prague 3

Well last left off about Friday, and since I felt as if I had seen most things on Friday I couldn’t think of anything incredibly pressing to rush out for on Saturday so I took it to sleep in a bit until about 9. Like in Vienna where I had made an agenda for day #2 AFTER walking the city  from side to side on day #1. I had made a reservation for a guided tour and transportation to Terezin.but that would not be until 1:00 so I had the time to take Saturday morning relaxing. Had thought about going to a Schacharit service but sleep prevailed. Because the hostel again did not serve breakfast Saturday morning, I decided to look for some place to have breakfast. So shower, ready and downstairs at about 9:30, I walked into the Old Town Square looking for some place to sit down because I had seen a sign the previous day advertising breakfast for 55 CZK which is little more than 2 Euros. However I went to the restaurant and read the menu and did not see anything listed under 100 CZK so I headed off to find somewhere else. Also wanted some place a little less high key than a restaurant right in front of the famous astronomical clock where people gather in huge crowds every hour on the hour to watch the clock give its little puppet performance. Fortunately around the corner on my way to the square I had passed a few storefront eateries and decided on one that had just 1 person sitting in it as I am a firm believer that few people in a small place guarantees you quick and personal service. I sat down and on the menu were 3 breakfast specials, a continental, a wellness, and a full breakfast. Knowing that I usually do not need anything too big for breakfast and it was already 10am, I ordered the wellness breakfast which included granola, fruit, coffee, juice, and yogurt. Good enough, I read my book Freakonomics, had a few more cups of coffee and was up and out so I could attempt the 1 hour Old Town Frommers tour. It happened actually to start down one of the streets toward some old tower that remained from the times of Prague being an encircled, walled-in city. It was a decent tour for a bit until I got lost and couldn’t find a street where a church was on. At this point it was close to 11:30, and I had wanted to be by the clock at  12 to see the clock performance in daylight as I had only seen it in darkthe night before. Around 11:45 I gave up the tour and watched the performance but also wanted to get to the top of the clock tower that I had heard was such a great view. On Friday I climbed the 300 or so stairs of the Prague Castle Vitas Church tower but thankfully the clock tower had elevators all the way to the top. I never thought I’d have problems climbing high things which I don’t  (i.e. the paulinskill viaduct) but the space element is key. In this twisting stairwells this is 1 way up and 1 way down that is shared and going up is ok because you see what is ahead of you but going down turns into a dizzy episode and the steps almost begin to blend together so as if you go too fast. I wonder if when t he Statue Of Liberty crown opens again if I will be able to do it!So I saw the view from the clock tower and it was magnificient of course but I had realized that I did not have my Terezin tour ticket in my bag so I would have to go back to the hostel to my room to get it, so I did not want waste any time and headed back at about 12:30, did not want to miss the tour. Fortunately it was right on the bed close to where I had left it I guess I had simply forgotten to put it in the bag or my coat pocket. With the ticket I made it to Narodni in time for the tour and got on the small bus. There turned out to be 5 people including me, 2 French guys, and a Spanish couple. Between the 5, there were 3 native languages and 2 tour guides in addition to the driver. The Spanish couple had their own guide an Czech man who happened to also speak fluent Spanish. Then the French guys and I had our own guide who alternated between speaking to them in French and to me in English. When the lady was talking to the French guys I was able to listen in to the Spanish guy and was pleasantly surprised with how much I could take away from it. The ride to Terezin was about an hour, we got there around 2, walked past the National Cemetery outside the Small Fortress and entered inside. I was put with an English tour group for the time, and we saw the Men’s side of the camp, including the bunks, the Isolation cells, and offices. It was sobering to say the least and they did not allow video recording so I took several photographs. If someone asked me which was more striking Terezin or Dachau, I am not sure because they both had their own elements. Whereas Dachau was a big transit camp and was mostly for political dissidents, I guess Terezin because they lumped all the people in the town too at the ghetto and there were more Jews it was possibly more personal. But the vastness of Dachau was impressive too.After the small fortress tour, the English tour group went to watch the Terezin propaganda film, but since we had limited daylight hours we still needed to see the Large Fortress or the actual town as well as the Ghetto museum. Our first stop was at the cemeteries, it was Saturday so we probably should not have been there but there were no gates, there was a cremation house. After the cemetery, we saw the train tracks from the trains that used to bring all the people to Terezin as well as the old station. Then because I had heard about a small room inside a courtyard in the ghetto that had been converted to a makeshift synagogue I told the tour guides Id like to see it and fortunately we found it at Dlouha 17 and it was still open. As soon as we walked up to the door of the house, they opened it for us. There was no one else there and we walked to the back of the courtyard and you would not have guessed that there was a prayer room in the back. Apparently after the ghetto it had been used as a food storage room and the walls had been painted in Hebrew phrases in red and white, it was truly a wonder, though damaged ove rth eyears from the elements and flooding. It was only discovered about 15 years ago and just recently leased by the Terezin Memorial Foundation from the owners. After the synagogue, we walked around the block to the Market Square and then to the Ghetto museum. Inside the museum I was treated to my own personal showing of a 1965 Czech documentary about the use of the town and camp as propaganda with the Red Cross. I still have yet to watch the full 20 minute Terezin film but I have found a copy on Google Videos. After the museum it was time to head back and was already dark out, everyone was pretty much silent for the trip, but I do remember that the old Spanish-speakign Czech guy was informing the Spanish couple about Jewish holidays and traditions with quite impressive comprehension that I wondered if he himself happened to have been Jewish, talking about Pesach and Rosh Hashana mostly. We got back to Prague and they dropped us off in Wenceslas square right by my hostel at around 6:30, we all bid farewells, and I decided to make my way to the Frommers’ recommended  Czech bar restaurant that was described as having hearty portions and looking like a Bohemian hunting lodge inside. Walking via my GPS, I ended up on some small streets and realized how small the city of Prague is by seeing a restaurant I had seen the night before with  a Budweiser sign. I knew this was not the American Budweiser because the logo was different so I decided to find a liquor store to buy it. I had already bought Absinth the night before (which as I write this I still have yet to open or drink). I found a little convenience store and inside were 2 asian girls. I went to look for the beer shelves and right on the top I found a 6 pack of 17-oz cans, the only pack within sight so I picked it up and bought it for a bit more than 200 CZK which is  about $11. You may say this is expensive for a 6 pack but it was not a 6 pack of 12 oz bottles or cans. There was an extra 30 oz amidst those 6 cans which is like another 2-3 beers. By paying 200 CZK I bought 102 ounces, so I paid about 2 CZK per oz which is about 11 cents. If it had been a 6 pack of 12 oz cans, that would be only 72 ounces. Eh I just did some math and it comes to be  that it was rather expsneive but hey Czech Budweiser is a hell of a lot better tasting than American Budwesier. So I stuck the 6 pack in my backpack and went to the find the Frommers restaurant but when I got to the address, it was dark and empty levae it up to an internationally renowned travel guide to suggest a place to eat that goes out of business in a tourist haven like Prague.

