I arrived in Vienna Monday afternoon. The train station was big a bit confusing and the banks closed at 3pm, so I couldn't exchange any money. I wasn't pleased. I had a delicious Pale Double Bock beer from the supermarket across the street and picked up the book "Lost Horizon" which was an interesting tale about three Westerners getting stranded in Tibet and being able to choose between going back to society or having all the time they could want with no modern distractions.
I went to Schonbrunn Palace, but I just walked around outside because I couldn't handle the crowded line of tourists and it was expensive. The grounds outside were very beautiful. A lunch of pork schnitzel and local beer calmed me down. I didn't enjoy walking through modern Vienna with its bright lights, ads, and expensive shops covering the old-style buildings.
The Hofburg Palace was very nice, less crowded, and affordable. I saw a lot of royal silverware, gold plates, and centerpieces, and I learned quite a bit about Franz Joseph's wife Elizabeth. Walking around the center kept me busy looking at all of the cool buildings. Stephansdom Cathedral was very ornate and impressive, even though I'd been seeing a lot of Jesus lately.
The next day I went to see a strangely designed public housing building. The architect believed that God hated straight lines. It was blue and had all sorts of rounded shapes for pillars and balconies. I wouldn't want to live there though just because of all the tourists taking pictures. I visited the Military History Museum which included items from as far back as the 30 Years' War. The highlight was undoubtedly the car in which Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated along with his shirt that still had blood stains on it. A bit macabre, but it made the history seem more real than just reading it in a book.
I ate lunch overlooking the Danube and saw the famous ferris wheel, but then it started to rain, so I went inside for a nice black and tan beer at a local brewpub. The touristy brewpub wasn't very good. Taking the subway was a breeze and nobody ever checked my ticket.
My train travelled through the countryside to Pecs, Hungary (sound like Paitch), but I had to use Skype to text the winemaker, Alain, to pick me up because he misunderstood my arrival time. But everything went well after that. On the ride to Villany (sounds like Vill-ahn-yuh) he said he has a contact in West Australia for a possible harvest job there and he would give me the keys to his apartment in Budapest for the weekend! The accomodation for the night was a nice pension (hotel-ish). Most of the countryside I saw was flat with lots of crops, mostly corn, but the hills near Villany had some nice forest on them and everything was green. I had stuffed cabbage for dinner, which is Ottoman-inspired like much of the food here.
Alain and his colleague Nordy looked at vans to buy for the winery and dropped me off at Alain's apartment in the center of Budapest. The neighborhood was used as the Jewish Ghetto during WWII. I found an English-Hungarian dictionary and went to a large park which has Heroes Square. I went to Kaiser's Supermarket (I love the name) for food and enjoyed looking at all the old buildings.
Today I walked across the Danube to a WWII bunker inside Gellert Hill. It had good photos of Budapest in the 1940s, and told about the Jewish part of the city as well as the battles fought. Then I went to the castle, saw the cathedral, walked around the parliament building, and took the second oldest subway back home. There are lots of statues, fountains, and buildings to photograph while walking around. The architecture is amazing, especially Parliament. All in all, a good day of sightseeing. And here I am in Alain's very nice, modern apartment sipping a Pilsner Urquell. It's too bad I have to start work in a few days.
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