On a whim = Budapest

First picture of the morning but first a little catch up for those who weren't able to tag along to Buda and Pest.

St. Patrick's day sort of lasted more than one day for me. I guess you could say that I got started a day early. But so is it here in Austria. But it wasn't anything too big just a couple of Guiness and cider at a local Irish pub close to me. It's called Charlie P's and they played live music til about 12am which is about when I decided to leave too! So no worries, just a fun place is all. What's the best is that I finally found a place where young college age students hang out. Actually I had made the discovery a couple weeks before while a friend studying abroad in Athens came for a visit. We saw an Irish pub and been walking all over just to find a quiet place to have a few cheap beers. So went in and there were all Austrian college age students. It's funny: The Austrians go to the Irish Pubs and the Tourists go to the Austrian bars!
The next day a friend and I decided that we'd buy train tickets to Budapest. She had heard they were cheap and we both had heard about how unique the city was, apparently a muss see for tourists/or travelers I guess sounds better!
So we bought two tickets to Budapest leaving at 5:25am from Wien West Bahnhof! We had a little trouble with our travel agent so to speak. He was just in a bad mood, such a bad mood that I couldn't take him serious and almost burst out in laughter the whole time he was speaking to us. According to him everything was "Ausgebucht, ausgebucht, AUSGEBUCHT!" Pretty obvious huh? So we got stuck with a early morning train to Hungary. We decided to look at it positively and understand it as more time to see the city.
Upon first arrival we needed to find our Hostel; some beds would just fine. And Tara, who I was traveling, was in desperate need of a little more than 3 hours of sleep -After she had shut her alarm off she fell back asleep and almost didn't wake up in time to catch the train, she was holding our tickets and everyone knows how it feels to wake up like that. Anyhoo- Long story short, she wasn't appreciative of my usual morning self as I suggested that we could just wander around a little to find our place... "You can't lead us anywhere!" She told me, with a laughter behind it as I forgot the name of the street we were looking for! haha But we made it to our hostel quickly and safely. I can say right now, that without Tara, I'm not sure I would have made it in Budapest let alone made it to Budapest at all. She was basically my tour guide = mom.
But we checked in, luckily they had some open beds though they wouldn't be open til after 1pm. So no sleep and needed to kill some time.
We weren't sure if we could pay in Euros or not for things, and we weren't exactly sure what the exchange rate or what 1000 HUF (Hungarian Forints) were equal to in USD. We decided 5000 should make it a ways. We were wrong and ended up taking out 20 000 the next day.
Without any effort at all, as we stepped outside of our hostel doors, we found !Arriba! a mexican food joint with cheap food. We waited like creeps UNTIL they opened at TEN am, haha ate some great food and relaxed. Then decided to get moving and see the town.
Arrival in Pest. Keleti train station!
We found Arriba. Really good mexican food that is always hard to come by in Austria and Germany. The Guac was unsatisfactory disappointingly enough. Everything else, exquisite.
Walking off the three kilo burrito and bag of chips I previously ate.
Oper is ueberall!
So is Catholicism though. Szenc Istvan = St. Stephan's
Inside was very ornate and glowed almost because of all the gold, even though there was no electricity on inside. Thought it was great and learned why so much gold was used in frescos
and middle age through renaissance art. The Light at the end of the tunnel. Poetic huh?
This is me and Tara together in the basilica.
I put my camera away for a while cause I didn't feel like making any more photos. So you all you missed more walking, the hostel, nap time, more walking, a great Hungarian restaurant with big Hungarian beers, blue cheese salads with a little bit of veggies on the side, and of course Hungarian Goulash with large helping of dumplings! It was a lot but I needed it- I'm having trouble keeping the weight on my shoulders but for some reason it hangs around my gut quite leisurely. I had to explain table muscle to Tara at dinner. She wasn't impressed... ...
After a nice meal, another walk and some light political/philosophical discussion with some new friends. (see above too)
That's the Buda side across the Donau, Danube or Danu. That's the Kaiser palace built for the Habsburgs actually. Yes the Hungarians love Sissy too. I'll prove it to you later.

