Love and Voodoo In the Big Easy
New Orleans Day 1
September 9, 2014
My Haitian taxi driver and I bump along the Louisiana freeway, his radio turned up so loud it makes conversation impossible. The music is pleasant, sung in French, so I don't mind so much as we make our way to the hotel in The French Quarter. After a long day of bumping along the Midwest skies on my journey here, The chance to sit back and do nothing is refreshing. The humidity, which I had been warned about, is not unlike Hawaii, and therefore pretty doable.
As we cross the bridge into downtown, the Times Picayune building is on the right. I feel a pang because I can't call my dad and tell him, " I saw it! Just like Doonesbury." I wonder who he knew there, or if someone there still knows him.
There's not much time to dwell on the loss as we arrive shortly at our hotel. The street outside the Marriott is littered with adults holding beer bottles, plastic cups and the occasional fishbowl of alcohol. Casually, they lean against walls, lampposts or anything else that will hold them upright. Amongst the friendly chatter and the tinkle of beads, I pay my driver and unload my suitcase, too heavy with shoes (again), onto the street. As I head to the door, it bursts open and a man in a hat, starched shirt and cowboy boots wraps me up in his embrace.
This is my Denver, the reason I have com to the South in September. Like me, his work takes him traveling most days. Many of our dates are spent somewhere exotic, like Fresno, but this week he and his compatriots are hitting New Orleans for a conference. It seems fitting that since we met traveling, that we should continue to do so through our romance.
It is odd for me, to have someone to travel with. My last trip to Hungary counted as 40 countries visited since 2008, most visited alone. Although I have loved and learned so much by traveling by myself, it is a great joy to be able to do it with other people. As a bonus, he has friends! This will come into play later.
My new partner in crime is a walker, like me. Even in cowboy boots, he moves at a clip down the busy streets of New Orleans. In two short blocks we take a right, and we are on Bourbon Street. It's not far before we find a cozy looking Café advertising oysters and crawfish. Oh, and booze. Lots of booze.
Thank God, the bread here is almost like France. Even better when dipped in garlic juice from the oysters. We dine, catch up, and bask the glow of the Art Deco lights hanging from the ceiling as formally clad waiters quickly whisk plates on and off our table in a feast of seafood.
Romantic as the evening is, I can't resist the pull of the charming wrought iron balconies and the glow of the neon lights. I charm Denver Into a post meal walk, which I claimed would be just a block. He has a meeting at 6:30 AM, but agrees reluctantly, knowing that his pals are partying far the end of the street. This could be a really long night.
Bourbon Street is famous for many things: bead tossing partygoers reveling from second story balconies, music on every corner and a never ending flow of libations. What I had never imagined was the casual, relaxed atmosphere of people unwinding under the gentle air of the Gulf. There is a
peace to the little street, amid the chaos. Mounted police stand on bored but alert horses, conversing with walkers who pose for pictures. Street hawkers are friendly but not overbearing. The street is closed to cars, so the only danger is running into someone's glass and wearing their drink or yours.
I walk in awe at the mix of French and Victorian influence in the buildings. I am so busy looking up at the façades, I fail to dodge as silver beads rain down on the sidewalk around me. Startled, I grab Denver's arm. He laughs, and tells me people often flash for these beads. I crack, "Maybe for some pearls, but plastic?!"
As we near the end of the street, Denver gets a text. The crew, as I will call them, it straight up ahead in O.Sullivans.
The looks of them, they have been there a while, Hurricane glasses line the long table, along with huge pizza boxes, in a place that does not serve food. I love the group instantly, despite the fact that I am very shy. These are friendly Texans, by the way. Just as I sit down, I hear someone say strip bar. Oh, dear.
As a rule, I do not generally frequent strip bars. Partly because I am a girl. We'll, mostly because I'm a girl. They are something I just don't even notice, at all. I don't condemn the girls for what they're doing, nor do I support the degrading of women. That said, I figure if a guy's silly enough to throw money at them, the girls might as well make a buck.
On our way to find a strip bar, we stop at a place that sells buckets, literally buckets, of beer. It isn't far, before we find a place that reels our group in. We make a splash, with all our hats and loud group. Denver and his best friend, are the ring leaders. Although I was a little nervous, that it might be uncomfortable, the night is hilarious. For a stack of ones, the boys play jokes on each other. The girls end up wearing their hats, someone's glasses and we become a popular group. One of the wives is having a really fun time talking to the girls. I love this woman! She gives the girls some money, tells them they should go to college, and they all end up hugging. It is the sweetest thing I have ever seen.
Eventually we end up at the main stage lining the bar. The music goes on, and dancers come and off the stage. The real entertainment, is watching good friends taking care of each other. They respect each other's limits, and everybody's needs to have fun and let loose in their own way. One couple, conservative yet unwilling to leave the party, hangs back without reproach. The friendly wife does her thing getting to know the dancers and her husband laughs sweetly as he looks on in adoration.
Mind you, I don't want to over romanticize a night at a strip club. It was loud, and dirty, and there were half naked girls dancing for money. But to be included in a group, in the city so far from home, was pure heaven.
