Star Trek Enterprise and Futurama Series 9

Went to the local post office today to pick up a package I missed when it was delivered to my house. It contained two items I bought from Entertainment Earth. The Star Trek Movie Enterprise Vehicle, pictured above, I bought because it was on sale, 60% off. However, I thought I was buying the 2010 Hallmark Star Trek ornament, which looks exactly like this model, except this model is 10 times bigger! I'm still happy I bought it, but now I have to go find the ornament and hope the stores has not sold out.

I also bought the Futurama Series 9 figures, even though they were not on sale. I guess that's how they make their money, but I was going to buy the Bender and URL figures anyways. Now I just need to find space on my walls to display them.

Foursquare Cache on Phone

FQ_Cache

I was exploring the files on my Android HTC EVO phone today and stumbled on a folder that contained thumbnail photos of over 300 people from the Foursquare application. My guess is these are all the people who had checked-in to the same place I had. So that means there are people out there with MY photo on their phone. Google does like to collect and save personal data.

Vienna Photos - Best Of

Vienna 2010 Enhanced

Vienna 2010: Trip home via Frankfurt

Me in snow at ruin.

 

Our flights out of Vienna weren’t until after noon, so we got to sleep in a little and not rush to the airport. We met in the lobby, except for my sister who wanted to get more sleep, and made one last walk to the café. Another two pastries and a coffee was my last meal in Vienna.

Back at the hotel I finished packing and we all met downstairs for you pre-arranged taxi ride. When we asked for taxi the night before, they were worried that the standard taxi car would not hold luggage for four people, especially Americans, who tend to over pack. We insisted that we didn’t have too much luggage, but since a van picked us up I guess they didn’t believe us. At least it was the same price and we had plenty of room.

We arrived at the airport over three hours before our fight left. My brother and his wife headed toward the British Airways check-in and my sister and I went to the United counter. It took almost no time to check in and get through security. We walked to the Star Alliance club, where we found a comfortable seat and grabbed from free food and more coffee. I was happy to find out that they provided free Wi-Fi Internet, so for the first time since I left San Francisco I was able to check my e-mail and Facebook accounts.

Frankfurt Dom

As our boarding time got near we headed to the gate and boarded the plane. I believe that we once again had to take a shuttle to our plane and then walk up the steps from the tarmac. I wasn’t dressed for the freezing temperatures, but it was a short walk between the shuttle and plane. On this leg we were in coach, and this plane had very little leg-room, but since the flight was only one hour it really didn’t matter. Even though it was a short flight they still served a sandwich and drink.

We arrived in Frankfurt on time and once off the plane we followed the signs to baggage claim. But once we reached the airport exit, we realized that we made a wrong turn. After walking around we retraced our path and found the door to the baggage claim that somehow we missed. We saw at least one other man do the same. At the baggage carousel our bags were waiting for us to pick them up.

Now we walked to the exit and got a taxi. It was about a 20-minute ride to the Westin hotel. Along the way we looked at possible sites to see later. Inside the warm hotel get got in line to check in, but apparently a woman with her husband had decided that they were more important than us and rudely cut in front of us. At the same time another man walked up to one of the hotel clerks who was busy with a customer and started demanding something. It was at this point that I realized that people in Frankfurt, at least at this hotel, were not as polite as they were in Vienna. So we just had to wait a little longer to get to our rooms.

Christmas Market From Dom

It was already 3 PM so we made a quick turn-around and headed outside into what became the coldest part of the trip. If fact it started to snow shortly after. Our first destination was the large cathedral that we saw on the drive there and I could also see from my hotel room window. However, once there, we saw that it was not that large and not very picture-worthy. So we continued our walk to find the Christmas market that was near-by. Yes, this was our fourth country and fourth Christmas market. As we walked along the crowed pedestrian shopping area, I spotted a church down the street. We walked there and even though we really never figured out the name (I think it is just called the Dom Cathedral) of this church, it was defiantly the biggest one around. Plus, as a bonus, it had a dome – and it was still open! We paid our 3 Euros and entered the door to the tower. It was starting to snow harder and the sun had already set, so I guess I felt the need to “run” up the steps so I could get some photos before it got too dark. I don’t know how many steps there were, but I’m sure there were more that the dome in Vienna. At this dome we were able to walk to the very top, where there was an outside walkway with 360-degree views of the city. I walked around, taking as many photos as possible, but since it was snowing and getting dark, most of my photos turned out hazy, but still captured the old city below and even the new skyscrapers that were all build after WWII. Much (or most) of Frankfurt was destroyed in the war, and this building was one of the few that survived.

