Break down the Iron Curtain and Battle the Turks -Recapturing Budapest

Days 7 and 8 - Budapest, Hungary

Population: 2.5 -ish million

Picking up where I left off....the Keleti train station in Budapest was huge, reminded me a lot of Gare du Nord in paris with the high ceiling that stretched on forever...but outside it was dreary and still 5 am and rainy and not fun and I needed to find my hostel, plus I'd just slept for a mere two hours and was ready for more zzzzzs.  So bleary eyed with the sandman's sand still crunching my tear ducts I headed for the metro, couldn't find an open currency exchange so prayed that I could hop on the metro inconspicuously like in Vienna, which I thankfully did and found my way to the right metro stop, from there the directions were terrible and I couldn't find the street and it was pitch black and my umbrella was packed away in this giant heavy bag...asked a gas station attendant where the street was and he pointed me in the semi right direction so eventually I got to the hostel which is in this old historic building on the second floor so it doesn't actually look like a hostel and at first I was even more confused...got in, put my stuff down, napped, then woke up with sunlight and a new city outside awaiting my eager exploration. The hostel here is really nice-high ceilinged rooms, small again but a quaint common room with comfy couches and a big screen flat TV and wireless internet and there's only four girls staying here, two germans and one brit, and one guy I think that left today and the beds are nice and the bathroom is just one but its tiled and has an actual bathtub, although the water is hot/cold and doesn't stay hot very long, but overall its very homey, nice little pink curtains on the window sand mini lockers for each of us, a kitchen.....etc.

So out on the streets of Budapest, at first I'm not impressed, then I get to the edge of the city where the Danube river =, this huge river, runs straight through with these extension bridges crossing from one side to another and these huge orante buildings built into the cliffs of the other side with houses peeking out of hte trees and some giant green copper oxidized statues farther down in the cliffs and peaks of churhces pointing up and it was really pretty. Except that I was still a little tired and my feet were soaking wet and it was not the best day to be walking around. Still, I started off by taking a bus out of the city to the Statue Park, where they put all the old giant communist party statues after communism ended.  I'd heard about the park but didn't remember it being in Budapest so that was a nice surprise, and it was good to have the bus ride first to see a wide sweep of the city and realize how pretty it was, my hostel is in the south of Pest which is just shops and buildings like any city, you have to walk a little to get to the historic part and the cool parks and such. Memento Park/Statue Park - although it was rainy and we walked through the mud, it was very impressive to see the giant statues. If there were workers they were marching in uniform, they were sort of half 3D like coming out of the stone in big plaques, otherwise there were some just giant 3D men, a guy who looked like he was running with a flag who might have been fifty feet tall and I got a cool picture next to him. Then there was an exhibiton hall that had a good little overview of Budapest's communist era, and a film that was part of the secret service's training records on how to bug a house, do home raids, and how to blackmail someone into enlisting in state security. It said at the height of the communist era there were 20,000 people watching over 70,000 of their 'comrades' but plus family and friends that makes over 100,000. It showed real video clips of guys with briefcases with hidden cameras placing them in the proper manner on a cafe table to watch and videotape a conversation of a supposed traitor, when to get up and leave, etc etc. There was also outside a giant podium/big steps where Communist leaders would give speeches, and the famous statue of Stalin's boots (during the revolution in October 1956 one of the big things they did against the communist dictatorship was to go up to this giant statue of Stalin that was in the middle of a main boulevard and saw off the top part of the statue so all that was left were nine or ten feet of his metal boots, and it stayed like that for the rest of the time, very symbolic. This revolution of 56, under president Imre Nagy who is still worshipped as a hero of freedom and rights, there was a nice statue of him in the middle of the city, but the revolution was for ten days and hundreds of thousands of people met in front of Parliament to protest the communist reign and ask for democracy, thousands were killed when the soviet tanks rolled in. It started as peaceful demonstrations and then some of the young men and women went to the radio station and asked to be allowed to read their twelve point manifesto of rights on the air, were denied, and the communists decided then that the revolution could go no further and fights broke out. Half of the revolutionaries were under 25, so it was definitely a younger generation's call for a new era, and there's an unmarked memorial grave in front of the parliament dedicated to all those who perished in the square, and there were fresh flowers and wreaths on it even today. Over 200,000 people left the country after the failed revolution, escaping communism, which was finally replaced by democratic elections in 1991, but Hungary today really does a great job remembering and commemorating that revolution, they're very proud of it. The first shop here had cool souvenirs, real postcards from the cold war with CCCP on them, that video of the state security methods, CDs with famous communist songs that I would have bought but it was twenty bucks and I'm traveling rather lightly, and some funny print Tshirts making fun of Stalin and Lenin and the like. (the main communist dictator in the last years in Hungary was Kadar).

On the bus back we listened to Hungarian radio which is awesome because its mostly pop Western European and American songs which I love, and I heard some songs I'd never heard in France that were great, I'm going to try to download them when I get back (they were in English). David Guetta, Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spear's Womanizer, ahh to be in Eastern Europe. Back in the main square which actually was not a square at all and not that impressive, though I think it's where a lot has happened like Le Meridien hotel which is there now used to be the main police HQ under the communist regim, but from there I walked down "Fashion Street" a main shopping boulevard, which was pretty good, comparable to the Champs Elysee. Traditional souvenirs sold in Budapest - those Russian stack dolls (obviously not Russian here but the same idea) real dolls in traditional dresses with sequins and colorful frocks, lack with colorful flowers sewn in, scarves like in Zagreb, wooden crafts, these giant wooden pencil in colors that were really fat, etc. There was a cool Christmas store that smelled like cinnamon and sprices, oh yeah, and paprika is somehow indicative of Budapest and was sold everywhere in little sachets or jars, I had no idea and I don't think I like paprika that much either so tant pis pour moi. There was also a really good high quality chocolate shop. I asked what Hungarian chocoalte was and most of it was chocolate covered marzipan but there were also chocolate covered cherrie with liqueur inside which I bought to take back. Petite parenthese to explain some of my ideas that have emerged from my travels - 1. To share my travels with all my friends back in Aix, I'm trying to buy a little something from each city that they can 'experience' easiest is taste so I'm getting a little something of local traditional cuisine that's easy to take back so we can do a sort of show and tell hopefully, it's sort of mostly sweets because that's just easiest to package and transport, chocolates and such. In Budapest I bought the cherries and this dessert that was like dough with chocolate and nuts rolled into it so it looks like a spiral when you cut in, and these little bottles of Hungarian liqueur that were being sold everywhere- one called Unicum Zwack which is a bitter aperitif and an apricot wine/liqueur called Barack. 2. Most of my pictures are not with me in them, because even in countries where they speak English I don't like to ask if someone can take my picture and especially not in the middle of Yugoslavia, where there just weren't many tourists and I didn't feel like it, so instead of getting upset I've decided to make it a game and if it works, I'm going to photoshop myself in my little red riding hood jacket that I haven't taken off yet in each corner of the pictures, like Where's Leslie? It should be good. 3. Sunday when I get back to Aix (this was going to be its own post but its really not worth it so I'll put it here) I am oh so ready to have a self-beautifying/cleansing day, and of course do my homework. But my hands are like peeling its gross on my fingertips and my nail polish is all cracked, my feet need a good scrub and my clothes need to be washed (you don't want to know how many pairs of jeans and shirts I brought, the answer is not many). I'm going to blow dry and straighten my hair and get it out of its now ten day ponytail, take a really really really long shower, shave for the first time in ten days!! (ahh!!)) wash my face a lot lot lot, and get nice and clean :)))) Cannot wait.

Anyways, back in Budapest I crossed the Chain Link Bridge, this bridge thats an extension bridge like the Brooklyn bridge, not really ornamented but special because it was important to unite the two sides of the Danube, (Budapest used to be two cities, Buda, and Pest, which united in 1873). Crossing the bridge there was this amazing view of both sides and you could see the ships underneath you and in the hills of Buda there was the Buda castle jsut etched into the side of the moutainy land and the houses peeked out and on the Pest side you could see the church spires and the spires of the Parliament building up North, whihc I at first mistook for a giant chruch because of its gothic style it really looks like a church, very very detailed little spires.  On the Buda side now I climbed up up up to the Buda castle, which, like any other castle, was huge and had huge statues of men on horses outside (it also had a statue/painting almost made out of statues in the back of a hunting scene which is something I'd never seen in statue form) and the air and breeze were really fresh up high. The castle looked more like a 19th or 20th century seat of government than what you'd think of at the wor dcastle, it had a round dome in the middle and then two wings that came off it, a little bit ike the US capitol only this dome was a maroony red and the wings were not really white. So today parts of the museum are the Budapest history museum, one part is the National Gallery of Art, and another part is the National Archives and library. I went in the history museum where, for about two euros, they had SOOOO much history it was overwhelming, and I would love to spend  more time there. The lower part of the museum was actually the older ruins of the original castle (it was all bombed up after World War II so it was rebuilt, but underground they had some original rooms and a chapel and just a lot lot lot of rooms that you could walk through and get a sense of living there a long time ago.  So I learned that Budapest has the most eclectic history ever- the Romans were there and built the town Aquincum, then some Slavs came and the Magyar tribe led by Arpad were like the first true inhabitants of the modern day Buda, and there were lots of Germans that moved here and then they constantly fought off the turks and the first Hungarian king was St Stephen (who has the basilica named after him, where they have the relic of his right hand on display) and then in the mid 1500s the Turks won and the city was under Turkish control for 150 years until 1686 when the Pope organized a group of warriors to regain the city and he gave it to the Austrians so it would stay protected, so then Maria Theresa and her clan took over, and ou had Austria-Hungary, and from there on modern history's not as interesting. The Germans occupied the city in late 1944 and bombed it all to the ground, so it had to be rebuilt (at the citadel, which used to be a World War II bunker, they had an interesting picture display of what the city looked like every decade starting in the late 1870s, up to World War II where it was rubble and the bridges were broken).  And the city had a bustling Jewish population, in the 1400s two Jews ran the national mint, and of course all the Jews were killed in the Holocaust but the Jewish quarter still exists, it was supposed to be bombed but at the last moment the Germans didn't do that so there's still the synagogue there, the biggest one in Eastern Europe, which I went to the next day with Miklos and it was super cool. More on that to come. So the history museum had way too much history, but it also had a room with propaganda posters from the 20th century political parties which was interesting, and a room with all these statues reconstructed from pieces that they found underneath parts of Buda when they were doing excavations really really recently, 1994 and 1997, and they found all these amazing statues from the 12th century and woven cloths and coins from Louis II (the Great's) era. The recent stuff was very very interesting and I'm sure there's a ton more buried underneath the hills of Buda today. 

