Leapfrog

I keep this blog mainly as a way to keep my parents up to date with what I’m doing and as a personal “this is what I did” record. I met up with my parents with Istanbul, and we had a wonderful time which we will all remember, so I don’t feel the need to write an entry about the day to day. Enjoy these pictures of that gorgeous city!

Leaving Budapest and taking the trip to Vienna was surprisingly luxurious. The first class ticket cost 3 euros more than the second class tickets so I opted for the fancy option. That ticket also gave me access to the Business class lounge, which had snacks and drinks, so waiting for my train was much more pleasant than I expected.

Vienna welcomed me with one of the strangest coincidences I have encountered so far. A Brazilian guy I met on my Budapest walking tour was sleeping in the bunk below me in my Vienna hostel! One awkward but friendly conversation later we went our separate ways.

Just looking at the list of museums I could go to if I wanted to made me fall in love a little bit with this city. The fact that there is just so much art here, that that art feels so alive, made me feel like I already knew something fundamental about this place, a welcome shift from the uncertainty of Budapest.

Day 1:

I wanted to go on the free walking tour my hostel offers, but I soon learned it was Ascension Day, so that tour wouldn’t be running, and that most stores, cafes, and restaurants would be closed. So I did some exploring on my own, ending up at a couple of lovely places in the city. I spent some time in the Stadt park, which was preparing for a local food festival by putting up what seemed like hundreds of white tents. I had worked out a schedule for my Vienna visit when I first got in, taking the afternoon of my travel day to do some research, and while I had to deviate from that plan, I still made good use of my time.

After walking through the nearly deserted main shopping street and snacking on some delicious Viennese ice cream I decided to go to the Leopold Museum, the museum housing the world’s largest Egon Schiele collection. Their collection is amazing and I enjoyed my time there immensely. (I’m sending some posters home with my parents so I can keep some of Schiele’s work with me. The Museum Quartier is a happening place in Vienna, people go to that open space to hang out and have some coffee, so the whole courtyard felt alive and welcoming.

Day 2:

I had a simple plan for day 2; sleep in late, head to the Art History Museum and the Natural History Museum, and then go to a Sekou Kouyate concert at Porgy and Bess, Vienna’s premier jazz and “world” music venue.

That plan worked out wonderfully and Day 2 was probably my best in Vienna. The Art History Museum was gorgeous and full of Van Dyck’s, Ruben’s, and Durer’s, among many others. I had some very fancy hot chocolate and then walked across the garden in between the two buildings to the Natural History museum. They have a wonderful collection including meteorites, fossils, and a life-sized animatronic dinosaur. It was awesome.

Then it was time for the concert, which turned out to be the highlight of my trip. I did have a little bit of trouble finding the venue, but a helpful concierge at a hotel I wandered into gave me excellent directions.

I had the best possible seats at that concert. I was literally using the stage as an arm rest. The music was wonderful and the vibe was great, it was just a lovely evening. I took a taxi back to my hostel and fell asleep very satisfied.

Day 3:

My third day in Vienna was mostly a rest day, my feet weren’t happy with me, and I was tired from the late night I had had. I did take some time to explore the Naschtmarkt, Vienna’s most famous market, but I found it claustrophobic and not really worth the visit. I also went to the grocery store and spent a little bit of time watching the people going in and out of the numerous Asian supermarkets in the area.

Day 4:

I spent the morning of my last day in Vienna at The Albertina, a modern(ish) art museum in the heart of Vienna. They had a few exhibitions, one on Japanese photography, which wasn’t that interesting, one on Chagall and Russian impressionism, which isn’t my favorite, and one called from Monet to Picasso, a selection of work from a private collection donated to the museum after its owners death. It was a great exhibition and I liked almost every piece, which really only means I have similar taste to some rich person who collected art, but nonetheless, made the experience more enjoyable.

The Albertina also had an exhibition in its basement on the work of Anselm Keifer, a german who makes giant woodcut collages. They were beautiful, and because I disagreed with much of what he was getting at, I was able to spend my time thoughtfully and furiously scribbling notes.

I spent my evening at an event called the Festival of Joy, which was supposed to be a concert commemorating the victims of the holocaust, and because the Vienna Philharmonic was playing I was excited to go. I once again got amazingly lucky, I showed up early and was able to get a chair, a real rarity at an outdoor concert designed for picnic blankets. I even suffered through an hour of german speeches only to find that the Vienna Phil was having an extraordinarily off day. I bailed.

The next morning I headed off to the airport to fly to Istanbul, where I would meet my parents and turn 18!

I spent three full days in Budapest, and honestly, I’m just sort of confused by them.

My first impression of Hungary was of organized chaos; the train that was supposed to take me from Zagreb to the main station in Budapest turned out to be a train to a bus to another train, but the bus picked us up and dropped us off, we herded politely and there were no problems with the changes. I met a very nice Greek girl who lived in Budapest to study Veterinary medicine to help me through. I went straight from the Budapest train station to my lovely host’s house, via taxi, the first one of the trip. She lives in Buda, the hilly side of the Danube, in the ‘burbs of the city, and I do have to take a combination of the metro, the bus, and my legs to get into the city center, but the comfortable bed, yummy food, and inviting atmosphere make it well worth it.

