Buda and Pest

I left Slovenia at around two in the morning, on the same train that I had arrived on 48 hours before. My next stop was to be Budapest, but in order to get there I knew I would have to pass through Croatia, meaning that my sleep was repeatedly interrupted by men stamping my passport since Croatia is not part of the borderless Schengen Zone. When I finally did wake up for good I looked out the window and nearly panicked. I saw a lake that was clearly a vacation spot, but to my surprise I could easily understand the German writing around me. For a few moments I thought that somehow the train had turned around and gone the wrong way into Austria, but I talked myself out of that and remembered that someone had told me about a certain Lake Balaton, and a comparison between the city names and those on my map showed that I was in fact there. This was one of the major scenic routes suggested with the Interrail pass, so I sat back and enjoyed it as the train made its slow way to Budapest.
When I did get to the Hungarian capital, I finally felt like I had arrived in a decidedly different world from the furnished train stations of Western Europe. Ljubljana was at least a tiny country and that could justify its less embellished train station, but not Budapest. I also became quickly aware that there were other differences. There was a large tourist population already evident in the area surrounding the train station, so I could be assured that there were some very developed areas. Also absent here, for the first time in my trip, were Euros. There was a currency exchange station by the trains (as well as men peddling Hungarian Forints outside of it), but the prices there were so terrible that I left to find another place to switch into their legal tender.
I got a much better deal just around the corner (1 Euro=270 Forint) and set off to find a place to stay. My next stop would be Prague, and though I could take the night train, it was actually cheaper and definitely more comfortable to find a hostel and leave early in the morning. The first hostel I went to offered a place to stay for 13 Euros, so I deposited my things there and took a free tour of the city that focused on the more recent (communist) history but did include plenty of other information.
After that I went around the city alone, crossing the river into Buda to see the Budapest Castle and the church. Budapest is actually the combination of two separate cities, Buda on the west of the Danube river and Pest on the east, which were united in the late 1800s. Most of the important tourist areas are on the Castle Hill, which is in the Buda area but is often considered a separate area due to the high concentration of attractions and historical significance.
After I had been wandering around there for a while, the sun began to set. The natural light faded away and the river lit up, with the buildings and especially the bridges taking on a festive glow thanks to what looked like giant Christmas lights. The only comparison I could draw in my mind was with the Nile River in Cairo, so that can serve to illustrate how impressive the site was. I walked across the chain bridge and saw the city from even further back, and when I made it back into Pest I went into the center for dinner, where I tried the Hungarian goulash. I made it back to the hostel by midnight, which gave me a few hours to sleep before I had to get my next train.

