Home Sweet Home

Hello all! I'm back on my side of the world, ready to fly to Seattle for a medical school interview tomorrow morning. Our European adventures, alas, are over, but here's a few memories of the last couple weeks:

Water from the ground. Walking on a quiet, warm Sunday morning in Sofia, Ben & I noticed crowds of locals filling huge water jugs from a series of fountains. Turns out the city is built over mineral springs, and the "healing" waters bubble up for free, public consumption. I ignored all my public health intuition and filled my bottle with the hot mineral water. Didn't get sick and the water had a unique, good taste. We returned to the fountains again before catching a train onward.

Getting out. The day I flew back to Dublin, I scrambled through three different countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Ireland).

Ben and I left Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria on the 11am train, stopped for 2.5 hrs (with no explanation as to why) in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and finally arrived at the border town Ruse. We leapt out, bought tickets onward to Bucharest, and reached Romania at 7:20pm, horribly behind schedule thanks to the mysterious delay. I took an overpriced taxi to the airport and made it Dublin by midnight. My aunt met me with an Irish fry, which has to be one of the greatest culinary achievements in the history of mankind.

The backroads of County Louth and Meade. Aunt Frances, Mom, and I piled into Frances's mini-jeep and drove through the vaguely signposted county roads towards some of Ireland's hidden historical sights like Monasterboice, Mellfont Abbey, the burial chamber at Dowth, and attempted to reach Newgrange via backroads. And while Mom finished her pot of tea at the Drogheda, Frances & I slipped off to see the best relic on the trip so far: Saint Oliver Plunkett's head at St. Peter's Church in Drogheda.

My goodness, my Guinness. My cousin and I headed to the Guinness storehouse, where we had perfectly doubled-pulled pints with a 360 degree view of the city of Dublin. The Irish drink nearly 500 million pints of beer a year, mostly stout. By the way, the population of Ireland is less than five million. You do the math.

It's been a fantastic trip with plenty of everyday and extraordinary adventures. Thanks for reading! :-)


(Photos from top to bottom: Alexander Neviski Church in Sofia, Bulgaria; Mr. Plunkett's head; Howth harbor, Ireland)

Vlad in Wallachia

At our hostel in Bucharest, we met a young Mexican traveler who tagged along with us as we explored the National Village Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum in the back of the grandiose, enormous, and epically useless Palace of Parliament, and wandered through the city. Brian caught a flight to Dublin on the 22nd, which left myself and Ben (a friend who was with the Peace Corps in Moldova) to travel onward.

Our Mexican friend Gabriel told us he was going to visit Poenari Castle, the "real" castle of Vlad Tepes aka Dracula. Brian & I had already visited Bran Castle, erroneously called Dracula's Castle by the tourist crowd. The real thing is somewhat off the beaten path. The next morning Gabriel, Ben, and I took a train to Curtea de Arges and spent the night in the town after seeing its famous church & monastery. The next morning we grabbed a shared minibus to an un-sign-posted village, walked 3 km up the highway, and then found ourselves looking up a couple thousand steps to ruins of a fortress overlooking the high mountain pass and winter-weak river below. At the top, we had fantastic views of the surrounding mountains and villages, as well as the ruins to ourselves to explore.

We climbed back down, got some tea and crepes at a nearby restaurant/pension, and walked back to the roadside where we'd eventually snag a minibus back. The villages were a mixture of new and old--sitting by the highway for an hour, we saw horse carts with hay clip-clop by, sharing the road with brand new Hyundai SUVs and swarms of homegrown Dacias. The air was hazy with all the trash fires, and laid-back dogs (owned, strays, who knows) roamed around with the chicken and geese.

Ben & I said goodbye to Gabriel (who headed to northeast Brasov) and caught a train back to Bucharest. A couple hours later, we boarded an 11hr night train to Sofia! (Italy has officially lost its claim to fame as having the Worst Train Bathroom Ever--I won't give details; I'll let your imagination do the work....)

So yep, I'm in Bulgaria right now. We arrived at 6am and walked from the train station to our hostel, which has a friendly old man who fed us breakfast and doesn't really speak English. Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet (SS Cyril & Methodius invented it here), so navigating the streets was moderately challenging. Luckily Ben can sorta kinda pronounce the words, having been exposed to some Russian. I'm excited to see Sofia and the rest of the country--we'll be working our way northeast to Bucharest for my flight to Dublin on the night of the 28th. Ciao!

Romania: Great People, Lousy Signposting

We made it to Bucharest, though as expected not without adventures along the way. Our hostel told us to take the 6th stop on bus 282 from the train station. Our train got in at 10:30pm (we tried to take an earlier one, but it was canceled); we ran & caught the bus before it stops running at 11pm, and then we started counting the bus stops because they don't announce them.

Only, the bus didn't seem to be stopping. By the time we got off at the "sixth" stop, it was pretty obvious we were not in the right place (and that the bored driver had better things to do than stop at all the stops).

Luckily for us, the second guy we asked spoke English and wanted an excuse to use his super awesome GPS phone. While his friends made fun of him outside the grocery store at 11pm, he tried to point us in the right direction. Three kilometers later, we stumbled into our cozy hostel. Success!

We had similar adventures this morning while town hopping via local from Brasov to Rasnov to Bran and back again to see the old line of fortress and castles that defended Transylvania. (Very cool castles, by the way-- especially since it was snowing all day! We hiked up crumbled stairways on snowy, tree-covered mountains. Quite picturesque.) Romanians are very friendly people, and though we might get completely different versions of how-to-get-there from people we ask, we've always found help when we needed it.

