Spring Break 2007

Welcome back to another fun and exciting episode of Jake's overly descriptive travels!

I apologize again for the lack of updates. I have been trying to organize myself lately, get my resume together and enjoy the wonderful weather we had up until yesterday. I got a little bit of color with the sun we got!

Spring Break

What? It’s here already? I have to plan somewhere to go? Uh oh. Actually my plans turned out to be quite good. It was a great experience and journey. I must comment though that the picture quality of this trip was abysmal. I am not happy with the effort I put into them, nor how they turned out.

Table of Contents:
Sofia, Bulgaria
Vienna, Austria
Prague, Czech Republic
Bratislava, Slovakia

Sofia, Bulgaria (Friday March 2nd-Tuesday, March 6th)

Map
Pictures

Other than the travel troubles on the way to the airport, this was by far the best part of the trip. Sofia may not be the most beautiful city scenic-wise, but I was surprised by its cleanliness. The natives laughed at me when I said this, but for a city of 1.5 million people, it is surprising clean and in the main areas (and even most of the back streets) had very little trash strewn about.

Holiday!

The time in which I was there was a huge holiday season for the Bulgarians. On March 1st, Bulgarians celebrate Baba Marta and adorn each other with Martenitsi:

and wish each other health and happiness. These bands, necklaces and other wearable pieces are a celebration of spring and are removed when you first see a stork at which time it is thrown onto a tree. The holiday is primarily a celebration of the end of winter and the beginning of spring.
March 3rd is considered Bulgaria’s Independence Day from the Ottoman Empire and is widely celebrated with flags and other items. I was able to witness a political march, led by the most radical political group in Bulgaria. The ideals of this group, from what I understand, are their strong opposition to the Roma and Turkish population with regard to their reliance on state welfare for their well-being. This group was able to take 21 seats in the parliament last election and the leader has been likened to Hitler in some ways, so to many it is quite scary, despite much of the public’s frustrations with those minorities.

The People and Food

During my visit, I stayed with Ina’s mother, Veselina (Vesi). She is a wonderful woman and very kind. Ina had informed me before going that she did not speak much English, but I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to maintain some very good conversations. Her cousin, Raya, spoke excellent English and assisted when she was able.
We ate a few traditional Bulgarian meals, both at restaurants and at home. Everything was excellent, and I’m re-addicted to Ayran now, a drink made of yogurt, water and salt. It is typical of many cultures in that area and is available at nearly every restaurant. The food is saltier than what I am accustomed to, but overall I recommend all of it, especially the yogurt and cheese (things they are famous for).
We visited a few clubs on Saturday night, which were interesting. Ina had properly prepared me before hand with several phrases like “I don’t want any problems” and “Leave me alone” to avoid any troubles. We had a slight problem getting into one club as they tried to make us pay twice for the cover charge. The people you meet on a personal basis are EXCELLENT, all very nice, however the service you receive at restaurants and clubs is not exactly stellar.

Sites

We visited quite a few very neat sites:

Boyana Church

Boyana Church, a medieval Orthodox church built in the 10th century. It is protected by UNESCO and has been recently restored. The fresco inside (of which pictures are prohibited) were very neat:

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox Churches in the world. We visited on March 3rd which allowed us to see a world famous choir and a ceremony by the head priest, who is adorned in a giant crown and gold. As is customary in a few religions, candles are lit upon entering the church to wish health and longevity to the living as well as mourn the dead:

Russian Church

We also went into a very old Russian Church near downtown.

President’s Office

We witnessed the change of the guard at the President’s Office.

Bulgarian Dinner

We went to a restaurant and ate with Ina’s family (mother, cousin, aunt and uncle). It was a great meal, although way too much food. There were also some entertainers performing for part of the meal:

Raya’s Bunny

And Raya has a very cute bunny.

Bulgarians doing the YMCA at a Club

Vienna, Austria (Tuesday March 6th-Thursday March 8th)

Map
Pictures

Vienna was the first part of the trip where I would be totally alone. I arrived in the Bratislava airport about 45 minutes late (plane delay) and had to try to find a way to get to Vienna. We missed the first bus that left there, and the schedule was pretty much incomprehensible, so we waited for the next. It arrived about 45 minutes later, I bought a ticket and off we went.
The ride to Vienna was beautiful for the beginning and then began to remind me of home. Flat, boring fields with some trees scattered. The only difference was the mountains in the distance. We arrived in Vienna and I had no idea where I was. It was dark, I didn’t have a map, couldn’t speak the language and all I knew was there was a U3 metro next to where I was. I decided to spend about 20 minutes deciphering the metro map and discovered that I could take get a connecting metro and take that to where I needed to go. I got off there again disoriented, but eventually wandered to my hostel, suitcase and all.

