I participated in a neighborhood-wide photo scavenger hunt!
(This is us as the cover of Arrested Development)
I saw the premier of my friend Aaron’s band, Here Come Dots!
As well as their second show!
I hiked in the Oneonta Gorge!
I caught up with old friends and made new ones!
I discovered a field of clover while driving back from Astoria!
I attended a FUTURE PARTY dressed as a time traveling Jules Verne!
Jules, pondering the future.
In April, I launched my standup comedy career!
Here’s a sample ‘joke’:
“Recently some friends of mine were expecting their first child… and it ended up being stillborn. They were really upset, understandably, and so I tried to console them by sharing something with them that I’d never told anyone, which was that I had a brother who was stillborn.
My parents decided to keep it. When people hear that, they ask if it was strange, growing up with a sibling who was, you know, dead. But it wasn’t! I was taught to just treat him the same as I would any other baby- I’d take him to the park, push him on the swing… people would glare at us sometimes, but that was just ignorance. Basically it was decided that whatever it was that came out of my mother’s womb, they were going to raise it right- as a stillborn-again Christian.”
Jimmy and Tory played that night, too!
In May I hiked around Mt. Saint Helens, where I saw a dragonfly and found a dessicated frog!
Click image to enlarge. Seriously, do it.
But for the most part, I spent way too much time in the city!
I also ate ALOT of incredible cart food:
And saw Femi Kuti play at the Oregon Zoo!
And at the beginning of June I flew back to Connecticut, which where I’ll resume things… NOW!
Wow, it took me six months to finish writing about two weeks worth of travel. That’s absurd, and due in large part to the fact that I was completely overwhelmed at work, particularly in the first few months of the year. Plus I really wanted to finish writing about the trip before moving on to other things, which caused a sort of logjam.
Or blogjam, I suppose.
Oh well, one thing that I did manage to keep up with over the last was cooking new and exciting meals:
Shrimp fajita in a homemade tortilla bowl and organic refried beans.
Tapas Night: Scallops and bacon, pan fried mushrooms, blood orange
chicken and brussel sprouts, and Spanish rice stuffed peppers.
Casserole and roast chicken prepared to celebrate the
purchase of a bright red enameled cast iron casserole dish.
Besides a long weekend in Connecticut for my sister’s wedding last summer, I didn’t travel at all in 2008. In fact, I rarely left Portland’s city limits. Sensing that I would be hungry to experience traveling for the sake of itself than spend much time in any one place, I decided to plan a winter trip that would require me to endlessly catch planes, trains, and buses and do that “get in, get oriented, see some stuff, get out” ritual a total of 7 times in two weeks. All in all, I visited Brussels, Dresden, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, and Frankfurt.
For me, the difference between vacationing and traveling is that vacationing involves treating oneself to a less-than-average amount of hassles for a couple of weeks, while traveling involves challenging oneself with a greater-than-average amount of hassles for a couple of weeks.
As you will read, despite all the sights, laughs, and wonderful experiences that I enjoyed, this trip managed to provide me with more hassles than I was even expecting to endure. And you know what? It felt great to be traveling again.
I left Vienna in the late evening and boarded a train bound for Salzburg, Germany. I spent a little more than an hour reading and watching the Austrian countryside fly past my window, and by the time I arrived in Salzburg it was dark.
I was planning to spend only a few hours in Salzburg, and only felt that I needed to do two things:
1. See Mozart’s birthplace.
2. Eat dinner.
The evening was cold and clear, and as I made my way from the train station towards the Salzach river, the number of people walking around increased dramatically.
For a while I wandered down alleys and side streets- the old town is very compact, so I kept ending up on main streets no matter which way I went.
Eventually I wandered by the house that Mozart was born in, and it was then that I realized that my later portion of my trip had been a scattered version of “THIS IS YOUR LIFE” for him:
First in Prague, where he caught the illness that he would die from a few months later, I saw a perfomance of his Requiem, which was not only funeral music but was also incomplete at the time of his death.
Then in Vienna, where he lived and worked for most of his life, and is buried.
And finally, in Salzburg, where he was born and raised. I would have spent a few more minutes considering the man’s life and titantic musical contributions, but I was getting pretty hungry.