Denver and I look at each other, it's time to go. There is nothing here either one of us needs. Both a draft for so long and are traveling and busy Lives, this is a rare moment to just be with one person. We walk home, hand-in-hand, making plans for all the things we plan to do for the next four days.
Overhead, the neon blinks while the Gulf breeze carries away the evening's last hours.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
One Last Soproni and I'll Quit Writing March 30, 2014 Budapest, Hungary
One Last Soproni and I'll Quit Writing
March 30, 2014
Budapest, Hungary
Today is my last day in Budapest. I want to make the most of it, but I find writing is, well, making the most of it.
It’s nearly impossible to keep up the pace I have been at for another day. My reflection is haggard and I yawn often. It’s time to simply enjoy life with out the fear I will miss something.
I will miss something. Lots of things really. The good news is, I won’t know what I miss by virtue of missing it. That’s great, actually. So, I give myself to write until noon, with repeated interruptions from the maid looking to finish off her floor. I suppose I should hang a sign on the doorknob, but I am busy writing. I enjoy getting lost in my head.
Finally I finish for the day. I have a ticket for an open top bus tour that I plan to use for my afternoon that leaves right from my hotel square. It’s a minute's walk to the bus stop. I redeem my ticket and take a seat.
While I tour the city, the guide’s advice plays in my head. She has recommended I go the the baths that are included with my ticket. I have reviewed the places online, thermal spas where people swim and get treatments and I am pretty certain I can pass this one up.
Well, I was. Now I am thinking I may never get here again and I have missed out on one of the main attractions.
Dang, I’m going to have to do it.
I enjoy the rest of the tour, never hopping on or off. In the middle of the Danube as I was admiring the view, a wasp flew down my shirt and stung me. I’m not allergic but a I am prone to an active imagination. I miss the information on at least one stop as I review my options for medical evacuation. From a bee sting.
I decide to calm down over a late lunch in a cafe at the hotel. Sipping my beer, I decide to try the baths. I can always leave if I don’t like it, I decide. It should be a very relaxing end to a hectic week on the go.
Unwilling to risk the welfare of my lone pair of flip flops, I borrow ultra white spa slippers from my room to pack into a plastic shopping bag with my suit and towel. Open minded as I may be, there isn’t a chance I am EVER going to rent a “bathing costume”, like the bath website offers.
A short taxi ride takes me to the rear of Heroes Square, past a circus and petting zoo, to the Szechenyi Bath complex. It’s a huge yellow group of buildings accented with white painted ribbons draped over pillars. Inside, two ticket sellers take cash only from the bathers for entry. Straight ahead- bathing costume rental. The suits are just as cute as any board shop, which I find surprising. I figured they would be dowdy one pieces in black, grey or blue. Either, way, I am glad I brought my own.
The attendant tells me a kabin is included, which is a form of changing room the reviews say. I nod as I take the plastic adjustable band he gives me to wander around for an entrance. The only signs in English are the ones about not losing stuff they rent you or losing your hefty deposit. I finally watch some groups enter a hallway and not return so I head that direction. I find a man with a turnstile that flashes green for entry when I press my watchband up against it. I’m in.
Ahead of me is a long corridor filled with dripping people squeaking along in rubber shoes of all kinds. A woman in all white scans people’s bands against a machine on the wall that flashes a number. I hold my hand up and see 404 illuminated.
The kabins are small wooden changing rooms, ten to an alcove, locked by the watchbands. My opens only for me and me alone. I change inside the tiny wooden room and slip only my conspicuous footwear. Out in public I go with my towel wrapped firmly around me.
I am pleasantly surprised to see it seems just like a resort pool. People drink beer along the edges, children in swimming caps (required in the lap pool) horseplay and couple nestle in corners. It’s pretty comfortable.
Both ends of the courtyard have large communal pools filled with people. The lap pool is in the center. I enter, the sign promising and delivering a pleasant 30 degrees. Ringing the edge, though, is the typical cool off alternative of a freezing stream.
The current in the pool, a 1.05 m depth, is enough to knock me off my feet in some parts. There is much merrymaking around a central seated section with an outer current spinning people in circles like a moat as the inner denizens rest against jets. Huge bubble erupt from the blue tiled floor in sections where one can stand, kneel or lay over the stream of water.
I would really like to ask someone if there is something hotter. I am beginning to freeze as the sun is dropping low in the sky. I move towards one group of Canadians, only to hear him refer to some native women as squaws. I give him a look of disdain, but he’s clueless. I move then towards a group of the athletes (runners, it turns out) who are celebrating the end of their games. One man in his late fifties is telling a slightly younger Italian woman with mischievous eyes about how he broke his own record this weekend. I hate to break up what might be first date.
I get really hopeful when an American girl yells to her buddies about her towel across the pool. They too, move away before I can swim against the current. Cold enough to quit, I grab my towel and slippers and head inside to find a map or human.
Directly across the courtyard are the thermal baths, what I have been looking for all along. I slosh in my wet terry slippers across the soaked courtyard, careful to not slip on the marble stairs. The doors open into a sauna where semi naked European are piled six benches high across a fifty foot wall. I’m not ready for that.
