Wednesday, July 21, 2010

City 3: Budapest, Hungary

The following day I had to get up to catch the 5:30am train to Budapest where I was meeting my Peace Corps friends Whitney and Meaghan as well as Susie – my Hungarian friend you may recall from when I visited 2.5 years ago while I was living in Spain! The train passed through the beautiful countryside of both the Czech Republic, Slovakia and then the north of Hungary. I was able to only catch a glimpse of Bratislava and I wished I had taken an extra day to visit that city as well. Susie greeted me at the train station – she is still studying Architecture in Budapest and has another year to go. She looks just the same and was such a wonderful hostess once again! The major difference of this trip from the last was the clothing! In January 2008 I was freezing! 4 pairs of socks plus wool-lined boots did not even begin to cover the cold – this time around, it was about battling the heat! Next time I go to Budapest it will definitely be in the fall!


Meaghan and Whitney arrived shortly after on their train from Ukraine. From travel exhaustion we did not do any touring the first day but topped the evening off with a trip to the cinema. In Ukraine, films are only in Ukrainian and are never in their original language. Both Whitney and myself have learned Russian, making this a pretty unenjoyable form of entertainment. So, when we found that many cinemas in Budapest play movies in English – we jumped on the chance to get our fix of American culture through the horribly teen angst film, Twilight. The movie ticket cost a whopping $4.50 – I think I might move here!


Our first full day was spent enjoying the sites of Pest. We began with St. Stephen’s Basilica – the church in which rests the mummified hand of St. Stephen, one of the apostles. We had to pay 200 forint ($0.85) to light up the box to see the hand! Our tour continued to Hero’s Square where statues to commemorate the Magyars who founded Hungary stand. We also stopped at the National Opera House as well as the Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in all of Europe and the second largest in the world. The best part of the day for me; however, was the tour of the Parliament. Stefan and I had made it our goal to get into the Parliament for a tour 2.5 years ago and dramatically failed every attempt we made, thus making it my #1 goal for this trip to see the inside. Luckily, we succeeded! As Hungary used to be a bicameral government, the Parliament was built with two identical wings. Today, Hungary’s government is unicameral thus leaving one wing open and available for tours. Our tour included the large entrance hallway complete with very precious red granite stone columns followed by a view of the St. Stephen’s crown, the official crown of the ruling government of Hungary, and lastly, entrance into the auditorium, which used to hold the House of Lords. The Parliament when it was completed, consumed more energy in a single day than the entire city of Budapest. Today it is more energy efficient (and half the building isn’t used continuously) so this is no longer the case. The building was quite stunning inside – below are pictures.


Our second day was used to explore Buda, primarily the castle district of Budapest. Castle Hill holds many interesting buildings including Matthias Church (which was no longer under scaffolding!), the Fisherman’s Bastion from which you can see the best views of Budapest, and lastly the Royal Palace. Meaghan and Whitney had a wonderful time snapping pictures around the district – as we had done a little slide show of my trip to Hungary 2.5 years ago the night before, I remembered how many of these places I have already photographed and thus held off a bit this time! Susie gave us a tour of her university, which brought Meaghan and I to break out in “Go U Northwestern” to Whitney’s disgust – haha. We ended the night with another trip to the cinema – it was just so good the first time around! This time we saw “Robin Hood” – the pre-story to Robin Hood’s legendary life acted out by Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchett – it was ok, but once again all in English and only $4.50! Love it! We drove up to the Citadel where Susie had taken me before for the amazing night view of Budapest. It was breathtaking!