Continuing, leave the museum and walk up, admire the views from the castle, look at the little handmade crafts being sold at the little stands on the top of the hill, buy a Hungarian Funnel Roll which was amazing, it was dough rolled around a rolling pin so it's in a funnel shape, baked but hot so the inside's still doughy and yeasty and you can smell the fermentation of the yeast like wine and the outside is crunchy and hot, I got cinnamon so it was sugary and the cinnamon stuck to my fingers and it was greatness.  (Ross you would love love love it). Walked up to Matthias Church, a famous church with another colorful tiled roof but it is under construction/excavation/research so there was too much scaffolding. Then it's getting dark, but in front of the church there's this arrangment of stone turrets built at the edge of the cliffs , with stairs leading up and down and its sort of just a lookout point but lit up its beautiful and reminds me of those Sandcastles you can buy in California, it's called Fisherman's Bastion and was my favorite point of the city (even though, like seemingly all the monuments around here, part of it was veiled under renovation). Then I walk down down down and walk along the edge of the Danube, get to the Rudas Baths but don't go in, there's tons of people there they have thermal baths and hot springs and pools and Budapest's famous for them.  Oh yeah, on the other side of the Danube there's this statue of a boy jester made out of a coppery dark goldish metal and he's sitting on the fence with a grin on his face, it's on a lot of brochures for the city but I didn't really learn its significance, I did, however, snap a photo. Walk around some more, get to the train station to buy a ticket for Saturday. In the metro there's like police people standing at the entrance checking to make sure you punch your ticket, so you actually ahve to buy a ticket.  Next day, start off at the market which incidentally is a block away from the hostel. It's indoors this time in this really old brick building (the brick's are yellow and red in stripes which is cool, like the synagogue) and there's meat stands, bakeries, and veggies and fruits. There's a second floor with souvenirs that I didnt' go up to. As always, I love markets, and this one was no different.  There were strings of garlic cloves and lots of red hot chili peppers, another Hungarian specialty, again more paprika, and the bread here is in all shapes but there's this giant, maybe one and a half feet in diameter, round puffy loaf that's unique.Also in this one bakery there wa sa wholer ow of little pop ups.  Super cheap stuff, also at the meat stands there are these long long sausages rolled in white paper with red white and green stripes (the colors of Hungary's flag).  Below the market is a supermarket in case you missed something upstairs (their supermarkets are called Match). Oh yeah, they also sell a lot of wine and liqueurs here, honey, and foie gras in these black tins. Cake like the kind I had in Zagreb, and all other sorts. The roll with filling that I got was called dios begli. Then crossed over tot eh Buda side and walked up up up up up up really really high to see these two statues carved into the forested hillsides on the southerly side- the Statue ofSt Gellert which is this saint with a big cross and some penitent, scared sinner at his feet with a row of columns in a semi circle in the background for an awe inspiring effect, and directly below the statue theres part of the cliff with a man made waterfall and steps symmettrically placed so they look like they're going all teh way up to the statue and sort of give it a nice border effect from the ground. Then even higher there's the Statue of Liberty which is this woman who's huge, holding up what looks like an olive branch in both hands, and on either side of her she is flanked by two little statues, and behind her is the citadel which was the world war II bunker and it kind of looks like a fort only doesn't have walls with those little tours and one side has all these shell marks on it.  Walking up to the statues you walk through a forested area of rock cliffs with lots of trees with leaves all over the place and you look straight out to the Danube and get higher and higher and you can hear the bird's chirping and leaves rustling and nothing else because you're so high up. Oh yeah, and yesterday even though the rain was miserable we got to see this huge rainbow arc across the sky which was beautiful. Then I walked back to Pest and up to the Parliament, which is also a seat for the European Commission and it was this huge buildling and like I said it doesn't look like a governmental building, it's the coolest parliament I've ever seen, and the greenery in front of it had these flowers that were purple and orange and yellow, very bright, and that memorial to Oct 25. Next found St Stephens Basilica, which was nice inside, very big and had lots of domes on the ceiling instead of gothic vaulted ceilings. St Stephen died in 1038 and was made a saint in 1083, like I said they had his hand there in a reliquary in the chapel and he was the founder of the state of Hungary. For the rest of the afternoon I spent the day with my aunt Jamie's former piano teacher Miklos who now lives in Budapest. He took me to the synagogue and Heroe's Square and the Opera and then to his house on the Buda side where I met his wife Eva and we had tea and little biscuits and more of that cake like I had in Zagreb and we saw pictures of his family. It was very fun. The synagogue was huge and did not look like a synagogue at all, it had these two towers with bulbed domes on top that reminded me of a mosque and it was made of red and yellow brick, inside there were wooden pews almost in long rows and the spherical lamps that I have seen in other eastern european buildings, and the bimah, there were stained glass windows with simple designs of stars (not six pointed more like eight pointed) and a little organ in the back.  There's also a Jewish museum and memorial for the victims of Shoah that we didn't get to.  From there we went to Heroes Square, where they have this big monument for World War I, Arpad the tribal leader, and statues of all the former kings in a semi circle fashion in between big pillared columns. Behind the main square there, where all the dignitaries and heads of state give speeches, was a bigger park with a bunch of museums, and the main cross street there is where the Communist parades used to unfold and where the giant statue of Stalin was. On the way back on the metro we stopped at the Opera House to take a picture. All the while Miklos told me his amazing stories about his life, he was a famous concert pianist who left Hungary in December 1956 because of the revolution for Paris, didn't know a word of French but lived there ten years and got married, reached stardom with the piano, then moved to the States and in 94 moved back to Budapest. He has so many amazing stories- he decided in his sixties to buy a motorcycle and travel around europe with it, his second wife and he have been married fourteen years and their story is the quintessential love story- first true love at age 20, separated by politics and strife, misunderstood anger that prevents them from seeing each other fro 36 years, finally reconciled and now they're together and he says it's the happiest time of his life (the full story is way better I promise).  He also told me lots of interesting things about life in Hungary during Communism, leaving because of the revolution, memories of childhood during World War II, I would have liked to learn more but didn't always have the right questions to ask and after all, we just met and this wasn't interview-time.

After that I went back to the other train station where below there is this absolutely ginormosu mall with every store you could ever want, way better than Woodfield in Chicago and Northbrook Court, walked around there for a while, then went up to Andrassy Utca (Street) which is this main boulevard that leads up to Heroe's Square, its where the opera is and its lined with little trees and at night it wasnt too special but during the day it might be nicer. Walked along that, found this American Halloween store that was hopping and had stuff lining the walls it was insane, found my way back to the hostel. Oh yeah also at the market I bought this roll like a cinnamon roll only it was doused in chocolate, had chocolate filling and on top, delicous, fifty cents. I am from here on out renouncing Panera because it's absoultely no comparison (the roll looked like panera cinnamon rolls in its shape/size to give you an idea). Also I got MacDo again with Miklos, but that's really not important (MacDo and I seem to be reconnecting seeing as in America I really never get it!?!) Extra random stuff- Paris in Hungarian is Parizs (the i also has an accent) which is just a better way of spelling it, zs are severely underrated, and when I was walking back in this main little area of the city with benches and some grass there were hoards of teenagers smoking and in little bike gangs doing wheelies and skateboarders, going up the modern style benches that acted well as ramps. Talked on skype some, some others from the group are already back in Aix and were preparing to go to halloween parties- something I definitely would have enjoyed. Halloween wasn't really anything in Budapest or elsewhere in Eastern Europe, they had jack o lanterns in some restaurants and shop windows, flower shops tried to use it as an excuse to buy your friends and loved ones more flowers, and I saw that one shop and one add for a halloween party in the window. 

Saturday morning take one last walk out in the streets of Budapest, it's all saints day so everything's closed like the market but I reach the Danube, breath in the marvelous fresh air and say bye to Budapest. Metro to Keleti Palyaudvar (East End train station), use up my last forints (260 to one Euro) on this chocolate coconut square piece of cake and a challah roll with strawberry jam inside, board the train destined to Berlin with stops at Bratislava and Prague, and I'm off to my last city. In retrospect, I think my favorite two cities were Zageb and Budapest, I definitely would have liked to spend more time there. There was this island in the middle of the Danube that was up North and I didn't see it until the afternoon of Friday but it's called Margaret Island, two miles long, no cars, just lots of trees and gardens and its supposed to be really pretty but I didn't have time to get there. Also near the hostel there were lots of cool Antikvariums (antique shops).  On to Bratislava!

