned to four inches above her belly button.
I was talking to Rachel on a tram when she suddenly interrupted me asking me to stand still so she could get something off my face. What she attempted to wipe off my face was my mole. I told her that; she apologized and explained she thought it was some pollution and wanted to get it off my face. Pollution?? It’s so bad there that it lands on your face?
What else? You really should look up Hero’s Square, the Shoe Memorial, and Lady Liberty. The internet can do far more justice than I can recounting their symbolism and history.
(Rhonda’s notes)
We hardly noticed the rain with all the visiting we were doing with the ministers which make up many English colonies. All communication was made in various forms of English. Sweet, unforgettable fellowship. A highlight for sure! Dudu and Don are Canadians who felt moved to purchase a home in Budapest for the ministers to have a place to stay. They are very useful there and stay 6 months in Hungary and the other 6 months on Vancouver Island. Their life and generosity is inspiring. Mom and her girls are getting along fine enjoying this adventure that’s full of opportunities to laugh or cry. One of these nights we’ll get a good rest. In the mean time the train rides are soothing and relaxing. After a Eurorail mishap this morning we are on our way to Vienna with purpose. Hoping to get our Eurorail passes in hand and get up to Prague before day’s end.
6:00pm Friday, Sept 17th ~
We have been on the rail line from Vienna to Prague since 4pm in first class. Wow! First class! I think the second class from Budapest to Vienna about did Mom in what with sharing a six-compartment cubby with two other women and the air conditioning being more miss than hit in this muggy weather. It sure was a new experience, though. Ever ask someone if they want to change seats and help someone get their luggage down with neither of you saying a word the other understands, yet communicating completely?
One of the ministers gave us advise when we were in Czech Republic. “Don’t cough, spit, or sneeze,” she cautioned, “you might be saying something without knowing it.”
Czechs have even more marks above their letters than the Hungarians do.
The scenery looks like Anywhere, USA except for the buildings. The crops are planted a little differently here, too. I can’t describe it much more than that the fields are narrower with different kinds of vegetations planted next to each other. It just feels different somehow.
I just looked out the window and saw what looked like bunkers or tunnels of some kind. They seemed more bunker-like than tunnel-like. A reminder of the years the Czech Republic spent under the Iron Fist.
More firsts for me:
*First time on a tram.
*First time on a subway (metro here).
*First time standing up holding on to those straps on the tram and metro. It’s a little harder than it looks! One tram started before I was quite ready and I almost landed in Mom’s lap, complete with two suitcases and my shoulder bag.
*First time purchasing something (a bottle of water) totally in German. And he understood me just fine.
*First time paying for something in Euros. Not the first time paying in foreign currency because I’ve done that in Canada. Euros are worth $1.40 each but it still seems as if I’m using Monopoly money.
We are in Prague now, safe in the home of some friends. We had a long metro ride (there were some classy dressers), a longer bus ride (those doors beeped more annoyingly than the ones in Budapest), and a work-out of a walk to Jeff and Debbie’s four-bedroom house. It’s 11:40pm on Friday night after a long day that started at 6am on top of those bowls of tea plus the cup after Bible study.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
New York to Budapest
10:17 pm PDT ~
It’s 10:17pm in Oregon, 1:17am in New York, and 7;17am in Budapest. How do I keep the times straight? I have clocks on my desktop. Nope, no cheating….being smart.
We left JFK airport on time without any stewardesses cracking any whips. We weren’t in the air more than fifteen minutes when the pilot told us he expected to shave an hour off our flight time because of “favorable tail winds”. A nine-hour flight shortened to eight hours? Fine with us!
This plane has odd sized overhead bins and we had to struggle a little to get Mom’s and my bags in there but we did it.
There is a young boy, maybe two years old, who howled for the first two hours or so. It was better than two hours now that I think about it because he was a pill when we were boarding and he only howled louder as the movie played and supper was consumed. His mom’s method of dealing with him was to “shhhh” him. The only effect it had was to make her sound as if she’d sprung a leak. He eventually fell asleep (thank goodness!) and slept for a couple of hours. Then we got into some pretty fun turbulence again and he’s just woken up. Oh, joy.