Day 1:

I headed into the city with a vague mental sketch of a plan and a borrowed guidebook tucked in my bag. Kris (my host) told me which metro stop to get off at and doodled a little map on a post it note for me. The adventure started at the train station where I had to withdraw forints, a currency where one seriously has to pay attention to the zeros. (I was fine, no mistakes were made.) I hopped on the metro and got off at the Parliament stop, Kossuth Lajos tér. Walking outside and seeing that grand and beautiful building was a real shock, as the train station and metro system are, and I’m being kind, functionally designed. After being duly impressed by the grandeur I meandered to the ethnography museum, which Kris recommended, which is also housed in a fancy-pants building, and got a little look into traditional Hungarian culture. I spent the rest of my afternoon wandering around the edges of the main part of Pest, (pronounced Pesht) and sipping a cappuccino at a cute cafe.

Day 2:

I took the same path into the city on day two but I took the metro two stops further to the very center of Pest. I wandered around this area for a little while before once again settling into a coffee shop and taking some time to reflect and draw. I then headed towards one of the main squares where I joined a free walking tour of the city’s general important monuments. My tour guide was a tiny pixie of a Hungarian lady, who proudly claimed to be born and raised in Budapest and to not want to live anywhere else. The tour started at 2:30 and didn’t end till 5:30, so I was happy to contribute to the donation bag passed around at the end. To hear a Hungarian talk about the history of his/her country is seemingly to hear a story of victimhood, of faultlessness, of oppression. I thought the combination of intense pride and victimhood was interesting, and it taught me early on to enjoy the tour but to listen with my critical thinking engaged. One very cool thing I learned about Hungarian is that “s” is always pronounced “sh” unless it is followed by a “z”, which made the spelling and pronunciation of Liszt suddenly clear. The walking tour ended on the Buda side of the river, so I caught a bus to another bus and made my way back to my accommodation. I had a really nice dinner with Kris and her two children, it has been 6 weeks since I sat around a table with family and a home-cooked meal. It was a welcome change!

Day 3:

My plan for day three was to spend most of my time in the zoo and botanical garden, but when I got to that stop and looked around it didn’t seem appealing so I headed back to the center and tried out a new coffee shop. I realized that it was getting close to the time that the tour company I went on the walking tour with the day before had another tour exploring the Jewish Quarter leaving soon. As I hadn’t explored the Jewish Quarter and it’s one of Budapest’s most important districts I decided to tag along. That tour went past the three main synagogues in Pest, including The Grand Synagogue, which is the third largest in the world. I have to admit I was a little worried about the victimized tone of a non-jewish Hungarian guide when talking about the Holocaust, but that sensitive subject was handled fairly well. There were a couple of statements made by our elegantly mustachioed guide that rubbed me the wrong way about the harmonious nature of Jewish and Hungarian life before the first world war, but I got over it and enjoyed the tour. I had heard on the previous tour that Hungarians were very smart, in fact they had won 14 (or 15) Nobel prizes, but that factoid was amended on day two by the guide saying, “Well, in fact 13 of them were Jewish, and they were no longer in Hungary when they won.”

The tour ended in a “Ruin Bar” a specific type of drinking establishment that Budapest is known for, but because I had no desire to stay and experience that scene I asked the guide for directions to The Liszt Academy where I wanted to see a show. He told me how to get there very easily and I made it without much hassle only to learn that the concert was sold out! I was very surprised, a young string quartet on a weeknight could not have filled a cafe in Baltimore but in Budapest a concert hall was sold out. So I made my way back to Kris’ house, disappointed that I didn’t get to experience a Hungarian concert, but happy to know that the music I love is valued in this city.

So why am I confused by this city? Because it feels confused. Is it the city that loves classical music or the city that sets up bars in abandoned buildings? The city that feels like a victim or a victor? I can’t tell, which is an odd experience, and I find the streets bewildering as well. Even though they are twisted or overcrowded like the streets of Italy the streets here feel like they are waiting for you to get lost, and the gray of the buildings, and over the last few days, of the sky feels very foreboding. Those feelings are in direct conflict with the great kindnesses I’ve experienced here- a man who gave me a bus ticket before I had forints and a woman who gave me a ride up Kris’ street when it was pouring rain. So although Budapest has treated me incredibly well, I don’t feel comfortable, or like I could belong here. Maybe it’s the weird language, maybe it’s the lack of a urine smell, but I am left feeling lost and on the edge of something meaningful, and, of course, still confused.

I’m sorry this post is so late, the blog was down for a little while.

Zagreb greeted me with cold and rain but I didn’t hold that against it. This is a beautiful city, and very manageable. Plus it had the absolutely amazing strength of having also attracted my grandparents at the same time, and so gave me the gift of spending time with people that I love.

Zagreb is not a big capitol, and two full days here definitely felt like enough, but it is a lovely city, and this place feels lived in and comfortable.

I basically spent both days just walking the city, first with my grandparents and then on my own. There is a cute little old town, a bustling market, a street devoted to coffee, and a horse-shoe of adorable parks.