Bueno Bars, Sniffing Dogs, and Sleeping Trains - In and Out of Serbia

Day 6 and a little - Belgrade, Serbia and the Night Train

Population: 1.7 million

From Zagreb, I decide that since I'm oh so close tot eh rest of the former Yugoslavia it'd be a shame not to profit from the proximity. Ideally I'd love to tag on Sarajevo and Belgrade to my voyage, but I realize the time would not be conducive to that plan, seeing as they are both a good ten hours from each other and Zagreb, so I decide to head further east instead of south to Sarajevo and buy a one-way ticket to Belgrade, Serbia.  No expectations, no planned outings, no hostel arrangements. Great. Train from Zagreb to Belgrade- mostly farmland, brown occasionally green, occasional brush near the train tracks, but since the train left at 6 am I did get to see the sun rise, or more specifically just the cirrus clouds brighten and the sky slowly drift into a bright blue from the dark of nothingness.  Towns passed: Ivanic Grad, Srinec, Kutina, Ilova, Banora Jaruga, Nova Gradiska, Nova Kapela-Batina, Slavorski-Brod, Andrijevci, Strizivojna-Vrpolje, Vinkovci, Ruma Pyma, Stara Pazova.  Passed sheperds herding a flock of sheep, some pastures of horses and cattle, kids waiting at the track crossing with their backpacks, waving at the train as it passed, the countryside on this ride was more muted colors, faded greens and browns than the last ride. Lots more houses near the tracks, all of that clay/stucco like material and usually white, with a tile roof that was wavy and looked unstable, houses loked generally in worse shape than on previous rides, additions to houses or little shacks in the fields made out of wood and tin roofs, rotted wood, near the border there were all these random little towers like you'd see on the top of fortresses that looked half buried in the ground, maybe ten feet talll, but not demarcating anything at all...maybe every couple of miles. Once we hit Serbia the signs started being in the Roman alphabet and the Cyrillic one, which was cool to look at at first but once I actually got to Serbia it was really confusing and I can't see how they do it, I think they must just use the cyrillic alphabet and have some touristy signs in the roman because the street signs were cyrillic but my map had them marked in roman so I had no idea where I was on the map most of the time. Another good reason for me not planning this voyage. About halfway through the voyage the train stops...always disconcerting...and BCA starts. BCA = Border Crossing Anxiety.  I'd read stories on the internet of the abruptly rude border crossing guards and people getting kicked off the train for not having the right papers and they'd be stranded in the middle of nowhere, one foot in Croatia and the other who knows where...and of all the countries for me to have this happen I didn't doubt Serbia would be most likely, but for all that it was fine. The guy asked me where I was going and for how long, he radioed in to HQ which was odd and said my full name over the walkie talkie, but then he gave me a stamp and kept going. Once we passed a little hut with a landing pad and helicopter on it, sometimes there were piles of trash, old mattresses near the tracks, the lady sitting across from me looked normal, stylish, got on at the first Serbian post, then I noticed that she was mising the top part of one of her middle fingers and the ring finger next to it had a really deformed nail..hmmm. When things were translated from Serbian they were always in French and German, no English. So the train rolls in to Belgrade after passing real shanty towns on the opposite sides of the tracks, where there were lots of people and the huts with tarp roofs with tires on them were packed together in a little valley, there were bunches of kids playing with sticks, get off the train at Belgrade and I definitely feel like this city is in need of some beautification planning and structure.  Right as you step out of the train station you get harassed by guys saying 'Taxi, taxi" which is annoying, then they're literally no crosswalks anywhere and you have to cross this street with two tram tracks and five lanes for cars going everywhich way and that was scary, the whole city was very dirty and apart form the main shopping street the buildings were grungy, there weren't even street signs to help you find your way, and the buildings were all just constructions of rectangles and nothing much to look at. I'm not sure what kind of feel I was supposed to have of the city- more Eastern, Turkish, Middle Eastern, but in general I didn't have the sense of it being anything unique. Food also was not too pleasing, yes they had kebabs and falafel but so did Zagreb and now Budapest, and I got this thing called Burek which was a giant friend pie with layers of dough and some cheese stuffed in it and they cut you a big slice that is sooooooo greasy it's not funny, it was the closest thing to cheese pizza I happened to find. Also bought this brownie at a place that looked like Paul's in France, expecting it to be amazing, but it was not, very bland and dry. So what was cool in Serbia? The park with the fortress, obviously. Fortresses are always cool.  This one beat out the one in Ljubljana by a long shot, it was a lot bigger and you could walk on top of the fortified walls and walk into the little crevices that were bulit for the cannons to peak out of and shoot (they're still there) and if you walked to the back of the fortress it overlooked where the two main rivers meet and the hillside view of the back of the city was beautiful, then there was this big statue of some guy, not sure who, that was at the peak and he was looking out at the junction of the rivers...that's the picture I got on my postcard of Belgrade to remember. There was also a little belltower and two stone gates that you walked through to get in....built in the 1700s but the fortress itself was built before then. They were actually rebricking part of the outer gate when I was walking through it. And in one part of the fortress near the western side there was an old Roman well that you'd take steps to go down and see but it was closed for research purposes for a while.  The fortress was cool because it was clearly built into the earth, the different layer of wall just sort of sprung up as you walked up or down a slope and in the middle of the park that was inside the main walls you could tell that you were walking on top of rooms below you inside the fortress, you saw the windows into them when you looked at the terrain that sloped downwards and had a protecting wall. Part of it was turned into a military museum so there were lots of tanks and cannons at the entrance gate, most of which looked freshly painted but I think they were a little older, though who knows, they may have been in Kosovo a few years ago. (it's so weird to think I was in a warring country or a country that is still having civil unrest, just because I've been watching Kosovo in the news for so long). Then just outside the fortress was a nice park still overlooking the side of the river, with busts of famous people and a World War I statue and old men playing chess on tables and guys selling popcorn and ice cream (Jadzia you'd be in heaven with the amount of popcorn sold here, eveyone's eating a little baggy with Mickey Mouse on the front) :)

So then I just walked around the city a bunch, down the main shopping street with stnads selling traditional things and then big brand namestores, they had a cool cultural center/store where I got notebooks with art deco style covers and cyrillic sayings on them and a mug with the same retro designs, in the middle of the street there were guys with cages with little puppies in them and I think they were collecting money for animal shelters, you did on some non-main roads and in the park see random dogs just laying there, they ddint' look mangy or starving and there weren't that many they were rather cute but I think they must have a stray problem. I walked through the "Bohemian Quarter" which is just a street made of big stones (so it's uneven/hard to walk on) with lots of little cafes and there's one building that stretches half the length of the street that's painted to lok like another street with grassy patches and trees and it was okay, nothing too great on that street, and it wasn't packed or anything like the bustling business of Zagreb. The idea of a bohemian quarter was cooler than the reality. Everyone in the food stores I went in, like the bakery, once they found out I spoke english asked where I was from and were pleased/surprised to hear me say America, actually the three people who said that then said they'd been there or had a family member/friend there and asked what i was doing in Serbia, etc etc, so the restaurant business/bakery business employees were friendlier/more interesting than in the other cities, but that may have been because they don't really ever get American tourists. I saw this random church that was small/dark inside and really not in any particularly nice style, the main square was okay again nothing special/beautiful, there was a Student's park which was small but at least green with a few little statues, and another park that was okay with some flowers but I was too confused about where I was to fully appreciate the greenery, plus the distance between it and the extremely busy/loud/noisy street was not enough to change the ambience to pleasant without some serious mental concentration.  I left my stuff at this sketchysketchy hostel right across fromt eh train station because I wasn't sure if I was going to stay overnight or not, but this hostel was tiny and on the sixth floor of this really weird building with an old elevator witht he double door system and the city wasn't too appealing so I decided to leave asap aka on the 10 pm train, regardless of the eerie stories i'd heard about overnight trains. Plus an overnight train is just cool to do once or twice in your life, saves ten bucks too. So I walked and walked and ended up having four hours to kill at the train station which was also connected to the bus station, which had more people so I decided to sit in a cafe and use up  my last dinaras (85 to 1 euro) in this cafe which had great signs for banana splits and milk shakes (milk seik in serbian, een without the picture i got htat) and when i ordered a milk shake, after some serious communication issues trying to have a minute to decide what i wanted, i got a fervous head nod no to my polite request. Turns out they had NONE of the delicious looking desserts on their boards and really just had some cakes that were in the glass display and coffee, tea, apple juice, coke, and fanta, which were in a fridge in front of the counter. Apple juice instead then. But since I had nothing better to do and didn't want to look aimlessly out the window at the strange people walking by the bus station, I was actually super productive and read a lot of this french book I have to read for class, and drank some non-sweet apple juice (purer I guess, though I prefer the sugary stuff) and some tea that was also not good because I put too much lemon in it (and i realize that is a very inconsequential detail, from now on I'l leave out these lame food and drink descriptions)...there was a lot of stuff open 24 hours in belgrade which is always convenient and i appreciate a lot, so I'll give them a point for that...so four hours somehow passes and I go to the train station and hop on the train, which has those random six person cabins again and all have someone in it, and I'm trying to be safe so I see these two guys around my age with backpacks in one car and I'd heard them speaking English. Tap tap, excuse me can I sit with y'all? Yes, safety. (PS-additional detail I see in my notes, Nikolas Tesla the inventor/patentor/i think he made electricity or he was in that movie The Prestige is a demi-god and greatly revered in his birthplace of Belgrade, whereas I didn't see any squares named after modern heros again, though I'll admit the only modern leader I know is Milosevic (and tito) and there could have been squares that I missed in my short short, nine hour journey to Belgrade (aka Beograd aka whatever it is in cyrillic). 

So the night train was infinitely better and safer than expected, I hung out with this Canadian guy and Israeli who had met up in Budapest, both were the go with the flow see the world say no to bosses type (the canadian was a cook out of high school, the israeli was a little older but he had his own computer company and never went to college either) and he had spent four years traveling around southeast asia, the first ten months he just slept outside in a tent and biked around japan on a bike he found in the garbage...ridic. They were both actually coming from Ukraine and told me great things so now I'd like to get to Lvov if possible (Odessa moreso but that's super far east). And the Israeli had GPS on his blackberry thing so we could track where we were on the train and all the places we'd been.  They had this newly established 'tradition' of eating a Bueno bar every time they were waiting for a mode of transport or had a free minute of transition..Bueno bars are Kinder products they're like chocolate and wafers with hazelnut filling, delicious, so they shared their Bueno bars with me and we talked about traveling and life in our different corners of the world and such and such, how the world is slowly going to just become one big state and how cool southeast asia is and the cooking business and ukrainian hot women and how neither of them like western europe because it's too touristy and the same as where they're from (i disagree, but to each his own)...eventually around 2 am we got to the border and got out passports stamped, then after that we went to sleep on the chairs that pulled out to form a chaise/couch like thing and we were awoken at 5 am by someone knocking on our cabin shouting "Budapest!" and we were there-yay!! I have no idea what was out our window on the ride but I'm assuming more countryside.  Rub my eyes awake, stretch, put on my shoes (which do not smell so hot by now, I'm walking like six miles a day), grab my purse and adidas bag (the boys said I didn't look like  abackpacker because of the bag and not a backpack, locals carry those sports bags on train trips.....k) and hopped off the train, parted ways with my travel buddies, and walked into the rainy streets of Hungary!!