I’ve never been overseas so have nothing with which to compare but we’ve had periods of pretty calm flight interspersed with nice, exciting bouncing. The pilot turned on the seatbelt sign shortly after supper and it hasn’t gone off yet. Mom, the experienced international traveler, says this is nothing.
I decided I was thirsty a couple of hours ago (before the Star Trek movie. Mom asked why on Earth those boys seem to keep getting into fights?) Mom had filled my water bottle when she filled hers at JFK and I took it out of my bag to, well, get a drink. This water bottle is a Nikken which has a filter inside and a silicon straw to suck it out with (yes, I know that was un-grammatical. It’s late and I’m tired) The bottle has a flip-top lid that bends the straw over and keeps it from leaking. Now, back to the story.
I pulled the bottle out of the bag and flipped the top over…..and got a miniature Old Faithful down my shirt front. Note to self: When you fill a bottle at sea level, it WILL spew at 33,000 feet elevation. Mom said I had and Old Faceful.
I just happened to look out the windows and saw it’s dawn and brightening up pretty fast. The sun tends to come up quickly when you’re flying straight into it. We still have about three hours inside this metal can with a yelling child.
I was thinking a while ago that an airplane is sort of a world unto itself. We can see by the map (when a movie isn’t playing - they don’t have individual screens on the backs of the seats here like they did the last flight) that we’re flying over, say, Newfoundland or that we’re south of Reykjavik and coming up on Ireland but in the dark, we may as well be flying to the moon for all the connection we have with the world under us.
2:40 Budapest time (4:40 Oregon time) ~
We landed in Budapest at 10:25, a full hour and 5 minutes early. As we came in, my first thought was that the roofs of the houses looked different than they do back home. A lot of them were red-orange and I’m guessing they’re made out of tile. I think you’d get the same effect coming into Spain or another Mediterranean city.
We went through customs and I got the first stamp on my passport. Yay! Hmm….I haven’t looked at it yet, just slid the passport back into my holder and got out of the way of the next person….oh how disappointing! It looks as if they’d nearly run out of ink and the black part is unreadable but he red date stands out clearly. Let’s hope the Czech Republic’s is better.
We’re at the hostel now and I’ve had a number of firsts besides the first stamp in my first passport. Let’s start with all the firsts that came with my first taxi ride…
I’ve heard all kinds of stories about how the taxi driver raced through side streets where cars are parked in a solid wall on both sides and maybe six inches to spare on each side of our car. Well, I lived it this afternoon and Rhonda got a picture from the backseat. How we escaped with nary a scratch is a mystery to me. I found out that yellow lights mean speed up and red lights only count if you see them before you go through the….intersection.
I hesitated because lights don’t occur only at intersections. Sometimes they appear in the middle of the street. I finally noticed broad, dirty white lines painted on the street going with the traffic, not across like our cross-walks would. Those are pedestrian crossings. I understood why they have these special areas for foot traffic when I kept bracing myself expecting the car to stop when people were at the curb and the driver would just plow on. Pedestrians certainly don’t have the right-of-way here!
We were stopped at a light when all of a sudden a dirt bike - at least that’s what it would be called here - came off the curb beside us, cut between us and the car ahead of us (there might have been 18 inches), made a sharp right between that car and the one beside it, and disappeared in a roar and a cloud of grey exhaust.
Rhonda pointed out the strings of parallel parked cars that had - I’m not kidding - four inches or less between their bumpers and the hitch of the one in front of it. Mom wondered how on earth they got out of there, voicing my thoughts before I could speak. Rhonda explained that they go forward until they bump, reverse until they bump, and keep doing that until they’re turned enough to get out.
At another light, I noticed a convertible with Florida plates. Rhonda thought it was a high-end Nissan. I stared at it for a while before I realized what I was seeing. Then I had the weird sensation of my head trying to be in two places at the same time.
We saw a man with his forearm in a cast…painted in some way to make it look like a Holstein cow.