Luckily, to my right is a series of white tiled pools in ascending degrees marked by signs on the wall. I toss my towel on the radiators like everyone else and slip into the heat next to a pair of chatty athletes of unknown origin. I enjoy checking out the varied suits on bodies of every color, size, height, ethnicity and body composition. Although uncomfortable around the average pool crowd, I I can relax a little here because there are no supermodels. Just regular folk with beer bellies, stretched out boobs, too much fat, too little fat, lots of hair, no hair. Many of these people are just wearing themselves the way they were made, counting on their personalities for appeal. Everyone is pretty much wearing a smile, though.
After ten minutes or so, another woman in white tells us to leave. No one else does, so I stay as well. I want to savor every last moment before my departure. Eventually, she doesn’t take no for an answer and we all leave the pool. On my way out, I help the American girls get a great shot of them on a balustrade overlooking the pools.
It’s a short but somehow twice as expensive taxi ride to the Sofitel to a dinner of room service chicken paprikas and Soproni beer after packing. I am on a self imposed lockdown because I really fear I will be up until my alarm rings at 3 a.m. Then it’s 5 flights home to Indio after a lunch stop in Seattle with a friend.
As I type this, I sit at my desk overlooking the Chain Bridge with my with window cracked. There’s something about this city that slowly wins you over. Maybe it’s the food, the people of just the way the light does something magnificent when you have written off the skyline for the smog.
Either way, I am going to end up missing Budpest.
---
http://www.szechenyibath.com/
Blue Danube Part II March 29, 2014 Budapest, Hungary
Blue Danube Part II
March 29, 2014
Budapest, Hungary
Sunrise in Budapest colors the entire town pink. The hefty layer of smog helps too, I imagine. My view over the river is serene, the architecture muted into shades of cream. Birds sing through my open window as I crack open an eye. I guess I should get up.
Then I find the Nespresso machine! Yea! It’s Saturday, let’s go! After a fantastic buffet that spans three whole sides of a room with tables piled with fruits, yogurts, eggs, French pastries and champagne, I am off to see the market hall. In an unusual moment of forethought, I have confirmed that today is the last day it is open on my trip (tomorrow being Sunday). It looks just a ten minute walk away, as well.
Built at the end of the 19th century, it’s a charming concoction of steel girders and Byzantine-esque tile work, crowned with an onion dome cupola, all painted a subdued ochre. Mostly destroyed during WWII, it has been returned to service with glory, a shopping mecca for locals and tourists alike.
I have learned to pass everything once, considering overall price and quality. My only real interest is acquiring some paprika, since it’s a specialty. However, I really wish I had a kitchen here, as the vegetables are as fresh as any local market at home. The prices are really decent and the variety is awesome. Cucumbers line up in neat rows next to a stable of carrots. Next to them are stacks of eggs in cartons, all homey brown ones (which may explain my unusual egg color and flavor at breakfast).
Round after round I make, taking pictures. So far, there has only been one super weird item- a chicken with a head. Plucked and pink, his dead eye stares at me. I take his picture and say a blessing. Next to the chicken are stacks of wings in pointy piles, rows on languishing gizzards and mounds of tender thighs. It all looks incredibly fresh, and not particularly gory. It is, however, immediate and present in its rawness.
Until I see the doll, that is. I am reminded of the Dutch doll my nanny gave to me from her country when I was little, a blonde maiden in black felt dress and wooden shoes that sat on my shelf for all of my childhood, too fragile to touch, This doll, though, is stuffed and soft with yarn hair, chubby legs that swing like a little girls kick and a pink embroidered apron with flowers. I can’t resist it for my youngest niece.
I start breaking my 10,000 Hungarian forint notes (about $44) with the shopkeepers, slowly accumulating plastic bags full of felt Christmas ornaments, a linen peasant blouse, and wooden eggs. I choose an embroidered handkerchief with a fancy cursive letter D, which I collect and use, for myself. On a whim, I buy a small felt hat for one of the kids, unsure if he will wear the point cap in blue or no, but it is vey cute on the mannequin.
Emboldened by positive exchanges with shopkeepers, I am ready to try negotiating a purchase of dried kiwis I have been eyeing in one stall. They look very appealing and safe, housed under plexiglas in bins. Dried cherries, plums, apricots, kiwi, strawberries and pineapple read from 2800 to 4800 forints per kg. I do the math and hope I am not about to own a cartful of fruit. I ask the unsmiling owner if he speaks English. He does, but I can’t tell if his stall is empty because of his offering or his sour demeanor. He quickly bags my kiwi and strawberry in clear grocery bags and returns correct change. I have done it! My treats are just enough to share with family in small amounts, but small enough to shove into my suitcase, allowing that they are dried and not forbidden by customs I hope.
I luck out at a tiny stall when I pause after I hear a young woman kindly explaining the paprika to a couple in English. Language and a smile wins. In fact, I buy more than planned, deciding to make gifts of the excellent local Acacia honey and foie gras, as well as spice for me. At the last moment, I choose some caviar, praying what she says is true- it doesn’t need refrigeration in cool temperatures. Theoretically, it can make it home in the next few days as a surprise gift.