"The Mediterranean as it Once Was" - Here we are in Zagreb, Croatia

Days 4 and 5 of Toussaints- Zagreb, Croatia

Population: 767,000-ish

Before we start the journey into the middle of SouthEastern Europe (that is to say OUTSIDE the European Union, who knew right?) let me take a moment to qualify my statements made on behalf of the one and only Ljubljana. Before taking the train to Zagreb I went out and walked the streets and went to the market when it was open and the atmosphere was generally much better and livelier. There was a long hall on the bank of the river with coffeeshops that were open across from the market and in full swing they looked pleasant, I could see how sitting there admiring the view of downtown Ljubljana and the market in the warm hours of a summer morning would be a nice retreat. As for the graffiti (which was literally everywhere), I find it interesting as a marker of the countercurrent of youth trends and movements. Here's more that caught my eye, sadly I couldn't read the Slovenian ones so I cannot include them: From here to fame..Europa Merda...Style Wars II...Best Friends 4 Ever...Love me Tender..Love Capitalism (in the coke symbol writing), a penis in the shape of a guitar, and this one with girlgirl holding hands, girlguy holding hands, and two guys holding hands x-ed out all in a big heart (see photos for last one).

**Before continuing, I know I write too much, but this is primarily b/c this is a journal for me, I'm not writing anything but this, so in twenty years I want to read all of this, sorry if that makes for extremely long entries for the two to three other people that read this.

Train ride to ZagrebL passed towns including: Kresnice, Litija, Zidanimost, Brezice, Dubova. Got two passports stamps upon entering Croatia, not sure why, sat in a cabin with an older guy who was reading something with a heading of Atomica Reaktra (learning to make an atomic bomb?) but we actually communicated a tad in French, randomly. The ride was a good two and half hours, some guy came round with what looked like coffee on a tray in plastic cups, we passed mountains covered with pine trees in full color, reds and oranges, mountains that almost went straight up and we couldn't see anything else for a while. Sometimes we rode next to a big stream/river, it reminded me of New England countryside a little bit. There were some towns that were completely reflected in the river so it looked like there were two of each house which was pretty, we didn't see much infrastructure/roads to destruct the landscape, a couple minivinyards, some threshed farmland. We quickly went from countryside to urban city upon entering Zagreb Kolovni Grad train station, where I hopped off and the train continued to Belgrade.

Zagreb: AMAZING!!!! I totally want to live here/spend more time here one day. It's the perfect size of a city and its transport systems are efficient, the streets are clean, its like 70 degrees Fahrenheit and its almost November, the people are helpful, there's tons of unique little shops and an awesome open air market and pretty views and lots of cultural things to do and greenery and fountains which add a lot of dimension to the urban space, there's a grocery store or bakery on every corner and the food's like what you'd get at home, there's even pizza places, and there's cafes full of people sitting outside people-watching and there's no fee for exchanging money to Kuna and the parks and the leaves are falling so it smells like autumn and there's chestnuts falling everywhere and then there's guys on the street corners with little stands selling popcorn and pumpkin seeds and roasted chestnuts which smell delicious...there's billowing billboards that are like big sheets covering sides of buildings everywhere in the main square, three stories tall, there's a botanical garden in the heart of the city and lots of footpaths leading every which way with little hidden parks to be found and there's always lots of people walking around, apparently the nightclubs are really fancy and hard to get in to, even the info desk at the train station is open until 10 pm and very convenient. (yes, there's MacDo again, and yes, they charge extra for ketchup, and yes, the fries taste pretty much the same as at any MacDo because I tried them). The buildings here are for the most part art nouveau style again (that means faux big bricks made out of plaster in a 3D effect) but they aren't covered in graffiti or rundown as in Ljubljana and there's lots more great palaces...some buildings are rundown or paint has chipped off and you can see through to brick, but they're on the side roads and even then it's not an overwhelming sense of decay by any means, and the buildings by the cathedral have been freshly painted in pinks and yellows and it looks like a fairy tale town. The streets are really wide, theres just a feeling of open space even thoguhwe're in a city and there's not any skyscrapers but half the city is on a hill (it used to be divided into Kaptola nd Gradec lower and upper parts respectively and they'd fight each other until they united into Zagreb in the mid-1800s. So there's hills to walk up and the city sort of arches downwards until you get to the train tracks. The Cathedral looks like a mini-notre dame, it was recently given the two towers and no one knows really what it looked like before but it's pretty, again very high arched ceilings inside and there's a tower with a golden Virgin Mary outside and four golden angets and the gold is really shiny and bright, people light those candles that are in purple or red or blue platsic with silver tops and leave them at her feet, they were selling those candles everywhere. The Cathedral , unlike St Peters in Vienna, didn't have all those statues of cherubs and figuirines all around, it ws barer but the walls were hand painted with designs including a six pointed star and bell tulip shapes and the ceilings were baby blue with golden stars, and on the altar there was an open casket (statue) of Cardinal Stepnac, I guess he was a big deal, he died in 1960, and peopl would light candles on his casket and say a prayer. Also this cathedral had stained glass windows which weren't inLjubjlana or Vienna, really really tall slim ones that rose up for at least thirty feet I'd say. They wre renovating one of the outer towers so the figurines and gargoyles/saint statues that would be up top were sitting enclosed by a fence on the ground, and I also saw this at the other church that's famous here (St Marks) with the statues just off to the side in this little passage and not really protected at all...interesting to think how history is constantly being updated/renovated/its not stagnant.

Zagreb tourism really knows what its doing- I had this guide I pickd up at the hostel desk and it had two 90 min walking tours and abunch of history written up in it, I did them both and learned a lot. One of my favorite parts of the city is Dolac Market, the open air market (theres a part underground too) where each stall has a big red umbrella covering it and they sell fruit and beggies mainly, but there were souvenir stands with soccer stuff and little handpainted tschotckes like hearts that said Zagreb to hang up, lace, wooden toys, then there were guys selling medecine and beeswax and inside there were fish stalls, meat, chocolate, bakeries, sheets of pasta dough, and women who were handmaking cheese as you watched. Inside it smelled very strongly of something that wasn't too pleasing, I think it was sauerkraut. And outside the fruits werne't in crates like at other markets but they wre all piled up and arranged nicely on the tables, I think specifically of the oranges which were in pyramids the length of hte long wooden tables. I bought some grapes for the equivalent of thirty cents, and this amazing jelly candy (Zele) that I'm bringing back to share with my Aix friends, and some chocolate that looked good (it was filled with banana and tutti frutti filling) but its actually not, I thought 50 cent chocolate would be better. The market was sort of up some stairs and at the top there was a statue of a woman with a basket on her head inciting you into the market, at the steps of the stairs the market flowed out and become a flower market (there were several of those arond the city) with flowers of all sorts and in all sorts of decorations, some already trimmed in the shape of a cross, a heart, as the tops of little woven baskets, and if you went up some other stairs the market became cloths and scarves and adorable handmade socks and mittens for little kids.

St. Marks Cathedral is the other famous one here- it has a tiled roof with all these coats of arms and it was a very unique roof, I've never seen anything like it, but unfortunately the whole building itself was shrouded in a white sheet, it's undergoing repairs I guess, and the square was empty. The buildings around the church in the square are part of the Croatian parliament, so there were police on the corners and lots BMWs and Audis parked next to the church. To get there on my walking tour I walked down this street that was literally just outdoor cafes, with people reclining in short chairs with pillows sipping something and looking around, but there were sooo many people it was like every seat was filled, very convivial and lively atmospehre. Then I went to the Croatian History Museum which actually jsut has rotating exhibits and I saw one on the refugee camps at El Shatt, Egypt in the middle of the desert during World War II, comprised of some 27,000 Croatians. I was a little confused at firsta s to why they were even in danger, I'm thinking it's because they were communist. So they moved fromt he Dalmatian islands to the middle of the desrt and set up tents, started bakeries and a theatre troupe and a press and women made toys for the kids and it was very well run overall, we saw pictures and some artifacts and all the signs were translated into good English so I learned something entirely new! One of the room's background music was this song "Hunting the Hun" which was funny, it was in English so I plan to learn it when my internet returns to me (I'm copywriting this from a previous entry when I didn't have internet).

Quick recap of other cool stuff I did in Zagreb: went to a famous bakery Vincek and ate traditional Croat cake, Zagrebecka Kresnita, thin layer of chocolate, lots of whipped cream, lots of eggy cream, then thin layer of flaky pastry dough on bottom-not very sweet, would've preferred tiramisu which they also had or any other cakes, all of which were a dollar fifty. Walked around and saw Mimara Museum, this huge building with lots of mainly Christian artifacts, was going to go today but decided against it, though they did have this cool IPOD expo going on in the m ain lobby, instead went to the Strossmeyer Gallery of Master Painters where, for eighty cents, I saw works of Breugel, Rubens, Delacroix, Nicolas Poussin, Giovannia Battisti, a bunch of works from the 1400s. Any painting with a women included a baby and a breast, most paintings were really dark in the background but I saw some italian works form the 15th century which portrayed Jesus as more of a man than I'd ever seen, granted he had a cross and crown of thorns but the angle was like a regular portrait of a guy, no bared chest of angelic golden halo (I took a very bad picture of it). Sat in this huge park that's along the main boulevard from the train station to the Ban Jelacic Square (he's this guy who fought off the Turks I think) its actually like three parks combined into one, called Zrinjevac, and finished my Agatha Christie book in French (La Fete du Potiron) and watched the big leaves fall around me. Went to the Mirogoj Cemetery, supposedly one of the most beautiful cemeteries in all of Europe and yes I would agree. First off, there's something about cemeteries that I love, and I'm not going into details here, but suffice to say I was happy to be there. Moreover, it was gorgeous. There was this long long building with copper green cupolas on top that from the outside was just a long wall with red ivy but on the inside there were mounted tombstones and the tomb underneathed the tiled floor that was maybe five feet above the soil and you could just walk along it and admire all the different stones. Below there was the actual cemetery that stretched on forever, all with tombs and not just headstones, all above ground big boxes, almost all with colorful flowers on them or those candles. There were stands outside selling flowers and the candles and people just kept coming in with flowers and going up to a grave, the graves are all fairly recent, everything was super well kept up and there were workers driving around in golf carts throwing away rotten flowers and cutting up hedges and it was the most lively cemetery I've seen, but that said it wasn't a hectic feeling of people bustling about, everyone was calm and at peace. But there was so much color and it was really pretty, there were chestnut trees all around and some willows billowing and there were arrangements of chestnuts in the shapes of hearts or crosses on some of the graves, most were Christian but I saw some with Muslim insignia and some Jewish graves. In the back there were a few mini mausoleums, one very well kept up with five stained glass windows all of this angel with a pink background, hands in prayer, wings folded back, looking up. There were even some graves with Cyrillic alphaet, and a whole wall where the birth would have a six pointed star before it and death year would have a cross before it, not sure why. There was a world war I memorial in the back, a small chapel in the front....etc etc. So not only was it beautiful, I gained a whole new level of appreciation and respect for the Croatians for tending so well to their loved ones graves and putting so much care into rememberance, and the use of flowers was spectacular, it just brings you joy when you see a guy or girl carrying a bouquet of flowers no matter where they're going.