prague 2

Got into Prague on time, it was finally good for once, everything working out, Got out of the station around 9:45, and since the GPS was not registering any satellites, I used my memory of the map I had seen in order to be able to navigate my way to the hostel. Vaclavske Namesti, in Wenceslas square, part of the new town, is a hyper, well not hyper, but pretty modern, with bright flashing lights square in Prague.I had no idea just how small the city is, the walk was about 15 minutes, found the pizzeria in the hallway at #20, these intervals of 2 were starting to stretch, because of the odd times of the train journeys I resorted to eating in Berlin around 4 which is not lunch but not quite dinner either, then later had kept a tuna and corn wrap, so I checked in, and the reception was merely a cubbyhole and a couch in the main entrance, then I was showed to my room, up what had to be about 9 staircases as the hostel was on the top 3 floors. First we passed the common room, then the terrace not very popular in the cold months, then finally on the top floor in apt #3, the door was opened and was a small hallway with a locker set on the right, a small kithcn with one seat, a bathroom and 2 rooms. 1 room had several bunk beds, while the other room, my room was more like a closet with a bed and armoire in it. The guy even admitted yea this is small but the bed was big. I settled in and subsequently unpacked everything to feel right at home, took a shower, ate my wrap, chedk email and finally went to sleep. One downside to this hostel is that they did not serve any breakfast so I had to make do. Because my visit revolved around Jewish themes quite heavily, coming for visit days on fFriday and Saturday was quite odd. I had also been at odds for whether to visit Terezin myself or go on a guided tour. I figured I would go myself if I could go early like 7 or 8 am and this way have the rest of Saturday afternoon to spend in the city. But as it turned out on Friday I was able to accomplish so much that I did not need Saturday afternoon. As I found out about a free walking tour, it started at 11, I thought this was lame because it basically occupied the middle of the day and lunch. I wanted to do the Frommers.com Jewish quarter tour so I resolved to wake up early enough to begin walking at like 8:30/9:00 as it said it would take about 2 hours. Looking around the area, I first needed coffee so I went to Coffee heaven, they didn’t have much in the way of food, so I went to another café and got a cranberry croissant needed to eat on the go. Found my way to the tour start place at Male Namesti, the little square, and proceeded down the street to the Maiesolova synagogue, this is one of the hubs of the Prague Jewish museum which spans out throughout Josefov…sorry I cant help but add right now while sitting on the train between Dresden and Berlin how much I want to ride my bike on a trail in the woods somewhere with that crisp chill of Fall, a tuna with tomatos sandwich and some carrots and tomatoes and ranch dressing and my camelback water backpack….so at the synagogue you had to pay to go in, but you could pay one flat fee of about 300 CZK to enter all 6 synagogues. The Maieslolova one was no longer in use and had been made into a museum, it had relics and kept the bima, which was in the middle  and was quite nice inside. Having to see several museums and synagogues in about 2 hours I could not stay too long. Of course it said no photos available but that did not stop me and as stealthy as possible I snapped a couple shots. I left that synagogue and continued down the street to the Pinkas synagogue. This was indicative of the former lower (6 meters) level of the old neighborhood as you had to descend into the courtyard. In this synagogue, also no longer in use, had 80,000 names of Czech holocaust victims scrawled on the walls. During communist rule, they tried to erase the names by flooding but they have since been restored. Also in the balcony areas are pictures drawn by children in the concentration camps that have been preserved. Interesting enough I just remember was that in the Pinkas synagogue they had complimentary kipahs required to cover your head inside but I recalled no such signs at the first synagogue. I had one in my bag for some reason so I put that on, it was also blue, but mine has silver perimeter design which made it stand out a bit from the rest. Next stop was the old Jewish cemetery. This one was notable because there are only about 10,000 or so tombstones, but almost 100,000 people buried in it. What they would do is stack graves vertically so up to 12 people were buried at single plot, another example of having to make do with what you got. I made my way through and put my kipah on again though others did not. There was a large tour group behind me so I was glad to get ahead of them. It reminded me of the cemetery in the north end in boston, old, layered but quiet and peaceful. It was a long-ish walk throughout and towards the end I read in my guide that Rabbi Low’s grave was there ‘in the most remote corner opposite the Ceremonial Hall’ so I had to back track to find it. Rabbi Low is famous for creating the Golem, the large, small-headed creature made from clay from the river Vltava, rumored to have certain life forces, existing to defend the Jewish community of Prague, more on Golem later. One thing notable in this cemetery, is that in the older graves, people write small notes and stick them in the cracks, much like people do at the Western Wall with wishes and prayers hoping to come true. I also put a rock on Rabbi Low’s grave, at the end was a handwashing station so remembering I Had just been in a cemetery and not having supposed to have been there as Kohein, I washed my hands thoroughly saying Al-Nitylat Yadaim. Soon after, a woman approached me and asked about the practice of rocks on the graves and I explained it was due to the permanence of rocks, they do not die. It is like flowers on graves because you put them there in remembrance but the point of rocks is that the deceased will never be forgotten. After this the cemetery deposits you on a small curve street with some streetside market vendors along the wall, another synagogue, and the ceremonial hall (where the burials were prepared), in the cceremonial hall, were 2 floors exhibit of jewish burial ceremonies and some very interesting artworks of the rituals and ceremonies. In the 1700s it seems as though the Jews looked like American colonists with tri-cornered hats, rolled up pants, and long socks. I forget the name of the other synagogue, but it also is no longer in use, but is a big museum of jewish Lifecycle events and family life, very nice. And the balcony was open too, there was furniture and veils and clothing. At thispoint directly down the street happened to be the Alt—Neu or Old New Synagogue, the currently longest active synagogue in all of Europe, having witnessed minyanim for 600-700 years. It is quite an archaic structure and too is low in the ground, you must actually descend stairs to enter. First I went up the street and noticed some engravings on an adjacent building, I looked more closely and saw it had information of services and such, and took a few pictures and then a guy in a red jacket approached me ‘can I help you?’ so I said I was just browsing. It turned out the building was the old ‘jewish town hall’ or today the equivalent of a community or cultural center. It also was the High synagogue at one point, also no longer in use. There are actually 7 synagogues in Prague, 3 of which still hold services, Jerusalem, Old New and Spanish.The remains of the Prague Golem are by folklorish accounts rumored to be stored in the attic of Alt Neu synagogue, which is only accessible via ladder from outside. After shooting a picture of it, I made my way to buy an admission to the Old New synagogue which was no included in my whole admission ticket bought at Maiseolova. Outside the community center was a truck advertising a kosher restaurant written in Hebrew, inside the Old New Synagogue you could tell it was old, in the sanctuary it was like  castle dungeon, the bima in the middle and these seats all around the outsides on the wall mainly, I wondered where the women would sit until I read something that said the women sat in the annexes outside and got to hear the services and sermons through small holes in the wall. Very odd. After this, it was close to 11, so I made my way to Pariszka and old town square again. There were a lot of people gathered and it seemed several tour groups, found someone with a sign that said free tour and was surprised to find out, there was only 1 other woman who had said she would go on the tour. Who would refuse a free all inclusive walking tour. It turned out to be me, this middle aged woman from California, and a young Polish couple, first we went through the old town, seeing some churhes, the inside of one which was very nice and quiet, but very very cold inside. And we learned that pictures on the houses were indicative of trades, so a ring usually meant the family were jewelers. Honestly I don’t remember much of the tour, I have pictures that if I saw them I would probably be able to remember more. Then we did an abbreviated tour of the Jewish quarter, seeing some of the synagogues again. When we were outside the Old New one, a middle eastern looking girl came to the tour guide, she had been looking at the truck advertising the kosher restaurant and asked if she knew where Beyt Chabad was, they were definitely Israeli with the kkkhhh sound, our guide only knew where the King Solomon restaurant ws unfortunately. Gradually and through the streets we made our way to the Charles Bridge, which is probably Prague’s most famous sight, the predominantly pedes\trian throughout its history bridge was at one time the onlybridge in Prague and was built in medieval times by one of the kings. It was a long bridge to cross and there were things