I spent all of my first day in Zagreb with my mom’s parents, who were accidentally in the same city at the same time as me. I joined their tour’s walking tour in the morning, we learned about the origin of the word Kuna, saw a miracle painting, and rode the world’s shortest funicular. We had lunch together, and then we spent the afternoon visiting the museums in Zagreb’s old town. The Croatian folk art museum was excellent as was a nearby museum dedicated to sculpture, both providing sketching opportunities and food for thought. It was so nice to spend time with family after being on the road alone for 6 weeks.

I spent the day I had on my own in Zagreb exploring it’s many parks including the botanical gardens, which were beautiful and deserted, my favorite combination. I wandered into the botanical gardens, where there seemed to be no officials of any sort so I just walked through the gates and started exploring. I then strolled through the other 6 parks that were nearby.

In the afternoon I went back into the old town for a bit to see it in the sun light as it had been rainy the day before. The rain had driven away many of the tourists, but on day two the main square was bustling. I took some time in the afternoon to explore Zagreb’s coffee street, stopping at a little cafe that served fresh squeezed orange juice with their cappuccino for the equivalent of $1.50. I had a lovely dinner with my grandparents and then headed off to bed, prepared for the train ride to Budapest the next morning.

The journey from Florence to Venice was very smooth, as every journey so far has been. I went straight from the train station to my accommodation, a campsite 10 minutes by bus outside of Venice where I got my own “mini-chalet” for the same cost as a dorm in the city. It was a nice little place and they made surprising good pizza.

Real day one in Venice was not ideal. The weather decided not to cooperate at all and it was cold and rainy. The city was still beautiful, and the gray drizzle gave an appropriately solemn tone to my stroll through the Jewish quarter where,  unsurprisingly, everything was closed for Passover. I had planned a day of visiting museums and churches, but I felt there was enough to see on the canals and in the little narrow streets that there was no need for me to oversaturate my experience. I look forward to seeing the Guggenheim collection and Palazzo Ducale, on my next visit. Plus I was a walking giant green damp ball thanks to my ridiculously oversized poncho.

My father’s friend and former classmate Christiana was kind enough to give me several recommendations for my visit to Italy but her truly excellent advice in Venice was to not follow the tourists and to find beautiful, quiet places. I couldn’t have spent my time better than doing just that.

An unfortunate side effect of the rain was my poncho, which completely prevented me from taking pictures, except the one pictured above through my neck hole. It was not a comfortable experience. A one picture day! What a shame in this amazing floating city.

I decided to call it quits when the wind in St. Mark’s square was so strong it pushed me around a little bit. I am not an easy lady to push around.

Luckily Day 2 was much more of a photographic success. I woke up prepared for another mildly miserable day, even went so far as to put on three layers of pants only to find when I opened my door that the weather was sunny and beautiful. I took the bus into Venice and just enjoyed the weather. I had planned on spending all of Monday taking the many vaporetti, but the weather was so beautiful I decided to just walk the city and have a day of exploring and of taking pictures. I ended up never going inside a single building in Venice, just looked at the surface of the city. It’s one of the reasons I know I will return.

I found many wonderful little back alleys and quiet white marble corners that vanished into soft blue green water. I happened upon hidden gardens and courtyards, watched fierce old Italian ladies mutter over tiny bridges. I would find a wider street with a stream of people holding cameras and bright umbrellas and I’d simply go in the opposite direction. I never got lost because I never had a destination.

p.s. There are more photos in the gallery!

Day 3 in Florence was actually a day in Lucca, a nearby town that really gives you the feel for small town Italy in Tuscany. It was the first really gray day of my visit to this sunny country, but there were still plenty of Luccans? Lucconians? enjoying the beautiful walk on the historic city walls. The walls are Lucca’s main attraction, so I decided that I would walk the whole thing and forage into the main part of the old city if I felt like it.

I pretty much stuck to the outside of the city. The walk was really pleasant, especially as a respite from Florence’s crowds, and the high walls give an excellent view of the cities gardens and winding streets. I did walk into the center of Lucca for a little bit, but there didn’t seem to be anything in particular to keep me there, so I headed back to the wall.

Quick side note- How does everyone in Northern Italy know to paint their houses yellow, orange, or white? It creates a wonderful atmosphere, but HOW IS IT COORDINATED?

I had a simple plan for my last in Florence- see the David and go to the gelato festival. I didn’t follow that plan after reading an article about delicious rice flavored gelato at the festival- I like my ice cream in the normal flavor spectrum. I did however, see the David, which I think was the more important item on the agenda anyway. The line for the Accademia is notoriously a bear, but I got there about half an hour after they opened and only had to wait about 20 minutes, which was completely reasonable.

I love the way the David is presented. You walk up a hallway lined with unfinished Michelangelo’s on either side to see David rising high above the visitor’s heads with a curved white wall and skylight surrounding him. It’s beautiful, and the curved bench behind him was a great place to sit back from the crowds, sketch, and reflect on a masterpiece.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around neighborhoods I hadn’t visited yet and popping in every church I walked past that had open doors. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, and as I hadn’t visited any churches yet, spending time in them gave me some important understanding.