Darting Around Slovenia

I left Venice in the evening of May 16, finding it somewhat funny that the day after my 19th birthday would also be the first day I would spend in a country that could be clearly labeled as "Eastern Europe", where the language was something that I could not decipher (I could somewhat figure out Italian). Near me on the train were a bunch of Italian people but also one English guy who was also traveling with Interrail. I swapped some stories with him for a while but decided to go to sleep at around 10:30, knowing that I would get to Slovenia very early and probably would not sleep after that.
Slovenia is a tiny country, part of the EU and advanced for Eastern Europe. It is also relatively unknown for a European nation, in fact many Slovenes are happy that their soccer team is in the same group as Slovakia for this year's World Cup, so that people stop mixing up the two countries. I am sure that many people, especially those who do not live in Europe, barely even know that Slovenia and Slovakia are even two different countries.
I made it to Ljubljana, the hard to pronounce Slovene capital, at around 2 in the morning, too early to really do anything but to late to try and find a place to sleep. That being the case, I determined the first thing that I would want to see there and searched for the first train that would get me there. I decided on the acclaimed Lake Bled, and the first train in that direction was at just before 5, giving me almost 3 hours to get by.
The consequence of that was that I got to see the sunrise as my train weaved its way through the mountainous north of the country, an impressive view especially given the lack of mountain views up to that point in my trip. I was impressed with the sights, and when I finally stepped into the crisp morning I realized that the lake was nowhere to be seen.
I had to take a bus to get there, and they sis not accept my Interrail pass, but the fare was reasonable. I got to Bled (the name of the town) and found the lake in a couple minutes. For something so well known to tourists and locals, the city of Bled was tiny, mostly filled wit hotels and tourist shops. I was also surprised at the size of the lake. Coming from the Great Lakes region and having been to Lake Constance in Southern Germany, I was surprised that this body of water, which I managed to circumnavigate in a couple hours and could easily see across, had gotten that title.
But a few minutes was all I needed to realize why this lake was famous. The scenery around it was amazing, forest that eventually got gobbled up by the mountains towering in the distance, defiantly flaunting snowy summits even as summer conquered the rest of the world. I took a path through the woods and reached the top of one of the hills, where the whole lake lay before me like a painting. The most remarkable feature was an island that houses a church and which is the destination of several ferries every day.
I did not have time for that though, so I settled with just walking around the lake and taking in the sight of the area from every possible angle. After that, I got another bus back to the train station, and had some lunch. I must comment that I got a very large and delicious meal for just over 4 euros, and that was a great deal that made me very happy to be in one of the easternmost countries where the euro is legal tender (not counting Greece and Slovakia). Then I got a train back to Ljubljana and set my sights on the famous cave systems in the south that had convinced me to stop in Slovenia in the first place.
The journey in total took me about 2 and a half hours, not bad considering that I was traveling across half of the country. When I got to Postonja I had to walk another 30 minutes before finally reaching the entrance to the cave system, then had to wait again for the next tour. When I finally got into the cave, it was worth it.
I have seen caves before, even some very big ones, but nothing could compare to the variety of different rock formations and colors that I saw there. I took a roller coaster like device through some of the caverns before the tour continued on foot. The guide was a French man who had been there for several months, and the history of the cave proved to be very interesting. The more notable features include the Russian bridge (built by Russian prisoners of war during the first world war) and the Red, White, and Spaghetti galleries some distance across it.
Eventually the tour ended, and as the afternoon grew old I had to loop back to the capital on my way to Novo Mesto, where I would spend the night. I met someone on the train who was also going to the same city, and in the end she was nice enough to show me where the hostel that I was staying at was, which probably saved me about half an hour of wandering around with the help of Google Earth. This hostel was one of the best that I have stayed in, and like my lunch, it was reasonably priced. This is a great country.

Madrid Day

Today I went outside in the late hours of the morning with the intention of heading to the museum quarter to take advantage of the free admission to the Museo del Prado, but was stopped again at the Puerta del Sol by another holiday demonstration. This time the holiday was not national, instead a local celebration of the day that Spanish forces rebelled against French troops under Napoleon in 1808. The rebellion was not successful and it would be years before they were defeated, but when Madrid became its own autonomous community in 1982 they decided to take the date as their own holiday.
I got to the center of the city and saw that there was another gathering of people on the sides of the streets. I asked someone what was going on and he said that there was a parade. This time I guess there would not be a demonstration. I waited a few minutes and saw a few groups of soldiers pass by, followed by politicians and nobility, then continued towards the museum area. The weather was nice: sunny and warm, something that I had come to appreciate after having heard the reports on German weather at the time.
The Museo del Prado is one of three museums in the museum area in Madrid, but the most widely known of them. On this holiday (or on Sunday in general), admission was free so I was able to grab a ticket and simply enter. I actually recognized a couple of the paintings from various tidbits of art history that I had learned in school, and enjoyed the experience enough. I had heard that the botanical gardens near the museum were also worth seeing, but I knew that I was running short on time to get to the train to Lisbon and did not go. I returned to my hostel to get my things and left for Madrid Chamartin, the same train station that I arrived at.