We saw some wonderful buildings. They had to be pre-communist and they looked pre-Victorian, too. They’re built of brick and/or concrete, about six stories tall, filled a city block, and are topped with fancy furbelows. One building had a doorway overhang that was held up by two carved concrete men. One of them had quite a grimace on his face. I would, too, if I’d had to hold up a concrete overhand for a few hundred years.
We’ve checked in to my first hostel. Did you all know I’m a card-carrying member of the Hostel Community? “That explains so much,” you all say. We have a three-bed room to ourselves with an attached bathroom/shower. It’s really a bathroom/shower. The room is rectangular, tiled throughout with the toilet at one end, the sink nearby, and the shower at the other end. Two drains, no curtain and the toilet is tall enough to please a family of professional basketball players.
We didn’t go directly to the hostel. The taxi driver took us to the Budapest Hotel instead of the Budapest Hostel. Quite a difference between a Youth Hostel and a four-star hotel. Yikes!
Added to my list of “I can’t believe I forgot to do this!” was to install a program to take pictures off of the cameras. How brain-dead was that? No, don’t answer. I’m sure I can get something off the internet but in the meantime, you have to slog through my writing when a picture can explain so much.
But pictures can’t give you the complete alien-ness of voices talking around you and not being able to understand a single word. There are cars of different design, buildings of unusual architecture, and incomprehensible street signs without words but what really makes me feel isolated in this great city of hundreds of thousands of people is not being able to communicate. Pantomime only gets you so far. I challenge you to walk into a motel where the receptionist doesn’t speak English and ask if you can use their wi-fi service.
It’s 10:17pm in Oregon, 1:17am in New York, and 7;17am in Budapest. How do I keep the times straight? I have clocks on my desktop. Nope, no cheating….being smart.
We left JFK airport on time without any stewardesses cracking any whips. We weren’t in the air more than fifteen minutes when the pilot told us he expected to shave an hour off our flight time because of “favorable tail winds”. A nine-hour flight shortened to eight hours? Fine with us!
This plane has odd sized overhead bins and we had to struggle a little to get Mom’s and my bags in there but we did it.
There is a young boy, maybe two years old, who howled for the first two hours or so. It was better than two hours now that I think about it because he was a pill when we were boarding and he only howled louder as the movie played and supper was consumed. His mom’s method of dealing with him was to “shhhh” him. The only effect it had was to make her sound as if she’d sprung a leak. He eventually fell asleep (thank goodness!) and slept for a couple of hours. Then we got into some pretty fun turbulence again and he’s just woken up. Oh, joy.
I’ve never been overseas so have nothing with which to compare but we’ve had periods of pretty calm flight interspersed with nice, exciting bouncing. The pilot turned on the seatbelt sign shortly after supper and it hasn’t gone off yet. Mom, the experienced international traveler, says this is nothing.
I decided I was thirsty a couple of hours ago (before the Star Trek movie. Mom asked why on Earth those boys seem to keep getting into fights?) Mom had filled my water bottle when she filled hers at JFK and I took it out of my bag to, well, get a drink. This water bottle is a Nikken which has a filter inside and a silicon straw to suck it out with (yes, I know that was un-grammatical. It’s late and I’m tired) The bottle has a flip-top lid that bends the straw over and keeps it from leaking. Now, back to the story.
I pulled the bottle out of the bag and flipped the top over…..and got a miniature Old Faithful down my shirt front. Note to self: When you fill a bottle at sea level, it WILL spew at 33,000 feet elevation. Mom said I had and Old Faceful.
I just happened to look out the windows and saw it’s dawn and brightening up pretty fast. The sun tends to come up quickly when you’re flying straight into it. We still have about three hours inside this metal can with a yelling child.
I was thinking a while ago that an airplane is sort of a world unto itself. We can see by the map (when a movie isn’t playing - they don’t have individual screens on the backs of the seats here like they did the last flight) that we’re flying over, say, Newfoundland or that we’re south of Reykjavik and coming up on Ireland but in the dark, we may as well be flying to the moon for all the connection we have with the world under us.