The Hostel (Wombats)

Being this was my first hostel experience, I was not sure what to expect. I knew that this hostel would not be typical of most other hostels as it is supposedly one of the best hostels you can go to anywhere. My first impression was good, other than the screaming kids running around (ok, they were like 14, but there must have been 100 of them). I was scheduled to stay in a 4 bed dorm type room and they checked me in on the second floor.
The rooms were pretty much what you would expect. About twice the size of a dorm room with a personal bathroom. One of my roommates was there when I arrived and after the awkward silence of “do we speak the same language?” we started talking. His name was Graham, and was from Wales.

Concert

I had decided earlier that I would check out the “Shakira” concert that was playing in town (Nelly Furtado was playing the next night) and looked up where the concert was held. I offered Graham to come with, but he declined. I walked over to the concert hall, bought a ticket and went to the concert alone. I showed up about 20 minutes after the “official” start, but I think I actually got there just on time.
The opening act was awful. It was very strange songs mixed in a rather unattractive way. Luckily that ended quickly and we had the pleasure of waiting for the opening act to start. I sat on the floor and slept for about 45 minutes while I waited; sounds like a pretty exciting time, eh? I don’t have much else to say other than the concert started, it was good and yes, Shakira does her typical “booty shaking” on stage-the entire time.
I left the concert and went to bed after meeting my two other roommates who were both from Canada.

Sightseeing

I spent the entire next day haphazardly sightseeing by foot. My original plan was to find the tourist office, find a walking tour or at least a better map and explore that way. Instead I wandered to anything I could see in the distance. I would walk to one sight, see something else above the tops of the buildings and walk that way. Not sure if that was a good way to go about it or not, as I’m sure I didn’t see many things I would have liked to.
Some of the things I saw:

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Built in the 12th century, this is definitely one of the bigger sights in Vienna. It is possible to climb one of the two towers and see Vienna:

Inside of the church:

Miscellaneous Statues

Monument Against War and Facism by Alfred Hrdlicka in the Albertinaplatz

Opera House

I didn't really get a good picture of this, but this was the statue outside. I tried to find an opera to go to while I was there, but all the ones I found were sold out.

Hofburg Imperial Palace

This is currently the residence for the President of Austria. It at one point also housed the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire and previous rulers dating back to the 13th century and thus has a fairly important part in history. There is, of course, also a massive garden in front of and behind the palace:

Mozart

There was quite a bit of Mozart-type things around the Hofburg even though he was born in Salzburg and not Vienna. This was a small garden and statue devoted to him.

Parliament

This is a massive building. I sat here for a few minutes to rest before I proceeded.

Votivkirche

This church was built primarily as a "thank you" to God by the then Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after narrowly being saved from a knife attack.
The facade was under construction at the time, so I didn't get a very good picture.

Dance Troop

There was a dance troop performing for tips outside St. Stephen's Cathedral. It was a pretty neat show and I got a few videos of them doing some unique things (at least to me). Lots of flips as well.

Prague, Czech Republic (Thursday March 8th-Saturday March 10th)

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Pictures

Prague probably has the most personality of any city I’ve been to in Europe. Graham, my roommate in Vienna was also going to Prague so we decided to travel together. I already had a hostel booked so we decided to find that one despite having been offered a place to stay about ten times from a nice lady who would not leave us alone. We quickly figured out that the metro system is confusing and poorly labeled, but managed to find our way in the right direction. We follow the directions given to us from the hostel and found the place "Kafka's Castle.” Perfect. Now how do we get in? We tried buzzing every label on the door, tried calling the number that was listed there and got nowhere. We were buying random things from street vendors in an effort to get change to use in the payphones (which kept eating our money) so we could talk for more than 30 seconds to the people trying to understand why we didn’t know where the hostel was. We eventually figured out that the directions they gave us were wrong and got new directions from the person at the hostel.
“Take a right, then your second right, and your second left. It’s right there.” Simple enough, we can do that. We followed the directions and ended up in… a piazza. Ummm not quite what we were looking for. A nice man came by and offered to give us directions (we must have looked pretty lost). He told us that he’s never heard of the street but thought it was off the map we had. We started trekking that way and ended up lost, in another piazza asking people where the street was. No one seems to have heard of it. We eventually found a taxi, hopped in and asked to go there. He also had no idea where it was, but found it on the map and dropped us off.
The hostel was nice, the people were nice, but we had a roommate that decided he had never snored before and that he should try it. I definitely used the earplugs both nights we were there. There supposedly was a “breakfast” included, but I guess they don’t start serving that until 11:00am, when we were just leaving. We helped ourselves to some of the bread and jam we found, since we figured at the time that it was a “help yourself” situation.
The first night we were there, Graham and I decided to walk around to find food and see what we could find at night. We saw some of the sights, which I tried to take night pictures of, but most didn’t turn out. We eventually found a bar on an off street to sample some of the famous Czech beer. Turns out that it wasn’t as far away from the tourist areas as we thought. I found myself sitting next to two Americans, listening to Lionel Richie (off VH1 or similar) and another American speak about “In America….” How exciting. Regardless, we made it an early night in an effort to get started early the next morning.
We made it out about 10am the next morning and started by walking towards the river. We could see Prague castle in the distance, so we walked towards it:

We saw a strange array of statues standing on some steps across the streets so we went and investigated. We found out that the statues were a monument devoted to the victims of communism:

We then wandered the castle for awhile, saw the large cathedral and then walked towards the main Prague areas again. We found some parks, smaller spots and look out points:

We climbed down the giant hill we were on, crossed the bridge and explored the downtown area and then walked towards the Charles Bridge. There were nearly countless statues on the bridge, all of which were unique, but with a religious basis:


We then walked and accidently found the “Lennon Wall”

Where I took my favorite picture of the trip:

On our way back to our hostel, we decided to explore a mountain area. We climbed the seemingly endless trail only to find that it would be a great view of the city—except for the trees that are blocking every possible angle. We decided to return to the hostel for a short while to rest our weary feet.

Post Office

After writing my first hand-written letter in years, I marched off to find the post office to mail a package.
As I have found out in Florence, European post offices are much different than US post offices. They have a queue system, you take a number which is designated for the type of service you need and wait. I can handle this, it’s orderly, except when you can’t understand what is written on machine to get the tickets. If you choose the wrong one, they send you to the end of the line to try again. I chose a number, and waited.
The lady I spoke to, well tried to speak to, couldn’t really communicate with me beyond the obviousness of me needing to ship the package. I filled out the customs form, paid for the shipment and off I went. Surprisingly easy, I was expecting worse.

Dinner

Now I’m starving. We ask the lady at the front desk for a typical Czech restaurant. She sent us about 10 blocks away to a bar that happened to sell food as well (I don’t think they have single-purpose places in the city). I ordered something I normally would not order, containing sauerkraut and some other things. It was quite good. I had a full meal, appetizer, main course, desert and beer for about $10. Not bad. I was exhausted from all the walking so I went to bed at about 7pm that night. Graham met our new roommate, who was from England and proceeded to go out to a heavy metal club until 5:30am. I checked out at 8:00am and made my way to the train station.

Bratislava, Slovakia (Saturday March 10th-Sunday March 11th)

Map
Pictures

I again made this journey alone. According to my ticket, I made it to the train station at 8:44, the train left at 8:46 so I narrowly missed waiting another 2.5 hours for the next train.
Bratislava. I don't really know what to say about this town. I think I told someone that it was a "great city if you're middle-aged or retired and don't value your time." I really wouldn't spend more than an afternoon in this city unless you're really into British stag parties. It was a beautiful city, very cozy, but I think I would have rather spent my time in Budapest.
I arrived at the hostel about 3:45pm, checked in and headed to my room. I thought I had booked a single, but it ends up I was in a quad. I managed to wake up my two sleeping roommates who had apparently had a rough night. We introduced ourselves and I found out they were from France.
They asked if I would like to join them for some lunch and a walk around the city. I decided to join them and we found a pizza place in the tourist area of town. It was nice and the food was good. We left there, walked up to Bratislava Castle and took in the view:

There were a few sculptures and things near the castle:

and we stumbled upon the "Yard of Honor" on the west side of the Castle:

The Hillebrandt was holding a digital art exhibit, so we checked that out:

After some more wandering, we decided to find another restaurant. We ate at a Argentinan Steakhouse and then decided to find a club. I stayed there for about an hour or two and then decided to make it an early night and take some night pictures of Bratislava:

The next morning, I checked out of the hostel, stored my bags and walked around again until my flight left at 6:45. I found a few statues:

and the Slovak National Theatre:


Otherwise I walked over the bridge and took some pictures from the other side of the Danube River:

Returning Home

My flight to Milan and busride to the train station were uneventful. Indeed, the last train to Florence had left about 45 minutes before I got the train station. I managed to meet some other people trying to get to Florence, and we decided to go to Bologne and catch the train at 5:30 the next morning. We sat in McDonalds until they closed at 3am and then moved into the train station lobby. Apparently this is not an uncommon thing to do as there were about 100 other people waiting when we got there.
The wait was everlasting. You didn't want to sleep for fear of being robbed, but you didn't want to totally crash the next day (plus you were incredibly tired anyways). The train finally came at 5:30 and I slept my way to Florence. Ah! Home sweet home!