Christmas Tree.

There were only two other people at the top crazy enough to be outside in this weather. After we had our fill of the view, we walked back down the narrow passageway, and I was surprised to find at least one person climbing up. Once outside, we walked back towards the Christmas market which was very busy, but then again it was a Friday night. Thanks to my sister for buying a cone of fries. Hot food was what we needed to keep going. We did have plan for the evening. My sister and arranged to meet the creator of a “my.flightmemory.com”, a web site she uses to track her airplane trips around the world. We need to be back at the hotel by 6:30 to meet him. So after exploring the market and listening to yet another local band (of singers) sign Christmas songs, we meandered back to the hotel. My sister kept in contact with Sam and when he said he was in the hotel she told him to look for her brother, the tallest person. So as soon as I stood up, a man looked at me and yes, it was Sam.

Sam was very nice had happy to meet us. He actually lived about an hour away from Frankfurt, so it was very nice of him to make the drive to hook up with us. We were relying on him to take us to a local German pub where we could drink some good dark beer. Outside the hotel he said we could either walk or take the subway. We decided to walk, not realizing how far the walk was. We had to walk to the other side of the river Main. The walk actually went rather quickly as we talked to Sam about his web site and Germany. Sam spoke perfect English and understood everything we said. Our destination was an area of Frankfurt known for its bars. This place had a name, but I don’t know what it is.

Snow at Pub

Once we arrived, we looked at the menus of some of the bars and walked into one that looked promising. Sam asked the bartender what dark beers they had, and I opted for a dark hefeweizen and my sister got a dark bock. We sat and talked as we drank our beers. It was rather quite as we were the only ones in the bar. Also, the bartender was smoking, and Sam was surprised because smoking is not allowed in any German bar or restaurant. After we finished our first beer, I made the decision to try a different bar. This may have been a bad choice because we at the next stop not only did they have less of a selection of beers, the employees and customers were smoking even more! So much for having smoke-free clothes to wear on the flight home. We asked for dark beer, and they basically told us to just to order beer, meaning drink whatever beer they had on tap. We did and the beer was pretty good.

Our next stop needed to be a place that served food. We looked at the menu outside a nearby place and all agreed that there was something on the menu we could eat. Once inside I was happy to see that this place was a very casual restaurant where you sit on a bench at a long table. Also there was no smoking and a man was playing German songs on his guitar, or some other instrument. For my meal I finally ordered the Schnitzel. I’m not sure if was veal, but it was breaded and fried, and included a local Frankfurt green sauce, which had a unique flavor.

After our meal, we were ready to go back to the hotel. Sam used his phone to find the nearest subway station, and it was far enough away that it would have been shorter to walk back. But with it being so cold, we just took a taxi for a 10 minute drive back. At the hotel we thanked Sam for meeting us and said goodbye, as he had a one hour drive back home in the snow.

Christmas Market

Once again, our flight the next day didn’t leave until after noon, so we were able to get more sleep. We met downstairs in the morning, checked out and took a taxi to the airport. This time the taxi, after asking us, took the autobahn to the airport. Sam had told us that all freeways in Germany are called autobahns, so the term does not mean a road with no speed limit. However, our taxi drive hit 160 kpm at one point, and we got to the airport much faster that the trip from the airport.

We checked in and made the usual trip to the Star Alliance club where we got food and coffee. Unfortunately, there was no free Internet. While we were waiting, we could see the runway and gates, and saw our place arrive and be blocked by another air plane that needed to be towed for some reason. Then our plane sat, apparently waiting for an open gate. Turns out that there was less than a 30-minute delay in our departure time. Once we boarded the plane and found our business-class seats (this time we had to pay to upgrade), we were served our champagne, just to wait some more. An unfortunate event took place near us that caused another 20-minute delay. A man didn’t quite make it to the lavatory before he got “sick” all over the floor. It took a long time before the situation was taken care of, but eventually we departed.

The flight was from Frankfurt to San Francisco, an estimated time of 11 ½ hours. This was an unusual day, as we left Frankfurt on a Saturday and arrived in San Francisco on Saturday. During the flight, I saw the sun set, rise and set again. The flight took the polar route, so we flew over Greenland and down through Canada. At the beginning of the flight we were fed dinner. During this time I watched another movie called “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale”. This movie, which I had never heard of before, starred Richard Gere, and was “A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home” (via IMDb). If you have not watched this movie – you should. It is a very touching film which draws you in. It helps if you like dogs – and who doesn’t?

