I had originally planned on going to Venice and Geneva after Budapest, but I'm getting tired of struggling with the tourist hords. Slovakia seemed like it would be the road less travelled, and to my delight, it has been. Plus, I figure I will be back in Europe, and I'll probably be with people. The odds of them saying "Hey, let's go to Venice" are much greater than "Hey, let's go to the Carpathian mountains in eastern Slovakia."
As in Asia, I am trying to sample the local cuisine. Grease is the word. These people love fat. But all in all, the food hasn't been bad--from goulash to smoked pork to Wienerschnitzel. And I've been having the local beers with dinner. Yes, that's right--me voluntarily drinking beer. I figured if I can drink wine with meals in France, I can choke down a few beers in eastern Europe.
Saturday, 09/27/03
I went to the Prague train station and bought my ticket to Vienna. On my way to the town center, the metro ticket checker asked me for my ticket. I handed her my pass. She pointed out the time stamp. It had expired half an hour earlier--after I had started my trip. I paid the 400czk fine (about $15). I had to dig out my money belt to do it. How embarrassing. Busted, right in front of everyone. I was pissed at myself for not realizing that the pass was expiring. I stopped by the American Airlines office to change my flight home and they were closed. This was not turning out to be a good day.
The day improved when I started walking. There is a big hill with an abbey on it which gives great views. I hiked up, then walked around the little streets near the castle, and through a park in an area of town I hadn't seen.
While having dinner, I heard this girl who sounded exactly like my neice Julie. The voice, the inflections, the fact that every third word was "like". It was uncanny.
Sunday, 9/28/03
I took the train to Vienna. When I arrived in Vienna, I had difficulty finding the metro station. In the metro station, I tried to buy a snickers bar from a vending machine. It got stuck. I figured I would buy another and they would both fall. The first one fell, the second stuck. I was pissed. 1.80 euro for a damned snickers bar.
I took the train to near the pension where I was staying. I got turned around several times before finding the street. Not a good thing carrying my backpack. When I found the address, there was no pension there. I was frustrated. I found a payphone nearby that actually took coins and called the pension. The address was Brauergasse and I was looking a block away on Otto Bauergasse. He gave me directions and I hung up. The phone did not give change. I spent 2 euro on a 30 second call. I was pissed. My first day in Vienna was going really badly. To top it off, I went the wrong direction and spent another 15 minutes wandering around trying to find the pension.
When I go to the pension, the owner was very nice. I got an upgrade because a single was not available. Finally, something good. I liked the room. It is a very nice place with a pretty good location.
I took the subway into the town center and walked around. I took a few sunset shots. At first I was not impressed--and given how my day had been going, I was probably not in the best mood to be experiencing a new city. After a while, after seeing many beautiful buildings, I started being more impressed, but I knew that I probably shouldn't spoil the city by seeing it in my still somewhat foul mood.
Monday, 9/29/03
It was cold and drizzly all day. I tried to change my flight back home, but both American Airlines and Cathay Pacific said they couldn't change it. (It was an American Airlines flight booked on a Cathay Pacific ticket.) After mildly arguing with the American guy and sitting on hold for several minutes (not cheap on a payphone) I finally got it changed.
In the process of running errands and finding places to eat, I saw a pretty good chunk of Vienna.
Tuesday, 9/30/03
It was sunny and a little cool today. I decided to see the Danube. I wandered around, saw the big ferris wheel from "The Third Man" and then the green Danube. I don't know what river Strauss was talking about because the Danube is certainly not blue.
Since I was in Vienna, I figured I had to try the signature dish. So, for dinner I had Wienerschnitzel mit sauerkraut. Not bad, but schnitzel with noodles will never make my list of favorite things.
Wednesday, 10/01/03
I took a train from Vienna to Budapest. On the train, I decided that I did not want to deal with the inevitable headaches (primarily lodging) in Venice, and decided to go to Slovakia instead. I would spend a couuple of days in Bratislava and then head to the mountains.