Not too far from the geburtshaus I found a cozy restaurant with a wonderful menu, and decided to treat myself to a celebratory end of trip meal.
If the waitress offered it, I ordered it. Everything was delicious- warm bread, fresh salad, hearty soup, veal wiener schnitzel, an impossibly tall glass of beer, and a glass of local brandy as a digestif.
Food and food and food and food and drink and drink
After dinner, I walked back towards the train station full and happy. All I wanted to do was find my seat and pass right out, but I couldn’t do that because I had stupidly bought tickets with a long layover in Munich at 2 a.m. and another one in Mannheim at 5 a.m. Ugh.
It might have been nice to see Salzburg in the day time, and I’ve heard that the surrounding mountains are very dramatic, but in a way I’m glad it worked out the way it did- until I go back, my memory of the place will remain dark, quiet, and blanketed in fresh snow.
***
After getting settled into my train seat, I read for a bit and then began to doze off. Eventually the conductor stopped by to check my ticket, which I produced immediately. A moment later, he asked to see the card I purchased the ticket with and a jolt shot through me- I didn’t have the same card anymore.
I tried to explain this to him, and show the cards I did have, and how the names were all the same, and what the hell was the difference- I was one of about three people on the train at that hour. Eventually, he asked to see my passport, at which point I figured he was going to relent and let it slide.
Instead, he printed out receipt and handed it to me, smiling. “Take this to the counter when you arrive in Mannheim”, he said. Then he moved on.
I thought everything was cool, and then I actually looked at what he’d handed me- it was a bill for a new ticket, and also contained an additional 20 Euro fine for riding the train “without a ticket” even though I hadn’t been doing that. What a dick!
Left: freedom. Right: facism.
The incident forced me to worry that the same thing would happen on the other two trains I would be taking that night, but it didn’t the conductors used common sense and left me in peace. When I finally arrived in Frankfurt I explained the situation to a woman at the ticket counter who became as indignant as I was- a real sweetheart, she canceled the bill and then hand wrote a letter in German that she attached to my original ticket and the new one.
Drowsy from the night’s travel, I took a street car to my hotel and begged them to check me in early. They did, and after a shower and a nap, I headed back out to explore my final trip destination, Frankfurt.
I ended up in a part of town thick with Turkish restaurants and internet cafes, which were the only things that were open because it was Sunday.
Later, I found this square.
Lunch was a seasonal beer, a pile of pork chops, and the best sauerkraut I’ve ever eaten in my life. It was as saur as it was krauty.
That evening I went to bed early, surprised at how eager I was to be head home. The pace of the trip had been frantic, but also filled with just as many great experiences as I’d hoped I would have.
The next morning while packing my things I flipped on the tv. Watching a few minutes of the German dubbed version of the video below was my final memorable experience of the trip:
On New Year’s day, I slept until 4 in the afternoon, got up to eat some pasta that the Italians had prepared, went for an evening stroll with Liz, and then went back to bed. It was an utterly unproductive and yet completely satisfying day.
I woke up to the sunset.
While in Vienna, Liz introduced me to two local specialties: kartoffelpuffer, a fluffy fried potato pancake topped with garlic butter and käsekrainer,a cheese-filled sausage stuffed into a roll that invariably ejaculates its molten contents all over your face, hands, and coat when you bite into it. I enjoyed them both!
January 2nd, 2009
On my second full day in Vienna, I got up before everyone else and went out to explore the city. I ended up taking a tour of the Vienna State Opera, which is where I would be seeing The Nutcracker performed later that evening. I figured a tour would give me a better look at the theatre than simply wandering around during the intermission, and it did.
“New Year’s Eve in Budapest” had a nice ring to it, but the prospect of partying with friends drew me to Vienna a day earlier than planned. And by “friends” I mean strangers who I had never met, but knew I was coming.
While researching the trip, I’d sought out English speakers only who could provide me with a local’s take on what to see and do during my brief visits to each city. In the process I’d met Liz Thompson, a native Iowan who had been studying German in Vienna for several months. We began exchanging emails and soon, a fledgling friendship had developed. Later, Liz offered to let me stay at her place along with several other Couchsurfers, and I gratefully accepted.