to see along it, such as the memorial to St. John, the confessor whow as thrown off the bridge because he refused to disclose to the king what the queen would tell himin her confessions, now he is  mystical figure because it was said 5 stars appeared around his head after his body surfaced in the river. Finaly we made to the Lesser Town which was much hillier than the Old Town, lots of restaurants and statues dominate this side of town, not to mention  the illustrious Prague castle. We made our way up to it and it was not as much a castle in the medieval sense as it was a whole palace complex complete with guards like at Buckingham who do not move, lucky for them these ones get to wear sunglasses which means they are more free to look around but still must keep straight faces. Into the courtyard, we had along the way gained one tourist, a middle aged man from Holland, and then lost him and the lady from California at the Charles Bridge, By the St. Vitas church we learned that the current front was built in the 1800s though the church began construction in the 1300s. At this point, after seeing a good view of the city from a terrace, we learned more about the people being thrown out windows and the tour was over. About 2:00 and I still had some things left for the day, wasn’t sure what else I would do except Kabbalt Shabbat at the Spanish synagogue at 7. Being already at the castle, I decided to do the Frommers castle tour which would take about 2 hours, it was confusing at first because I had already entered the complex whereas the tour begins outside so I circled the church a few times and finally gained my bearings. Besides walking around the ccourtyards again, and seeing a monument dedicated in memory of soldiers from WWI I decided to climb the Church tower, which had only stairs, about 300 of them. This was not as humongous as the St Stephen church in Vienna, and at the top the terrace was quite nice, awesome views, shot some pics and made my way back down. Like St Stephens church though, the stairs here were quite narrow and spiraled and while going up was exhausting, going down was a mental challenge because it was sort of dark and for some reason with my eyes the stairs began to blend together so I had to make sure that each step was a solid one which caused me to descend a bit slowly and then I had to use the middle column for support to assure myself of my location, it was possibly like being blind for a bit.. Long story shorter walked through the complex more on the way down the hill heading back towards old town over the river, tried to go to Golden Lane where there are several small houses including one in which Franz Kafka rentedin 1916-1917 during which he wrote several significant pieces. But it is under renovation and instead for 35 CZK was an exhibit highlighting the history of the street, almost no one inside it was a peaceful escpae from the hubbub of all day. Because I couldn’t think of anything in particular I wanted to see the next day that I had not gotten a chance o Friday I decided to go for the guided tour of Terezin because the earliest bus on a Saturday to Terezin from Prague as only 9:30 which was not significantly earlier than the tours started, plus that they ran 9:30, 11:00, 3:00 so it wasn’t like I had much choice of every hour per se. After leaving the castle district I walked through some sort of vineyard which was pretty  desolate but nice and it was raining and this time thankfully I had my umbrella whereas all the other suckers around were huddled under some awnings. Crossing the bridge, I realized I would have enough time to go back to the hostel to change for Shabbat, but before that I decided to make some pit stops en route because the walk was short, first to the Spanish synagogue to make sure I knew where I was going and then to find the tour office I saw earlier in the day too book myself a guided tour of Terezin because on line it said you had to print out your reservation and do it at least 2 business days in advance, I was too late in that regard. I figured if the service started at 7, it would be done by 8:30 and I would have a late-ish dinner, no problemo. So I found the synagogue and then tried to find the tour office by Male Namesti and through the Art Gallery hallway but I could not remember where I saw it, this was unnerving as I could not find any others either except tons of souvernir shops. I even typed ‘tour’ into the GPS but that took me on a wild goose chase, so now 5:00 already scurrying around wanting to secure a tour.  Finally I found a booth after circling blocks a few times but I found out they do not go to Terezin on satudays just my luck of course. Finally I found a TickeTPro which seemed only to sell tickets to shows and performances but I thought I would test my luck and I was right, they did tours to Terezin daily which was good, so I reserved it, and it tunred out they would not leave til 1pm so I had an entire morning at my disposal which was even more awesome. So I went back to the hostel, showered and got ready for Shabbat to leave about 6:30, walked the few blocks over and found a guy at the door and said I wanted to enter to pray and he said oh well it ends in 5 minutes, I was so disheartened, to spend my favorite service in what is said to be one of the most beautiful synagogues in Europe, I was an hour late. “winter time!” he said. I had recalled seeing on the door that kabbalat at 7 from summers and at 6 from winters but the website had said 7pm every week and I figured it was only early-mid November still fall not winter yet, but winter begins apparently in time when the clocks change which was the previous week. And no other backup plan or service to go  too, I knew I should have just stayed out and gone straight there. I had no idea of what to do I was experiencing dissonance so I decided to walk and walk to vent my frustrations. I had packed clothes specifically for, went back to shower specifically for, got all ready and turned out to miscalculate the time for Shabbat, figures.  Finally I got over myself at some point, ah I remember I was walking by the St James church  when I saw 2 jews with kipot and tzit tzit and made a rash decision to follow them. I had never really intentionally followed anyone for an extended peoples of time but it was interesting. Followed them across old town square, down Pariszka, into a couple side streets and finally to a corner where they stopped, it was a kosher restaurant run by Chabad apparently and many people were inside for Shabbat, I felt a bit left out and lonely as a jew without anywhere to go. But as I said I got over myself and decided to find a small-ish non-busy restaurant and there was a good one right across the street from the Chabad place so I was close by in spirit. And in spirit I had a dish which was sort of like a briscuit smothered in some type of sauce or gravy along with a good potato soup and a Pilsner Urquell. After this I decided to take a long way back  manipulating my GPS to walk along the river, I couldn’t believe how much of a rendezvous the city is where I thought I was on some new little street and it turned out to be the street with the cemetery and ceremonial hall. Son of a gun as Grandma Marilyn might say! I made my way down Pariskza and decided to check out the little market in old town square and remembered the rolled dough pastry from earlier in the day. Trdelnik is a doughy ring with sugar on it so I got one and a beer too and realized I was intime to watch the last astronomical clock perfomrnace of the night so I stood by and saw it with the skeleton ringing the bell, the rotating figures in the top and the horn player at the end. It was pretty nice but nothgin amazing, more amazing are the crowds that gather every hour on the hour to witness it, it happens from 9am-9pm every day, quit ea wonder. Then I decided it was enough of the night so I made my way back through the art  gallery shopping tunnel but not before I came across 2 violinists in a corridor that had great acoustics just beginning a performance, it was quite awesome, including the venue and I have to say would beat sitting in any café to watch it, it was like the violin version of dueling banjos but not the same arragment of course. It was excellent and I got it on video too. A pleasant way to spend my evening, so even despite missing out on Kabbalat I had a good dinner, I had an adventure, a good dessert/treat, and some impromptu performances as well. Got back to the hostel around 10 finally and got ready for the next day. I would not wake up though until almost 9, I was tired from all the walking I suppose! Oh yes I forgot to mention that not once on the trip did  I use public transit, no subways no trams busses, Prague at least the parts worthy to see are truly for walkers and is a small city, im sure there is more to see but for a first time visit I saw feel I saw plenty. Goedenacht!

prague 1