Cheers!

 

After the movie was over I listed to music on my iPod. As I started to get tired, I played my self-hypnosis CD “Confidence building”. Side “A” takes you though a self-hypnosis session, and side “B” is just some very relaxing music with soft, almost subliminal suggestions. After it was over I not only fell asleep, I slept for four to five hours! I didn’t wake up until they started serving breakfast, about on hour before landing. However, since it was 3 PM local time, it was actually lunch, once again making this an unusual flight.

We landed about 30 minutes early, despite leave late. This was my first time entering the US in the San Francisco airport, and the first time using my global entry pass that I was granted a few months before. With this pass, you can bypass the line for customs and just use a kiosk, where you look into a camera, answer some questions and get your fingerprints digitally scanned. We got though very quickly, but for some reason, it took over 30 minutes for our luggage to arrive, and by this time everyone on the plane had cleared customs. Once we got our luggage, we had to re-check it and then go through security again. So for this first time I got selected to go through the new x-ray scanner. I wasn’t worried about radiation and the who process took less than a minute.

With one leg left, we had almost two hours before our flight. So after taking the long way to the club, we eventually made it to the lounge and found a spot to relax, watch some college football, and read e-mail. Our plane departed on time and this time we had first-class seats for the 90-minute flight to San Diego. Before long we landed in San Diego, departed the plane and walked to the shuttle pick-up area. I said goodbye to my sister, who was leaving for American Samoa in a few days.

Karen in Dom with Snow

I had another bad experience on the shuttle to the parking lot, as the driver let too many people on the bus and was rude to the many who wasn’t happy about the driving putting someone’s luggage on his backpack containing his computer. At the parking lot, I quickly exited the bus rather than waiting for it to take me to my car. I got home by 10 PM, but as usual, as tired as I was, I could not just go to bed. I had to unpack, take a shower, turn on my computer and check e-mail and then relax in front of the TV.

Around 11 PM I “hit the hay” and slept in Sunday morning, knowing that this was my only day to sleep in before returning to work. On Sunday I just relaxed, watched football, took a long jet-lagged nap, relaxed some more and then went to bed with the alarm set for 6 AM.

This was a whirlwind of a trip four countries in eight days. I’m glad I took so many photos so I could remember what I saw and did. So what is our destination next year? Perhaps the Maldives, a small island nation off the southwest coast of India. Now that will be a long journey.

Vienna 2010: Thanksgiving Day

Palace Gardens

For the fifth year in a row I celebrated Thanksgiving in a foreign country, where they, of course, do not celebrate the holiday. If you watch BBC or CNN International they’ll talk briefly about Thanksgiving, but mostly in conjunction with it being the day before the biggest shopping day of the year in America. Our goal today, other than see the rest of the sites we wanted to see around Vienna, was to have a nice dinner for Thanksgiving.

We had a few specific plans for they day, but none that required us to wake up really early, but as usual, we wanted to get an early start to maximize the daylight. So we met in the lobby at 8 AM and rather than going straight to the café, I wanted to see the gardens and Gloriette at the Schönbrunn Palace. We made the short walk and found the entrance to the gardens, which were free, and at this time in the morning, cold and not very crowded. About the only people there were joggers and a few other tourist. We wandered around the gardens where there were a few statues to look at before we started the climb up the hill towards the Gloriette, which sat at the top of the hill behind the palace. The sun was out so it was a good time to snap a few photos.

Us above Palace

Before we entered the gardens we were going to eat at the café in the palace, but it didn’t open until 9:30. We were surprised to find that there was a café in the Gloriette, but when we walked in we saw that they had a very slim choice of pastries, and even though we were hungry, we decided just to wait for breakfast and head back to our usual café. So we walked back down the hill, noticing a few very bushy squirrels that wouldn’t stand still long enough for a photo.

Back at the café we had our pastries and coffee. From there we planned to take the U-Bahn to a site (I forget what site) outside the city, but before we boarded the subway we realized that it was closed. So our backup plan was to go to the Vienna Opera house. Once there we were “accosted” by men dressed up in “opera” outfits trying to get us to buy tickets for the opera. We told them that we had no time to see an opera but wanted to tour the opera house. They were very nice and told us that the tours started at 2 PM and tickets went on sale shortly before then. This gave us time see some more sites.

Piano

I think it was my brother that suggested going to the Ephesus Museum, which included the Collection of Arms and Armor and Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments. Include was an audio device that you could enter the number listed on each exhibit and hear a story about it. For some of the instruments, you could also listen to a short audio of it being played.