Labor Day

In Madrid, someone at some point in the past decided that Labor Day should fall in the spring, on the first of May, rather than in the fall. I got up this morning with the intention of heading to the museum district and trying some tapas, but only made it as far as the Puerta del Sol (remember, the “center” of the city) before noticing a giant mass of people moving through the street. My first thought was that there was a parade, but a quick glimpse at the signs being waved around expelled that thought. This was a protest, and when I asked someone what it was about, I found out that it was a workers’ protest trying to secure pensions and job security. To further the matter, it was Labor Day, so it was the perfect time for the demonstrators to argue that the state of labor in the country was nothing to celebrate, though as a member of the EU I doubt it is that bad. Also, Spain’s government is having enough debt difficulties at the moment, and I doubt that this protest would be any more successful than the demonstrations taking place every day in Greece.
I walked through the gardens in the museum district (the museums were closed on Labor Day) and made it to the Atocha train station in the southern part of the city. That is the one that is decorated like a rainforest, so I looked around in there a bit before reserving my seat to Lisbon the next day. After that I decided to take the metro to the Ventas, the stadium in Madrid where the bullfighting takes place. The building is circular and dates back many years (at least it lookes like that) and the bullfights take place every day at 6:30. I had enough time to get back to my hostel and still return to the stadium on time, so I did in order to ask about the Tapas night (which was supposed to be rescheduled to that night) and to pick up my sweatshirt to have as the sun went down.
I got back to the Ventas with a few minutes to spare and was shown to my seat, really just a place on a stone bench somewhere in the stadium. I was sitting in the sun since those seats are far less expensive than those in the shade. I got to see as the workers evened the dirt and prepared the field, and suddenly they left and the bull appeared. The bull looked confused at first, but quickly got used to the concept of charging at the men who were taunting it and waving red capes. Eventually the picadors came out on their horses and threw spears at the bull’s back, creating a stream of blood but not visibly hindering the bull’s ability to charge. On the contrary, this just made the animal more angry and ferocious. The bull even nearly managed to knock over the horse once, and certainly would have if it weren’t for the padding that the horse wears. After the bull had been stabbed several times, the matador finally came out with a sword to finish it off. Either he would aim for the back and try to hit the heart, in which case the bull would stumble around for a minute before collapsing. Otherwise, the matador would try to stab the bull’s neck, which wasn’t too hard since the spears to the back had weakened the bull and caused its head to droop.
I sat next to a couple from Australia there who were traveling around Europe for a few weeks, though they were staying in Madrid much longer than me. There was also a group of American tourists in front of me who were extremely disgusted by the show, and while I was not at the point of vomiting or too depressed about seeing the bull die (think how many animals are killed more brutally for food every day), I didn’t think I would become a regular fan if I had the chance. The reason for that isn’t that I find the sport too graphic, rather too repetitive. There were 6 bulls that fought that night, and only the third one really put up a good fight that was really entertaining. It managed to flip the matador twice and knock one of the horses against the wall, but in the end even it was killed by the exact same method as the other 5. The process was interesting the first couple times, but I could only marvel at the bullfighters’ close calls for so long.
After the fight I returned to the hostel and found out that Tapas night would indeed be happening, so I quickly got ready and met the rest of the group. The leader was a native of Madrid, and there were three others excluding myself, one man from Spain, one from Argentina, and one woman from Italy who had been studying in Spain. We started the night speaking Spanish and it remained that way until the end. The first place we went to was an Italian restaurant where we ate pizza, and then we stopped and went to a place to listen to some music. It was packed and we only stayed there a few minutes before leaving and heading back towards the hostel. I got into my room and noticed that in my absence it had filled up, so I was careful to be quiet as I went to sleep.