It’s only a two hour bus ride from Budapest to Vienna, and after a quick tram ride and brief walk, I was standing outside Liz’s place- a beautiful old building that and endless stream of transfer students had turned into a bit of a flophouse.
Though many of my cherished friendships began online, there’s always a few minutes of confusion while my brain attempts to reconcile the text-and-photo version of someone with the flesh-and-blood reality. More than anything else, Liz and my preoccupation with absurd, depressing humor was what bound us together, and it was clear after we met that it had remained intact offline- within minutes we were trading barbs and giving each other shit like old friends.
Liz was alone when I arrived, but gradually her many guests began strolling in. With all of her dormmates gone for the winter holiday, she had generously invited a grand total of five male couchsurfers to stay with her over New Year’s- a Brit, a Turk, two Italians, and me.
There was talk of a large houseparty that night, but before that Liz wanted to visit the Stephansplatz, a large square located in the heart of the Vienna. Liz told me she’d heard that at midnight the Viennese spontaneously waltz with each other there, and I was up for going, but horror stories about fires, thrown bottles, and trampled bodies had scared off all the other guys. To Liz and me, they were potential bonuses- “Remember that new year’s when we waltzed among the molotov cocktails at midnight? No? Me neither.”
Just before we left, Eser (the Turk) gently laid his hand on Liz’s shoulder and said in extremely precise English:
“Liz, do you remain insistent about going to that place?”
Liz looked at me. “Do you still want to go?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“So do I.”
So we went. It took two streetcar transfers and a brisk walk to get there, during which we pre-gamed with tall cans of wheat beer. Anywhere that you can walk around with an open container gets bonus points from me- it just feels right. I suspect that drinking wherever you want is one of the main perks of being a wino.
All of the streets leading up to the Stephansplatz were packed with revelers, musicians, and food carts, but the square itself was almost completely empty, and as we approached it became clear why that was the case.
A select few revelers were turning the Stephensplatz into a miniature warzone. Fireworks were going off in every direction, misfiring into the crowds, landing on nearby apartment canopies, and exploding right next to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a towering 900 year old church that had witnessed an awful lot of Vienna’s history.
We soon realized that the fireworks exploding close to the cathedral were anything but accidental. I saw several men aiming their rockets directly at the ancient wood tower as bored looking policemen looked on. Here’s a short film of what it was like:
It was pretty surreal.
YEAH!
The scene was so loud and chaotic that midnight came and went without any fanfare at all. No one kissed or waltzed or sand Auld Lang Syne, they just looked at each other with confusion and mouthed over the din of the fireworks “What time is it? Is it midnight?”
Following the celebration (?) at the Stephensplatz, we headed to the party.
The apartment where the party was thrown was quite large, with an entry area piled high with coats, a kitchen strewn with bottles of booze, a room in the front serving as a dance floor, and a hallway connecting the front of the apartment with a low key lounge in the back. When we arrived the hallway was filled with people waiting to use the only bathroom, and it stayed that way all night.
Liz and I made our way to the chill out room in back and came upon what appeared to be an Austrian drug den- good use was being made of a large hookah pipe, and several people were holding silver spoons full of something over candles. I caught Liz’s eye-
“What is that?” I whispered nervously.
“I don’t know!” She whispered back.
As it turned out, the party goers weren’t cooking heroin, they were participating in “bleigießen” or “lead pouring”, which is a traditional German method of predicting one’s fortune in the coming year.
The process is simple: you melt a small amount of lead or zinc in a spoon and then drop the liquid metal into a cup of water. A chart is provided to interperet the results. Mine turned out more interesting than most that I saw, but when I asked a local girl what it meant she replied in a voice that was deeper than mine:
“Well, it looks kind of like a weird bug thing… so I think it means that you are… like a weird bug thing.”
Out of curiosity, I just now looked up what “BUG” meant on a bleigießen chart. Apparently it means “Time for a new car”, which doesn’t help me at all. Also, what did forming a bug mean prior to 1920? C’mon, Germany, get real.
The main appeal is that you’re melting metal and then dropping it into water.