Most of instruments in this museum were very rare; some were one of a kind. There were all sorts of very early pianos, the most interesting one called a harmonium, I think. The most striking feature of this piano was that there was a different tone for B# and Cb, and E# and Fb. I would have loved to play this piano, but of course the keyboard was protected by a Plexiglas cover and there were the usual swarms of museum personal watching everyone. I didn’t realize until I was almost finished looking at the instruments that you could take non-flash photos. So I only have a few photos of the exhibits.

Armor

They next section of the museum consisted of old arms and armor, the kind used in jousting and other such battles. I was less interested in these artifacts, as I am not into arms and armor, but it was still fun to see all the exhibits, some of which were very rare. There were more swords and armor to see than musical instruments, and I think we all got tired and were ready to leave.

We still had time to grab a quick lunch before heading back to the opera house, so we ordered some pizza to go, except we ate it in the restaurant, which may have been against the local customs. When we were in Rome, I remember that if you order food and drinks in a café, you pay extra if you sit at a table, as the locals ate their food at the counter and then left. Either way, I’m sure they knew we were tourist and didn’t kick us out.

It was time to walk back to the opera house, or maybe we took the subway – I forget. Wait, we did take the subway and actually got back too early. Now I remember that we ate the pizza on our first day, and today we had our lunch down in the subway station tunnel, where there were lots of shops and palaces to eat. After lunch we walked back to the opera house and found it was already open and there was a line to buy tickets. Luckily the line went quick, and once we bought our tickets we walked to the section labeled “English”. There was at least a hundred people or more waiting for the tour, lined up in their native language section. There were so many in the English section that they stated that tour early. We were in the second English tour.

Opera House in Vienna

Our tour guide was a very nice woman who spoke very good English. As she led us to our first stop, I was wondering how they were going to handle up to eight different groups at once, but they had a semi-efficient plan where each group took a different path through the opera house, except where sometimes two or even three groups ended up in the same room and once. Photos were allowed, but some of the rooms were too large to photograph, so most of my photos ended up in the “reject” folder on my computer. Our group was lucky, our last stop was the actual opera house, where we sat in the prime seats for an explanation of the opera. We were told that they never play the same opera two nights in a row, so they have to change the set every single day. In fact, we saw the workers building the set for this night’s opera.

The price of the seats for an opera varied from very expensive to very cheap. The cheap seats were actually standing room only, but for just three Euros, I believe, was a great deal. Kind of like getting the lawn seats at Petco Park for a Padre game.

As expected, like in an episode of The Simpson's, the tour ended in the gift shop. We quickly exited the shop, but since the tickets included entrance to the opera museum, we decide to check it out, despite having a hard time finding it – as did others. It provided a few good photos, and there were pictures of all the famous singers that performed at the opera, none of which I knew except for Pavarotti.

Christmas Lights in Vienna

It was now starting to get dark. That meant it was time to head back to the shopping pedestrian zone to see all the Christmas lights turned on. I was disappointed at first to see many of the light not on, but as we continued along, I was happy to see that the lights strung above the street were shining brightly. Even thought it was difficult to take good photographs of the lights, I was satisfied to see them in person. I’ve loved lights, especially Christmas light since I was a kid, and even at the age of 44 seeing these decorations brought back happy childhood memories.

So now it was time to find a restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a book that suggested good placed to eat, but find these places proved difficult to find. Finally, after much walking around in neighborhoods that we had not been to before, we found a restaurant that had a menu that we all agreed we liked. The downside was that smoking was allowed. Austria still allowed smoking in some bars and restaurants, but we were not going to let that stop us. My Thanksgiving dinner was pasta with larger chucks of turkey. It was one of the best meals I had on the trip so far. Add to the meal a local beer and the Thanksgiving experience was complete. The smoking wasn’t too bad, but apparently most people wait until after eating to smoke, and somehow everyone finished eating at once. This meant that what ever clothes we were wearing would not be worn again on this trip.

Thanksgiving Dinner 2010

After dinner we walked around a little more along the way to the subway. Once one the subway we were quickly back at our hotel. This was our last night in Vienna, and the next day, Friday, we were flying to our next destination. My sister and I were headed to Frankfurt, and my brother and his wife were off to London. We arranged for a taxi ride to the airport the next morning, even thought our flights left one hour apart. Back in my room I packed all my dirty and smoky clothes in my checked luggage and all my clean clothes in my carry-on bag. I quickly fell asleep after a long day of walking and was ready for the trip home via Frankfurt, Germany.