2:40 Budapest time (4:40 Oregon time) ~
We landed in Budapest at 10:25, a full hour and 5 minutes early. As we came in, my first thought was that the roofs of the houses looked different than they do back home. A lot of them were red-orange and I’m guessing they’re made out of tile. I think you’d get the same effect coming into Spain or another Mediterranean city.
We went through customs and I got the first stamp on my passport. Yay! Hmm….I haven’t looked at it yet, just slid the passport back into my holder and got out of the way of the next person….oh how disappointing! It looks as if they’d nearly run out of ink and the black part is unreadable but he red date stands out clearly. Let’s hope the Czech Republic’s is better.
We’re at the hostel now and I’ve had a number of firsts besides the first stamp in my first passport. Let’s start with all the firsts that came with my first taxi ride…
I’ve heard all kinds of stories about how the taxi driver raced through side streets where cars are parked in a solid wall on both sides and maybe six inches to spare on each side of our car. Well, I lived it this afternoon and Rhonda got a picture from the backseat. How we escaped with nary a scratch is a mystery to me. I found out that yellow lights mean speed up and red lights only count if you see them before you go through the….intersection.
I hesitated because lights don’t occur only at intersections. Sometimes they appear in the middle of the street. I finally noticed broad, dirty white lines painted on the street going with the traffic, not across like our cross-walks would. Those are pedestrian crossings. I understood why they have these special areas for foot traffic when I kept bracing myself expecting the car to stop when people were at the curb and the driver would just plow on. Pedestrians certainly don’t have the right-of-way here!
We were stopped at a light when all of a sudden a dirt bike - at least that’s what it would be called here - came off the curb beside us, cut between us and the car ahead of us (there might have been 18 inches), made a sharp right between that car and the one beside it, and disappeared in a roar and a cloud of grey exhaust.
Rhonda pointed out the strings of parallel parked cars that had - I’m not kidding - four inches or less between their bumpers and the hitch of the one in front of it. Mom wondered how on earth they got out of there, voicing my thoughts before I could speak. Rhonda explained that they go forward until they bump, reverse until they bump, and keep doing that until they’re turned enough to get out.
At another light, I noticed a convertible with Florida plates. Rhonda thought it was a high-end Nissan. I stared at it for a while before I realized what I was seeing. Then I had the weird sensation of my head trying to be in two places at the same time.
We saw a man with his forearm in a cast…painted in some way to make it look like a Holstein cow.
We saw some wonderful buildings. They had to be pre-communist and they looked pre-Victorian, too. They’re built of brick and/or concrete, about six stories tall, filled a city block, and are topped with fancy furbelows. One building had a doorway overhang that was held up by two carved concrete men. One of them had quite a grimace on his face. I would, too, if I’d had to hold up a concrete overhand for a few hundred years.
We’ve checked in to my first hostel. Did you all know I’m a card-carrying member of the Hostel Community? “That explains so much,” you all say. We have a three-bed room to ourselves with an attached bathroom/shower. It’s really a bathroom/shower. The room is rectangular, tiled throughout with the toilet at one end, the sink nearby, and the shower at the other end. Two drains, no curtain and the toilet is tall enough to please a family of professional basketball players.
We didn’t go directly to the hostel. The taxi driver took us to the Budapest Hotel instead of the Budapest Hostel. Quite a difference between a Youth Hostel and a four-star hotel. Yikes!
Added to my list of “I can’t believe I forgot to do this!” was to install a program to take pictures off of the cameras. How brain-dead was that? No, don’t answer. I’m sure I can get something off the internet but in the meantime, you have to slog through my writing when a picture can explain so much.
But pictures can’t give you the complete alien-ness of voices talking around you and not being able to understand a single word. There are cars of different design, buildings of unusual architecture, and incomprehensible street signs without words but what really makes me feel isolated in this great city of hundreds of thousands of people is not being able to communicate. Pantomime only gets you so far. I challenge you to walk into a motel where the receptionist doesn’t speak English and ask if you can use their wi-fi service.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
From Portland to New York
15 Sept 200
And we’re off!….like a dirty shirt….
