Tourism Top 10 list

There are many ways to look at tourism. First is the normal tourist, the one that buys a package, has a guide and all routes and stays are planned out. Then there is the adventure tourist who, simply put, just goes. The third type of tourist is the kamikaze tourist; the one that goes to places just opened up to tourism without a plan, an itinerary, a hotel room for the night or any idea what lies ahead. We fit between the second and third categories. Of course there is also the suicide tourists that we became once or twice. The best example of this is one of the party just wanders off with no idea where the rest are going to be, or stay, or even have any money or way to get money-just loose in a foreign country where you don't speak the language or could be kidnapped or killed and no one would ever know what happened to you. So how would you describe the adventure/kamikaze tourist? The best way is through a Top Ten List: You know you're an Adventure Kamikaze tourist if:
#10. You go to former communist countries that are still trying to figure out tourism i.e. should we be nice to tourist or just steal from them?
#9 You take night trains to save money on lodging. You are woken up every 30 minutes to check you passport or ticket and the only word you understand is "American" said in an unflattering way. You also notice that in the bathroom of the train, words are translated into four languages, none of which are English.
#8 You discover that the best hostel you stayed in on the trip was actually a former prison.
#7. The most memorable museum you visited was the Terror/Torture museum that details out how the Nazis, and then the communists and perhaps the current regime dealt with its prisoners. This becomes all too relevant later.
#6 You learn that you must spend all the foreign currency in the country you are in because it is valueless in other countries. (Actually that was pretty cool and resulted in a lot of chocolate bars)
#5 You find that the best deals on rooms are actually from a guy who meets you at the railway station tugging on your arm. In fact, it is the only way to get a room (which just happens to be his house where you sleep in his bedroom
#4. You miss a train by 30 seconds, or was it 20 seconds #@$%?
#3. The rental car company gives away your VW Passat but then gives you an E class Mercedes, apologizing profusely for their error. It then costs $80.00 to fill up the rental car, perhaps explaining the apology.
#2. You are pulled off a tram by the secret police, who demand and then take your passport. They tear up your ticket and say that you didn't pay for the ride and demand $20.00 for a fine. The people on the tram come off with you to watch the spectacle and tell you not to pay (since no one but American tourist seem to be buying tickets). You're still not sure who pulled you off the train, scam artists or real police. When this happens again, you learn that if you speak Spanish they will let you go.
#1 When you visit the Iranian Foreign office in Sarajevo, you are told how courageous you are for visiting the city.

The long way home

Vienna was just spectacular and fit the pattern of awesome buildings and statues just jumping out at you as you walked. Somebody had a lot of money back then. We went to an odd museum where the floors were purposefully uneven; it was for a recent deceased artist (Hundertwasser) who did a lot of odd paintings and buildings, designed postage stamps and even the New Zealand flag as well as had a day named after him by Marion Berry in D.C. That night we went to what was probably the highlight of the trip, the Vienna Opera to see "Der Fliedimouse" by Strauss. The next day Bob, Jeremiah and Spencer went to the Military Museum where they had the car, uniform and couch where Franz Josef and his wife were killed in during their fateful visit to Sarajevo, setting off WWI. Apparently there was a big monument to that in Sarajevo that had been torn down by the current regime but the story was that Franz was visiting and someone threw a grenade at him that wounded two of his guards. Later in the day he went to the hospital to visit his wounded guys and his driver took a wrong turn and a high school student shoot him and his wife. So, a wrong turn started WWI (although the grenade attack should have told him he wasn't welcome in Sarajevo). The museum ended 1945 but had some Nazi stuff and even some photos of dead American airmen (the museum had been bombed itself so they were still pretty sore). We looked at some more incredible castles and then left for Salzburg, the setting for The Sound of Music, which was actually a tour as well as the salt mines. There was snow on the mountains all around and "the hills were alive with the sound of music." We left then for dad's old home, Bad Toelz, which, unfortunately was torn down and replace with a hockey rink. The old fort had been turned over to the Germans and used as a civic building. It was also painted in pastels and didn't look like the old SS camp or Special Forces bases it once was. The swimming pool was still there as well as the golf course and old officer's club that was just above our old house. We had lunch in Bad Toelz which was very upscale and beautiful. We then left for Munich, dropping Jeremiah and Spencer off since Spencer didn't really get to see the city when he flew in. After finding a hotel room near the airport, Mom ,dad and Martin met the two at the hofbrau house, where the kids noticed the hofbrau chairs like the one we had-they thought it had come from Korea rather than Germany. We're now on the plane back to Charlotte