What I don’t buy is the excellent kolbasz, a Hungarian hard sausage laced with paprika. It’s delicious, but I can just imagine customs yanking the aromatic meat from my bag in Seattle, then taking my strawberries and maybe even my oink leather flask. What I also do not buy is any pickled onion, cabbage, rutabaga or cucumbers form the subterranean floor. It’s dank and cold, smelling of vinegar and fish. Two stalls of fish mongers keep tanks piled deep with carp. I silently cheer for the one near dying, he is at least granted pardon. I stick out my lip for the fish convict and spin away. The realities of food production are not something I am really comfortable with. That said, I realize I just bought goose liver pate and fish eggs. Without my denial, I would have to be a vegan, I admit.
On that note, I leave the market, strolling a wide promenade along the river in the 70 degree day, peeling free of my jacket as my bags rustle along with my step. I snap pictures of an intricate manhole cover, as well as the yellow yarrow-like plants erupting through the railroad ties of the riverside tram. One the other bank in Buda, I can see a castle carved from the cliff face, dark and alluring. So much of Budapest is that way, dark one moment, filed with flower bouquets the next.
---
My afternoon is something of a failure, with one exception: I joined a Peace Parade.
A note on my bed in my hotel warned me that there would be closed streets and delays due to a parade, so I am not surprised when I am out looking for a hop on-hop off tourist bus that a mass of people waving Hungarian flags comes down the street in a cheerful roar.
It must people the newspaper person in me that walks towards a scene, not away. Without hesitation, I step into the crowd of elderly people and children as they wind around the bend from Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Ut to Andrassy Ut. Police line barricades in front of a stage full of people wearing white shirts with red kerchiefs around their necks, waving proudly as they blare patriotic music (something very Communistic sounding). One older man flips the stage off. Some people wave at the stage. Some are singing. Over my head, signs bob on garden stakes. I think some are districts or sates, with official looking seals. others are simple spray painted words. Still others have pictures of people. It’s all very nationalist, assuring me that I am not supporting some awful hate parade. At least, I think.
I walk a block or so, then weave tot he sidewalk to back track to the corner I began on. Locals carrying flags are jointing the crowd I walk against the stream of people. One man in a wheelchair wheeled by his wife grips a tiny Hungary flag, his face and hand etched in stone while the flag flutters in the breeze.
Finally, I locate a ticket seller who tells me the tourist bus is quitting today because of the street closures. He does, however, tell me that it’a a conservative parade supporting the current government. He also explains the white paper butterflies attached to the streets all around are made by school children celebrating the arrival of spring. He looks frustrated and bored, unable to sell tickets, a youth uninterested in something as arcane as politics. Like American young people, he feels it’s all so very pointless.
I rush down a dark walkway, using my photograph of my walking directions off my laptop to navigate the ten minute walk to the Central district location of my tour. I am late, on the verge of lost and maybe a little hopeful I will miss my last evening tour.
Alas, my arrival two minutes after the hour brings me a to local bookshop and bike rental where my guide Kata informs me I am the only guest. I raise my eyebrows in disbelief. She sweetly tells me it is a mistake, that it should have been cancelled for low numbers but they will honor it anyway. I am thinking this is worse that the twenty Russians I had envisioned. I am having dinner and drinks with a total stranger, worse than even a blind date because I have no promise of romance with this. Sometimes, I hate my adventure side. Book reading me wishes I was still home fighting with my Hungarian remote and room service goulash.
I fake a smile and decide to get with it. It’s my last night out in Europe. Tomorrow I will have to turn in early for a 4 a.m. airport transfer. This is it for me: the Budapest Nightlife with Dinner and Drinks Tour.
A short walk takes us to the Strudel House (I crack jokes about pancakes and try to explain IHOP, but to no avail). I learn we will be tasting palinkas (spirits) and I do the math on a taxi ride because there is no way I am walking home in the dark. Kata assures me she will get me a taxi and I order a beer, Soporani a bright local lager.
Over dinner, we discuss careers (she is a psychologist at the hospital moonlighting beer tours) and dogs. We share pictures of our dogs over creamy spiced sausage on bread, then julienned pepper glazed pork, followed by sour cherry strudel. Each course brinks a vodka-like palinka, too strong to do anything but down in a gulp. The last, Unicom, goes down in a swirl of herbs like Jaegermeister, only with a bitter finish that requires a chaser, for a full two minutes. Wow, learn something new every day, I think.
We visit two ruin bars, establishments set up in the ground floors of abandoned buildings. Many are mish mash interiors like a garage sale on absinthe, but the first one has a charming forest animal theme. Drawings of bears, bunnies and foxes playing instruments cover the walls, alongside picturesque nudes with moustaches (yeah, here too) and fairy lights. A warren of wooden rabbits arch over the inner atrium of the bar where I drink another small beer. We discuss Hungarian politics and she elaborates on the upcoming elections, but shrugs off any interest, echoing the man earlier today.
Kata and I make our way to the second ruin bar, a hopping place with a pounding Latin beat. Neon lights in green and oink expose the crumbling rock walls. One room has monitors displaying kaleidoscope fractals on their CRT screens. Wires run the length of the walls in post modern apocalyptica, tied into stuffed animals. The next room has broken children’s toys for seating. I see what she mean, it’s mostly junk.