Our flight (Delta #744) left on time from Portland. Rhonda believes it’s because the stewardesses are from New York and crack the whip quite professionally. They were on the PA system about every 45 seconds telling us that they can’t close the doors until every bag is stowed, the overhead bins are closed, and everyone is sitting down with seatbelts fastened. Then they tell us that we want to depart on time so passengers can make connecting flights. You could almost hear the whip sizzling through the air..
According to the in-flight tracking map on the back of the seat in front of me, we are just south of Kennewick and only 40 minutes into the flight. We are going 535 miles per hour and are at 31,044 ft. in the air. The flight has been a little rough the past few minutes but things are smoothing out now.
Cameron and Serena drove up to Cottage Grove with Richelle and me to meet Dianne and catch a ride up to Portland with her and then they drove back home. We got to Mom’s in time for supper and some good laughs and went to bed around 10pm.
You know, 4am comes pretty early. But we were up and leaving by 4:45. Dianne and Richelle took us to the airport and we arrived in good time to go through security and were at the boarding gate fifty minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave.
It seemed like a lot of “hurry up and wait”. Rush to have things ready to go through security; hurry to find the boarding gate; sit and wait for the boarding call; rush for the line; inch towards the door; fling your bag into the overhead bin; wait for everyone else to do the same; wait our turn to take off….and, finally!….screaming down the runway.
9:50 PDT ~ We’re north of Rapid City, South Dakota traveling 526 miles per hour at 35152 ft elevation. I look out the window and see frost on the wing. Well, at a temperature of -65° F, I can understand why.
This is starting to sound like a documentary and that’s just not how I write. How about I describe the itsy-bitsy bathroom where you could use the toilet, the mirror, and the sink at the same time? Or about the cutest little blond, curly-haired 11-month-old baby girl sitting in front of us who peeks over and grins at us every so often? Right now, she’s off with her papa getting her diaper changed. Then there’s the 6 foot tall stewardess with what looks like a military hair-cut and another stewardess who was impressed with our assortment of dried fruit and almonds that Mom brought along for snacking.
2:35 PDT ~
We’re in the JFK airport terminal at the gate where we will be boarding the plane to Budapest in another two and a half hours. Mom is sitting on my right with a word-search book in hand - Rhonda is sitting on my left, earphones in her ears, writing a letter. At the rate I’m getting internet service, her recipient will get the letter before you all read this on the blog.
Our plane from Portland was late landing in New York in spite of the inspirational stewardesses. I’m not sure why; we had a tailwind the entire way that reached speeds of 89 miles per hour towards the end. There must have been a stack of planes because we made a large figure “8” and then another circle before we landed. The pilot said there were a number of international flights that took up the terminals so we were directed a distance away and a bus came to transport us to where we were supposed to be.
Well, I've wasted about 45 minutes trying to get my blogger password.....because I wasn't smart enough to bring it with me. And, as Mom says, "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get." We've only about forty minutes to download the flight pictures from my camera and upload them here. We'll see what I can do
And we’re off!….like a dirty shirt….
Our flight (Delta #744) left on time from Portland. Rhonda believes it’s because the stewardesses are from New York and crack the whip quite professionally. They were on the PA system about every 45 seconds telling us that they can’t close the doors until every bag is stowed, the overhead bins are closed, and everyone is sitting down with seatbelts fastened. Then they tell us that we want to depart on time so passengers can make connecting flights. You could almost hear the whip sizzling through the air..
According to the in-flight tracking map on the back of the seat in front of me, we are just south of Kennewick and only 40 minutes into the flight. We are going 535 miles per hour and are at 31,044 ft. in the air. The flight has been a little rough the past few minutes but things are smoothing out now.
Cameron and Serena drove up to Cottage Grove with Richelle and me to meet Dianne and catch a ride up to Portland with her and then they drove back home. We got to Mom’s in time for supper and some good laughs and went to bed around 10pm.
You know, 4am comes pretty early. But we were up and leaving by 4:45. Dianne and Richelle took us to the airport and we arrived in good time to go through security and were at the boarding gate fifty minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave.