So today has been a good, long, relaxing day, once again no sleep the night before, don’t want to risk missing trains or oversleeping. In my short time in Prague, I needed to figure out what to make of my schedule because with the eurrail and not extending the trip to Monday because of feedback session, Im left with 2 travel days and 2 exploratory days. Fortunately though I hear the city is not that big but my schedule of each day is far from figured out yet, I am going to try to wake up early tomorrow morning and maximize the sunlight because since we turned the clocks back last weekend, sunset is crazy early at like 4/5pm, and seeing things in the dark is really  not that much fun. There is, like in Budapest, a free guided tour tomorrow, but it’s right smack in the middle of the day, I had a lot of fun doing my own tour of Vienna courtesy of Frommers but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to join a group, it is from 11am-2/3pm, and kabbalat Shabbat is at 7 at the Spanish synagogue so there is possibly time to another self-guided frommers walking tour after the guided tour. Idk, we’ll see. Anyway, today has been relatively calm, only 3 trains, including the 1 hour or so dutch train to catch the international train so, God willing, only 2 long trains today, neither more than 6 hours, hopefully be into Prague before 10. This time because Prague isn’t nearly as far away as Budapest I was afforded the luxury of taking a later train, instead of 7:17, I took 8:20, but OEBB Austria site wanted me to take 8:35 to Amersfoort giving me 2 (TWO!) minutes to switch  from platform 2 to 1 (though if I recall they may actually be the same platform) as the international train to Berlin would be leaving at 9:37, but I was not going to take any chances given the shit that happened to me in Frankfurt not even 3-4 weeks earlier so I found a train from Rotterdam to Amersfoort about 15 minutes earlier and it worked out great with plenty of time, even came in on the same track the Berlin train would come on, mostly on-time too. Had reserved a seat, but decided not to make a fuss and took one behind so I could see through the whole window. You see because I bought the eurrail pass it’s like I might as well use the damn thing even though these cities I have been going to are all like 12+ hours away, have resolved to just take a plane to Barcelona, can’t wait to actually use a language I know how to speak rather than random words and phrases I pick up to get by in minimal communication (German, Hungarian, and now Czech, on top of the everyday phrases in Dutch, OI!). On the train from Amersfoort to Berlin I was initially in my own seat and thought I had found an electrical outlet but it turned out no, that was not for computers for some reason so I seceded. There was a lady in the seat across the aisle from me who was kicked out of her seat but some very rude (sounded like American by the way she spoke English) saying “I reserved this seat nah nah nah” so the lady moved next to me, for the first few hours I kept dozing off and looking out the window most of the time for the first hour or so, then I decided to take a walk down the corridor of the train in an attempt to find a food car, no such luck but I did notice that virtually all of the other cars had electrical outlets at the seats!! I couldn’t understand why my car didn’t, but oh well. After I returned to my seat, I proceeded to talk to, or more like she proceeded to talk to me for the ensuing 2 hours. There were hardly any pauses with which to respond with my own thoughts insights, she might as well have told …..holy shit, I just looked outside and thought we were in a tunnel but it turns out that 5:04pm a little outside of Berlin it is actually pitch black dark outside L. So sad fucking winter coming already, this weekend, then next I will stick around Rotterdam because we may need to work on the paper for Corp Gov but it probably wont be that much because we have absolutely nothing else going on during the week either, so maybe more Amsterdam, or Volendam, or Den Haag or Haarlem, keeping it local. Or use the Rotterdam pas to go to a museum. It really is a bit annoying not to have anyone to travel with  but I guess with how stressful planning Oktoberfest turned out to be (despite us all having an awesome time) people became reluctant to try to plan big group things, like we had the week before with the bike excursion and ferry trip to Kinderdijk, so from then on out it was just the small groups, and it seems that pretty much everyone came with 1 or 2 others that they stuck with…Nat, Adrian, and Noah;  Elijah and Mark; the Italian girls, the Indians, and then all the Europeans aren’t too keen to travel because they live here and can do it anytime basically, not to mention I was one of the only ones who had a week long break in October. Oh well, but maybe things are looking up because I got a pretty good self picture of me with the sign of Berlin Hauptbahnhof. So anyway back to the lady on the train, turned out she was from SouthAfrica I would have pegged her for German she actually had no idea what language I spoke initially because towards the beginning of the ride I was really drowsy and basically just mumbling responses, she later said she thought maybe I was Italian, or maybe French, I sort of take the Italian thing as a compliment being from New Jersey haha. ‘Where are you from?’ ‘New York’ ‘Where in New York?’ ‘ Welll actually New jersey’ ‘But you don’t have that accent we hear on tv!’ LOL. Michelle Churchill claimed she is related to Winston Churchill through a brother of his who moved to South Africa, will have to look that up on Wikipedia. She basically told me her life story, her work/career history, what she studied 10+ years ago. Michelle also told me about this marine engineering firm Dere (?) which she is an international HR recruiter for and requires her to go to Europe (where the company is headquartered) often for trainings though she is still based in South Africa. We talked about everything from sports, rugby vs. football how soccer is sort of boring, to our ancestries and passports and visas, languages and other stuff. That is one reason why it is not bad to travel alone. Traveling with afriend or friends you never get the chance to have a comprehensive conversation like that. Like Devon from Seattle on the Budapest tour, I will probably never see either again but it was a pleasant couple hour sof my life and made the 6 hour train ride go by faster as I spent the first 2 hours dozing and admiring the drab scenery, the 2^nd 2 hours talking (or being talked to) and the final 2 hours ish listening to music and drifting in and out of consciousness again. Now here I am on the train from Berlin to Prague, it is 5:20pm, and I sure do write a lot sometimes when I have the chance I have been writing probably for the last 45 minutes or more, well it is kind of like I am talking to myself and it sure as hell beats a diary or notebook you cant nearly write as fast in those mediums. When I reserved this seat, I requested window seat no problem, but the card came with saying Met Zijgang, I asked the clerk in Rotterdam station what that meant and she said ‘with side corridor’ so I thought oh great another compartment train like over night to Budapest, then I thought maybe it was one of those corridors on the side like the train from Frankfurt to Dresden but nope here I am sitting in a compartment once again, thankfully this time it isn’t shady people rotating in the middle of the night in Eastern Europe (Slovakia, Hungary) but 3 businessmen who have not said a word, if that will be the norm in this compartment I am fine with that I just hope my incessant typing is  not annoying them, I will be done soon maybe. So the last weekend I have confirmed from Goldie going to visit them, that will be good too as it is barely a couple hours away by Thalys and it is in between Corp Gov and Corp COmm so no work to worry about (reading, eh, I guess but if that course is anything like Corp Gov it’s like why read the papers, why have lectures at all LOL when 70% of the grade is the paper and 30% is the presentation and you have 5 whole lectures, 3 of which taught by one lecturer and 2 by another. Marius Van Dijke the social psychologist was more engaging and interesting subject matter than executive pay compensation theories of Jordan Otten but unfortunately we only get 2 lectures with him. Then the weekend after that is the first weekend of December and probably when we will need to start working on our paper for Corp COmm (3 week course after a monsoon of lectures the first week of December), then the 2^nd week I will try to escape to Barcelona, then the next weekend it’s DONE, haha, mom dad and Lisa come and travel between Holland, Belgium, and Paris with them for +/- 10 days, then go back, pack up my life in Rotterdam, and trek on down to paris for new years on Dec 30, home on Jan 4, up to Waltham to move in probably around Jan 14, Spring 2011 classes start Jan 18, graduation May 22 and then ???

vienna 3

The blog I never finished, you know it’s hard to come back from a long day or walking and touristing, recount everything you saw in the day and your thoughts from that day, plan everything for the next day and before I knew it I was a  day behind with each blog and did the walking tour of Vienna day on the train to Frankfurt and never have gotten around to doing the last day one. Well anyway in my long day of walking and 2 tours and Hofburg, and then made mental notes of what I wanted to see the next day that I could not fit in the first day. I have to say I am quite proud of the day I crafted. It was all built around the Jewish quarter Leopoldstadt tour at 1:30 so I figured I would hit up Schonbrunn palace in the morning and work my away over to the tour which would meet in the 1^st district. I had hoped to have the Maria Theresa coffee drink with apricot liquer but by the time I figured out where it was, it was all the way up the hill away by the Galerie and I needed to make it in time for the tour. So Schonbrunn was nice, it was like a more vacation spot for the Austrian royalty of years past, some of the imperial apartments were open so I chose the grand tour because I did not need to see an Apple Strudel cooking show nor did I need a live guide when I had the audio guide. Once again unfortunately like in Hofburg, photos were prohibited, but I managed a few in my own sly way out of my coat pocket, not great pictures but something. I think the grounds were mor emagnificient than the inside, there is this monument atop a hill in the backyard that looks out onto the whole city, and it is quite a trek to get up there. Unfortunately because it was late October and cold, not a lot was visible and the statues were covered too, there is also a zoo and garden maze on the grounds but I was under time restriction. Explored the palace and by 11:30/12:00, had covered pretty much all of it in an overview, and I still had to take the U subway into the center of the city