Groups of men shouting for shots surround us as we take small stools by a wall. Thank goodness for the palinkas, so I can actually enjoy the din of the bachelor parties for half an hour. Although made popular by the guidebooks, this bar lacks the charm of the first., lacking access to the upper floor of former flats where we admired bright rooms with parquet floors peeking through linoleum overlay.
I finish my beer and tell Kata I am ready for my taxi. I have made it to 10:40 local time, something of which I am proud. Due to my dead phone, I have collected coasters from the bars, hoping to remember their names since I can’t tag them electronically. With a huge grin she has been wearing all night, she directs me t the street.
As we make our way to the corner to catch a taxi, we pass a group of drunk guys in tees shirts singing a wonderful four part harmony version of the BeeGees How Deep is Your Love to a group of admiring girls with cameras going. We laugh as we bib down the street around group after group of revelers, most of whom, like my guide, are decades younger than me.
The taxi arrives and I dump the contents of my right pocket in Kata’s hands, give her arm a squeeze and wave good bye. It was a fun night, but I know she is looking forward to meeting her friends on the Buda side in a while for wilder fun.
As I lay in my bed, the clip clop returns under my window.
Ah, hell. Why not?
I redress and at 11:37 I climb into the carriage. It’s a mere $10 for a half hour under a blanket in the coach. The man in his bowler and his wife in a Aussie drover hat, both swaddled in green oilskin drover coats point out the sites as I rest my bare feet on the blanket. The wool blanket and the beer has me leaning back to look at the stars through the towering grey buildings, most of the windows dark in the late hour. Only the sound of the hooves on pavement rings on the side streets barely wide enough for the carriage.
We swing left onto the riverfront road in front of Parliament, our journey over much too soon. The ponies start a trot as we enter traffic. I can smell their sweat and hair as they trot on to the cluck. Strangely enough, a whistle from the driver slows them. This couple loves their horse, never adding any command from the long whip.
Back at my hotel, I take a picture of the grey cart ponies and overtip the drivers. They are sweet and I realize they begin their evening rounds somewhere around 10 p.m. each night, coaxing tourists into their coach.
This is now how I see Budapest, a beckoning local who knows that if you can just see past a crumble here, a tear there, you will experience the spice and charm of Hungarian heart.
---
And...A video of me singing in the park. Because it is as close to busking as I can get.
And...A video of me singing in the park. Because it is as close to busking as I can get.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Blue Danube, Part I March 28, 2014 Budapest, Hungary
Blue Danube, Part I
March 28, 2014
Budapest, Hungary
A slurry of Viennese coffee and cream chases omelet laced with salty cheese, my last breakfast in Vienna. Hopelessly jet lagged, I am fuzzy headed and in a rush for my 10 a.m. train to Budapest.
My hopeless with trains makes me wary enough to arrive 30 minutes early. With nothing to do, I chat with a couple from Chicago, comparing notes. They have just come from Krakow, which they enjoyed. We are in the same boat, nervously checking every train that comes, even one nearly boarding a train leaving Budapest until the ticket agent helpfully stops us.
Our train is half an hour late and we doze in the sunny spring morning. The platform is across from a cemetery, adding a strange sense of familiarity to an otherwise sterile train station. Our Railjet train arrives and we quickly say goodbye as we head towards different compartments.
At least this time I have located the correct seat, which I will occupy without company for the duration of the journey. It’s a fast train, comfortable with private, airline style rows of reserved seats. I set up my laptop to unwind the previous day in my mind, trying to hide my sniffles when I write about my Dad and Max. The two and an half hour pass unnoticed as I tap, tap, tap into my keyboard. This has been one big adventure that I am finding I need to write about to digest.
As we pass into Hungary, new building take shape. The cottages of the countryside grow broader, unkempt, some crumbling. I dismiss them as country hovels, assured the city will be better looked after. Mile after mile, wildflowers dot the hillsides filled with pit mines, small boroughs and tall, leafless trees.
The conductor announces Kelenfold, one stop from Budapest. I swallow, afraid that there is more of this to come. Rubble lines the tracks alongside graffitied walls. There’s some trash, but it’s almost worse than that- buildings are crumbling. Next to neogothic storefronts stand odious cement blocks of the Communist regime. Satellite dishes adorn flat rooftops of instead of gargoyles. I had imagined Budpest as something like Istanbul, exotic, spicy and romantic. Right now it is reminding me of Russia, and I get a sinking feeling.
The signs announcing Budapest Keleti are hand painted and unlit, a far cry from the modernism of Russia. Most of them are rusty as well. The train pulls into the station, a mammoth building of yellowed brick supporting an aging cupola. I unboard my coach to a gritty, hazy stream of locals wheeling past me. Dismayed, I drag my heavy bags over uneven pavement to the curb, avoiding a taxi hawker although I need one (I never trust them inside a building).
After crossing some unmarked pavement i think is a road, I arrive at the official taxi stand. Three or four men chatter around me and grab for my bags, but I can tell they are trying to help me. “Local money,” one asks. I shake my head. “Euro,” he says as he nods. 20 Euro will get me to my hotel. Thank God, anywhere but here.
As we pull away, I see a huge Burger King neon sign that spans the side of a once beautiful building. Oh God, what have I done?