It's late here, so I'm off to bed. Tomorrow we meet my friend Ben, who's been with the Peace Corps in Moldova for the past six months, and then we'll explore the city of Bucharest (got a head start on that tonight, didn't we?). Good night, all!

Photo update!

Hello all! We're waiting to catch a night train from Budapest to Brasov, Romania. We leave at 11pm tonight and get to Brasov around 11am local time tomorrow. Eleven hours via train...we'll see how that goes.

Some highlights/adventures of the past few days:

• Exploring Buda's Castle Hill & Pest's twisting streets and city life
• Seeing the green Hungarian countryside from the train to Pecs
• The quirky Mosque Church in Pecs
• Wine-tasting in the Valley of the Beautiful Women (a misnomer, if I've ever heard one) in Eger
• Climbing to the very top of minaret built by Ottoman conquerors in Eger

As promised, here's a few photos of the past week or so:



Near the Coronation Church, Bratislava









Bratislava's New Bridge, more aptly called the UFO Bridge

The awesome collection of antique musical instruments, including a few used by some of the world's famous classical composers
"New Palace" at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna

Marking standing spots for Aida at the Staastoper
Vienna










One view from the sprawling Hofburg Palace courtyard,
Vienna

Budapest's famous Chain Bridge

Future visitors of Budapest, this is NOT the station you want to get off at....

Eger's Minaret tower...with a little tiny Ciara waving from the top

The super-sketchy entrance to our otherwise fine hostel

Downtown Pest


More later from Romania!!

Adventures in Budapest

The first thing we did in Budapest was jump off a moving train.

The second thing we did in Budapest was realize we shouldn't have jumped off the moving train.

Our visit to Hungary was off to an interesting start: realizing that we were at the wrong train station on the outskirts of Buda at 11pm, with no local currency, and no signs in English.

Amazingly, we found an ATM, we found a bus stop, and the first guy we spoke to in Budapest had perfect English and an intricate knowledge of the bus system. Soon we were at our quirky hostel in downtown Pest and chatting with the international travelers in our dorm.

Budapest is cold but beautiful with photogenic views everywhere. Now we're going to grab a couple cafes before heading up to Castle Hill in Buda for our second day of sightseeing. More later when there isn't a line for the internet and there isn't so much to see & do!

Così and Coffee

Visiting Vienna is hard work. Getting up early to hear the Vienna Boys Choir or watch the prancing stallions at the Spanish Riding School, trying to squeeze in some of the city's 40 different museums, not to mention all the monuments, palaces, gardens, and cathedrals--and then there's the coffee houses & battling hobos and opera enthusiasts alike for cheap standing room tickets to world famous operas (for the price of a latte back home), then squeezing in some post-show midnight dinner before swapping stories with hostel-mates. Whew. We're catching a 3.5 hour train to Budapest in a couple hours, and I have to admit, I'm looking forward to catching my breath.

But back to the opera and coffee. Brian & I managed standing tickets for 3.50 Euros to Aida and Cosi fan tutte at the Vienna Staastoper. Aida especially was magnificent-- the epic set design, the extraordinary music of the State Opera orchestra, the voice of the singers that filled the handsome theater, and the tragic love story itself. I can't believe we were standing beside/behind people who paid hundreds of euros for the sold-out show.

And coffee. First of all, I'm convinced there isn't drip coffee on this continent, and NO, instant Nescafe do not count (*shudder*). That said, the espresso here is incomparable. Our first afternoon in Vienna, we decided to splurge and go to one of the traditional coffeehouses, maybe 175 years old or so. I had a cafe melange, espresso with foam & whipped cream, and it was to die for, as was Brian's doppio.

Tomorrow I'll try to post a few pics of Vienna, as well as our 3hr foray to sleepy Bratislava. But for now, we're off to Hungary!

Olomouc

Hello from Olomouc ("ollah-moats") in western Moravia! A couple of nights ago we wanted to get out of Prague and see more of the Czech Republic, and so here we are in this small gem of a city. There's a surprising amount to do in this university town of a 100,000, and we enjoyed our time and the people here. Last night we saw an awesome Czech jazz band called 123Minut in a sold-old show at a local club/restaurant. We managed to squeeze in, seated on the floor in front of the stage, which is how I snapped this shot of the lead guitarist helping out the bassist on a four-hand bass solo. Nice.



In the morning we're catching the train to Bratislava, which we're told won't hold our attention for long. Tomorrow we'll either sleep in Bratislava or Vienna, just an hour by train away from each other.

Now, before I get some much needed shut eye, a few pictures:


Here's the scratchings of bored 19th century tourists in the loft of the marvelous St. Nicolas Church in Prague.

So, you think the astronomical clock in Prague is so great? Well Olomouc has one too! Only, it was destroyed by the Nazis and rebuild by the Soviets. So now it has added bonus features like figures of idealized peasants and important Communist birthdays marked on it!

Caught in the action, photographing the city of Prague from outside the old and wonderful Strahov Monastery Library.

Brian, off-roading Movarian style :-)
We rented bicycles and took a picnic from Olomouc to a nearby lake with swans, coots, and mallards. Apparently there's also nudist beach on the lake... although thankfully not when it's 37*F outside.