Continuing- yesterday I went to the mall, then found this secret pasasgeway of stairs that went up up up and i reached all these sports fieds, a little cafe, a sports complez, and farther some buildings that might have been a school but I'm not sure. I walked all the way down this main street that has some good shops but not that many called Ilica Ulica (Ulica means street) and reached another renowned bakery that actually did not look good at all so I skipped it. Noticed on some streets that there are piles of 'stuff' on the sidewalks, like parts of walls and cabinets, couches, broken computers and mirror and bathroom sinks, parts of the interior wood structures of rooms even, and these little/big piles were actually not all that uncommon and I have no idea what they signify. I assume they come from the apartments above the shops but why??? Strange. On the walking tour, saw the square dedicated to the victims of fascism with this big circular building with pillars in the middle, its some sort of art building, saw some famous statues, the churches, the market, the Well of Life, this statue in front of the national theatre which is this huge golden yellow art nouveau style building in Marhshall Tito Square (which, ironically, is across from the FDR square with the Mimara Museum), saw Lotrscak Tower, where they fire a cannon off everyday at noon, it used to chime a bell every evening before the city gates were closd and its at the top of Gradec, overlooking Kaptol. Went into lots of squares, passed lots of museums that I didn't have much interest in  (such as the ethnographic museum). Learned that Zagreb the name was first said in 1045 but it's probably been a town longer, legend says it got its name when a viceroy called out to a girl "Manduso, Zagrabi" who was standing near a well (it means scoop) and the well is now in the center of the main square, but Zagreb really means ditch or trench and the town used to be entrenched, so this might be the real origin. Also learned Croatia was founded by a Slavic tribe (the Croats) in 625 AD, then the Prince converted to Christianity in the 9th cenutry, 10th century repeled Hungarians and became strong, had a deal with Hungary for a while to share kings, crusades in the 13th century led against eh Dalmatian coast, atached by the Pope, the last king of Croatia is killed by the Turks in battle in 156, then Austria gets the land to protect it from the Turks, then Russia, Austria, Hungary, all are fighting for the land for a while after World War I becomes part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, post WWII Tito rules Yugoslavia, gets democracy after a 10 yr struggle from 1980-1990 with Serbia. Speaking of which, I'm off to Belgrade tomorrow morning. But to end this story, Zagreb was the best surprise of the trip so far, and before even leaving I am longing to come back.

Do YOU Know the Capital of Slovenia? It's....LJUBLJANA!

Day 3 of Toussaints- Vienna - Ljubljana, Slovenia

Population of Ljubljana - 267,000 (pop of Slovenia as a whole = 2.1 million)

An eventful day of waking up, taking the metro and bus to get to Sudbanhof train station in Vienna only to learn that I was two hours early because it's Daylight Savings Time in Europe today (the US has it next week, how confusing is that!?!?) and so I sat in the freezing cold Sudbanhof station at 6 in the  morning with a total of maybe five people that walked past me that entire time.  Anyways, I board the train and I'm off to Slovenia!! Slovenia has an interesting history - it was part of the Roman Empire then the Slavs came then the Francs then there were a bunch of Hungarian Magyar raids in the 1000s then in the 1200s the Austrian Hapsburgs took control for most of the Middle Ages until Napoleon came in and conquered Slovenia as part of the Illyrain Provinces of his empire (ljubljana became the capital) then after they sort of just existed, were conquered in WWII and then became part of Yugoslavia until declaring independence in 1991 and joining the EU in 2004 (they just got done serving as president of the EU when France took over in June).  Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, was supposedly founded in 2000 BC when Jason and his followers, the Argonauts, came from Greece after steeling the Golden Fleece from King Aetes. They stopped to dismantle and reassemble their ship near a marsh and there there was this monster that Jason defeated and claimed the marsh as his own - that dragon/monster is now part of Slovenian history and is on their national coat of arms and flag. Anyways, then Ljubljana belonged to the Celts for a while and then the Romans until 472 (downfall of Roman Western Empire) and then the trajecetory pretty much follows that of Slovenia. In World War II the Italians actually conquered Slovenia/Ljubljana and they built this 39 km long barbed wire fence around the city to keep the resistance forces from teeming up with partisans outside the city's walls, now its a footpath where the fence stood. The name Ljubljana was first used in the 1100s, and the city gained its "city rights" in 1220, including the right to print money. It's main feature is this big park with a giant castle on the top of the hill: the Ljubljana Castle. It's been there forever but was destroyed when the Hapsburgs came in the 1300s and the modern day version was built along the lines of a medieval fortress, then it was used off and on as a military hospital, arsenal, and prison in the 1700s-1900s when it was bought by the state as a monument/place for cultural events. Oh yeah, and Ljubljana had this huge earthquake in 1511 that destroyed most of the city and then it was rbuilt int he Renaissance style and it has a lot of art nouveau buildings as well built in the 1900s. The original Roman town here was called Emona but it was destroyed by Attila and the Huns.

Right, so on the train I got to see the Austrian and Slovenian countryside for 6 hours, and sleep a little. It was a really pretty ride - we were on the top of this bassin and in the distance you could see the Alps with foggy tops and below us there were these little villages with farmed land plots here and there, some cows, occasionnally a person walking or riding a horse or playing soccer when we passed lands that weren't down below, and all the houses were pretty pastel colors with tiled slanted roofs like typical farmhouses.  There was also a lot of fall foliage- the leaves turning from green to brown to orange and red and yellow, and we passed some forests with these pine trees that were super super skinny with just some little tufts of pines at the tippy top. My train car was second class, a little room with 3 by 3 seats facing each other and racks above - it reminded me of in James Bond From Russia With Love when they ride the Orient Express. We also passed some fields with these little yellow flowers, and it wasn't an overwhelming yellow because it was mixed with the green stalks but the yellow just looked like it was a floating cloud two feet above the ground. About an hour out of Vienna I noticed that most of the houses had Austrian flags hanging from the windows (red white red striped). Once in Slovenia, it was a lot less industrial/more rural, except in this town named Maribor there was the quiet little town int he background and the river and then this giant new mall complex called Europark with an Hand M and a lingerie advertisement and a sporting goods store...etc etc, and it was just an interesting contrast. We passed Maribor, Celje, Pelgrovsko, and all the little hamlets in the valleys had a steeple with a cross on top as their tallest peak. 

Okay, made it to Ljubljana, which is much much smaller than expected and doesn't really have a lot of charm, once you get by the banks of the Ljublianca River and old town it's pretty to walk, but it really is a small capital. Found my hostel - randomly it's like a hostel and hotel combined with twelve stories and a full reception desk with guys in suits and funny striped pink ties...classy. So out and exploring the city. Walk over Dragonbridge, this famous bridge built in 1900 in the Art Nouvean style by a Dalmation architect, and it's this tiny little bridge with tiny dragon statues on it, very unimposing, pleasant in its own way but not at all what I was expecting. Walk past where the Market should be (closed on Sunday, I'll go back tomorrow) and see the Church of St NIcholas, which is a simple exterior again with a pretty steeple on top, a few statues, but the door was by far the coolest part. It was black metal and was a 3D impression of the heads of popes with their hats, and each head was above the other in this diagonal type pattern across the door, and you entered the bottom right fourth quadrant of the door because the whole thing was so big. Moving on I walked up this footpath to the Ljubljana Castle, which had lots of families and tourists (these random annoying american college kids who I think were here because the Ljubljana Marathon was today and they raced in it...in any case they're staying in my hostel and taking over the lobby with this guy playing guitar and singing some random made up songs about girls missing their eight o clock classes and the maharaja sleeping with concubines....I put headphones it). The castle was definitely medieval style- the inside was just an open courtyard with steps going up and down leading into different parts o fwhat used to be rooms I guess, but now its all just the exterior of the castle walls that remain. Parts of it, including the chapel are still being renovated, so it was cool because it is kind of like a modern day excavation project. The chapel was built in 1489 and it's unique because it's painted with the coats of arms of governors - that's to say secular artwork in a sacred chapel. It was repainted like that in 1747 and its very gay - the ceiling's pink with these big colorful crests everywhere. And from the castle there was obviously an amazing panoramic view of the city, though it wasn't that great of a city to view from on high, except for a few churches and parliament buliding that looked cool. 