Vienna 2010: Bratislava Day Trip

We had planned a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia back when we decided to go to Vienna. Bratislava is only a one hour train ride away from Vienna. But since daylight was an issue, we wanted to get an early start. So we met up in the lobby of the hotel at 7 AM and made our daily trek down the street to the café for pastries and coffee. There was a subway station near the café, and we bought a two day pass, knowing that we would be using the subway for the next two days.

So looking at the map of the subway and where the train station was that we needed to get to for the ride to Bratislava, we determined that it was rather simple to take two lines to get to the train station. However, at the second stop, we looked at the map and thought that the train station was within walking distance. So we took the stairs up to the streets and quickly found ourselves lost amongst a construction zone. We saw the train tracks, but no train station. Eventually we asked a construction worker where the train station was but he did not speak English nor did he know where the station was even after looking at a map. So we retraced our steps and got back to the U-Bahn. Once there we followed the signs that led us to our stop and soon realized that we needed to take the S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn" (meaning "urban rapid railway")).

Lucky the subways and trains come at least every five minutes, and when the S-Bahn arrived our stop was just one stop away. This time we saw the train station and quickly walked there and bought four round-trip tickets to Bratislava. The train was leaving in 10 minutes so we didn’t have long to wait. Once on the train we found some nice comfortable seats. There were plenty of open seats as the train was not crowded at all. The trip to Bratislava took about an hour. This was the express train, which did not stop at all stations, but we did stop several times to allow other trains to pass by on the shared tracks.

We arrived in Bratislava around 11 AM, I believe, and once we left the train station we knew that the city center was a short 15 minute walk away, mostly down hill since we were waling towards a river. Our first unusual experience in Slovakia was a mentally disturbed man who was walking along and yelling and spitting on the ground. We purposely walked fast to avoid him. Soon we found our first stop, a bright-white palace. At this time the weather was cold but the sun was out. After taking a few photos we continued towards the city-center. The night before, my sister-in-law had mapped-out a few sites to see, so we at least had a destination – the oldest street in Bratislava. Along the way, there were many interesting buildings to see.

Our first destination was “the oldest street in Bratislava”. Now that may not sound too interesting, but just the journey of trying to find the street turned into an adventure. We found the general area, and the streets defiantly looked old, but we never know for sure which was the actual oldest street. Along the way we took many photos, and in some cases had people walking by looking at us strangely.

Our next stop was a castle on a hill. Reading up on the site, we knew it was under construction and not open, but still worth visiting. The castle sat atop a hill, so we walked up steep streets to reach it. Once there, the views of the city were spectacular. We could see the river below, the “UFO” tower and the brightly painted Soviet-style buildings across the river. Once again, these sites would have looked much better in the sunlight, but it was actually starting to get colder and darker. We ended up in souvenir shop where I bought my standard magnate to add to my collection on my refrigerator.

It was lunch time and we were all hungry. So we walked back down to the historic city center and looked for a place to eat. We wanted to eat at a restaurant that served local food, but somehow ended up at an Irish Pub. As it turned out, the food here was excellent! The meal was much better than the one in Budapest, and even the local beer was slightly better.

When we left the restaurant we realized that the weather was becoming dark and cold. We once again ended up in a Christmas market, when it started to rain. We all had umbrellas, which kept us dry but not necessarily warm. It was starting to get dark, so we knew we had limited daylight. We found an information center where we finally got a local map. Reading the local guild book we had, we knew there was one more site to see – the blue church. There were actually signs that were labeled “Blue Church” that we followed and soon found the church that was very indeed, painted blue. We took many photographs of the church and its blue paint, and even though the church was closed, the front doors were open and inside we saw that it was just as blue and took more photos.

At this point we knew we had seen all that we needed to see. So we headed back to the train station. The rain stopped and we put away our umbrellas, but it was still cold. The walk back to the train station was all uphill, which wasn’t that steep, but after days of walking made our legs feel quite tired. Once at the station we found that we had just missed a train, and had to wait for over an hour for the next one. Surprising, the wait went by rather quickly, and when our train arrived it was on track #1, so we were able to walk to the train directly from the first floor of the station. We had expected that the train would be busier since it was “rush hour”, but once again there were plenty of open seats. The train left right on time, and like before, we had our tickets checked twice.