Later, another holiday tradition involving fire appeared: a large pot full of spiced red wine was set up with a grate above it, and then a cone of rum-soaked sugar was put on the grate and then lit.
As the carmelized sugar dripped into the wine, I tried to imagine what kind of catastrophe was in store if the pot fell off of the wooden folding chair or the chair itself caught fire.
By the time it was ready I was still much too sober to actually want to drink the vile concoction. Instead, I snuck into the kitchen, rifled through about 30 bottles of wine until I found what I suspected was the least worst, and then spent the rest of the evening sipping off of that.
As the night drug on I made many new aquaintances, had some good laughs and danced a lot. At one point Liz fell asleep in a pillow-filled bathtub, and Matt, the Brit, escorted her home.
I stayed at the party for a little while longer, but it was not until I stepped into Vienna’s frigid early morning and began walking down the street that I realized that I was all alone and had almost no idea at all how to get back to Liz’s place. Also, I was carrying a blue glowstick that I didn’t remember picking up.
Undaunted, I began wandering around Vienna in what I guessed was the right direction. As I walked, I savored the quiet and absently began bending the glowstick back and forth. I had a dim premonition of it tearing open and spraying me with glowing blue chemicals, but I was too tired and cold and inebriated to heed it. And so, a few minutes later, that’s what happened: the plastic casing split apart and a bunch of glowstick liquid sprayed me in the face.
It burned my eyes and tasted like poison- was that a coincidence? I doubted it. It was at that point that I finally
decided to hail a taxi.
Safe and sound back at Liz’s place, I made it to bed just as the birds began to stir, but the morning light was no match for the weight of my glowing blue eyelids.
I had come t0 Budapest with no plan except to visit at least one of its famous public baths, drink delicious Hungarian wine, and eat some authentic treats. The opera that I’d attending on my first day there was just a bonus.
On my second day in Budapest, I slept in and then spent some time in an internet cafe returning emails and making last minute travel arrangements to Vienna for the following morning. I ducked into a pastry shop and came out holding an amazing chocolate covered roll of dense dough that had somehow been formed with large air pockets inside.
NOM NOM NOM
Not long after that, I managed to find Bock Bistro, an upscale restaurant and bottle shop located not far from my hotel. I arrived just as the place was opening for lunch, and attempted to convey that I was a interested in tasting and learning about Hungarian wine that afternoon.
Then I was seated at a table and introduced to Norbert, my pleasant and attentive waiter. Norbert spoke a little English, and was able to explain a bit about Hungary’s various wine regions. The country is most famous for its golden, sweet Tokaj, but it also produces a dark red wine called Egri Bikavér, also known as “Bull’s Blood.”
Wanting to focus on Tokaj during my visit, I decided to order a glass of Egri Bikavér start things off and then switch. I tried to explain to Norbert that 1/2 glasses or even tastes were fine with me, and that I’d happily pay for everything, but he didn’t figure it out until later in the afternoon.
I’d gotten into the habit of carrying a moleskin notepad for tasting notes during my 1000wines trip, and began to make use of one now. I got the sense that Norbert and the staff suspected that I was a journalist of some kind, which I’d never claimed to be but also wasn’t interested in denying. In any case, when I made it clear that I was planning to be there for a while, a basket of bread and a small tub of spread appeared at my table, followed by more glasses of wine. I couldn’t imagine any better way to spend the afternoon.
I smelled the spread, and then put some on my bread and tasted it. It smelled strongly of pork rinds. My first guess was that it was lard, ham, green onions and black pepper, and Norbert confirmed this a moment later, explaining that it was the fat was the excess from when they made fried pork skin for a bar snack. YUM!
Tokaj refers to the region and the grape of the wine, and it is made in both table wine and dessert wine styles. In the past I’d only ever had the dessert style, so it was nice to experience the grape in a much less sweet style. One of the table wines really stood out- it tasted like liquid sunshine.
I hadn’t planned on eating lunch, but the menu was too interesting to pass up. I ordered the most exotic sounding thing on the menu: “Roasted marrow with balsamic vinegar, honey and spices”, and ended up with something slightly less exotic: squash, which is apparently called ”marrow” in Hungary. Even so, it was tender and delicious, the perfect accompaniment to all the wine I was drinking.