Trip to Memento park. A sort of re-visitation of communist sculpture art.
Probably my favorite piece. All the statues were very muscluar and showed a ton of movement. Wasn't sure what was meant by it all though.
Looks familiar huh? Same statue in Berlin. Well not the same but same concept: Communism duh! Marx and Engels just chillin.
Stalin's Boots! This used to be an entire statue of Stalin but after 1990 (I think) rioters destroyed that statue and it stands for the downfall of past socialist and communist movements. The park in total was very interesting. It helped me to understand the total context of the Iron curtain and the wide spread influence of the silent Tyranny that was communism. I didn't realize how closely related Hungary was to Russian, Austria, Germany and the US. It was fun to piece things together with Tara as we walked through history in our heads and in the Pahk. (Boston accent)
After all the communism we could stomach (oh ha ha ha) ... ... ... we decided on Vegetarian! Yep- Actually this is probably some of the best food I've had since being abroad. Pita falafel and Humus. Holy cow. Falafel is deep fried chick peas and humus is soaked, mashed up chick peas with olive oil and a special sauce(s) to go with. They can be pretty spicy too. Very good dish. But kind of weird service: every time the guy would say something in English to us he would follow it up with a Spanish equivalent. You're welcome with de nada, muy bueno with taste good? and Adios for good bye. It was strange.... ...
Crossing the Chain bridge from Pest to Buda. We walked every where this trip. We decided the exercise would be good, the town's small and easy to get around and we would eventually save some money by not using the public transportation.
From Buda over to Pest as we walked up the hillside to the castle.
Old part of the castle being dug up/excavated.
Buda side again.
End of our walk- Oldest synagogue In Europe and second largest only to one in New York.
Hero Square with lots of hero's
More HS.
and another
Another castle but this one you can see where the moat once was. A FREAKIN MOAT!
We were lost again... .... Ok I was lost....
Can't remember what these were called but they were suggested to us by a Hungarian friend at Macalester. She said that the kids grow up on them. They are cream cheese things coated in chocolate. Sometimes they have different flavors and sometimes they have nutella filling along with the cream cheese. Let's just say they cost much less than the amount of calories in 'em. I loved them, tara was however worried. Guess she's not excited about 240 as I am.
I think St. Stephan or Peter. Tough to tell.
Look closely it will tell you the way to Vienna!
Proof that EVERYone loves Sissy the Queen of the Habsburgs! Erszebet! Actually everything was named after her and her husband King Franz (Ferenc in Hungarian). The Austrian Kaiser Reich spread all the way to Hungaria. Crazy huh?
From the Citadel. This was our last day (Thursday before we had to head back on Friday). Buda and Pest together in one unifying picture. Gorgeous huh?
And then a freak snow storm! We had had beautiful weather basically the whole trip up until this point. But it didn't last bu thirty forty minutes and it was sunny again. Nuts!
Tara was prepared.
Getting out of the snow and into the Maria Shrine of a nearby church. Talk about a refuge! (Another metaphor that should be connected to one I made earlier about the St. Stephans's basilica. Should be Funny now... ...)
Too much eating out = Tara wanted rabbit food. So I agreed as long as we could make them manly salads, buy some rolls and a chunk of cheese. Actually we both were pretty excited about not eating heavy food for the night. Here Tara is kind of going crazy with the beans and corn.
Huh? Huh? Huh?

And again I decided to stop taking pictures because I just didn't want to anymore. But here's what ya missed, original movies in English at a theater right next door to our hostel. How convenient huh? We saw There Will Be Blood and Easter Promises the next night. I highly recommend the latter but try to stay away from this theater. They enjoy sending Americans that can't speak Hungarian to the wrong theater room, luckily we figured it out before it was too late. Which means you also missed many other crazy conversations; Lots of coffee and tea and California Coffee! hhaha Lots and lots of walking around Pest and Buda.
We ate at arriba again to kinda tie things up, walked to Keleti and took the train back to Vienna.
Last picture of Pest. I'll miss it really.