On the train to Wien

On the train to Wien (Vienna) after a morning at the hot springs, a place we tried to get to twice before but couldn't figure out the schedule. Nevertheless it was great. Yesterday, New Years' day was slow with an attempt at the spa but it closed early, then into town where most everything was closed. After a supper of goulash and some other things we thought were soup (always a mystery what it is we ordered or what it costs) Martin went off on his own and the rest of us went to Buda, took a tram straight up the mountain and had an incredible view of Pest, looking across the Danube river. We then went to a castle and cathedral we'd been seeing from Pest and discovered it was actually a whole village- quite amazing in architecture and view. We took a bus down and mom and dad went to the hostel while Jeremiah and Spencer went looking for an internet café. Spencer got captured by the train police but responded back to them in Spanish and finally they let him go without putting him into the gulag. The train police are a real problem throughout eastern Europe-they are targeting tourists, especially Americans while their own countrymen are left totally alone. It's a hassle made worst by a Byzantine system of when to buy a ticket, where to use it, when to stamp it and why no one else seems to be participating other than the tourist and the Gestapo-like train police. You can sense that the countries could go right back to a totalitarian system and seem to like (fear?) their secret police. Still the places are so beautiful in both natural terrain and architecture.

About the baths, they were really neat but hard to figure out i.e. it took us three trips to get in when they were open. We went first to a changing room, then down to a series of rooms with various pools. We noted that each pool had a different temperature posted on the wall, ranging from 16 -38 degrees Celsius. We later discovered that there were other pools outside, also of various temperatures. One had a center section with a whirlpool that had an outer circle that became a whirlpool that projected people through it in a circle. Since it was about 35 degrees outside air temperature, it was stimulating with steam coming off the water but cold going from one pool to the next. One pool was a lap pool for exercise at normal temperature (that we avoided). They also had saunas and a steam room (that was way too hot). After we were done, we actually got a refund for staying less than 2 hours (the refund was a normal part of the spas).

After the spas we walked over to a flea market where they had an odd menagerie of items including things from WWII, DVDs of dubbed American movies and hard-core porn, toys, clothes and books. On the way to the spa we saw an odd sight- the police had stopped a guy pulling a camouflaged helicopter down the street behind a mini-van-he had an escort with a flashing light so not sure what the problem was except maybe he was stealing it.

subwaysculpture

subwaysculpture, originally uploaded by xkandle.

A sculpture of sorts in the subway system in Budapest. Unclear what is part of the scultpture and what is not: are the clothes, the puddle, the oddly shaped undefined material part of it, or is it all incidental? Budapest, a city built by people who are as estranged from the city's current residents as we are, is replete with buildings, statues and incidentals like this.

anoncastle

anoncastle, originally uploaded by xkandle.

An anonymous castle in a park in Budapest.

heroessquare

heroessquare, originally uploaded by xkandle.

Jeremiah, Spencer and Pam at Heroes Square in Budapest. Bob is featured in the left shadow.