The train seemed to make less stops on the way back, and we arrived in Vienna in less than one hour. Now that we knew the how to get back to our hotel, the trip took less time. Take the A-Bahn to the U-Bahn, two stops and transfer to another line and pretty soon we were at our hotel. Having eaten a hardy lunch, we didn’t need a dinner. So our plan was to meet down in the lobby at 8 AM the next morning. This allowed us time to sleep in – somewhat. I was surprised at how tired I was and found myself falling asleep by 8:30. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving day, and we had no specific plans other than to see sites we had not yet seen and have nice Thanksgiving meal.

Vienna 2010: Budapest Day Trip

Two days before we verified that the trip to Budapest was still on. If there weren’t enough people signed up then the company could cancel. We were told that the shuttle would pick us up at our hotel, and that we needed to be at the Opera House meeting point by 7:30, but we were not told when the shuttle would arrive. We assumed that 6:30 was early enough, so we planned to meet in the lobby then. However, at 6:15 my phone rang and it was my sister telling me that the shuttle driver was downstairs waiting for us. Luckily I was ready to go, since I had been up for 90 minutes. I ran downstairs to make sure the drive didn’t leave without us.

Once we were all ready, we boarded the shuttle, which made one more stop to pick up more passengers before we got to the tour bus. We arrived in plenty of time and the bus left once everyone was on board. There were about 20 people on this tour, which isn’t a lot unless you consider that it was a Tuesday during the off-season. The tour guide was a nice woman who apparently spoke English, Hungarian, Spanish and German. All but two of the passengers spoke English, so had to repeat everything in Spanish. There was one man from Russia that didn’t speak English very well, but his wife ( I assume it was his wife ) translated for him.

The bus ride to Budapest takes about two hours, and during that time the guide spoke about Budapest and Hungary. Once again it was information overload. I’d say that the two most important facts I remember is that Budapest is made up of two cities, Buda and Pest, and Pest is pronounced “Pesht”. Plus, once we arrived she pointed out that the Buda side was on a hill and the Pest side was completely flat. They were separated by a river Duna (or Danube). During the ride she also played a DVD about Hungary, which she called a “special surprise”, but we had read the reviews of this trip, all of which were positive, so we knew about the DVD. Many of the passengers either slept or listened to their iPods during this video.

I enjoyed the ride. It was nice to just relax and look out the window at the countryside. There were lots of farms, many with power-generating windmills, and small towns with small houses sitting amongst the green hills. I tried to take some photos out the window, but most turned out blurry.  Once we arrived in Budapest the guide once again pointed out sites of significance. In some cases, she repeated herself two and even three times. Our first stop was, well, even after being told three or four time, I can’t remember the name, but there was memorial, music house and perhaps a museum. As we drove through the center of Budapest the guide kept pointing out buildings that you could only see briefly if you looked down “the next street to the right”. Not much opportunity for photos.

At our first stop we immediately headed to the bathrooms. The bus had a bathroom, but it was very small like in an airplane, so I opted to wait. We only had about 15 minutes to walk around, so I took as many photos as I could of the buildings. Unfortunately, it was once again cloudy, with the sun poking out from behind the clouds occasionally. Lots of the buildings in this city were brightly painted and would have looked better with more sunlight. After our 15 minutes everyone boarded the bus for our next stop – lunch!

We crossed the river again and drove up a hill where the bus had to stop because large buses are not allowed to drive on the top of this hill because there are cave underneath and the buses could shake the ground and cause a collapse, I guess. So we walked five minutes to the designated restaurant for the lunch that we pre-paid for on the bus ride there. We had a choice of the standard Hungarian meal or a vegetarian substitute. Most people got the standard meal, which included Goulash soup, chicken with rice and a desert. My sister and I had a Hungarian beer because our goal was to have a local beer in each of the four countries. The beer was just another yellow fizzy beer, not much better than Budweiser. Overall I was not impressed with the food, and the family that skipped the lunch had the right idea.

After lunch the next leg of the trip was a one-hour walking tour of the area with a local guide. She led us around the streets, once again pointing out site of interest and also allowing us time to take photos. We ended up at a place that had a great view of the river and city below. There are quite a few very large and uniquely designed buildings, none of which we got to see up close or go inside, but were able to take photos of. At this point I think we all realized that it might be worth a return trip to stay a few days in Budapest. There is a lot to see and our time was limited on this trip.

After the walking tour ended, we got on the bus and continued the bus tour of Budapest. We drove back over the river to the Pest side, drove by more buildings, including the second largest Synagogue in the world. Who know that the second largest Synagogue would be in Hungary? The area we drove around was pretty near where we were dropped off for our two hours of free time, so we had an opportunity to explore some of these sites later.