Descend the castle - walk through the Old Town near the banks of the river, cross the Cobbler's Bridge which is the oldest bridge in Ljubljana (again, just a plain bridge with a couple of columns) and there's some little restaurants around that are cute, I walked in the two streets where the old jewish quarter used to be, still named the Jewish names  (Zidovska) even though the Jews were expelled in 1515 and really haven't been back since (in the whole country there's only 300 of them, and until recently it was like the only country not to have a synagogue or something like that). Walked up to Congress Square where there's some pretty art nouveau style buildings, one of which is either the seat of some government branch or part of the Univ of Ljubljana now, there was also another church that was a sea green color on the outside, then walked to the far outskirts of the city to see the original Roman wall of the city from the Emona village-almost a whole side of it's still there and there's the entrances to the city and one entrance has the rocks shaped like a pyramid which I don't really understand...it's still an excavation site which is also cool. Back to the city - to another square that had the remnants of tents set up for the marathon but in terms of squares was nothing special, all the shops were closed on Sunday and I ended up eating MacDO and giving them an extra twenty centimes for ketchup.  Also saw Preseren Square where there's another church but this one is pink, and the Triple bridge (basically three bridges combined into one, with very little ornamentation on any of them) and in the square there was a guy randomly balancing an umbrella and playing harmonia simultaneously, and there was also a cast iron 3D representation of the town kind of like Legoland set there permanently which was neat. Walk back to hostel and chill. The only thing I didn't see was the museum of contemporary history, I might or might not see it tomorrow because it's a good half hour walk out of the city centre. Other random Ljubljana facts - they use the euro (for some reason I thought they were still on the slovak) and thing's aren't nearly as cheap as you'd expect. There's also graffiti everywhere, I mean it's pretty graffiti artwork, but it comes up five or six feet on the buildings and it's just everywhere. Among other weird things I saw - 1+1 = 3, "Family Man" with a guy's head, and "Don't drink and drive, just smoke and fly." Also, most of the restaurants other than bars seemed pretty new and chic, there was this one gelato place with outdoor seating that had brown clothed individual couches (really comfy square cushioned seats I guess) with umbrellas above, it looked cute. So Ljubljana as a whole - interesting history, interesting city, but good for a day to day and a half stop. 

No Kangaroo Crossing in Austria - Stories from Vienna

Toussaint's Day Vacation: Day 1 and 2

Location: Vienna, Austria

Population: 1.6 million

(Language = German)

Toussaint's Day Vacation is in full swing.  Get ready for a capitals tour of Central Europe - a la Leslie. So...the vacation starts Thursday evening in Aix. Delicious family dinner at the Bachs, then a little packing job, then bake a chocolate cake with Kerrie and Alyse and proceed to eat the entire thing, then roam the streets a little with Kerrie and wind up at Auberge Hugo in the wee hours of Friday morning, where I proceed to listen to music, futilely  make a first attempt all semester to watch House on the internet, take a forty-five minute nap, and hang out with Sam until 4 am, when I go back home, grab my bag, and meet up with some people from my group at the bus station for the first bus of the day to the airport (4:40 am).  This being my second near sleepless night, the previous night being devoted to homework, I'm really really tired but sitll really really excited to be off traveling again. Fly Marseille-Munich-Vienna, find my hostel which is right near Westbanhof train station, and start exploring.  

First stop: Schonnbrunn Palace.  Schonnbrunn palace is a little out of the heart of Vienna, behind this nice big park with lots of playgrounds and the Technical Museum of some sort that I passed by. It's similar to Versailles I'd say in its setup, with gardens behind it and the big square out front.  Schonnbrunn was built as a hunting castle for the Hapsburgs and then was progressively renovated and became Maria Theresa's summer residence in the 1700s and by the 1800s Emperor Franz Joseph made it his permanent palace.  I went on a tour of the imperial rooms and learned lots of things that I've probably forgotten by now.  Okay, so we saw the State rooms and private apartments of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth (his wife), and the 18th century interiors from the time of Maria Theresa.  The audio tour was really good, the rooms would change from one focused on Maria Theresa to one focused on Franz Joseph, which was a little confusing.  The interior decoration as a whole did not seem nearly as lavish as I remember Versailles being or, in comparison, the Royal Palace in Brussels. Only the royal bedroom had this ginormous bed with a brocaded coverlet of lace and gold and pearls which seemed fitting for a palace, though come to think of it I guess we didn't go into that many furnished rooms. Most rooms just had a few pieces and lots of portraits and paintings on the walls. We saw Franz Joseph's room, and he really slept in just a simple wooden twin bed and had a prayer stand next to it, his office, again not well furnished with jsut a big desk and some curtains and a rug, his bathroom (same deal), his aide-de-camp's room, who gave him all his military information (he reigned from mid 1800s- to 1916, 68 years total.  He was apparently a very devout man and prefereed the austere lifestyle. His wife Elisabeth on the other hand, affectionately known as Sisi (at the Hofburg palace there's a museum with her art collection), travelled a lot and was apparently rarely in Vienna. She was married to Franz at the age of 16 and though he was head over heels for her, she seemed to be more independent and didn't like being forced into marriage. She was super beautiful and spent most of her day keeping up her ankle length hair (!) and doing sporting activities to keep her figure. When we got to the family dining room, the guide said Elisabeth was never usually at dinner because she did not eat a lot to keep her slender size (wow, women haven't changed a bit).  Franz Joseph actually had a pretty hard life, Elisabeth was stabbed and killed when traveling in...not sure where but not Vienna, their oldest son Rudolf committed suicide in 1898, his brother died somehow, then the Archduke/heir to the throne his nephew Franz Ferdinand was assassinated (trigger of hte first world war) and some other tragedies are thrown in there as well. Anyways, we visited the reception room of Franz Joseph, where he saw an average of 100 people a morning and listened to requests or conferred titles or received praise for his good rule, and the waiting room/billiards room where everyone would play billiards when they were bored. That room was super cool because the walls had these huge paintings painted directly on them of a street scene with the coronation of someone, and the wedding ceremony of someone else, but they were really intricate. We saw some bedrooms, learned about how great Maria Theresa was for protecting her title and lands in the war of Austrian Secession and how much she loved her husband Franz Stephan (House of Lorraine) and how she wore black everyday for the rest of her life after he died. Maria Theresa had a thing for Asian contemporary art, so there were some really interesting rooms with chinese lacquer and rice paper paintings on the walls Iblue and white), a black lacquered room with yellow painting of asian scenes, and the most valauble room in the house was the Millions room, which was made of a really really rare rosewood but it had these little spliced up panels of Indo-Persion painting scenes that we cut up and reframed to be inlaid on the walls in cool designs/sizes, almost crescent shaped, with wall molding fashioned around the paintings.  All the rooms had these big porcelain standing heaters that were used as the heating system.  There was also a Napoleon room which had the walls painted with scenes of little Napoleon's son out in the streets doing business of something like that. Empress Sophia's daughter (Emperor ____, I want to say Franz I but really I have no cool, there were way to many of them...)married her daughter Maria Louise off to Napoleon to end the feuding of the families in 1810, they ha one child who was the only heir of Napoleon.  When Napoleon was exiled, Maria Louise came back to the family with the child but she was only let back in if the kid could have no place in politics, so he was essentially locked up in the back of the palace but he ended up being really good at commerce...then he died of a lung disease at the age of 21.  Continuing, there was a ballroom, two other chinese oval/circle gallery rooms, and a small concert hall where Mozart played his first concert for the Emperor/Empress at the age of 6.  The chinese rooms were cool because the designs on the walls went from floor to ceiling, there was no border area like you usually see, so it really felt like you were boxed into this design (or ovalled in as the case may be). The ballroom had two huge chandeliers and lights on the walls with candles that were purposely flickering to reflect how it would have been in the time before the castle was electrified (1900), because the special lacquer they put on the walls made it really bright and reflective when the candles flickered. Thus ended my tour of the galleries, but wait, I bought the combined ticket, so I still had more to see. From there I went out into a side building and saw the Apple Strudel Show, which was this girl who showed us how to bake traditional apple strudel (I didn't know it was an Austrian dish ) and gave us free samples that were pretty good, not super sugary. That's because, as I then learned, there's no sugar in the dough and not that much in the filling. She had this dough that she kneaded, rolled out, and then proceeded to stretch until it was so thin you could read a newspaper through it by pulling it from elbow to elbow, it was practically covering her and it didn't break! it was impressive. then she just put a ton of the filling into it (the filling was like apples, rum, more rum, raisins, cinnamon sugar, and breadcrumbs) and then rolled it up and twisted the ends so it was a big cylindrical shape. She was telling us how to make it at home and saying the bakery had a help hotline and all this but I highly doubt anyone could do this at home, really. But the lesson was cool because she'd say it in German and then in English line by line, and the German sounded very pretty. The whole scene was very idyllic. Next I hit up the gardens, which were enormous. There were some that were colorful with flowers in the middle and trimmed in designs, then there was a hedge maze/labyrinth, then there was just a green area with this giant statue and a hill that went really far back to the Gloriette, a huge arc de triomphe thing with lots of arcs that was built in the time of Maria Theresa. Then each side of the palace was flanked with more gardens, and in the back back there was a zoo that I didn't go to, and the gardens/park went on forever in both directions and there were people running in it ( I actually saw a fair amount of runners in all the parks which is something I don't see in France), and the whole thing was soooo gorgeous. 

After Schonnbrunn I took the metro to Karlsplatz where there was Karlskirche (Karl's Church).  All the churches are from the 1700s, or most, and this one was pretty with two big spiral towers on either side.  Then I walked over to another big park (we're still not in the Rinsgstrasse/main center area of Vienna) and I was looking for this other palace called Belevedere where there is a museum with Klimt's works including The Kiss, but all I found was an extremely long wall protecting the palace. Sort of near it was this little hidden palace called Schwarzenburg Palace and gardens, with an ugly parking lot in front, but I didn't really go in. The palace's center was like a convux bowl shape and really unornamented, a strange style. In front of it but separate was this big fountain and a monument/arch which looked like a war monument but it was in Russian, I have no idea. Then I walked over to Nachsmarket which is this strip of outdoor market that was hopping and there were people selling fresh fruits of all sorts (dragonfruit, a pink purple fruit with green spikes on the outside) and jackfruit (as big as a pumpkin with an inside of yellow/green/white circles, sort of like a squash), there was dried fruit in really vivied colors of green and red and yellow and orange, fresh squeezed juice, then there were fish stands, meet, cheese, bakeries, break stands, candies, middle eastern stands, turkish delights, and even a little chinese store at the end. Interspersed or where the market broke up for a street to pass through there were people selling scarves and jerseys and watches like normal flea markets.  Outside the main row of vendors there were also nice sit down restaurants.  The dried fruit looked super good as did the breads - they have challah in Austria! although they don't call it that, its in every bakery, they also have for their normal bread a flat circle/medallion shape, it's just one big circle of bread but its flat.  Also on the sidewalks around Karlsplatz there were these little yellow stars that had information about what happened there before, like little history bullet points. I walked on the spot were Franz Joseph paraded by on his coronation march, and I learned that the area used to be forests where wild boars roamed (yes, quite random fact choices). Upon returning to my very nice nice hostel, I had the room the myself and took the oportunity to shower, use the internet, and take a rejuvenating 13 hour sleep. 