as Schon brunn is really in the outskirts. My next  hopeful destination was the Stefan church with the big tower of 343 stairs (statue of liberty to the crown has about 350, for comparison purposes). I did not want to miss the tour so I figured I could squeeze the tower climb in between the tour and Kabbalat Shabbat at the only pre-1938 synagogue remaining in Vienna, the StadsTemple, mincha started at 5:40pm so I did not have time to go back to the hostel to change, not that I had actually brought any special clothes, it’s funny how many Europeans tend to wear jeans to services, I was wearing a polo and khakis. So lollygagged my way froim the palace to the center and also had time to sit down for lunch which was good, The tour was mostly old people about 10-15, much more of a lecture than the Jewish tour in Budapest had been, not only did it cost 12 Euros, but the lady had a big picture book to show the past of the city because much of it had been ruined in the second World War. Interesting enough was there was never an official Jewish ghetto in Vienna, just ‘predominantly jewish neighborhoods’ kind of like how Midwood in Brooklyn is very Jewish but is also home to plenty of other types of people. The walking was not that extensive because there was not much left to see, only to imagine and experience. W esaw plenty of plaques  and 4 columns from the old huge synagogue that is no longer had been based on the mammoth structure in Budapest. Despite there being only 15,000 Jews in all of Austria, there is a vibrant Charedi community complete with kosher restaurants and a kosher market even, some shuls, and a couple yeshivas too I think. The best was the night before making my way to the place with the huge wienerschnitzel getting on the #2 tram and out the window seeing this yeshiva bukher with payos flying in the breeze on a razor scooter stop at the window of a home goods store and admire the displays of vacuums LOL. After the tour it was barely 3:00/3:30 so perfect timing to go climb the tower I parted ways with the group at the Sephardic community center and took thesubway to Stefansplatz, found the South Tower (the North tower has an elevator and you cannot get up as high), bought my ticket to 3 Euros and got to climbing. Like the Statue Of liberty, there is one way up and one way down, all in the same inclusive and it is narrow too. It was an exercise getting up to the top but very worth it, going down was the scarier part though I did videotape my entire walk down, butvery slowly. Then it was time to go pray, I had seen earlier in the day where is the entrance to the shul, it is not conspicuous on the outside, accessible via an alleyway which is one of the reasons it was able to survive Nazi occupation, being obscured from regular view. In Vienna they do not fuck around, there was a policeman or soldier with some outrageous looking gun ina ready to use fashion. It was like a New York synagogue on high holy days or somrthing. The Jews are endangered ane need protection so much so that there was an interview process at the door, you needed to show your passport. I thought it would be as simple as oh here this me thanks Shabbat Shalom go in side. But there was a group of 3 priests and 4 or 5 nuns apparently wanting to experience the service that night so that was a big delay as the guys at the door attempted to explain the prohibitions inside and the separation of men and women from the balcony to the main floor. Finally it ws my turn after I was behind a mother and son who were possibly Israeli I think, so I showed my passport and he looked hard and good at it then proceeded to ask me a series of questions, did I have anything dangerous with me, weapons,  bombs, etc. Even made me take out my electronics and test the power switches to prove I was not rigged (!!!) talk about secure proceedings, like in Rotterdam whether at the Chabad synagogue or at LJG, you have to be buzzed in at the door, then the topper of the day was ‘Why are you here?’ ‘um because I want to join a minyan for erev Shabbat services thank you very much’ ( I didn’t actually say that) and then probably because I don’t wear tzis tzis or a kipah I was asked if I am Jewish/a member of a Jewish community so I said yes, a Conservative/masorti congregation in New Jersey, USA where I semi-regularly attend Shabbat services. Where did you from now? From Holland do you belong to a Jewish community there, yes the Liberal Progressive shul in Rotterdam, then finally to send the point home I stated my Hebrew name Mordechai Yaakov ben Ephraim HaKohein and I think that was enough proof LOL. Finally inside I hung up my coat and bag, got a kipah, and wen t in the first door, I knew the shul was inside the alley but I wasn’t sure if it ws up or not. I ended up on the balcony and being familiar with egalitarian congregations it did not phase me one bit that there were women  around so I picked up a Siddur and then a lady motioned for me to go downstairs and it cliked in my head and I was like ‘oooh yeah! This is orthodox, it’s separate sex, ahah.’ So hoping no one but this woman had seen me I mad emy way downstairs, picked up a Siddur, a Wiener one at that! And made my way to the center area. It is a very classic shul inside, sort of egg-shaped with an all encompassing balcony and mezzanine too where men could sit with their little desks and personal cubby holes. It wasn’t a huge shul, but was the real deal. The ceiling painted some sort of purple blue with little stars, I was a bit disappointed I could not take any pictures as it was already Shabbat but there are pictures of the inside on the internet, because it is THE main shul in Vienna. The denomination seems to be some stream related to Modern Orthodox, as there is separate seating (womens balcony) but there were no long beards or black hats the cantor Shlomo Barzilai seemed pretty contemporary, there was a choir of 5 guys also on the bima accompanying him, he had a fantastic voice and although I did not recognize some of the tunes sometimes I was able to keep along for the most part, there was a mix of people present, I think more than a few non-Jews just to experience the service as evidnded by 2 older guys sitting together a few rows ahead of me not following in the Siddur, there was a young-ish guy diagonal from me who kept gesturing with a woman in the balcony presumably his wife or girlfriend. The service was quick, over in under 1.5 hours. Wherever I go so far no one seems to recite Yedid Nefesh much to my disappointment like it is usually so spiritual and echoing in the Berlin Chapel at Brandeis at the BUCO services, well I will be back there in due time, first Friday back is either Jan 14 which would probably be a stretch or then Jan 21 I will try to make it, that is in 12, 19, 26, 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, 7, 14, 21 well still in a substantial number of weeks but after this weekend there are only 5 weekends including the last one which mom dad and Lisa will already be here, so after this weekend, just FOUR 4 left!!  1 of which I will HOPEFULLY be in Barcelona for, one I will be in Belgium for and that leaves next weekend 19-21 and first weekend December 3-5 to be in Rotterdam, time flies fast. It was October that was the catalyst, after Oktoberfest first weekend of October there was no more time everything became booked we had Market Research and Consumer Behavior assignments and projects due, one week, then we had 2 exams the following week, then I had my week off when I went to Budapest and Vienna, then I was an absolute hermit for the next week just going to class basically and this week I prepared myself to go to Prague where I am now! Ahoy!  Na-sledanow Prosim!!Prague here I come! Post:, how can I forget that I saw an opera in ViennA! That was the topper to the day. Schonbrunn à Jewish Leopoldstadt tour à St Stefans Church south tower all 343 steps à Kabbalat Shabbat in Vienna Main Central Synagogue à Opera at the Staatoper (L’Elicir Del Amor), of course this schedule did not leave much time for food so I had the regular breakfast at the hostel in the morning, a pastry or 2 the day throughout the day, doner from a middle eastern food stand for lunch, granola bars to last me through the opera because the service was at 5:40 and got out around 7, and then I headed to the opera and got a standing only ticket for 3 Euros and the opera started at 8 and ended at 10 so on my way back to the hostel I had KFC finally, it’s okay because the last 2 days I had real Austrian food. And while I am writing this reflectively on the last leg of the ride to Prague (pretty on time, not even 8:45pm!), I can’t help but admit there is something to riding the trains, sure they can take forever in this case a whole day shot because of travel but there is a certain mystical element, youre just cruising along, it’s a constant hum at the high speed, it’s a routine, station after station, people on, people off, roll in, roll out, sure now that DST is over, it was dark by the time this train rolled out of Berlin but it is peaceful to an extent and you are not confined to a closed space like on a bus or plane, trains are sequential, planes are erratic, and vehicular traffic is unpredictable. I honestly don’t see the appeal in the overnight trains, I like the old-fashioned sleeping in a bed that doesn’t move, and for people who  hate to waste days traveling then build the travel days into your schedule, its an adventure unto itself, not to mention traveling overnight is a bit eery. So youre in another city bright and early in the morning, if youre so concerned then take an airplane, but I guess if youre going in a string of places the eurrail isn’t a bad option because you can go as far as you want in one day.  I think I really stretch it to the extreme though. This trip will be the end of long distance train travel for me, unless between Paris and Holland. Maybe I just am jaded because I have yet to experience a couchette or sleeper car.

