Duke's Travels
Howdy Ho everybody!
As usual, I've tried to squeeze too much into too little a time. Vienna and Budapest were both great, but I think that both cities deserve more than just two nights each.
I left Vienna on Saturday, after visiting the zoo in Schonbrunn. It is the oldest zoo in the world, believe it or not. I saw my first hippopottomi (sp?) ever, as well as elephants, giraffes, and an assorment of other animals. I was hoping to see the polar bear, but he was hiding away. The funniest were the gibbons. They've been put on an island surrounded by water in the middle of the zoo, with trees and ropes to swing on and eat from. It looks like it would be so easy for them to escape, but there is enough of a perimiter of a moat to keep them from getting out. Anyways, they sit there just hooting and howling all day. At first I thought it was children screaming at the animals, and I was getting kind of mad at them. Then I realized that it was the gibbons. I stayed and watched them for quite awhile, it was mesmerizing. All in all, this is probably the best zoo I've ever been to, and probably one of the best in the world (though I've never been to San Diego).
I left Vienna for Budapest, and arrived in Budapest with absolutely NO local currency. The Hungarians still use the forint, and while some places do accept Euros, the subway is not one of them. Plus, I arrived after 5pm, which meant that ALL of the exchange stations in the city were closed. Therefore, I walked about an hour and a half with my backpack from Keleti Pu. (the main station) to my hostel, just on the east side of the River Danube, and just north of the parliament buildings (not a bad location really). The hostel was appropriately called the East Side Hostel. It's infact not a hostel at all. You stay in somebody's apartment, made to look like a hostel. When I arrived they said that it was overbooked, and that I was to sleep on a mattress on the floor, at the discounted price of course. No worries, save a bit of coin. Then I found out through the course of the weekend that this is quite a regular thing, and that they have to use other friends' apartments to supplement their hostel business. It's quite funny really. I think really picky people would get really pissed at this method of business, but the guys who run the place are pretty cool. Milan is the main guy, from Serbia; then there's Istvan, from Hungary, and Nick, from the U.S.A. The first night I basically stayed and partied with their friends who were over. I was invited to go out by a group of four Brazilian girls (FOUR!), but having no forints, I decided against it (now I know it sounds crazy to decline an invitation from four Brazilian girls, but before you draw and quarter me guys, consider how lame it would have been if I had gone out with them and couldn't even buy myself one beer, let alone a round for the whole table. And if they went anywhere with cover charge, even more embarrassing...I think I saved my dignity, as difficult as it was to say no).
On the second day, I wandered around Budapest on both sides of the river. When I made it to the west side, I thought it might be a nice idea to go see Statue Park, a plot of land which contains a bunch of old communist statues that have been removed and relocated here. For anyone who's seen GoldenEye (the James Bond movie), Statue Park is the place where Bond meets Janus (aka: Agent 006, Alec Trevelyan). It was actually a bit of an ordeal to get out there, having to deal with complicated public transit services in Budapest (not nearly as good as in Vienna), but I finally made it there. Final Verdict: disappointing. Not worth the price of admission, nor the price of the bus ticket there. Skip it. In fact I took more pictures there than it deserved. When I returned to the main city, it was raining pretty good, so I went back to the hostel/apartment and again partied there that night. We had an Australian couple who had just arrived, Claire and Glen, and also a couple of Californians, Danielle and Jay, who were "just visiting." With Milan and myself, the six of us stayed in drinking, laughing, and sharing stories. We actually had to make another booze run at about 11:30pm. Oh yeah, then I decided it would be a good idea to hop on MSN for a bit, and I had the drunkest conversations with my cousin Chris, and my friend Jay (sorry guys). I had no idea what was going on "at that juncture."
So now I'm back, teaching again today. Nice three day week! I'll try to post some pictures from Vienna/Budapest either tomorrow or Friday (probably Friday).
Till next post...
As usual, I've tried to squeeze too much into too little a time. Vienna and Budapest were both great, but I think that both cities deserve more than just two nights each.