Day 2 - St Stephen's church. Built in the 1100s, in the process of being restored so half of it is covered up. It was impressive and imposing but the coolest part of it was when you walked a block away and looked back, the main roof is blue and yellow checkered, I've just never seen that on a church. Also around the outside there are tons of statues and scenes from the bible which just make it a mish mosh of religious significance. I tried to listen into a tour but they were all in German. Next stop: Mozarthaus, where he wrote Marriage of Figaro.  Then I found this really cool shopping area that was sort of covered/ a passage inside a building, with nice shops with very chic clothing, stationery stores, and this haute couture jewelry store, I think it's called Will Keefe or something, that reminded me a lot of heremes in terms of thetypes of jewelry they sold and bangles but a little less expensive and more playful/childish designs that were very very cool. If I was not already blowing a ton of cash on the act of traveling I would buy one of those bangles for a souvenir. Arrive at Judenplatz, which was a little square with a mock gas chamber outside in the center as a memorial to the 68,000 Austrian Jews killed in the Holocaust.  Around the white box there were the names of the concentration camps engraved in stone. On one of the walls on the periphery of the square there was also a plaque that said "sanctification of god" (or something like that) and then said that in this square int he 1400s there was the voluntary suicide of 200 Jews who refused to convert to Catholocism and said how Christianity (the religion, not Austria or a secular power) is sorry for its persecution of jews in austria and its intolerance and can only now ask for forgiveness form God. It was a pretty powerful plaque and I was surprised but glad to see the recognition of medieval era killings and persecution remembered, because Austria ha a very old Jewish past. I tried to get into the Jewish museum but it was closed for the sabbath (in general, I'd say that european jewry has not really evolved since its abrupt downfall in world war II, meaning the dominant sector of jewish people is still orthodox and that ignorance of non-jews, bred potentially just by a lack of interaction or the predominance of religion as identity for the majority of orthodox jews, may arguably be higher in europe than in america. I'm just thinking that the US holocaust memorial museum is open everyday, and this museum is THE jewish museum of austria. Anyways, then I walked around the haute couture shopping district some more and admired the pretty things, antiques, this adorable store for baby clothes and blankets and stuff called Mon Mignon (My cutie), and then went to a big snack place and got Sachertorte. Not as good as I thought it'd be, nor as rich. Just the top is that thick chocolate, inside it was just dry chocoalte cake, but the layer of apricot inside was good. Anyways, fudge cake is way better, but I might have just had a not so good slice. Then I went to Hohr Markt Square where there is a brigde connection two office buildings, and the bridge's face is a giant clock that has figures that move and chime every hour, and at noon all twelve figures parade in front with all the roman numerals and people move on the two windows at each side of the clock and its this big show that lasts ten minutes (it only lasts ten minutes because the figures move at a glacial pace) but it was cool, reminded me of the Astronomical clock in Prague that does the same thing, only there you have christ and skeletons popping out at you. 

Onto part two of the day :the heart of Vienna, Hofburg Palace. Hofburg Palace was amazingly huge, much bigger than Schonnbrunn, but it was also in the middle of Vienna and the city and you couldn't just walk up to it and admire it from a distance.  On top of the main part of the palace is this huge blue crown representing the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor.  Then all around the entrances to the main lawns there are these giant statues in white marble of scenes of Roman gods and goddesses fighting the elements, or animals. Oh yeah, and there was this little part right before the main entrance with some bricks dug out form underground and they were the ruins of the ancient roman forum that was on the site nearly 2,000 years ago, they are still doing excavations and they have a museum for the Roman era of Vienna and such. I forgot- I also went to the Clock Museum earlier and saw lots of Austrian clocks- cuckoo clocks (aka Black Forest clocks), wristwatches, pocketwatches, astronomical clocks, grandfather clocks, etc etc, also these desk clocks that had a name that i forget but they were essentially boxed shaped and had a pillar on either side of the face and then a scene or a mini statue in the middle. There were also picture clocks which were really random, and at 11:00 Am they all chimed in different pitches with these bells that echoed a lot and were really really rich, warm sounds and not ting-y like you think of clocks today. Right, so back tot he Hofburg. I went to the Imperial Treasury, where I saw the crown of Emperor Rudolf II, another Holy Roman Empire crown, lots of robes with long trains and even robes from the 1100s that were more simple but still inlaid with pearls and well decorated around the sleeves, this jeweled box that was from the time of Charlemange (800), and a TON of reliquaries. I'd never even seen one reliquary before, so I was really excited, but they just kept coming. It's weird to think that reliquaries would be in the imperial treasury, even today, but they decorate this vessel/ holding piece for a part of a saint's body sooo well, jeweled, gilded, everything. There was a wall of cabinets full of reliquaries fashioned in the same style, with the head of the saint and then below it the little part of his body in a glass sphere with jewels and stuff around it. There was also a reliquary with supposdly a part of the cross of Christ.  There were also lots of scepteres, a few swords, some tapestries, and some pure jewels, this huge emerald found by the Spanish in peru which is like two emerald seeds combined into a giant crystal, this huge amethyst and citron, a bowl carved out of the largets piece of agate in the world (it looks sort of like the inside of a shell, or opal), and this weird thing called the Eikhorn or something that looked like a unicorn's horn only it was probably nine feet tall. Unfortunately all the descriptions were in German so I didn't learn that much about the objects and was left int he dark in regards to the unicorn's horn. Oh yeah, there was also the cradle of Napoleon's son in one of the rooms. It was pretty clear that the Hapsburgs were rich, really really rich.  Umm, after that I walked around the lawns of the palace some more, and in the middle of the main lawn with the entrance into the actual palace and not just the grounds I ran into this HUGE fair that was ridiculous, it was like National Austrian Pride day or something and all these men in military uniforms were showing kids how tanks worked and how they fired missiles and they had tanks, guns, black hawk copters, the Eurofighter plane that was like a spy plane, humvees and panzers, army tents set up everywhere, then the medical units who, inside their tents, had gross pictures of them saving people with blood everywhere and a mock set up with a dummy with his knee cut open, red stuff representing blood coming out, you could even see the bone, and a tube going into his mouth. There was also a stand for the Austrian UN Peacekeepers and pictures of what they do, the Austrian Special Commando forces and they had their backpacks and equipment out, there were some guys doing demostrations with donkeys where they harnessed them to a rolling cart and put a guy in the cart as if he was injured and wheeled him around a bunch.  All the while on the ring or tents around this there were vendors playing music ( I heard runaway, mamma mia, etc) and selling everything from pretzels to cotton candy to gingerbread cookies and Austrian cakes to hot dogs (they're big in Austria!!) to beer to , I dunno, other good smelling food. And there was a tent that was an EU and me tent that gave out pamhplets of what the EU does, and it was giving out children's books to the little kids and the local paper had a tent offering subscriptions and there were tents with those little spinny wheels to get candy and it was sooo random. I asked what it was for and a guy who didn't realy speak english very well (no one in Vienna does it seems) said it was just to show what the Austrian military can do. It seemed really odd to me, some of the guys were in officer uniform with the hard cap and medals and shoulder pads and not camoshrugs and the officer uniform reminds me so much of the pics I see in textbooks from World War II - exactly the same. So the Pride Day seemed really weird to me because I can't think of the US doing anything like that, I thought of "Touch a Truck" day back in Northbrook and this was like "Touch a Tank" . Then I looked up the Austrian Military online and learned: The "Osterreichs Bundesheer" (Osterreich is how the Austrian's say Austria) has only been in existence in its current form since 1957 and in 1955 after the war Austria declared Everlasting Neutrality, so now the army just protects Austria's neutrality and assists with incountry problems (so I guess their show of might is not as..we are here we are ready to conquer...as I thought). I mean, at least it wasn't a marching show, everybody was just walking around. Anyways, it was exciting to be there.  I moved on to walk around the gardens behind the palace (Buurstaag Gardens) and arrived at this museum called the Albertina and the Butterfly House, both of which I skipped and kept walking, did a little more window shopping, and arrived at the Church of the Capuchin Order, very unornamented on the outside but inside in containes the Imperial Burial Crypt with like 18 Emperors and 32 Empresses and 142 members of the Hapbsurg Royal Family in crypts. Crypts are ridiculously cool, like coffins but either bigger and made of bronze with a giant cross on the top or these monstrous creations with angels and skulls and veiled women and a cross with a dying christ on top and lions and ravens and all these symbolic references, almost like a big statue with a body inside. There were TEN rooms with these, and very little explanation as to who everyone was and what was there was in German.  Maria Theresa had a double crypt with Franz Stephan that took up the entire room, and there were some crypts for kids that had died at the age of 1 which were mini crypts.  I couldn't really tell who got a crypt of bronze metal with a simple cross and who got the really ornamented crypts, maybe if you were emperor or empress you got a gaudy one.  Some of the more decorated crypts had at the head a pillow with two crowns (all made out of metal or stone) and I think there were two crowns one of the Hapbsurgs and one of the House of Lorraine which was a unity that occurred with the marriage of Maria Theresa and Franz Stephan, because there were no more male heirs to the Hapbsurg crown.  There were also a few crpyts with a cross with two horizontal bars on it, and this is the cross of Lorraine so that makes sense (the two bars could represent either the secular power and the ecclesiastical power, or the death and then resurrection of Christ.) It's also called the Patriarchal cross, used a lot in Byzantium and Eastern European representations of the cross, adopted s the Cross of Slovakia in some weird exchange. Right, anyways, I saw the crypt of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth and their oldest son who committed suicide, and the last two crypts which were very plain were put in THIS YEAR! It was Zita (the last empress of the Austrian Empire, her husband was exiled after refusing to abdicate in 1916) and her son Carl Ludwig, who both died in 2007.  