For my final round, Norbert brought me three tastes of the three most expensive Tokaj’s that they had.
“Gratis,” he said.
In addition to making my day, Norbert’s act of generosity saved me a ton of money- a full glass of any one of these wines cost about $30.
Descriptors include: honey, almond, apricot, and joy.
When the check came I tipped somewhat exorbitantly, mostly out of appreciation to Norbert for all of his advice, explanations, and patience. In response, he became the first waiter in the history of the world to tell a customer that the tip was too large. It wasn’t. By now I had given up all pretense of not being a dopey tourist, and got Norbert to pose for a picture with me.
My eyes close in proportion to blood alcohol level.
I left Bock Bistro with two bottles of incredible wine and dropped them off at my hotel before heading out again. Next stop: The Gellért Thermal Baths and Swimming Pool.
The Gellért Baths is a full service Art Nouveau spa and that is attached to the Gellért Hotel. They were built in the early 1900’s, and a visit to them is more like spending the day at a palace than a spa.
The lobby was packed when I arrived. There were four ticket booths and from each of them snaked a long line of customers- but towards the center of the room these lines merged into complete chaos. I stepped into a group of people and hoped for the best.
The Gellért’s pricing system is strange- there is a standard price for all visitors, but if you stay less than 2 hours, you are refunded about 30% of the fee. I bought one ticket and went inside. Everything everywhere was beautiful.
As I walked down a long underground tunnel to reach the changing room and noticed small portals into the main pool. It was then that I realized that I’d left my bathing suit back in my room.
After reaching the changing room, I approached an easily irritated attendant and rented a towel from him. Then I unbuttoned my jeans and considered the boxers I was wearing- they were dark grey and made of heavy cotton, and after a moment of deliberation, I decided that they’d suffice, though if someone was passing by a portal at the same time as me, there was a chance they’d get a free show. It was a chance I was willing to take.
The Gellért has male and female specific spas, but the coed areas consist of the main swimming pool and a smaller mineral jacuzzi. The main pool was a delight, and on nice days the roof even opens so that you can sit inside and have a drink while sunbathing. In the jacuzzi I tried not to imagine the century worth of scumbags and skin diseases that I was stewing in.
I only spent an hour at the Gellért, but I had a great time. On my way out I stopped to claim my refund and discovered what was causing such a mess in the lobby- rather than have two booth dedicated to tickets sales, one for refunds and one for people using insurance cards, all booths were open for all transaction types, so everything took twice as long as it should have. I chalked it up as a remnant of Communist inefficiency and continued on my way.
Just across the river from the Gellért I came across the Great Market Hall, which is home to a large farmer’s market many, many souvenir stands.
It was already getting late, and since I hadn’t made any dinner plans, I decided to make it myself, based on whatever looked especially fresh or interesting.
“Excuse me, do you happen to have any paprika? Oh, silly me.”
Back at my apartment, I enjoyed a bottle of Ergi Bikaver and an alliterative meal of paprikosh with potatoes and parsnips. I really had no interest in going out- I was still relaxed from the pool, in a warm bed, with a full stomach, reading a good book. What could I possibly have improved?
***
The next morning I packed my things and took the subway to the bus station. I spent my last few Forint on a bag of Hungarian candy that turned out to be peanuts coated with malignant, sugary tumors.
I had originally planned to spend New Year’s eve in Budapest, but the prospect of spending it with a large group of friends rather than at some random club by myself spurred me to go to Vienna a day early. As my bus left the station, I spied this shot:
…which pretty much sums up what I liked so much about Budapest. Old and new, equisite and shabby, an ancient city that is still vibrant and functional. I realize now that part of what I enjoyed so much about my visit was the fact that I didn’t feel like a tourist while I was there- I had an apartment, visited bookstores and dive bars, saw a show, enjoyed local treats, and made myself dinner. In other words, all the stuff that I’d do if I lived there.
Two days was definitely not enough time, but it provided a fun, flirtatious introduction- who knows what will happen next time?
As soon as dawn broke, hundreds of Japanese tourists swarmed Buda castle like fanny-pack wearing, camera-wielding ants. I wandered around the perimeter of the hill while locals walked their dogs and the morning sun did its best to warm the day.