I left Vienna on Saturday, after visiting the zoo in Schonbrunn. It is the oldest zoo in the world, believe it or not. I saw my first hippopottomi (sp?) ever, as well as elephants, giraffes, and an assorment of other animals. I was hoping to see the polar bear, but he was hiding away. The funniest were the gibbons. They've been put on an island surrounded by water in the middle of the zoo, with trees and ropes to swing on and eat from. It looks like it would be so easy for them to escape, but there is enough of a perimiter of a moat to keep them from getting out. Anyways, they sit there just hooting and howling all day. At first I thought it was children screaming at the animals, and I was getting kind of mad at them. Then I realized that it was the gibbons. I stayed and watched them for quite awhile, it was mesmerizing. All in all, this is probably the best zoo I've ever been to, and probably one of the best in the world (though I've never been to San Diego).
I left Vienna for Budapest, and arrived in Budapest with absolutely NO local currency. The Hungarians still use the forint, and while some places do accept Euros, the subway is not one of them. Plus, I arrived after 5pm, which meant that ALL of the exchange stations in the city were closed. Therefore, I walked about an hour and a half with my backpack from Keleti Pu. (the main station) to my hostel, just on the east side of the River Danube, and just north of the parliament buildings (not a bad location really). The hostel was appropriately called the East Side Hostel. It's infact not a hostel at all. You stay in somebody's apartment, made to look like a hostel. When I arrived they said that it was overbooked, and that I was to sleep on a mattress on the floor, at the discounted price of course. No worries, save a bit of coin. Then I found out through the course of the weekend that this is quite a regular thing, and that they have to use other friends' apartments to supplement their hostel business. It's quite funny really. I think really picky people would get really pissed at this method of business, but the guys who run the place are pretty cool. Milan is the main guy, from Serbia; then there's Istvan, from Hungary, and Nick, from the U.S.A. The first night I basically stayed and partied with their friends who were over. I was invited to go out by a group of four Brazilian girls (FOUR!), but having no forints, I decided against it (now I know it sounds crazy to decline an invitation from four Brazilian girls, but before you draw and quarter me guys, consider how lame it would have been if I had gone out with them and couldn't even buy myself one beer, let alone a round for the whole table. And if they went anywhere with cover charge, even more embarrassing...I think I saved my dignity, as difficult as it was to say no).
On the second day, I wandered around Budapest on both sides of the river. When I made it to the west side, I thought it might be a nice idea to go see Statue Park, a plot of land which contains a bunch of old communist statues that have been removed and relocated here. For anyone who's seen GoldenEye (the James Bond movie), Statue Park is the place where Bond meets Janus (aka: Agent 006, Alec Trevelyan). It was actually a bit of an ordeal to get out there, having to deal with complicated public transit services in Budapest (not nearly as good as in Vienna), but I finally made it there. Final Verdict: disappointing. Not worth the price of admission, nor the price of the bus ticket there. Skip it. In fact I took more pictures there than it deserved. When I returned to the main city, it was raining pretty good, so I went back to the hostel/apartment and again partied there that night. We had an Australian couple who had just arrived, Claire and Glen, and also a couple of Californians, Danielle and Jay, who were "just visiting." With Milan and myself, the six of us stayed in drinking, laughing, and sharing stories. We actually had to make another booze run at about 11:30pm. Oh yeah, then I decided it would be a good idea to hop on MSN for a bit, and I had the drunkest conversations with my cousin Chris, and my friend Jay (sorry guys). I had no idea what was going on "at that juncture."
So now I'm back, teaching again today. Nice three day week! I'll try to post some pictures from Vienna/Budapest either tomorrow or Friday (probably Friday).
Till next post...
posted by gulldogg at 3:00 a.m.
1 Comments:
Gulley - yet another shameful plug to try to get people to visit me...
There's nothing like seeing a hippo, or 50 hippos, from a small fishing boat in the middle of the Nile, surrounded by crocs, a thousand different kind of birds, water buffalo, monkeys, etc, etc, etc...
Come and visit me!!! We can watch the hippos do the windmill thing with their ears from only a few feet away (while we sit in fear)
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