It seemed like a lot of “hurry up and wait”. Rush to have things ready to go through security; hurry to find the boarding gate; sit and wait for the boarding call; rush for the line; inch towards the door; fling your bag into the overhead bin; wait for everyone else to do the same; wait our turn to take off….and, finally!….screaming down the runway.
9:50 PDT ~ We’re north of Rapid City, South Dakota traveling 526 miles per hour at 35152 ft elevation. I look out the window and see frost on the wing. Well, at a temperature of -65° F, I can understand why.
This is starting to sound like a documentary and that’s just not how I write. How about I describe the itsy-bitsy bathroom where you could use the toilet, the mirror, and the sink at the same time? Or about the cutest little blond, curly-haired 11-month-old baby girl sitting in front of us who peeks over and grins at us every so often? Right now, she’s off with her papa getting her diaper changed. Then there’s the 6 foot tall stewardess with what looks like a military hair-cut and another stewardess who was impressed with our assortment of dried fruit and almonds that Mom brought along for snacking.
2:35 PDT ~
We’re in the JFK airport terminal at the gate where we will be boarding the plane to Budapest in another two and a half hours. Mom is sitting on my right with a word-search book in hand - Rhonda is sitting on my left, earphones in her ears, writing a letter. At the rate I’m getting internet service, her recipient will get the letter before you all read this on the blog.
Our plane from Portland was late landing in New York in spite of the inspirational stewardesses. I’m not sure why; we had a tailwind the entire way that reached speeds of 89 miles per hour towards the end. There must have been a stack of planes because we made a large figure “8” and then another circle before we landed. The pilot said there were a number of international flights that took up the terminals so we were directed a distance away and a bus came to transport us to where we were supposed to be.
Well, I've wasted about 45 minutes trying to get my blogger password.....because I wasn't smart enough to bring it with me. And, as Mom says, "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get." We've only about forty minutes to download the flight pictures from my camera and upload them here. We'll see what I can do
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Europe
Most, if not all, of you know one of my sisters and I are going to Europe with our mother. I've been preparing since July but haven't allowed myself to get excited too soon. This time next week, we'll be in the air above the western edge of Europe so I think I can now allow myself to start getting excited.
I've never had a passport so that was first on my "to do" list. Then I had to put "Get certified copy of birth certificate" on the list above "passport". I was getting a little antsy because the passport website said to allow six to eight weeks and I thought I'd need a couple of weeks to get the birth certificate first. It turned out that my certificate only took a little better than a week and the passport came in two weeks and two days after I submitted it at the post office.
Then I needed to arrange care for Richelle since she's homeschooled. I talked with local family and they were willing to pass her around but I didn't like that idea too much because that would be a lot of effort for them. I talked with Kimberly and she was quite happy to have Richelle visit for one of the weeks. They also homeschool so that's works out perfectly. Then a close friend of the family (my bil's sister) offered to take Richelle for the remainder of the time. Things are falling into place so nicely, it's almost scary!
We fly out of Portland to JFK in New York at about 6:30am Pacific time Tuesday, Sept 15th on flight #0744. We leave JFK at about 8pm Eastern time on flight #0098 and arrive in Budapest at about 11am Wednesday Budapest time. If I've done my math right (and I think I have) that means we land in Budapest at 2am Pacific time Wednesday.
We don't have a solid itinerary - or if we do, I'm not aware of it - but we will travel by Eurorail from Budapest to Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden. I understand that we'll be passing through France on our way to Belgium.
The big challenge is that we're not checking any luggage so must live out of a carry-on and a large purse for two and a half weeks. I'm glad I've had years of experience in Scouts of only taking what is essential!
I will try to post every day while in Europe and include pictures and will probably post at least once before we leave.
It still seems unreal that I'll be going to Europe but I'm getting excited anyway!
I've never had a passport so that was first on my "to do" list. Then I had to put "Get certified copy of birth certificate" on the list above "passport". I was getting a little antsy because the passport website said to allow six to eight weeks and I thought I'd need a couple of weeks to get the birth certificate first. It turned out that my certificate only took a little better than a week and the passport came in two weeks and two days after I submitted it at the post office.