Der Stift Klosterneuburgs

This post is a little backwards from the rest of them- to scroll down is proper. So this is the first picture of the Klosterneuburg excursion. First a little Hintergrund Information: Kloster Neuburg was founded by Leopold the III (Elected but declined candidacy for the King of the Holy Roman Empire and later because of a vision from Mary decided to build a Monastary. Leopold is also the Patron Saint of Austria. As the town and monastery simultaneously developed the location took on a certain Royal reputation because of Leopold and then the later Leopold the VI. The mansion, that was later built, was used for Leopold the VI (King of the Habsburg Dynasty) outside of Vienna and is now called the Kaiser apartments. The Monastery was taken over by the Augustinians where they both brew wine and worship!
This post could aptly be renamed Wine wine and more wine because they didn't let me take pictures of any of the historic things so be prepared to look at Wine and Wine tech photos.
We took three tours: A tour of the Abbey and religious life, a tour of the Royalty life, and then a tour of the wine culture. (I think the other two tours are offered so that one doesn't feel guilty about only coming for the third, the wine!)
This is the church. If you look closely you can see where the old and new come together. It took over 900 years to complete Klosterneuburg and even now it's not entirely finished because of needed renovations for the old stone. In addition, the plans for the grounds were never fully executed because of money and architecture problems. What was really neat is that some of the walls and stones have lasted from Roman times!
The Monastery and mansion overlook the Danube/Donau. "It's really nice here" is what I thought to myself before it started raining.
You can see the crown on top of the dome the represents the Royalty of the location and what part of the grounds they lived.
Another picture of the color difference.
Riesensaale! The hall of Giants! The statues one the walls are mythic Atlantis heroes and are still unfinished pieces.
Kleine Brauner! Little espresso shot with some whole milk to "wake me up before I go go" on the wine tour. Coffe in Vienna has the funniest and complicated names. There's a Einspaenner, a Maria Theresia, Melange, Pharisaer, Tuerkische and so on. And the menu never explains what exactly it is. The only reason I order a Kleine Brauner is because I heard read about it in a Thomas Bernhard play!
Start of the wine tour; a big code of arms barrel!
Tara getting a good shot of the wine barrels. She's my spring break buddy cause everybody else went to Italy. We're discovering Vienna and Wine, Wine, Wine.
Wine Wine Wine
And .... .... ....
This was right after our tour guide said we would be tasting some of the wine. Everyone ran up the stairs and in all of the commotion, the hustle and the bustle I was pushed to the ground. This was the only evidence I could get: Watching as every one else hurried up the stairs to leave me 40 m below the earth! Which reminds how crazy it was to see baroque architecture and arches in the basement! It was simply astounding to comprehend how someone could have built such a magnificent structure without modern Tech.
Empty : (
FULL!!! : )
Where the wine sits; wo es gereift wird! Passive voice! Germans love it!
Yep you guessed it- big barrels of wine! The kloster produces a ton of Red and White wine with vineyards all over Wien. In addition they also produce Green wines (robust, white peppery and manly wines), Riesling wines (the elegant, gentle wines!) and APPLE JUICE! I actually learned a lot about the processes and different types of wines for different meals- well actually I just kept asking the woman who was The Master of Wines because she was good looking and she kept giving me more wine... .... ... very educational if I do say so myself.
Our tour guide called this machine the actual Brew Meister. I as highly offended.
I couldn't help but think this was hilarious. If you look closely you can see behind the glass a test tube and some other measuring, tasting or otherwise official looking instruments. But all I could think about was the Monks sitting in the Gaer Kellar after mass saying "This one's ready! And it tastes great" and the other "Oh hush brother Thomas, you're just drunk!"

And that was the end of that. It was a great Palm Sunday and led into a good night for getting a good head start for St. Patrick's day.
Cheers!