Around 3:30 in the afternoon we were dropped off and given two hours to explore the city. The guild was pushing everyone to check out the Christmas market and the Café next door. With the sun setting fast, I did my best to get us to some sites before it got too dark for photos. We headed for the nearest Cathedral, or in this case a Basilica, which I can’t remember the name of, because they always make for good photos and have a climbable tower. I believe this one had a tower, but like most places in Budapest, they only took the local currency and not Euros. We could have exchanged some of our Euros, but decided it wasn’t worth it. So walked into the Basilica where I took my token photo of the pipe from the pipe organ. As we walked around we found the room that contained a mummified hand that belonged to someone. While we were looking, someone paid the 2 Euros to have the small case lit up. I snapped a few photos not realizing yet that someone had just paid for this, but I’m sure they didn’t mind.

Once outside the church, we looked at our map to see what else we could visit before we needed to head back. We walked down the street to the Opera House, but it was a rather boring building, so we started our walk back to the Christmas market. Along the way we took an underground tunnel where there was a train museum, but they didn’t take Euros so we skipped that site too.

Back at the market, we walked around some, but this market was not as good as the one in Vienna. They were selling more “made in China” merchandise and less homemade crafts. There was also a band playing what I assume was Hungarian Christmas music so we listened to them for a few minutes. It was starting to get very cold, and about that time a man that was on our bus walked by and said the café did serve good coffee, plus it was warm. So we went in and eventually ordered some coffee or cappuccino. We were getting short on time so we paid the bill and walked back to the bus. By now it was getting dark and many of the buildings along river are lit up very brightly at night, which provided great photo opportunities.

We then boarded the bus, which was comfortably warm. Everyone made it back on time except for the family with the rather well behaved son, who they must have taken 100 photos of. Once they made it to the bus, we headed out. The guide continued her commentary until we were outside the city. She promised that she would talk less on the way home, which she did. Since it was dark outside there wasn’t much to see. Luckily I brought my iPod and listened to music. I even fell asleep for at most five minutes, but that was long enough to give me a second wind. The ride seemed to take forever, but soon I recognized the Vienna airport, so I knew we were just 30 minutes away. The bus dropped a few passengers off before returning to the Opera House. Once there we boarded the smaller shuttle which took us to our hotel.

Even though it had been a long day, we were hungry and needed some food. So off to Wienerwald we went. I ordered the same beer and food as before and we had the same waitress. As I said before, the people in Vienna are very nice, but the people who worked in customer service were also very professional and took their job seriously. There was no small talk, just take the order and serve the food, but in a friendly way.

We got back to the hotel near 10 PM. Having been awake since 5 AM, it had been a very long but fulfilling day. I knew I would sleep well, even though we had another semi-early wake up time. Wednesday was our day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. We wanted to maximize our time in the daylight, so we planned on a 7 AM meeting time in the lobby. Once I was in bed, I fell asleep quickly and into dreamland I went.

Vienna 2010: First Full Day

Me In Vienna.

By 7 AM I was already awake, having not slept too well I woke up around six and just laid in bed for an hour. After figuring out how to use the coffee maker, which was nothing more than a water boiler that boiled water in about one minute and instant coffee, I got dressed for a cold day in Vienna. I was down in the lobby before our meeting time of 8 and was happy to see my brother and his wife made it to Vienna. Once my sister arrived we walked to the café down the street. I wish I would have written the name of this café down, but I didn’t, so for now on it is just “the café”.

Today was the day we had tickets for the hop-on-hop off bus tour. This is a great way to see all of a city in one day and spend more time some of sites along the way. There were a total of three lines, red, green and blue, which stopped at 15 different locations, and each location had for to eight sites to see. The first bus arrived at 10 AM at the Schönbrunn Palace, so we had time to visit the palace before the bus arrived. So we walked back to the palace and bought tickets for a self-guided audio tour. The tour took you through about 40 of the 400 rooms of the palace, and in each room you could listen to a description of the room and learn about the history of Austria and the palace in general. Unfortunately, the audio recording could not be fast-forwarded, so you were forced to hear the whole speech before proceeding to the next room. This leads to information overload. The most interesting fact I learned was that at one time Elisabeth of Bavaria, the Empress of Austria lived there. Her nickname was Sisi, and she had a reputation for always complaining, and that is where the term “sissy” comes from.

Buildings in Vienna.