The next few days of our time in Hungary were spent lakeside. If you look at a map of Hungary – one thing that sticks out is this long skinny lake called Lake Balaton, which takes up a major portion of the western side of the country. Susie’s family owns a traditional Hungary summerhouse in the town of Balatonfured near the lake and we were treated to 4th of July weekend there! Lake Balaton is actually quite shallow and most accesses to the lake are wading depth for many many feet out. Also, the lake is not a beachy one and most access points have nicely mowed lawns on which you sunbathe before hopping in the water. We brought out books and Ipods and laid out by the water for some very needed rest and relaxation time only interrupted for ice cream breaks – of which there was one each day. In the evening we went into the town and walked along the boardwalk lined with souvenir shops, restaurants and bars and covered in Hungarians on vacation – it felt very spring break like with the outdoor bars and ice cream parlors.


On the 4th of July, Meaghan, Whitney and I treated Susie, her mom Marina and her twin sister Dory to a traditional American Independence Day meal – hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and then Marina threw in a Greek Salad (which I liked best!) I made the burgers – dad are you proud!?, Whitney took over the potato salad and Meaghan set the table. We had a wonderful feast and were so thankful for our luck to be there at a lake home enjoying the company together for our holiday weekend!


We drove back to Budapest on the 6th to do some laundry, spend our last few forint on brownie mix which we made that night to watch the Uruguay vs. Germany World Cup game, and to pack up. Sadly – on the 7th we had to head back into Ukraine. I was very sad to see my traveling adventures come to a close. Whitney and I headed to the Chernigiv Oblast north of Kiev for a Russian Language Refresher Camp where I have been this last week and Meaghan is now prepping for another camp she will be working this coming week.


I am so thankful for the amazing experiences I have had these last few weeks. Following this month of travel, I have now been to 25 countries in the world – a fact that makes me realize just how fortunate I have been. For now, I am remaining in country looking forward to my two upcoming Summer Camps – ABCamp and Mascot and I look forward to telling you about those towards the end of August.


Once again I hope that you are all having a wonderful July and I would like to wish you an excellent rest of your summer!


Best, Megan


If you want to compare pictures from Winter ’08 in Budapest – please feel free to check out the blog post on:


http://meganinspain0708.blogspot.com/2008/01/italy-austria-and-hungary.html

































City 2: Prague, Czech Republic

Following my time in Krakow, I hopped on an overnight train to Prague. While in Spain I had really wanted to travel to Prague, but the distance and costs of flights had been out of reach. Now, on the other side of the Czech Republic, this journey was quite simple. My first day in Prague was spent exclusively with my favorite touring company – Sandeman New Europe Tours. I began the day with their free walking tour of the city, continued onto the Castle District Tour, and finished off the night watching the World Cup Game while on their Pub Crawl Tour. Prague is an incredibly beautiful city. The truth is that Prague is not known for its impressive museums or interesting sites to visit internally, but for its external beauty, winding streets of little shops and cafes and endless photo opportunities. Located along the Vltava River, Prague is comprised of many districts, each with their own history and flare. My walking tour took me through the Old Town, beginning in the center square where St. Nicholas’ Church stands as well as the famous Astronomical Clock and continued onto the Jewish District of Josefov and ended near the river for a beautiful view of the castle in the Castle District. The Astronomical Clock, which a friend of mine told me was the only thing aside from beer that he knew Prague to be famous for, was a marvel in its day due to the spectacle it puts on every hour. The clock has 4 statues which represent the deepest civic anxieties of the 15th century - Vanity, Greed, Pagan Invasion and lastly Death, represented by a skeleton, who on the hour, rings a bell to remind all that death is surely coming. The 12 Apostles then parade by nodding to the crowd and the spectacle is ended with the crowing of a rooster. This clock was so unique that legend says the clock maker was blinded so that he could not replicate his work and the clock would remain unique to Prague. Today, with the presence of television and other entertainment, the spectacle is not as moving as it once would have been to viewers in the 15th century, but the fact that such a clock existed in its day is quite impressive.