Whatchoo lookin’ at?
Eventually I stopped into a small restaurant to warm up and enjoy an early lunch. I ordered a beef and paprika stew that really hit the spot.
After that I began descending the hill. Nearest the top, everything was old and beautiful…
…but the architecture gradually became more modern, and by the time I reached the river I had returned to the present. It was a little like time traveling several hundred years in fifteen minutes.
It was just after 5 a.m. when I arrived in Budapest, and I was even less prepared than I’d been in Prague. I basically knew the address of my hotel and the fact that it was located across from the central museum. I was suprised at how packed the bus station so early in the morning, and after consulting a large wall map and exchanging €20 for some Hungarian Forint, I found my way to a shabby but pristine subway station and waited for my train. I had yet to go outside, but I could tell it was much colder here than anywhere else I’d been so far.
The subway station closest to my hotel was located directly beneath a major intersection, which created a sprawling underground plaza. It took a few tries to surface at the correct street corner, and when I did it was via a gigantic meat grinder that someone had refitted for use as an escalator.
Reaching my hotel, I pressed the door buzzer at street level, which woke up the attendant, which caused her to glare at me all during check in. Her mood lightened, however, when realized that she was about to ruin my morning in exchange for ruining hers.
“You may leave your bags here,” she said, “and check into your room when it becomes available at 2 p.m.”
Ugh. All I wanted to do was sip tea, read, and stay warm, but when I asked if there was an cafe open nearby, the woman balked. “Most places open at 10 a.m.” So once again, I found myself wandering around an unknown city at dawn.
The biggest problem with writing these posts almost 6 months after the fact is that although I can easily remember itinerary details and place names, the corporeal sensations have mostly been lost- I can say it was cold, sure, but I can’t tell if my hands were colder than my feet, or how the air smelled in each city, or just how it felt to cloaked in thick black wool as I walked through an ancient city that was itself cloaked in thick blue fog.
It’s like trying to remember a dream-the further in time from waking one gets, the less tangible those potent-in-the-present experiences become, and the more frustrating it is to try. Particularly so for a post like this, where nothing really happens, and what I felt is so much more important that what I did.
So: it was really cold. I found a small market and ducked inside to buy a few local pastries and a cup of vending machine hot tea, which was almost too sweet to drink.
Eventually I wandered towards the Danube River and the Erzsébet Bridge, a pretty, monochromatic suspension bridge named for a pretty, monochromatic Bavarian princess.
I was colder than those trees.
It was an exceptionally strange and beautiful morning. Everything seemed so immaterial that I began to imagine that I was a living person haunting the ghost of a city. It certainly felt that way.
Further north along the Danube sits the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, an engineering marvel that I’ll talk about more in a later post. Wanting to get a better look, I decided to walk across it.
Near the east foundation of the bridge I spied two homeless people asleep beside a heart-breakingly sparse Christmas tree. I shuddered to think of how painful it would be to spend a night exposed to winter in Budapest, and left the change clinking in my pocket on the table- more out of respect than pity.
While walking along the Danube I had noticed several long, flat boats moored to each shore, but as I walked across the chain bridge one of them silently slid into view while I was peering down at the water below. For a moment, I felt like I was falling.
Prior to 1873, Budapest was two distinct cities- Buda and Pest. Today, Buda is considered more historical and scenic, while Pest is more commercial and has more to do.
Looking towards Buda
Looking towards Pest
Once I arrived on the Buda side I found hotel with a bar facing the street where I spent an hour warming up and drinking tea. It was amazing how long the morning seemed to be lasting- even as the time neared 8 a.m., the streets remained mostly empty and the fog remained thick over the river.
The city stayed that way as I climbed the hill towards Buda Castle, which afforded me some serene and spooky photo opportunites.
After the sun finally crept over the horizon, it didn’t take long for the spell I had been under all morning to be broken. If a city could be said to have cheeks, Budapest’s were soon flushed with the color of thousands of its tiled roofs. Finally able to see the whole city at once, I surveyed it with the eye of someone plotting a daring, two-day cultural campaign… which, of course, I was.