Getting To Madrid

I woke up this morning on the train from France. It was kind of fun to look around the train and wonder who was Spanish and who was French, and if there were any other total foreigners hiding out in there. It was also funny to note that there were some people in the train who weren’t there when I fell asleep and others who had disappeared, and wondered if I would have managed to wake up if my stop was at, say, 4 in the morning. I vaguely remember being woken at around 6, despite the earplugs that the train provided, by people moving around to attempt getting off at Valladolid. I had considered stopping there, but the city just didn’t seem all that interesting. When I did wake up for good, I took the time to slowly slide the curtain open and peek out the window. In a moment I knew that I was in Spain. The landscape was completely different than any of the other ones that I had seen. It was green like in Holland, but a much crisper green that ironically reminded me of northern forests or mountains (hello? In Spain?). That grassy terrain was permeated with reddish rocks that vaguely reminded me of either Arizona or the surface of Mars, and the overall impression that I got made me think that a mountain goat would feel right at home in this area.
I made it to Madrid and out of the curious landscape at about 9 in the morning and proceeded to look around the train station. It was big, but not as big as the Berlin station. I would say that the Madrid Chamartin train station was about as big as the one in Bordeaux, though I would later find out that there was another station in Madrid called Atocha which was bigger and more important. It is also decorated like a rainforest on the ground level, something that I found appropriate as I began to experience the Spanish weather. I ventured out of the train station to find a giant residential and business district with absolutely nothing that interested me in the least. Feeling defeated, I went back to the train station and finally noticed the Tourist Information Booth, where I asked if there was any youth hostels in the area.
There were four in the city, and the woman who gave me the information about them told me that I should take the subway to almost the center of the city and pointed out on a map where I could find them. Finally with a map in my hands, I realized that I was on the outskirts of town, and that’s why there was nothing interesting. Haha, that would make sense!
I went to the nearest hostel, which was also supposedly the best one, and checked in there for two nights. I considered Madrid one of the most important cities that I would be visiting, so I wanted some time there. I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do first, so I hurried and put all my stuff away in time for the free tour at 11:30. The guy who led me from the hostel to the tour was an American who had been fired from teaching Spanish and had taken up being a tour guide, and I was shocked to learn that he knew someone who had lived in Inverness. It’s a small world I guess. He left after depositing me in a larger group with a guide named Pablo for the general tour, and then the tour commenced.
The first thing that we saw was the Puerta del Sol, the center of the city which was adorned with a statue of the man who had torn down the wall there and expanded the city, but which was often likewise adorned with protests of various sorts. For the past couple years there had been people dressed in bright yellow wandering around offering to buy gold (I don’t know who for) at about 18 Euros per ounce, and given that they were was nothing magnificent, but Pablo strongly recommended going to one of the shows. He said that there were cheap tickets sold at the last minute, but I still doubt I will make it. We moved on to the Royal Palace, which had replaced a military complex that the Hapsburgs had ruled from for centuries. That building wasn’t good enough for the fashionable Bourbons, and it had tragically burned to the ground during a drunken town festival, though on the bright side all the furniture, artwork, and servants had been saved. That tragedy conveniently gave the French rulers a chance to build a much more beautiful palace, and from that point there was an informal rule that no building could outshine it, a rule that explains the dull theater and cathedral.
The cathedral was only a short walk away from the palace, which attests to the relatively good relationship between church and state in Spain throughout history. It was far more ornate on the side facing away from the palace though, careful not to bruise the egos of the royalty. It is also right by the city park, which is bigger than Central Park in New York and a nice place, during the day, to have a picnic or barbeque. At night it become the Spanish Red Light District, but I was not fortunate enough to see it at that time. At one point the city tried closing the park at night to prevent that, but then the people who had been hanging out there went to more central points in the city, like the opera house. The park was secretly reopened a year later.
The other thing during the tour was the museum district, and the highlight there is certainly the Museo del Prado, which I plan to visit on Sunday. After the tour I had lunch with some of the people who were on the tour with me. We had Paella, a mixed dish with rice, prawn, some other seafood, and chicken. That was great, but much more filling than I had expected. Most of the people there were university students, so I felt at home there. One girl was going to a Real Madrid game, and we discussed going to a bullfight with varying enthusiasm. I will definitely go tomorrow.
After the tour I left to get checked into my room thinking that I would go to the Tapas night later, but then I realized that the guide had gotten sick and cancelled the event. That being out of the question, I visited the Reina Sofia museum of modern art. My favorite art there were the works of Salvador Dali, but there was a lot there. Then I went to a restaurant that had been recommended to me. It was called the Botin, and claims to be the oldest restaurant in the world. Their specialty was the roast suckling pig, which was good but in my opinion overpriced. There were many tourists there, mostly American and French though I did hear some British voices in the mix. Tomorrow will be another great day in Madrid, I’m looking forward to seeing what it will bring.