After the crypt I went and saw Sacher Hotel, whose original proprietors were the grandsons of the guy who invented the Sachertorte for the royal family, and then I walked around some, saw the Operahosue, and went to more of the gardens of Hofburg where there is the statue of Maria Theresa (in great need of cleaning) and walked over to the MuseumQuarter, which is this place built in 2001 with just a ton of museums, mostly contemporary or modern art or theatre...it's like where culture is being invented as we speak.  And there's some cool shops over there, but none of the museums really interested me. Back to the hostel for a little break, then on to a free organ concert at St Peters....which was awesome!! We sat in the  middle of this baroque style church with golden angels and a domed fresco ceiling and dimmed lights and listened in silence to the rich tones of the organ resound through the chamber and a solo female voice as melody in latin. It was so calming and peaceful and the ambience was perfect. It's one of those moments (actually, most here are) where I wish I could bring all my friends and family and everyone I love and share it with them. 

Random stuff I forgot: Manner Store in Stephensplatz, Manner is this brand of Neopolitaners (those wafer cookies) that was the original I guess, it's like hazelnut flavored filling and the packaging is a really annoying pink color. On the food topic, Viennese chocolate = money. They have those little bonbons that are wrapped in gold and blue and red foil with the picture of Empress Elisabeth or Mozart or someone important on them and they are chocolate balls filled with nougat and pistachio flavored filling or orange or something amazingly sweet and rich, veyr delicious.  And the candy stores here are really fancy and just have these sweets in fancy packaging or in the shape of a pyramid and you can buy just one for like fifty centimes. I bought a package of the Mozartkungens to take back to Aix and share. I went to the grocery store and they already had Christmas candy out and they had advent calendars and tons of chocolate but also their St. Nicholas chocolate figures are not like St Nick in his red suit lined with white fur and reindeer in the US - St Nick here is really a St., with a staff and an archbishop type hat and robes with a cross. Then you can also buy the devil in chocolate form (I definitely bought one to eat) and its a really scary devil at that, kind of half human but red with horns and an ugly black beard. When I was walking around I was thinking how cool it'd be to be here at Christmas time with all the churches and decorations...and today I saw they started putting up Christmas lights in the streets!!  

Randomly, they do have red bull here in case you were wondering, they even have the Red Bull truck with that giant can on the back (I saw it parked near the hostel). And they have Starbucks!!! Even Aix doesn't have those, there were two in the main square near Hofburg Palace. Par contre, I didn't see any of those typical Viennese coffeehouses with teh newspapers on sticks for you to read.  But they distribute their newspapers in these plastic bags that hang from posts on streetcorners and there' s alittle box where you insert coins and you can open the plastic bag...it's bizarre. Newspaper stands/the box that we have at home is way more efficient. 

Everyone stops and waits for the little man to turn green at the crosswalk. Even if there's no cars in sight. Bizarre.

It seems like things are pretty expensive here in general, although it may just be because I've been buying souvenirs and fancy chocolates. 

Tomorrow (October 26th) is the national holiday of Austria. I think that explains the military might fair today.  As background, this is the day their Everlasting Neutrality was declared in 1955 (that allowed them not to be part of the Cold War, so they could have their own government, after ten years of joint occupation by the four vainquers in WWII). I'd be curious to know what exactly they do for this fairly recent holiday, and even though I get to say I was in Austria for their National Holiday (My train's at 8 AM) unfortunately I'll only get to see the early birds.

As for the title of this entry: at a souvenir store there were shirts/postcards with the ever hilarious phrase: No Kangaroo Crossing in Austria-hardeharhar.  In terms of Austria proper, it seems pretty westernized, culture wise I feel at home here. The people are friendly enough, freedom seems to be a value, there's amazing shopping possibly better than in Chicago, they have good public transportation even if the metro seemed semi-empty tonight, they have kids walking around drinking beers and parents walking around with little kids (different times of the day) , some parts seem a little bland or run down nearer the outskirts but you'd find that anywhere. I know in politics they jsut elected some really rightist government, but it seems like Austria's always been to the right and I'm not sure what the repercussions of this election will be. It seems like none of the streets or posters or statues commemorate any heros post-1900 (1916 actually, if you include Franz Joseph), their pride definitely comes from the Hapsburgs and Holy Roman Empire. They do have Macdo and Burger King, not many, but they're here.  And with that, I have explained all that I learned in Vienna, Austria (it's actually called Wien here). So tomorrow....the trip continues...

And we go go go....

Oops quick update I forgot previously:

Last Wednesday in our course La Provence, which is a history of the region, we had a field trip! We took a bus forty minutes outside of Aix to the Abbey of Silvacane, an abbey that is not in use anymore.  It was super super beautiful, Roman architectural style and the walls were thick but hollow so there was this amazing echo in the main room - we tried to have a little chorus but it didn't work so well.  As an abbey its austere facade was to be expected, but it was still beautiful in its simplicity.  The trinity was a ssymbol repeated in all forms - three windows here, three openings there.  It was also suspiciously cold inside the building for as hot as if was outside, I can't imagine living there in the winter with no heating (and, if you were a monk, sleeping on the hard stone floor). It was pretty small, it housed 30-40 monks and then some people who came and went but didn't have the right to the monk's prayer. We went to the refectory, the courtyard and little garden, the main prayer room, and the scriptorium where they'd keep the manuscripts in these little niches in the walls.  The abbey itself was in this remote part of the countryside, as our prof said, that's part of the feel to the place, the isolation, the beauty of sounds of nature.  You could birds singing and insects moving and the water flowing in this little stream with little fishes but no cars, there was also a long stone wall that cut off the abbey from the route. The wall was covered in this bright red ivy that gave a dash of color to the whole picturesque scene (I seem to be using the word picturesque in a lot of my posts but it's so true) and since it's the start of autumn here there were huge, really like the span of your two hands put together) oak leaves brown and green covering the pathways. So that was a great trip, we also had a field trip earlier in the year inside Aix proper where we walked up to the cathedral of Aix and toured it, that was also cool but since the cathedral is in the heart of Aix, surrounded by people moving and cafes and dogs and other large buildings, I think we couldn't really appreciate its beauty looking at it from a distance to see it laid out on the surface of the earth like we could with the abbey (if that makes any sense).  

On a final note, props to my friend Danny who says he's looked at this blog a couple times. I appreciate the readership mon ami, and I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never be as slapstick hilarious as you are with your blog. Jesus H. Christ!

Pics of Avignon and Isle Sur la Sorgue

http://photo1.walgreens.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=50022851/a=3230505/t_=3230505

PS: 1 pic update of Aix en Provence pics.

'Make Me A Pope' and 'Roue Me An Aube'

Day trip: Avignon and Isle Sur la Sorgue

Avignon population: 90,800.

Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue population: 20,300.

Yay for daytrips in the fabulous region of Vaucluse, Provence. We roll out of Aix en Provence Gare Routiere at 11:30 after a nice couple hours of restful sleep, and arrive at 12:45 in Avignon, prefecture of the Vaucluse Department of France, also former home of the Popes from 1305ish-1409.  We'd already learned all the history last week in La Provence class, so this was an informed visit. Once off the bus we walk up Avenue de la Republique, grabbing Rapido Resto sandwiches with french fries inside them (which were not made fast at all but still deliciously delicious) and sit on the stairs in front of the Papal Palace, admiring the view of the square, the little cafes, the many pigeons who graciously accepted our offers of bread, and the cute carousel in the plaza. Avignon is not that big of a town, we pretty much walked from one side to the other in fifteen minutes, nor is it inherently beautiful, but the history is important to Europe, the papal palace is cool, and of course there's le Pont d'Avignon. After eating, we (by we, I mean me, Sam, and John, my fellow journeymen for the day), walked back to the bus station and hopped on a bus to Isle-Sur-la-Sorgue, further west in Vaucluse. It's this little town, really quaint and pretty, that has the river Sorgue enclosing it on all sides so it's like an island. All over the river peripherires there were these Roue a Aubes, I guess it's what Isle Sur la Sorgue is known for, like water mill wheels with moss growing on them and droplets falling down and making a pretty water falling sound, it was cool. Isle Sur la Sorgue also used to be a gypsy town and its still the town with this huge antique selling business and an antique market on Sundays. We walked around a bit and zigzagged our ways through the streets, then sat down at a cafe and got a drink for a while and chilled. My knew fave hot chocolate was definitely ordered and enjoyed, you can't go wrong. We took the bus back to Avignon and this time we went in the Papal Palace and danced on the Pont d'Avignon (also known as the Pont St Benezet). The Papal Palace was super cool, huge, sort of austere for a palace, built in the 14th century and added on to by repeated popes so its a lot of different types of stones with walls overlapping each other and chappels tucked away in corners all over.  The pope's bedroom was very interesting: the floor was tiled with faience painted tiles of all colors, something that now seems like a paysan/lower class family decorative style but the colors used at the time were very hard to come by (the blue dye they used in the palace was more expensive than gold). And the walls were painted in these swirly designs.  Then we walked up to the top of the palace and got to be on the roof overlooking all of Avignon, a very good view and the breeze made it complete. There's an extra big chapel connected to one end of the palace called the Chappelle Rocher des Doms, with this golden statue on top of it that's the only colored thing on the horizon and sticks out very prominently, but its very simple even thoguh its gold and doesn't overwhelm the skyline but makes it just right. After taking pictures up there, we didn't have much time left, so we briskly walked to the Pont d'Avignon. The Pont d'Avignon had its cornerstones laid in 1177 by the sheperd Benezet who thought it was important to build a bridge crossing the River Rhone for commerce purposes, it was then kept up as a toll bridge by the village and made lots of revenue. It was one of the reasons the popes chose to come to Avignon as their home, I guess the town grew with commerce and easy access. But in the 16th century the people just got tired of its constant upkeep and left it abandoned, and then half of it fell down a hundred years later I think in some big storms or something, so now it's really only half a bridge. I think the fact that it's only half of a bridge makes it even better somehow, it makes it something of the past and gives it an air of mystery. We danced on the bridge and took more pics, then headed back to the bus, leaving the ramparts behind us (the ramparts of Avignon were spectacular, all intact and huge and thick and medieval, they were built even before the pope got there) and returning in the evening to Aix after an excellent sojourn into Vaucluse.