When I got to Budapest, I immediately felt disappointed--even before I got out of the train/subway station. It just didn't feel right. No sense of charm like Prague or Vienna.
Getting out of the subway and taking the bus to the hotel, I felt no better. Graffiti everywhere. The neighborhood of the hotel did not seem that good. Not that convenient to public transit either--not near a subway station. I did not like the guy at the front desk, although he didn't actually do anything wrong. My room was below ground level. The window was eye-level with the street. People could look down from the sidewalk, and I could see wheels of cars and the tram go by. For the most expensive hotel I've had on this trip (42 euro a night) it sucked. Ok, the room was very tidy, and everything was quite crisp, and I probably would have loved it for half the price.
I was in kind of a foul mood. I walked across the bridge (the hotel was a block from the Danube) and through town. There was some beautiful architecture, but the place just seemed tatty. Vienna plus entropy and despair. I walked down one of the main thoroughfares to the city park. This cheered me up immensely. The musems there are beautiful buildings.
Walking back to my hotel over the bridge at night, the Danube with the castle and palace on the hills on one side and the parliament and basilica on the other, all lit up, was very beautiful. Walking on the street with the hotel, wondering about its safety, the thought went through my head: "What the hell am I doing wandering around Budapest in the middle of the night?" Just one of those weird jolts of perspective, like waking up in India and realizing that everyone you know is on the other side of the planet.
Budapest just rubbed me the wrong way. I don't see any real reason for disliking the city, but I already wanted to leave.
Thursday, 10/2/03
I walked up to the castle. Beautiful views of the city. I walked from the castle to the palace, which had even better views. I wanted to take a picture of myself with Budapest in the background, but the batteries chose that moment to go dead.
I had lunch at a pizza place called Fantasy. After sitting there, I began to wonder if it was trying to be Hooters. The pizza was fine, but the waitress ripped me off. And she short-changed me good. When I got the change, something seemed wrong, so I counted it hurriedly. It added up, but still seemed wrong. It wasn't until several hours later at home when I realized that I was almost out of money that I figured out that she had slipped a decimal place on me--either on the whole amount of change or just giving me a 500 instead of a 5000. I got ripped off over $20. I was so pissed and I was mad at myself for letting it happen. In India, everyone tried to short-change me, but I always caught it. I got very good at scrutinizing change. Since I tally up my expenses each day, I can tell if if something doesn't add up, and this bitch was the first to get away with it.
Before I left the restaurant, I decided to use the cheap internet upstairs. The computers had naked women as backgrounds. This place was so sleazy. But the net connection was good and about 1/3 the price of everywhere else.
Friday, 10/3/03
I wanted to go bathe at the Gellert Baths. Budpest has several thermal spas, and this one is supposed to be like bathing in a cathedral. But after errands, the day was wearing on, and I didn't want to bother.
The other thing I wanted to do was go up to the citadel, which I did. The weather was dreary by then--a contrast to the great weather earlier in the day and on the previous days.
I had bought new batteries that morning, but after the first picture, the low battery indicator was flashing. After about 5 pictures, the camera stopped working. I guess I won't have any pictures of me in Budapest.
Saturday, 10/4/03
I took the train from Budapest to Bratislava. The gloomy weather from last night carried over and it started to drizzle just before boarding the train. It was drizzly and overcast until we got near Bratislava, and then it cleared up.