The taxi driver is polite, but drives fast amid the choking smoke of all the diesels here. As we zig and zag though Budapest, I scan the streets for what’s to come. Run down shops present themselves one after another after another as the ground level of seven story grey-brown buildings.
I pray there’s more to town as we round onto Andrassy Ut where I meet- a Nobu? Chopard, Armani, plus many fashionable European shops line the Unesco World Heritage Boulevard. Well, at least there’s good shopping, be it something I can get at home.
We arrive at the Chain Bridge Sofitel in a flurry of stops and starts, where the driver pulls up onto the sidewalk to let me out. This must be normal because the doorman simply opens my door. I pay the driver, but son’t tip because I know I just got hosed again on taxi fare. It was easily 10 minutes, probably an 8 Euro fare. Plus, I never saw a meter running (they are not all in boxes like the US, some are in mirrors like Vienna- others are in there pockets, like this fellow).
My hotel luck in in session, with a suite upgrade and a river view swapped for my value double in my package. I try listening to my bellman in tattered uniform as he explains the feature of my two room suite to me, (two doors, two tvs, two thermostats) but I am busy being freaked out.
The view is stunning, or would be, if the haze permitted a clear view of the Buda side of the river Danube. Adjacent to my hotel is a traffic circle with a park and statues that sits in front of The Four Seasons Gresham Palace. I am in one of the nicest parts of town.
I quickly start considering heading to Amsterdam tomorrow. I berate myself for using photographs and my imagination to book a trip somewhere this exotic. No wonder no one I know has been here. I start to wonder why they would even bother.
After calming down a little, with vodka from my flask, I realize I am being a bad traveller. Every city, just like people, have their good and bad sides. Aside form the pollution, Budapest is really a gorgeous city, the scope of Roman buildings applied to neogothic architecture. Its beauty is even more evident in the nighttime, when the lights of the buildings reflect off the waters of the black Danube.
With the hope of making new friends, I dress up and head for my evening tour, a river cruise with dinner. I wander up and down Ziriny Ut twice before locating Duna Palota (Danube Palace), which I had been looking for in English. A crowd of waiting tourists tips me off as the addresses are numbered only on the whole number (so if you rent a shop at 1/8 I guess you are in trouble for mail). Between number 4 and 5 are at least 3 storefronts.
My hope of conversations dwindles, then stalls, when I here no English spoken in the hall. The tourists are Hungarian, Russian, French, Japanese and Austrian. At least, those are the ones I can pick out. Hope is extinguished permanently when I am seated by a well meaning waiter by a window at a table for eight, with a couple already seated. They decide to move to a window themselves, leaving me alone. A French couple is then seated, but only the man replies to my timid “hello”. Unwilling to get down, I note that I have a perfect view of the stage, and look forward to whatever entertainment is on because I have the best seat in the house!
The waiter pours me a glass of wine to accompany my welcome champagne as the barge rumbles to life. The musicians take the stage,a trio of violin, viola and cello. The buffet opens and I pretend the French are gone, as they have to me. We never speak another word (sometimes I understand why my Dad’s family left that country), which means I get to sketch and take notes.
As I gaze at the buildings, I see a different city. The night takes away all the blight on the city. The smog creates halos on with the lights, there are no crowds and traffic is barely audible in the middle of the river. It becomes the Eastern European treasure it claims to be.
After the trio plays my favorite Hungarian Folk Dance melody (I let them choose and that’s what I lucked out on), I climb the stairs to the outer deck. I think it must be a sign that the band played me a melody from my Nick LaFlame playlist. Pondering the weirdness that leads me to create Itunes playlists for fictional characters in the first place, I settle onto a cane back chair on the forward deck.
Well lit bridges pass silently overhead as we head upriver to our dock. The bank is lined with river cruise barges overnighting in Budapest, as well as barges turned into pubs. The night is mild. The inky river is calm. Still full on chicken paprikas, something like spaetzle, stuffed cabbage and a few other unidentified but delectable items, I cozy into the quiet of a river in the middle of the city with other passengers huddled on the bow.
The evening ends with a short walk to my hotel where a huge feather bed awaits. I can’t fathom the TV, give up after ten minutes of searching for movies just in case I can’t sleep. I don’t even realize I have drifted off until that clatter of hooves wakes me.
Below my window, a pair of grey horse pulls a carriage around the city streets. I check my clock, nearly midnight.
I smile and turn out the light, vowing to seek out the carriage tomorrow every time they clatter by, which is several times more in the wee hours.
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Friday, March 28, 2014
Austria in Motion March 27, 2014 Vienna, Austria
Austria in Motion
Vienna, Austria
March 27, 2014
It’s a short walk to the Museum Quartier from my hotel. It’s late, 2 p.m. and I am just getting started. This is because I stayed up until 4 a.m. again trying to sleep. After an exciting voice lesson via Facetime, I just couldn’t get my eyes closed. Plus, I can’t let go of supervising our visitor guide production while I am gone. I read emails and correspondence until the wee hours. Coupled with writing my blog, which I realize is my way of processing my experiences, I am keeping odd hours these days.