In the afternoon I joined the Castle District tour, which took us across the river to wind through the streets leading up to the castle overlooking the city. The castle dates back to the 9th century is apparently the largest castle in the world. In the center of the castle district stands St. Vitus Cathedral, which began construction in 926 but was only recently completed which is quite obvious due to the change in design techniques for the top portion of the Cathedral – check out a picture below. At the top of the castle district there is a monastery founded in 1140, which to this day brews beer to help finance the monastery. The best part of the whole tour was the moments when we were able to stop and enjoy the view of the city. Prague is a vast span of red roofs and tan buildings making it such a beautiful and picturesque city. I couldn’t stop taking pictures!


On my second day in the city I headed into the Jewish District, Josefov. The Jewish District, once the Jewish Ghetto during the years of WWII (for the Czech Republic this began in 1939), consists of six synagogues, a very crowded Jewish Cemetery and Jewish Museum. Faiz, a friend I made while on my train from Krakow, joined me for the day. The Jewish District exists still today only because the Nazi’s preserved this area in expectation of opening a museum there for the “extinct” Jewish race. Faiz and I went for two specific sites, the first being the Jewish Cemetery begun in the 15th century. Due to the crowding in the Jewish Ghetto, little room was available for the burial of Jewish individuals. For this reason, coffins were buried one on top of another in a system of layering with 10 being the most that was ever buried on top of one another. Visible are some 12,000 tombstones but below lays over 100,000 coffins. Due to this crowding, the tombstones have all begun to shift and fall into one another making it quite a site. There is a picture below. The second site we wanted to see was the Pinkas Synagogue. This synagogue houses the names, birthdates and dates of disappearance of all 77,297 Bohemian and Moravian Jews fallen victim to the Nazi terror. The walls are covered in these names and numbers from floor to ceiling. While we were in the prayer room, two Jewish men began to sing in prayer to the memorial plaque where inscribed are the names of the Concentration Camps these individuals were sent to and killed. As the men sang they began to cry, as did I. Though I set off on this whole trip to see the sites, I never imagined the historical lessons and events I would experience – the prayer was incredibly moving and I’m thankful we got a chance to see and be a part of remembering the names of these people who were so brutally killed. On the second floor of the synagogue is an exhibition of drawings and paintings done by children who were held in the Terezin Concentration Camp – their work showed the hope that one day they would be able to return to their happy lives in Prague. Unfortunately, the drawings are for the most part, all that remains of most of the children who were taken to Terezin.


On my last day in Prague, I did another Sandeman tour to a city outside Prague, called Kutna Hora. Once a competitor for the most prosperous city in the Czech Republic, Kutna Hora was the location of one of the richest silver mines in Central Europe. Our tour took us to see Saint Barbara’s Church, built to thank God for the wealth of the silver mine, as well as the location of the first minting press in the Czech Republic. Though these were interesting; the most famous site in Kutna Hora is a chapel known as The Sedlec Ossuary or Bone Chapel. Inside this Chapel rests the skeletons of some 20 – 40,000 individuals. The Chapel was constructed for burial ceremonies to take place in a once a very popular cemetery. As the chapel was being built on top of already buried bodies, the bodies were removed to be buried again later. However, one crazy monk who oversaw the chapel rearranged all the bones to be placed in their separate bone categories. When a new family took over the charge of the chapel, they ordered an artist to design something that would honor the bones now too disorganized to ever be sorted back to their proper individual’s coffin. Today, tourists can see 4 separate pyramids made of skulls and bones, a chandelier made of every bone in the human body and the crest of the family who commissioned the artwork also made entirely of human bone. It was quite creepy to see so many skulls hanging about the chapel and a tourmate commented on how hard it is to look at these skulls and not remember that they once were a part of a living, breathing human being like ourselves! The tour was really spectacular and in the afternoon we stopped at a cute outdoors restaurant to feast on traditional Czech food – I have attached a picture of the beef and dumpling dish with cranberries and cream, which I had along with a beer from the Kutna Hora region. The girls in my picture at the restaurant are from Minnesota – their names were Megan and Beth – too weird!


If you want to check out this fantastic company's website:

http://www.neweuropetours.eu/