French Train Efficiency

French Train Efficiency

Today I had a nice morning, slept in, relaxed, showered, had a nice breakfast and lunch, then found my way to the Strasbourg central train station to continue my journey. My plan was to take the next train to Bordeaux and to get there some time before midnight and to enjoy the ride. I knew that I would need to ride with the TGV (Très Grande Velocité which means “Very High Speed”) and that in order to ride in those trains, you need to have a reservation. The impression that I had was that the reservation was really just a formality, something that you can do in the train station minutes before departing, and that there would inevitably be some space left. I asked when the next train would be leaving and got a schedule for the trains that would get me to Bordeaux, then went to a different office to reserve a place.
That’s where I realized it was a little bit more complicated. The first person I went to (where I spoke English) said that there were no seats left whatsoever and that I couldn’t depart today. I came back in a few minutes hoping for better luck, so I went to a different counter and spoke in French. The woman there was much more helpful. She said that she could give me a reservation for the first train tomorrow but that I could very likely get on the next direct train today if I talked to the conductor.
I did that. I first talked to the conductor’s assistant and he directed me to a machine to transfer my ticket. Then I realized that the reason I couldn’t get a reservation had nothing to do with the space left on the train, rather with the fact that I am travelling with Interrail. See, in France they decide to lose less money on the deal by only allowing a certain number of Interrail customers to reserve on each train. Apparently, when I got there the quota was full. Anyway, the conductor decided to do a good deed and undue this example of the French thinking in a profit oriented manner, so he let me on the train anyway, and as I write I am on the way towards my next stop in Bordeaux. After that I will (hopefully!) make it into Spain without any major difficulties, and I have learned my lesson about making reservations, at least within the French hexagon.

Rotterdam

I stayed in the Hague for a few hours, the political nature of the city was clear to me as well as the international feel. Many streets there had parking spots reserved specially for the diplomats from different countries, but there were some old castles and churches that are in most major cities.
After that I returned to the train station and took a train to Rotterdam, a major economic center in Holland and home to Europe's biggest port. It is on the Maas River, and the river actually divides the city into northern and southern sides, a division that has a deeper connotation to the people there. The south is normally considered to be more working class and the north is the more upper class section, and people living in Rotterdam notice the divide clearly. The two sections also have separate soccer teams with a fierce rivalry between them, not unlike the Chicago Cubs and White Sox. Sparta is the team representing the south of Rotterdam, and Feyenoord represents the northern part of the city, and games between them are giant sources of excitement and tension.
I stayed at a hostel tonight, the Room hostel near the Erasmus bridge, one of the dominant pieces of architecture in the city. They gave me a welcome letter with a list of services and rules, and I was happy to find that breakfast was included there. After checking in and locking my stuff in a metal cage that they provided under my bed, I took a walk and went to the Euromast, a 185 meter high tower from which one can see the entire city. I got an audio tour there too, and that is where I learned about the history of the city and some of the things worth seeing. After that I returned to the hostel and saw that most of the other guests in the same room as me (there were 7 other people in the room) were already sleeping, and I then went to sleep myself.
When I woke up I took a walk around the city. I didn't have a chance to go to the famous Boijmans van Beuningens art museum, but I did see the cube houses, actual residential buildings that look like normal houses except that they are tilted and made to look like they are standing on one corner. I will stay in the city a little longer, but I'm hoping to make it to Brussels today so it won't be for too long.
The weather today is wonderful, already in the morning it was warm so I hope it stays like this.