After the tour we walked to the bus stop. The bus arrived on time and I handed the voucher to the man by the door that was smoking a cigarette. He looked at it and let us on the bus, which was almost empty. Some of the seats had headphones, so we (my sister) grabbed one each, assuming they weren’t going to had out any more - which they didn't. Between stops you can listen to the audio, which describes the significant buildings and sites we passed by. We decided to make our first stop at Heroes’ Square, where we visited the Treasury. First a disclaimer, I’m trying to remember what we saw each day using my memory, maps and the Internet. I may sometimes not have the correct name or place due to poor memory from the long trip there, lack of sleep and the nine hour time difference (or old age). So anyways, this museum contains “a unique panorama covering over a millennium of European history. This is the home of the most important collection of medieval royal objects: the insignia and jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Imperial Crown and the Holy Lance.” Like most museums, no photos were allowed, but you can see the jewels on the site’s web page.

After seeing all we wanted to see, we ventured back outside and wandered around some more. Our next stop was the stables, where they keep the horses that pull the carriages. There wasn’t much to see here except some nice white horses sticking their heads out of the stable, but my sister wanted to get some photos for a friend who really likes horses. Continuing our walking, we found some Roman ruins, including a city wall! It is important to always find the Roman city wall in any European city.

White Horses in Vienna.

We were going to get back on the bus to go to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, but looking at the map we realized it was just a short walk away, and we were in the city center where there is lots to see. As we got closer to the Cathedral, we entered a very busy pedestrian shopping zone that was decorated with all sorts of lights above the street, but since it was day the lights were not off. At this point I knew I needed to come back after dark to see the lights turned on. That would have to wait until Thursday. Once we got to the Cathedral we walked in. Like most Cathedrals, it is open and free, but also an active church, so you need to be quiet and respect the people who are there to do whatever one does in a church during the day. I snapped a few photos, without a flash, but it was dark inside and they didn’t turn out too well. I did get a good photo of the pipes (not pictured) from the pipe organ and unfortunately the organ was not playing. In fact, in all the cathedrals we visited there was no music playing.

The "Golden Cabbage".

Our goal was to climb the tower, as every major cathedral has a tower to climb. We found the entrance outside and paid our three Euros for the privilege to climb 350 stairs up a narrow passageway with sticky walls. Well, the climb is always worth is because at the top, or in this case the middle, since the stairs to the very top (500+ steps) were not open, the view of the city is spectacular. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and hazy outside, but there was still a great 360 degree view of Vienna, and you could see other churches and other sites all over the city.

Cathedral in Vienna.

We then walked back down, washed our hands with handy-wipes, and then set out for some lunch. We ended up at a pizza place and each had a large slice of pizza. This provided energy for the rest of the day. We walked around some more and then went back to catch the bus. Since the next bus wasn’t due for 15 more minutes, we decided to walk back to where we got off the bus earlier so we could see the other stop along the tour. Once the bus showed up we walked on and this time when I gave the drive my voucher he actually took the time to look at it and give us four tickets. Also, this bus was larger and had a second deck where we sat and put on our headphone.

We were on the red line once again, and when we arrived at the Opera House stop, which was the main stop of the tour, the bus “turned into” the blue line, which was the bus we wanted to see the rest of the stops. The blue line tour took one hour, returning to the Opera House. It was starting to get dark outside, and as we drove around I did my best to take photos of significant sites, such as the building with the “golden cabbage”. The history behind this building was that it was built sometime in the early 20^th century, but the locals thought it was ugly, and called it the golden cabbage. Then in World War II the building was mostly destroyed by bombs. But then after the war, the occupying America ambassador had the building reconstructed, which the locals were not too happy about. I guess you just can’t win.

Dome from Dome in Vienna.

Once back at the Opera House, we had to switch to the green line bus which took us back to our original stop, the Schönbrunn Palace. My sister and I were eager to show our brother and his wife the wonderful Christmas market we had discovered the night before. However, for some reason there were a lot fewer people and there was no band playing. We did have time to shop and I actually bought a souvenir, a porcelain cat with a candle, which is now sitting in my guest bathroom. My sister and I once again drank two Glühweins each, which helped warm us up. Each day of the trip the temperature got colder and the chance of rain or snow increased.

After about an hour in the square, we were starting to get tired. Since we needed to get up early the next day for our trip to Budapest, we went to the café to buy our breakfast for the next morning to save time. We needed to be ready to go by 6:30 the next morning. Also, we skipped dinner, except I bought a sandwich at a store on the way back to the hotel.

Lights in the daytime in Vienna.

Back to my room on the third floor, I got ready for bed and was asleep by 9 PM. I tried to stay awake longer, but with only three English-speaking channels, all news stations, I got board and turned the TV off. Tuesday was going to be a very long and busy day, so I needed all the sleep I could get.