We arrived at 12:30. The weather was quite nice, if slightly chilly. It was clear that it had been raining. I went to Hotel Spirit because it was right by the train station. They had one s
ingle left, but with no bath. I took it. This place is just weird. The outside looks like it was architected by Picasso and painted by Mondrian. It is wildly colorful and bizarrely shaped. My room is in the shape of a pyramid. The apex of the pyramid is made of glass and functions as a skylight. Through the center of this is a PVC pipe containing a light bulb which is the main lighting for the room. Set into the walls at floor level are several holes of different shapes with backings of different colored glass. Lights mounted behind the glass makes it glow when the switch is turned on. In the center of the room is an inverted pyramid whose top is a platform that can be reached by a small ladder mounted to one side. The platform is about 6' by 6'. Against 3 of the walls are 12 chairs of 2 differnt styles (6 of each) and several colors. The door of the room has an 
angle 2/3 of the way down because the pyramid shape of the room starts a couple of feet off the floor. It does not so much swing shut as slide into place. It, of course, is many different bright colors. The bed--stuck in a corner as an afterthought--is a fold-out sofa bed. I don't know what this room was designed for, but it doesn't look like it was meant to be a bedroom. Maybe moonlight human sacrifices.Obviously, the focus of all the pyramid power in the room was at the platform in the center. It would have been a shame to waste all of that mystical energy (yeah, right), so I put the mattress on it and slept there.
And the books in the room: aside from a couple of children's books, there was "The Politics of Pregnancy", "Man Enough--Fathers, Sons, and the Search for Masculinity", "Mink", and "Models for European and World Integration'
To show you just how weird this hotel is, the computers used for (free) net access are running linux instead of windows! (The non-technogeeks on this mailing list can ignore this remark.)
I walked around Bratislava. Every place that did not sell food or drink was closed--on a Saturday! There were people in old town, but not what you would call a crowd. I walked up to the castle (a short walk) with a pleasant view. I walked down and had lunch . I had the Hungarian goulash that I didn't get in Hungary.
I like Bratislava. It is kind of dead, but very pleasant. It has a few interesting buildings, but nothing like Prague, Vienna, or Budapest. But Bratislava made me happy in exactly the same way that Budapest didn't.
Sunday, 10/05/03
I took the train from Bratislava to Poprad. The scenery was OK, but nothing to write home about. At Poprad, I had to catch the electric train to Stary Smokovec. If the train had arrived on time, I would have had 20 minutes to get to the electric train. The train was 15 minutes late. I ran to find and get to the train. I got there just as it was about time to leave. The conductor did not sell tickets and told me I had to go back downstairs and buy a ticket. In the two minutes it took to run down, get a ticket, and run back, the train was gone. I had to wait an hour for the next one. I was so pissed.
I checked into a hotel and walked around town a little. (Given the size of the town, a little walking is all you can do.) It is a tourist town--gift shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. In the winter, this is ski country. In the summer, hiking is the thing. It is the off season now, so very few people are around. Just what I was looking for.
I decided that when I leave here, I just want to head back to Paris and catch my flight home. If I hit some new places in between, fine. If not, fine. Europe is a lot more tiring than Asia was. Presumably, this is due to tighter time limits and tighter budgets.
Monday, 10/06/03
The plan for the day was to take the train to Tatranska Lomnica, catch the gondola to Skalnate Pleso, catch the cable car from there to the peak of Lomniky Stit and back, then hike from Skalnate Pleso to Hrebienok for a couple of hours where I would catch the funicular railway back down to Stary Smokovec. This plan failed miserably. After spending about an hour and a half getting to the gondola station (waiting for the train, taking the train, walking to the gondola station) I discovered that it was closed due to wind.
As an alternate plan, I hiked to Hrebienok. It was a pleasant hike, but nothing fantastic. All I could see was trees for the most part. It got better when I hit the stream with the waterfalls, which again, were not fantastic, but pleasant enough. At that point is was snowing lightly. All I had was my fleece jacket, which did surprisingly well. When I got to Hrebienok, there was a very nice view of the peaks. But just one view. The rest was blocked by trees. Rather than take the funicular back to town, I just hiked it since it was only half an hour.
The day wasn't what I had planned, but I got my hiking in, so I'm fine with it.
Tuesday, 10/7/03
Did some more hiking today. The lifts were again closed due to wind, so all the uphills on foot again. The portion below the treeline was not to great, but once I got above the treeline, there were some good views. The peaks were pretty much obscured by fog and snow, but oh well. I made it up to a lake with a small waterfall feeding into it before heading back down.
Now to arrange my exit from Slovakia.
Later,
Sidney
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