vienna 2

Thursday morning October 28 since I had not found any walking tours like I had in Budapest, I would place my fate in the hands of Frommer’s in the 2 walking tour itineraries I had printed off the computer. The first one would cover “Imperial Vienna,’ the Hofburg, palaces, theater buildings, and main city center ring area and the like.Also since I had not done so the night before because it was dark I figured I would walk down the shopping street Mariahilfer Strasse as suggested by the hostess as the hostel was not located in the center but rather near the major train station Westbahnhof. So I think I may have fallen asleep at about 1am the night before and was up maybe 7:30 but turned over for several more minutes before waking up after 8. At this hostel breakfast was to be 8-11, but since they were doing some sort of renovations to the breakfast room, when I asked where to go in the  morning,  they just said to go to reception in the front room and they would lead me to the location. So at about 9:15 I think I showed up and was walked over to the breakfast location. It was outside, around the corner, across the street, into a garage, through a courtyard and then finally into a door that said ‘café.’ It was crazy small, maybe 4 tables and 15 chairs altogether. There was 1 guy sitting and having breakfast, some guy with a ponytail and wearing an apron was monitoring the food and serving the guy eating and there was a worried woman with a cup of coffee conversing in broken English about leaving a key with a neighbor for her daughter. I sat at a table and was served coffee, juice, milk amongst other things, toast, and a roll fresh hot out of the oven,and there was cereal on the counter. It said breakfast buffet but on Thursday it wasn’t quite being treated as a buffer. I assume because many apartments in the hostel have kitchens that not many people opt for the breakfast which is 4 EUR per day, or it could have been that the hostel was relatively empty as it was mid-week in late October, which I believe might be the case based on my being allowed to get a double room for the price of a single. After breakfast I began my trek down Mariahilfer Strasse not before stopping for a coffee for the go. After the ridiculous lack of sleep from last weekend I was not about to allow myself to succumb to exhaustion on this trip. At the end of the shopping street which was busy but mostly chain stores nothing particularly special, I then consulted my map to find the Staatoper, which was indicated as the starting place of my personal walking tour. Once I found it, I began probably around 10:30, it brought me first to Albertinaplatz and Philharmonikerstrasse around the Staatoper and past the Albertina museum. Then down some side streets to a small palace I forget the name of that is now privately owned, and also some storefronts with valuable antiques and glassware. The next stop was some fountain (don’t worry I will fill in the names of these things when I again consult the tour on Frommers.com, I also want to make a googlemap highlighting the walking route I took) that had 4 symbols in Neumarkt, that much I remember! Down another small street past a drug store that still had vaulted ceilings and glass jars on the shelves, I was tempted to go in for a picture but didn’t know how much the people inside would appreciate it. At the end of the street was the AugustinerKirche (?) in its yellow-ish façade and past a building that is apparently the most famous auction house in Europe. As it was a general tour, the descriptions of each location were brief yet informative, and I liked it that way, also I got to go at my own pace, and some streets were really nice and quiet, but others like the next one, Frommers even acknowledges, is small and quaint but is disturbed by the ‘roaring traffic’ which indeed there is because of how fast people drive over the cobblestones. Through a small tunnel and now into a grand courtyard of the Hofburg Complex, a few big statues and fronts, and then again through s pedestrian tunnel past the Spanish riding school, unfortunately I was not feeling adventurous enough to figure out how to see a performance as I have heard it requires precise timing and I was aiming to see as much as I could in the day based on my limited time in the city. Finally I came to what is considered possibly to be the most ornate vehicular tunnel in the world, or at least in Europe, it is into the Hofburg complex towards the Staatoper. In this tunnel however was a sign to enter to tour the Kaiser Apartments, I had heard about these, of the 2600 rooms in the palace about 20 are open to the public. So I decided to give it a shot, and bought a ticket for an audio guide tour, the ticket, less than 12 EUR for students, included the Silver Collection (all the imperial plates, cookware, tableware everything copper silver, gold, ceramic, porcelain of Austrian aristocracy and history), the Sisi Museum, a dive into the personal world of Empress Elizabeth, wife of Franz Josef, as she was a tough cookie, never conforming to the expectations of court life, and becoming very independent, partly due to suffering consecutive tragedies with the premature death of her eldest daughter and youthful suicide of her only son Rudolf. Finally included was a tour of the imperial apartments, a very worthwile 12- EUR spent for 2-3 hours. After this, I walked the exterior of the palace’s right wing, before coming upon Graben (?), a major pedestrian thoroughfare, since it was after 1:00, I stopped for lunch, but did not want to do so as I had done in Budapest on Monday, so I found a quick counter-service place serving fish and other things so in my horribly limited German vocabulary, I ordered some sort of grilled fish sandwich and fries and a soda, sat down at a table, read, finished the food and was on my way again. Now, in Graben it is quite a sight as it is so busy, plus at the far end is Stephansplatz, home to what is often considered the most identifiable landmark in Vienna, the St. Stephen’s Church. Before this, there were a myriad of ‘street performers’, including one guy dressed in all silver and leaning out of a picture frame with some sort of medieval-themed garb on, he was normal enough so I put a coin in the jar and took a picture and the ‘painting’ moved. There was also some guy dressed in a white sheet with a hole cut out of it for his face standing on a stool making strange bird noises and faces and gestures at people, I’m not sure what his deal was but he reminded me of a scrapped character idea for an episode of Are You Afraid Of The Dark, a mix between a joker (i.e. the Ghastly Grinner) and something out of the episode Bookish Babysitter where the medieval tale comes to life in his house. The church, which thankfully was free, except if you wanted a guided tour or wanted to go close, like to the middle seats or the front platform and defied my usual attitude about churches in that it was unique and impressive and had its own character, very nice inside, and spent about 10-15 minutes there. Then I continued my walking tour and realized I had passed the church that Frommers said was their favorite in Vienna, the Peterskirche, I thought they were applying that phrase to the Stephens Church which would make sense given its status as quite a landmark. Anyway I backtracked down Graben and off a side alley found the Peters church, it was a bit unassuming, and smaller inside, there were many people seated, I thought there was a service going on, but no one was on the altar, so it must have just been personal reflections.  This was free as well, so I snapped a couple pictures, took a short video because of some eery organ music that was playing, and put 2 EUR in some pot on the way out. Next I went down Karnter Strasse, which is another big pedestrian thru-way, on the corner of some building is the remain of some tree that blacksmiths (?) used to stake a nail into for good luck each time they were leaving town, there’s no plaque, just this mangled, narled tree in a case so I’m not sure many people knew what it was. Down Karnter Strasse, is a famous glass store with a small museum in its second floor, or so says Frommers. Don’t really remember anything else notable on Karnter Strasse other than its busyness and what not. Eventually it leads back to Staatoper where the tour began, it estimated 3  hours, and with some church visits, and the Hofburg museums and lunch, it took about 5 hours. Not bad, only 3:30 and my 1^st tour was already finished. Keeping in mind the fact I had only 2 days in Vienna, I strived to see as much as possible so thankfully I had the 2^nd walking tour with me, and despite how much I had walked in the day, I was determined to utilize as much daylight as possible. Now this tour conveniently also begins at Staatoper, but explores some outskirts and the southern Ringstrasse. First it goes past a statue of Goethe, by the main state library, then into a plaza named after some notable architect who died a few years back, which opens up to the fine arts institute of Vienna, yup the same one which twice denied admission to an aspiring teenage Adolf Hitler, in any case, the institute produced quite a few notable names, though they escape my mind right now. After the institute, went down a few side streets and turned to follow the path of the U4, first stopping by some other architecture/arts building that had fallen into disrepair by the 1970s, was bought and fixed up to look like its original state. Further down the street, circled around some side streets and oh yea, before when coming out of Karlsplatz some pavilions designed by Otto Wagner which were meant to be subway station entrances. Across the street was the home to the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra, yes strangely enough a street which borders the StaatOper is named Philharmonikerstrasse. I would have taken a tour of the building but its 1:00 english-language tour on Friday would have conflicted with my Leopoldstadt tour at 1:30. Also there is the Kunsthaus (?) which is some sort of recital/performance building. Across the street from there keeping around Karlsplatz is the Wien Museum, which I considered doing on Friday but decided there wasn’t enough time for. After, I moved on to Karlskirche, which was built as a thanks to God for giving Vienna the strength to prevail through the plague years, it is an impressive structure, though I did not go inside because my mission was to beat the sunlight and my tour did not specifically suggest visiting the inside. Also I tried to find a plaque at Karlsgasse 4 commemorating some house which Brahms or Mozart died in but could not find it other than a plaque on a green circle which was completely in German and did not state either of their names. Moving on to the Vienna Techological Institute, this is a powerhouse of scientific minds and there are busts of founders in the front, further down was the Freihaus which was the oldest social living building in Vienna, but fell into terrible conditions at the turn of the 20^th century, something of a slum, and was eventually demolished. Now, an unimpressive annex of the Tech school stands at its place. I continued down a small side street  as the sun was starting its decent to find the Nachsmarkt, which is full of fish, meat, bakery, and produce vendors. It’s sort of like Vienna’s less glamorous looking version of Quincy market in Boston. I took a video of my walk down the main aisle here, by holding my camera from my pocket so as to be as inconspicuous as possible because I didn’t know if people would appreciate being recorded or not. At this point, the tour I had gotten through at a pretty good pace and the rest consisted of winding through some streets to observe facades and turn of the century architecture including some apartment buildings designed by Otto Wagner. The tour deposited me to where the ____markt normally occurs every Saturday from 7am-4pm, it is notable as Vienna’s weekly ‘seedy flea market’ but is just a parking lot if it is not Saturday morning or afternoon. At this point, , it was probably about 5:30, sun not quite down, I wanted to sit somewhere to make my next plan and for some strange reason there were no benches in the vicinity of the outdoor markets, I was also ridiculously tired as I had been walking nonstop for 7-8 