New Year's in Budapest

It is now New Year's day and mom and dad are up and the boys are not. We're spending most of our time in Pest because our hostel is here and many of the sites are here as well. We did go over to Buda and walked around Thursday night and will probably go back tonight. Pam bought tickets to the baths but went we went back they were closed so we're hoping they are open today. New Years was different in that there were mostly local fireworks rather than municipal ones and that there seems to be a sport of walking down the street and throwing lit firecrackers behind you. Jeremiah took special offense to this and almost got into several fights although it seemed like just regular people were doing it. At 12 pm we were in a huge crowd as the time was counted down and then the Hungarian national anthem was played. It was a bit emotional as Hungary had a tough 100 years, going from a great empire in 1900 to a recovering disaster in 2004 with being on the wrong side of two world wars and then communism in the middle; almost as sad as a Sarajevo but throughout Eastern Europe people are hustling and trying to better themselves.

There is an incredible castle in a park where there is also Hero's Square, a big ice skating rink, the baths, art museums and huge plazas with large statues. Since it is New years a lot is closed but we went to the transportation museum where they had a great railroad display with ¼ scale models of trains plus a space pod with Hungary's only cosmonaut in it.

Pam and Bob went to the house of terror, a museum inside an old police station where political prisoners were kept, beaten and killed by the Nazis and Soviets-pretty gruesome but an important part of history; we also went to a huge church that had the hand of a bishop from 1000 years ago in a golden cage-amazing but also gruesome. While monarchies have plenty wrong with them they did produce some incredible buildings that make America's monuments look puny. However, we have much better TV shows and movies as well as music. We have TV in our room and watch horrible shows- high schools could do a better job with news and interviews. They do dub a lot of American B movies and seem to like violence and sex; their own programming are rough, ham fisted copies of ours.

The public transportation works very well with buses, trams, and subways. They have a similar system of buying tickets and putting them in a machine but few seem to be doing this yet they still have the train police-Bob was stopped and asked to show his ticket which he had-it seems like they only pick on tourists because only about 5% of the riders are buying tickets. The subways close at 11 p.m. leaving only buses which run past midnight. While there are plenty of cars, there are no traffic jams and people seem to find parking although sometimes on the sidewalks or at odd angles.

Our hostel is under refurbishment and not everything works, especially door knobs. The owners are from Romania, which we think is eastern Europe's Mexico. Again the water pressure is strong but the baths have showers without curtains so water goes everywhere, although there is a big drain in the floor-same thing in Slovenia, in Bosnia there was a tub with no shower curtain, in Zagreb a shower with close by walls but a drain that didn't work well. We discovered later in Bosnia that on the weird wall switches was one for the hot water; we turned it off so didn't have a hot shower one day.
There are plenty of American restaurants here- McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken although we only went to one to go to the bathroom. We had Chinese food New Years eve-it is the same world-wide. Eating out is an adventure because you never know what is going to happen-one time the food came right away, the other it took more than an hour and the subways closed by the time we finished. Still, everyone is healthy. We try to buy bread, which is great but don't always find the stores before they close. There are decent sized grocery stores but more very small, randomly placed stores. Plenty of coffee shops where we buy lots of cappuccinos because coffee by itself is instant and tastes bad and espresso is real-small and strong. Best use of the coffee shop is a place to rest and meet and most places it costs $1.25-1.50 a cup-still not as good as the coffee in Paris but OK. A lot of the coffee shops and restaurants only have 8-10 chairs so an interesting economic model.

We are walking a considerable amount but getting better at it-it seems that around every corner is another amazing building. We are not getting any news other than the earthquake but not sure how big a deal that is. Real glad to have Spencer with us and proud he could make it all the way here without error-don't think too many people could do that-this continues to be an adventure and scary often although we have finally met some English speaking people and Americans as well-a lot of people from all over the world here-hostels are an amazing mix of nationals i.e. Japan, Thailand, Mexico, often college students including masters and doctorate level people (come to think of it, that also describes our family although these people are here working on their degrees in Europe and Africa and we're just tourists).

It is interesting that everywhere we went in Europe are stores and advertisements for very expensive products-jewelry, clothes, cars, perfume- a bit out of proportion to what these countries need or aspire to but I guess there are rich people everywhere but it seems insulting to the destitute or an inappropriate use of disposable cash for those that can barely get by.