I have learned that I will never be able to see it all, no matter how hard I try. Each trip means I must prioritize, choose a theme or some highlights, and enjoy whatever happens. Unfortunately, my train leaves Vienna early tomorrow morning, so I will have only this afternoon to see what I can.
The Museum Quartier is a complex of museum and art spaces in central Vienna. Lined with cafes and outdoor seating, it offers lots of art in a compact area. Perfect!
I choose the Leopold, partly because it was recommended as a “must see” museum in my guidebook, but also because the logo looks intriguing (an abstract figure in semi erotic pose, black on red). I am hoping for something other than a bland collection of portraits if I am only getting one museum here.
As I pass through an archway into the inner courtyards of the complex (imagine a grounds that spans 2 or 3 DC memorials), I spy a cafe full of people. It looks friendly and I am starving. I take my chances and grab a wooden slatted chair, hoping my twenty something waitress is kind. And speaks English. It’s been more than 24 hours since I had a conversation out loud, at least.
She does, and quite well.
I am a total eavesdropper when I hear English spoken. It’s a human thing to want connection, I think. Next to me is a Spanish student conversing with an Austrian couple in English. It’s mostly about politics but I laugh out loud when she says her thesis presentation in German might be a “f*#$*ing mess”, since she speaks Spanish and her English Lit degree is in, well, English. Well, at least she used her expletive properly.
My breakfast/lunch is a spinach dumpling. I wish I could explain is well, because it was fantastic in a very vegetarian way. Imagine a buttery stuffing of cheese laced spinach, but airy and surrounded by poached cinnamon pears placed on a bed of red cabbage, topped with candied walnuts. I left only some of the cabbage, as it was a little bitter for me. I wash it down with local Ottakringer beer and a latte macchiato as I eavesdrop on a group of Americans who have just taken the table to my left.
LA should be more careful about who it sends abroad, because they definitely leave an impression on foreign countries.I am hardly perfect, but these chicks exemplify the disdainful American travel mindset. It’s funny how on one hand they love being in Europe, yet want to know nothing about it. All they are here to do is consume what they already understand. For instance, they order their food (sprechen se English she says in a joking voice when she knows well they do), salads with cheese, but endlessly complain that it is grilled (basically a huge, buttery slab of fried cheesy goodness the size of garlic bread atop a plate of greens). I get the feeling that each site is a coup, a trinket that can be counted, quantified, essentially bought. The Vienna Riding School is a “take it or leave it” activity. As a horse person, I have an opinion about this. I lean over and insert myself to try to comment, they look at me like an alien and resume their conversation like I haven’t spoken.
Hmmm. Interesting.
I finish my coffee surrounded by Americans and English, for there is a man behind me, pleading for all the world reasons he can’t marry the girl he is with, unless they date for eight years. Eight years?! Who has that kind of time?, I think. I overtip my waitress as an apology for my countrymen and move along to the Leopold across a square filled with people lounging on blue benches designed for reading. I like a country that encourages reading, coffee and art.
Inside the Leopold I have a revelation. I have discovered the Colorist Movement. While crowds flood the 4th floor to view the Klimt exhibition, I make two passes in each salon taking in the bold lines and raw application of paint by Berg, Kolig, Shatz, and Johansson, although I don’t care for Egon Schiele. I return over and over to Kolig’s Longing, a bold figure of a man thrust forward in movement by his emotion. The paintings are large, occupying feet instead of inches, often filled with a single image or idea. Man on a Diving Board is my other favorite, by Johannessen, yet The Hope by Schatz is intriguing for its stark sexuality and intriguing robed man amongst boudoir clad women. I never pick up the audio guide, inclined to form my own opinions about what I see, but this piece could use some translation.
The exhibit is named Between the Wars, and there is a long series of short films in a small theatre off the main hall. As you enter, a twelve foot wall details the years of 1918-1939, leaving the book end years, and its effects left unsaid. As I sit and watch black and white reels of strong Austrians skiing, making their first telephone calls and celebrating the electrification of the railroad, my thoughts turn to a message from a lifelong family friend earlier that day. I had forgotten that her father, a friend of my parents, fled Austria during the war. They have family here still.
I remember Big Max Von Zimmermann as a man with a great smile, a duffer cap and intense eyes behind dark glasses. His firm and resolute manner with a touch of mirth always made him the center of a room, at least in my eyes. This is a trait he has passed onto his children as well. As I watch the film and consider the Austrians as a whole, I can only think of how the country refuses to look backward. Unlike the German psyche scarred with doubt and guilt, the Austrians seem to have quietly endured and refused to let it ruin their reserved national countenance. Although I can’t say for certain, I am pretty sure Max’s tattoo of numbers was the first I had ever seen, but I don’t remember asking him about it.
Later in the evening, my thoughts still linger on Austria. It’s a hard country to pin down in words. Vienna is massive, modern and devoted to art. Legions of performers come each year, including my taxi driver’s favorite band Metallica. Citing them as “powerful”, he nods in time as I tell him I don’t mind his music, which he has turned down on his iPhone as we head towards a chamber concert at Schonbrunn Palace. It strikes me as funny because the first time I ever heard German was during my heavy metal period in high school (Husker Du, Warlock and Yngwie Malmsteen). Regardless of genre, it’s a city that respects music.