Then I needed to arrange care for Richelle since she's homeschooled. I talked with local family and they were willing to pass her around but I didn't like that idea too much because that would be a lot of effort for them. I talked with Kimberly and she was quite happy to have Richelle visit for one of the weeks. They also homeschool so that's works out perfectly. Then a close friend of the family (my bil's sister) offered to take Richelle for the remainder of the time. Things are falling into place so nicely, it's almost scary!
We fly out of Portland to JFK in New York at about 6:30am Pacific time Tuesday, Sept 15th on flight #0744. We leave JFK at about 8pm Eastern time on flight #0098 and arrive in Budapest at about 11am Wednesday Budapest time. If I've done my math right (and I think I have) that means we land in Budapest at 2am Pacific time Wednesday.
We don't have a solid itinerary - or if we do, I'm not aware of it - but we will travel by Eurorail from Budapest to Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden. I understand that we'll be passing through France on our way to Belgium.
The big challenge is that we're not checking any luggage so must live out of a carry-on and a large purse for two and a half weeks. I'm glad I've had years of experience in Scouts of only taking what is essential!
I will try to post every day while in Europe and include pictures and will probably post at least once before we leave.
It still seems unreal that I'll be going to Europe but I'm getting excited anyway!
Convention 2009
A couple clips from the memory files of Convention 2009:
Before we left, I was giving orders to Richelle right and left - sometimes not even giving her time to complete one before giving her another. "Did you get your coat?" "Remember to put in the mirror." "I need you to take out the garbage." I didn't even give her much of a chance to swallow lunch and was giving yet another "must do" when she silently pointed to a sticky-tab affixed to her shirt. It read, "Out of Order".
Kimberly came Friday with her girls and I'd saved room on our bench for them. Richelle sat between the girls and Kimberly sat at one end while I sat at the other. Kimberly jotted a note down on her tablet during a meeting and passed it along with her pencil to one of her girls. Kayla wasn't paying attention when she took the tablet and the pencil fell to the floor next to my foot. She glanced at it, read the note, replied with her own pencil, and passed the tablet back to Kimberly. Kimberly motioned that she needed her pencil back and Kayla looked up at me as if to ask if I'd get the pencil off the floor for her.
"I can't reach it," I very quietly whispered. "I'm too fat."
Oh, my! The smothered giggles that exploded from Kayla...! Kimberly looked at her sternly and Kayla frantically signed for the tablet. Kimberly passed it to her, Kayla retrieved the pencil from the floor and, shaking with giggles, wrote what had happened. She had to pause several times to let waves of laughter pass by but when she got the the part "...said she was..." she dropped the pencil into her lap and her face into her hands while the bench vibrated with her quivering.
Before we left, I was giving orders to Richelle right and left - sometimes not even giving her time to complete one before giving her another. "Did you get your coat?" "Remember to put in the mirror." "I need you to take out the garbage." I didn't even give her much of a chance to swallow lunch and was giving yet another "must do" when she silently pointed to a sticky-tab affixed to her shirt. It read, "Out of Order".
Kimberly came Friday with her girls and I'd saved room on our bench for them. Richelle sat between the girls and Kimberly sat at one end while I sat at the other. Kimberly jotted a note down on her tablet during a meeting and passed it along with her pencil to one of her girls. Kayla wasn't paying attention when she took the tablet and the pencil fell to the floor next to my foot. She glanced at it, read the note, replied with her own pencil, and passed the tablet back to Kimberly. Kimberly motioned that she needed her pencil back and Kayla looked up at me as if to ask if I'd get the pencil off the floor for her.
"I can't reach it," I very quietly whispered. "I'm too fat."
Oh, my! The smothered giggles that exploded from Kayla...! Kimberly looked at her sternly and Kayla frantically signed for the tablet. Kimberly passed it to her, Kayla retrieved the pencil from the floor and, shaking with giggles, wrote what had happened. She had to pause several times to let waves of laughter pass by but when she got the the part "...said she was..." she dropped the pencil into her lap and her face into her hands while the bench vibrated with her quivering.
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