hours and done the equivalent of 2 walking tours in 1 day, good measure though as the next day I would be able to fairly dedicate my time to specific destinations! I decided I wanted to go experience the sun descent while sitting near the water so I made my way to Schwedenplatz and crossed the bridge to descend to the path adjacent the canal, picked myself a bench and started figuring some places I’d want to go on Friday as well as where I would have dinner this night. First path I chose once again no benches but I did observe people across the water sitting on benches so I figured of course this would be the case. So I went over to the other side and finally found a bench. As it got darker and the lamps came on, I was sitting in front of a bush which surrounded a small playground. There were not many people on the path and some guys went into the park which was pretty dark, I was not sure what they were doing. Then I heard a lot of rustling in the bushes, and eventually in a shadow noticed something furry so I assumed it was a rat or mouse, it was scared so I kicked towards it to make it go away. In the young people’s guide to Vienna I picked out a place that once again said huge portions, Viennese dishes, and looked like a barn inside, seemed good enough. Made my way there, it was on Burggasse which was pretty close but north of my hostel, so I figured id take the trams there so I walked to the 2, waited for about 5-10 mins and got on, it crossed the bridge back into 1^st district, made a stop, and promptly crossed back into 2^nd district, I figured this couldn’t be right so I waited 1 more stop until I realized it was not going back to Ringstrasse. Then I found a sign that said something about a demonstration and there being no service so the 2 was running an abbreviated route that did not include a run down Franz Josef Strasse, then I settled for the U-Bahn, but that was a navigation unto itself because the line I needed to get to get to the restaurant was the 6 and I was 2 switches away from it in any direction so it took 30-40 minutes to get there because I didntt want to walk anymore. Finally after like 8 stops down on the U6 which is basically Vienna’s ‘el-train’ as it goes above the street like the 7 in queens, I got off at Burggasse and walked towards number 103. Found it on a corner and it was nice and cozy looking so I went inside, it was just like I expected it to be. The waitress came over to me at the door and I said ‘ein tisch bitte’ as I had just looked up the word for ‘table’ in German on my trusty $8 pocket translator. She then asked in German if I was just 1 person and I affirmed. It was not particularly busy but every table was occupied so she put me at a small table next to the bar, which funny enough really isn’t a bar as much as it is a counter where food is prepared and there are keg taps because there is no place to sit at the bar, it is much more an eating place, a etterem in Hungarian, an eethuis in Dutch. On the table was only a German menu so I tried to make sense of it best I could, I compensated by first just ordering a beer and then asking for an English menu which I tried to compare to the German menu just for the hell of it. The beer I had, in a 0.5 L mug of course I forget but I took a picture of it so it’s in my pictures somewhere. It was very cold out and I was very tired so I ordered a bowl of chicken soup with noodles which was scrumptious, just good enough for a starter dish. For my entrée I ordered a Wienerschnitzel  with a mixed salad. I didn’t know the salad was not actually going to be mixed, there were boiled potatoes on one side, diced carrots on another, intact lettuce in the middle amidst a few other veggies, and some pickled/vinegar cucumbers, it reminded me of the pickle bar at Harold’s for some reason, and there was interesting vinegary cole slaw. I thus used this ‘mixed salad’ like something at harold’s and instead of eating it out of the bowl, applied the veggies atop my schnitzel, whether this was right or not I do not know. Now everytime I think of schnitzel I think of Israel because in the hostels we stayed at when traveling away from Agron Street 8, schnitzel, basically a breaded bonelees chicken cutlet, was a popular dish. Wienerschnitzel actually means schnitzel of Vienna (aka Wien), shows how much I know, the difference is that this is usually a veal cutlet rather than chicken, that said, the one I ordered was absolutely huge, taking over the whole plate, I took a picture of that, and then proudly proceeded to finish it completely, it was fried and greasy but whatever it was good and I had Wienerschnitzel in Wien like you’re supposed to! Yay! After dinner, it was earlier than after I ate the night before, so I figured to take advantage of it and also the fact I had been out walking everywhere all day and call it a night. Being not far from the hostel I decided to dallyingly walk back instead of taking U-Bahn or tram, it was nice and took about 20 minutes, quiet dark streets with a few storefronts and bars along the way. Got in around 9:30, checked email amongst other things, emptied my pockets onto the bed which I love to do because it’s like a resignation from the day I make and promptly fell asleep within 2 hours, a good sleep at that, it was a good day and I was happy with how much I was able to see.

vienna 1

Right now I am on the train in Hungary from Budapest to Vienna, it is about 12:15. One thing the US should get on top of is more electrified rail lines, virtually every passenger line in Europe is electric. Why the Raritan Valley line is not electric, why the NJ Coast Line south Of Long Branch, why the Morris & Essex past Dover is not I have no idea. So this morning I woke up about 8:15 I had to check out at 10. I had thought the night before to try to getin a dip at Szechenyi bath and a visit to Elizabeth statue but nevertheless sleep had prevailed and I had been to 2 baths, plus I didn’t really plan too well or pack the night before. So 8:15, back from my last Hungarian meager breakfast at 8:45, got to packing, took a shower,and ready to go at 9:55. I still wanted to check my email because I had not done so in 2 days. Then leaving at 10:15 I decided to see the Elizabeth statue, mostly because there is an arch and waterfall that reminds me of a painting in Grandma Marilyn’s house, it truly is Hungary, msut have been an old aqueduct or something. Anyway, I took the 7 to Rudas bath stop which is the first in Buda over the Danube and conveniently right by the statue, I got off and first tried to locate the 7 stop to go back to Pest and it was right below the statue, also there are remarkable cliffs there that I had only seen during the dusk. So I got off and ran up the stairs with my 3 bags on me, it was so high and hard to get upso I settled for going about ¾ up because I did not want to miss my train. I got the bus back at 10:50, and stepping off the bus each stop so I could be on the outside, got to Keleti station at 11:00, ran in, looked at the board, , fouind the 11:10 to Wien on track 9, and made it on the train with a few minutes to spare. I had a reserved seat, but there are not that many people on the train and the seat next to me is reserved starting from where I get off so hopefully should be ok. Because I will have no more use for forints, I left 1000 in the room as a gratitude to the maids though all they did each day was empty my trash. The buildings at the train stations along this route look like something out of Shining Time Station, with their perfectly pressed and classic uniforms. For a mid-week train in the middle of the day, there are 2 screamming babies, one was making a weird laugh for a while, but it’s like there some sort of organ duo, chiming in a the silence of the other… ah AH ah AH ah!, and they scream like bloody murder. So that brings me to now still a bit under 2 hours before Vienna so Ill just enjoy the view and pick this up later. The train ride to Vienna was pretty enjoyable, went by quick, right on time, which was good. Got in around 2:30, walked out into the outside with Devon and then split up to our respective hostels. I checked in, it was quite a short walk from the station, checking in in a small entrance room, the lady had a strange radical haircut and purple pink highlights to boot, nice nonetheless. Got the key, she showed me to my room which happened to be on the 1^st floor so nothing to complain about as far as walking is concerned but a bit skeptical at first being on street level. She opened the door to a very cozy apartment with a front hallway, a full bathroom, a more than full kitchen, and 2 rooms. I was in room 4a. I was quite pleasantly surprised upon entering, I took pictures even! I knew I’d be getting a double room for the price of a single so that was nice, so the bed was large, the room was large, nicely designed and sort of modern. I dreaded the ceiling light so fortunately there were 2 very bright desk lamps on the night tables which I positioned upward so they would add light and they compensated finely. I had no idea there would be a full kitchen but staying only 3 nights and being there to see the city and not stay at the hostel I wasn’t about to go grocery shopping to cook inside. The kitchen was fuller than the one I have at RSM, there was an oven, a micro, a toaster, and a double sink. Before we had parted ways I had agreed with Devon to try to figure out to grab dinner in the city center after settling in and resting in the afternoon. I got my internet hooked up which was a fucking pain in the ass at first but eventually I figured it out. So I sent an email a bit before 5 and waiting waiting to see if Id get an answer but nothing and I remembered why I was traveling on my own so I wouldn’t be a slave to other people’s schedules so I gave it til 7 and then ventured out on my own not wanting to waste too much of the day sitting in my room, a few hours recuperating had been enough plus I wanted dinner. The hostel hostess had given me a ‘young peoples’ guide to Vienna book and in it had suggestions for affordable eating so I picked one that said it had big portions and a good price and wound my way there, not before going to the underground to buy a 72-hour pass. I wanted to see the city at night so I figured I could take the 5 tram to the J or 2 which circled around the Ringstrasse, I eneded up going farther than I originally anticipated because I ended up on the other side of the Danube canal so I had to backtrack and then settled for the U-Bahn. The place, called Centimeter was a small chain with 5 or 6 locations, a rather gruff spot, nothing too fancy, all business, though one of the bartenders kept smiling, I wasn’t sure if I should just sit down so I went up to the bar and asked her Sprechen Sie Englisch? And said I would like to eat here so she gave me a menu. I ordered a potato soup in a bread bowl and a fried/breaded turkey with fries dish. I didn’t realize the soup in the bread bowl could probably have been a meal itself  since there were so many contents in the actual broth. I made a tradeoff by disregarding the French fries because they are not substantial. And I also had a 0.5 L mug of the house beer which was pretty fair. Lots of old people there and never quiet, after I finished I got the check and unlike normally they allow you to pay right then and there as they have a change purse rather than scooping up your payment and taking it to a cash register and coming back, very convenient/efficient, though a bit daunting because theyre standing right there as you are taking your wallet out and counting money. I’d come to be used to leaving ~10% tip as I have seen checks add 10% for service. Its weird because in the US, 10% is considered a terrible tip for wait service, whereas 15-18% is good and 20%+ is excellent, I wasn’t complaining though because leaving 2 EUR on a 20 EUR bill is better than leaving a quarter of my bill for the waiter though I know my food-service-industry-veteran friends would yell at me because of this assertion. After dinner I walked around a bit but duly headed back as Id want to get an early start on the next day with so much to see and walking to do, so I grabbed the U-Bahn back and retired for the night before chatting, in text and in video, with mom and then a few friends all the while fighting the shoddy wireless connection.