Seated in a red velvet wrapped chair, the lights flicker, then fade down as the first violin takes her seat. The six person ensemble tunes to her bowing, after a check with the piano. Blessed me, they begin with the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony in G Minor, K. 183, I: Allegro, one of my favorite pieces.
I guess I am having a hard day thinking about the people who have passed in my life, like Max and my Dad, because I cry a little thinking of how much my father would have loved this concert. I even pretend for a moment the empty seat in the front row before me is reserved for him. He is the reason I was exposed to music. Often, he would turn on a music program on public television, much too loud and make me watch. He loved the Canadian Brass, and every family member can recount a time when he blasted the 1812 Overture over the beach from the speakers on his deck, much to the annoyance of his neighbors.
He didn’t care. Music was love in motion to him.
It is to me as well. Full on Viennese boiled beef and superb red wine from the pre-concert meal, I settle into an hour and a half of music. It is mostly Haydn and Mozart, with every other piece a ballet or art song. The actors and dancers are charming, the soprano doing a very classy yet funny version of “Ah! Quel dîner” (La Périchole), a drinking song. During intermission, I purchase a small watercolor of a horse drawn carriage as the other patrons drink wine and coffee (I used my champagne scrip before the show).
As I walk along the deserted avenue in front of Schonbrunn to the taxi stand, I take in the solitude. It’s cold, and I am indeed vey alone in this world. The scent of a flowering tree wafts by, stark branches reaching into the night sky against the glow of the palace walls. A taxi speeds by, I signal quickly and he stops. I slide in, greeted by a happy Italian man with warm eyes who chats into his earpiece as I give my hotel address.
As I let the heat sink into my cold bones, I think about how we are never really alone for long, For that, I am so thankful.
---
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Transitions Prague to Vienna March 26, 2014
Transitions
March 26, 2014
Prague to Vienna
The last morning in Prague passes quickly, aided by late, bleary eyed rising and a quest to make a gift purchase. I return to shop to buy a marionette horse, but discover its menacing face was not so evident from the shop window. Not the perfect gift, after all. However, right next door does contain the perfect item, a bowl decorated in stars, cut from heavy Czech crystal. Aided by an ever helpful threesome of young ladies, I am not only delighted in the glass but can have it shipped home as well.
I retrace my path from yesterday, but beat my pace by 10-15 minutes in a direct route. My train leaves in an hour and I am notorious for screwing up train transfers (ask me about Paris Gare Nord, Venice, Kiel, Hanover...you get the idea). I take one last taxi without my favorite driver, Michal, arriving in plenty of time at Praha hlavní nádraží (main station). Now I just need food for the ride. Please God, save me.
It’s becoming evident to me that I am that awful character in When Harry met Sally. I like my food just so. Probably because I am allergic or sensitive or ethically opposed to most food. Mostly, I like salads, raw fruit and cold mayonnaise. PIzza is good. Coffee, yogurt. These I can do. However, I always like to order weird items in foreign countries. It’s really weird. I have had pigeon, haggis, veal, eel, all manner of weird homebrew, and last night I ate a slab of what I think was a nice local butter, thinking it my cheese course.
My options in the train station are limited. Burger King or French baguette. The line is really long at Burger King, and it looks sketchy, even for train station fast food. I choose the sandwich shop. I point and nod, hoping I get something nice like ham or turkey. It’s called the American. I am certain it will have tomatoes, at least. As I consume it waiting on the platform form my train, I am at least half way through when I realize the strange taste is hardboiled egg (something I forget about later when I shove the second half in my carry on during boarding). At least Cokemakes everything taste like childhood (I never drink soda, but here it makes up for a lot of things).
The train ride is five hours and passes as train rides generally do, slowly and without much effort. I doze, listening to the endless chatter of the people sitting next to me in German. I understand nothing, but we smile and nod when we need to move around or pass trash to the bin.
The green fields of Czech Republic give way to tall firs that look for all their worth like the ladies of seventeenth century court dress, their boughs hanging a beautiful dark green bell. I imagine them cousins with my Seattle firs once when waking from a nap, only to drift off again soon.
I totally blow it leaving the train station, Wien Meidling, which uses arrows to direct travelers. There’s not even a language, except TAXI in big yellow letters. I enjoy two escalator trips up and down, two elevator trips up and down before I find the exit. I am still reeling from the realization that I was sitting in seat 44 instead of 46 the entire train ride, something I figure out an hour before we arrive (I should have looked more closely at the picture next to the number). Even worse, the younger gentleman had tried to tell me so. I had shook my head and shrugged and he took the coveted window seat with a table.
Alas, I do have awesome luck with hotels. I always get the upgrade. Tonight in Vienna is no different and after I let the taxi driver charge me a flat fee instead of run a meter, I arrive at Levante Parliament.
It’s a treasure in the central district with modern design, glass, marble and steel filling the small spaces. My room, ahem, junior suite, y’all, is cozy but way more room that I need. I have a desk, a couch and some art glass that looks Chihuly-esque. I sigh with relief when I test it to make sure it is securely fastened to the desk lest I send it flying somehow. Orange accents everything. The floor is heated in the bathroom and there’s a fridge full of beer.
I think I am going to like Austria.
Love, D
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