My Life From Across The Pond: Thoughts of Here and There Pt. 1

I have been back in England for over a week now, and have, naturally, put off writing a blog until now for the simple reason that I have so much to write about. Its sunny and 65 F, I went rock climbing last night for the first time in about 6 weeks (wasn't the greatest session, but I guess that's to be expected after such a long hiatus,) I got my hair cut on Saturday so I no longer feel like a mop and I found some 90% Dark Chocolate at a local supermarket. Mmm! Maybe its this unusual phenomenon of Sunshine, but I've been consistently motivated to go running like never before. Its starting to come to me a lot more naturally than it has in the past and it feels amazing. So things are alright.

Here are some highlights and thoughts from the first leg of my travels in Central/Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Switzerland.)

Bought a pint of beer during Happy Hour at our hostel in Prague for 33 CZK (that's about $2 dollars) thinking it was Pilsner, the Czech beer. Turns out it was just Budweiser.
Honestly, I'm still not sure how much money I actually spent in the Czech Republic because the exchange rate messed with my mind so much. 200 CZK is the equivalent of $10 dollars I think?
Before we took our night train to Vienna, which left at midnight on the dot, we hung around and watched The Big Lebowski with Czech subtitles and free popcorn at the hostel. No White Russians, unfortunately.
Vienna is really fancy. Saw lots of art and statues of composer-guys and other cultured things. Nutella for breakfast everyday.
Made the mistake of asking for "water" instead of "tap water" at some restaurant in Vienna and it cost 2.30 euros. We felt so exploited. I'm still mad about it.
Our hostel in Vienna also had a little bar, so we got some beers and talked to the bartender who happened to be from New Zealand and who also happened to have virtually no hair on his arms. I was increasingly fascinated by this for some reason. We also met a ton of other Americans our age and were annoyed that there were so many other Americans our age.
I love taking non-night trains so much. On the train ride into Hungary we passed through acres of sunny green fields and wind farms. Then the international style, communist era buildings started becoming more and more frequent and we knew that we were in Budapest ("Buda-PESHT" apparently.)
Of all the hostels we stayed in, our one in Budapest remains my favorite. It was essentially an old condominium converted into a hostel... well, condominium isn't exactly the right word but its the closest thing I can think of. From the main street, you had to buzz in at an unsuspecting and easy to overlook wrought iron door. From there there was this winding staircase that led up several floors to all the different residences, as well as windows that overlooked the open center square of the building complex which was beautifully covered in green vines that complemented the mango yellow color of the walls. All of this was of course hidden from the main street. There was also a wrap-around walkway/patio on each floor of the inner square. Reminded me a little of New Orleans. You know what I mean? Our room was a vibrant orange color with flowy, sheer red curtains, there was milk and tea (Earl Grey!) all day, free internet and Hungarian basic cable. It wasn't as fancy and modern as the hostels in Prague and Vienna, but it was much more homey and relaxed.
I really liked Budapest because compared to Prague and Vienna, the fairy-tale-beautiful-heart-of-Bohemia, it was more like... a real place if that makes sense. More "down to earth" and in the process of recovering from its own share of problems (uh, Communism.) I guess I just liked really being able to tell that I was in a post-communist country. Yay history!
Met an awesome anarchist-hitchhiker couple at our hostel who have been hitchhiking across Asia and Europe for the last 9 1/2 months. They were literally some of the friendliest and most good-humored people I have ever met in my life. We all went out to a mind-blowing bar/pub/club that consisted of 3 floors and used to be like, a whole apartment complex way back in the day. Completely packed with people and smoke and apparently the beer was 10% alcohol. We listened to stories of getting deported from the USA and drunkenly jumping through rings of fire in Thailand.
The last day something nerve-racking happened. We were supposed to check-out by 10 am, but there was no staff at the front desk by the time 10 am rolled along so we decided to leave our keys at the front desk along with a note explaining that we were going to leave our bags at the hostel until it was time to take our night-train to Switzerland in the evening. Sounds good, right? We walked around the city for a while, but since it was rainy and cold all we wanted to do was go back to the hostel and drink Earl Grey and watch Hungarian soaps. Knocked several times, but no response. Waited for a good 30 minutes, went and bought some food, came back and tried again to no avail. Fuck. It was cold in the stairwell. Kelly, one of my two travel compatriots just happened to have one of the staff member's cell phone number in her phone registry from when he called her several days earlier to make sure we were arriving, so we called him repeatedly but got no answer. We realized that no one was checking in that day and that the few other people in the hostel had either checked out already or were who knows where. We walked to a Starbucks (I know, I know) to escape the chill and half-heartedly tried calling that dude again. "Hello?" Thank Jesus in heaven he answered! I explained the situation and he said that the guy who was supposed to be working was sick, so he would send someone else over to let us in. When this guy eventually got there and after letting us in, he bustled around cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms and then was like "Hey, I'm going to go now. If you leave again just take one of these keys, okay? See you." We were like, "Huh. We are the ONLY ones here, no guests no staff. That's ...normal?" Legit. Way to go Budapest! So we drank cup after cup of tea, I sat on the couch with a nice red blanket and read a travel book on Eastern Europe from 1997 and we watched Hungarian-dubbed movies on TV. So: good thing we HAPPENED to have that dude's personal phone number.

... and I will pick up where I left off in the next post. Now it is picture show time!

Prague, Czech Republic:

Prague from Prague Castle.

Bohemian-mustache-dudes

Lennon Wall

Charles Bridge

St. Vitus Cathedral

Our hostel was ridiculously nice. See?

Goulash + Dumplings!

Me.

Vienna, Austria:

I don't have as many pictures of Vienna as I do of Prague. I think I took a bunch in Prague because it was the first place we went.

We got our own little room! I liked the wood floors.

Mozart?

Adorable. Or am I reinforcing stereotypes here?

Part of the series "Rose on a Bench."

Belvedere where we saw lots of beautiful Klimt:

Dumpling... and a fancy little Vienna sausage.

We also had fun learning about the Hapsburgs and in particular, Elisabeth, who was Empress of Bavaria for roughly the entire second half of the 19th century (nickname: "Sissi") Apparently it took HOURS every single day to do her hair and makeup. Interesting lady.

Waiting for the train to take us to Budapest!

Budapest, Hungary:

I don't know what these things are called, but that tall brown structure is a really old-fashioned room-heater. We saw some in the Prague Castle as well and were perplexed until we asked the guide about it. I think you put hot coals inside?

Lovely.

The Danube. And more international style buildings.

Came across this square as we were walking to the hot springs/public baths where we ended up paying the equivalent of $15 to go swimming. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.