hungary 4

This was my final day in Budapest, I wish I could have made it to eastern Hungary, Slovakia, and the Ukraine border. Budapest is in Hungary, and is where most of my ancestors last lived in Europe before coming to the United States, but they were from a different part of Hungary, and to think that 4 generations ago they spoke Magyar and now, still 100 years later, I can only manage ‘igen,’ ‘nem,’ ‘beszelsz angolul?,’ ‘en nem beszelek magyarul.’ They should really consider trimming the trees along these train lines, then the views would be much nicer and more scenic. Just as I see something I’d like to snap a photo of, I get my camera out, and look back out the window, and whaddya know, a line of trees obstructing the view. Anyway, out in those areas its probably poor as hell and there certainly would not any Jews now, unfortunately Everything Is Illuminated does not happen every day. So this was thed ay that I had the Jewish quarter tour at 3:30. Originally I was going to take the 10am Pest tour and explore then from 1230-330, but from things I didn’t get to do on Monday, I decided to ditch the pest tour because the Jewish quarter tour was in Pest, and many of the buildings only date like 100-150 years ago. One interesting thing to note in Budapest is the lack of skyscrapers, no tall buildings, certainly nothing more then 15-20 stories it seems. Just many ornate things, it is quite an architectural city. So my original plan was Terror House Museum à Communist Railway through the hills à Matyus church on the way back to Pest à Jewish quarter tour. Something about it didn’t sit right with me so I altered it to Communist Railway à Church à Terror House à jewish quarter tour and if time remained maybe go to Szechenyi baths. After breakfast and getting everything ready for the day, I got on the bus around 9am, I had to take the 7 to Rudas, walk over to the Dobrentei stop on the 18 tram, take that 2 stops to Moszkva Square, switch to the 61 for 2 stops to Varosmajor and then hop on the Cogswheel railway fogaskerku to the end. Wasn’t sure how long it would take, by the time I got to Moszkva it was about 9:40, and then the cogshweel railway didn’t leave til 9:59,a dd 20 minutes to that, and it was about 10:15 when I finally got up the hill, it was dreary and raining, yet I walked over the desolate street to the Buda hill rail station and went inside, there was no one around, and just 1 family in the station waiting room looking at a schedule board, they asked the girl behind the window if she spoke English but she said only a bit. As I really wanted to make it to the Terror House museum nad I had to be at the tour at 330 and it was already close to 10:30, I looked at the schedule board, couldn’t make immediate sense of it, and decided for the better to abandon the idea, although I had spent over an hour coming up to it, once I got there it just didn’t seem worth it to take a 40 minute train ride for views, it seemed like a good post-lunch relaxation activity on Monday, but other than that, it probably is not too worth it. So I got back on the fogaskereku at around 10:40, switched to the 61 at Varosmajor, 2 stops to Moszkva, and then for the church, I caught the 16 busback up to the Castle District hills. I got off, and bought a ticket, and pretended I was from the Netherlands to get a really good discount.I think it was 1400 HUF full price and 10 or 20% off wit Budapest card but only 500 HUF for students, so I said Diak, student in Hungarian, and he asked what country I was from and I said Netherlands because I kinda am, I am studying there and it was where I came from on this trip. Went inside the church and utterly was not very impressed, it’s not that large, and honestly once you’ve seen a big old church you’ve seen many big old churches, whether St Pats in NYC, St Nicks in Amsterdam, sure people might go on and on talking about the intricate differences in design, but of course they are going to alter a bit from place to place. I snapped a bunch of pictures, and then called it a trip after 15 minutes, totally culd have gone in the day before at 4:45. Now my next adventure would be terror house museum and with the new schedule of the day modification, I would be able to fit in with plenty of time. Took the 16 from the top of the hill back to Pest to its terminus,a nd from there took the underground to Oktogon. Got outside and the 8 angles confused me as I could not initially find the museum marked off on my map so I walked down a side street and some guy was unloading his car so I asked him beszelsz angolul, he replied a bit so I asked which way to the Terror museum he replied left and then 50 meters down, I followed his directions and was embarrassed at how conspicuous the building is, a huge black roof with the backwards letters saying TERROR. So I went inside  and at first I thought it was free because I showed my Budapest card and some security guard opened the door and I went in and saw a sign for the exhibition. But then there was a lobby and a coat room so no escape. I stood on line for a ticket and said I am a student, bu then she asked for my passport and ID (Darn!) so I gave her my Erasmmus student ID thinking that was proof of my being a student but she said we do not accept student IDs and you had to be a citizen of EU not just student, oh well! SO the museum was excellently designed, it lead you in a sequence from the top floor down 3 floors through room and hallways and exhibits of wars, communism, and the horros that Hungarians have had to face in recent history, very informative, much worth the 1400 HUF which my Budapest card gave me discount of. All in all, took about 2+ hours to complete, highlights included rebuilt jail cells in the cellar from the days of communism, Peter Gabor’s office, and the religion room. One thing was that you couldn’t take pictures inside so I stealthily did it when I could, when no one was in the room and I made sure there were no cameras around. It was a true testament to the terrors of Communismm and how ruthless it was, the leaders replaced God with themselves and subjected everyone to their rule. I will never understand how they could call it Communism when it was actually fascism, they didn’t do good for the people they terrorized them and destroyed shit and killed anyone who didn’t agree with them, they fucking hung 15 and 16 year old kids. And then they imposed their own Communism to break free of the Russian influence, yea right. Anyway that was well worth the tour, then around 2:30 I decided to walk the length of Andrassy Avenue, which turned out to be the fancy stretch of Budapest, tree-lined streets, nice facades, and fancy stores. The Jewish tour would be meeting at Vorosmarty (Lion) square at 3:30, I got there around 3:10, walked around a few times, and rememebered I had to be on the lookout for signs and leaflets of the free tour. Chilling out on the fountain for a while until I found the tour at the lion fountain. It was a smaller group than the Buda tour, we wound our way through the streets in Pest which once composed the Jewish district, originally it was located where it was because Jews were not allowed to live within city walls so they lived right outside. The central synagogue is the 2^nd largest in the world, seating 3000 in the sanctuary, it survived because the Nazis liked the appearance of the building and Eichmann even had an office in it. We then went on to see some more synagogues, only the outsides, and there are actually still a small Jewish community, one of the shuls we went to has a yeshiva and there were a few kosher restaurants and a market too. I briefly considered joining for Shacharit at one but remembered I did not have tefillin with me and did not want to get involved using others. Part of the tour was  a pub tour too. The connection is that they are ruin pubs, after the Jews left, all the buildings remained, and the state owned them and people rented them and made pubs in the 1^st floors because otherwise the buildings would be empty and expensive to renovate otherwise. By the time the tour was over it was close to 7, so I stayed and talked with some people and the tour guides Ester and Emma, Emma knew a lot about Judaism like kashrut and bima but I could not tell if she was Jewish. One guy, a 30 year old from Seattle, asked me if I go to Brandeis because I was wearing my jacket and he said a friend of his did a anthropology PhD there and another girl asked  me about it too because someone she knows interned in the Study abroad office. Then I walked a while and talked with the guy from Seattle until we reached Oktogon, I wanted to eat at this cheaper Hungarian place and he had dinner at his hostel and someone she was abroad with in Italy goes there too, didn’t know the names though Jewish tour, dinner at Frici Papa, home.