Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services East Europe stock photography trip report, May 16, 2007 to June 1, 2007 Updated August 22, 2007 Page 2 of 5 Previous page   Next page
	Eastern Europe continued... Uh oh, the first tour of the Opera house was at 2pm and my train to Bratislava was at 3:18pm. Crud. It won't be possible to do the tour, get back, mail postcards, grab my things and catch the train. Nor could I get to the Indian buffet "Der Wiener Dewaan" on Liechtenstein Strasse, exit U-2-Schottentor, where you pay whatever you feel is the honest price of the meal. You could literally go in, eat a feast, pay 25 cents and leave. Really! Well, the most important thing to do is tour the Opera hous, so I hot footed it back to Westbanhof station and mailed 10 Euros in postcards. Yowch. Then, hustled it back to Iris's flat, left a thank you note and the keys to the place, then hauled me and my backpack and repeated the exact route I had just done an hour before. I'll have to change my approach to departure days and just suffer hauling around my backpack. A ride on the U-3 and U-2, then the same long walk through St. Stephenplatz brought me to the State Opera house with 12 minutes to spare before the tour. Plenty of time. Man, never miss a metro connection here... The Opera house was duly impressive, with the gargantuan 3-ton crystal chandelier with a ceiling elevator for maintenance. The ceiling drops down to meet the crystal sculpture rather than trying to raise an elevator up to it. The back stage is hydraulically controlled as well as the symphony pit. Both can be moved up and down as the needs of the particular opera require. It's all quite a show for a tech head. The daily preparations were going on while the tour went through and the group enjoyed watching things be worked on and moved around while being a tourist. Just as I was enjoying myself, I realized it was 2:50pm. And my train was to leave in less than 30 minutes! The tour had run longer than normal due to the number of people and the wonderful singing interlude our group had. It was worth the time alone just to hear that woman sing. I wished I had time to finish the tour, only one more section of the Opera house, but I didn't want to miss my train. I left the group. I ended up meeting a couple from Chula Vista, Riverside and someone who knew another person who ran part of Callaway Golf's website. I came half way around the world to run into a bunch of people I could have easily known. Jogging back to the Opera house U-bahn station, I enjoyed the cigarette smoke filled corridors of St. Stephensplatz and then took the U-2 to Volkstheater, ran to the U-3 at Westbanhoff, took a few minutes to find my ride to Bratislava Hlavna Stanica (Hl. St.) and caught the train with 10 minutes to spare, happily covered in sweat. There are actually other stations in Bratislava, so one has to be quite careful. Bratislava, Slovakia $1US = 24.9 Slovak Crowns (Slovak Koruna) The ride to Bratislava is easy and smooth, only with two unfriendly Slovakian border angents asking for your "paskontrol" (passport). One comes by, checks you and then moments later another character does the same. They examined my passport for a second, nodded to each other, handed it back and went on. Strange. Do these police (polizei) guys ever smile? The massive concrete flats coming into Bratislava give you an idea of how life in communist Slovakia might have been - the ultimate uninteresting concrete jungle. I'll soon be in that jungle and get a chance to taste how it might have been. It's funny, you can tell a place by the quality of the concrete. Bratislava enjoyed a period of Soviet-controlled roughshod construction and it shows. The train station is dark and uninviting. After coming through here, I really appreciate a good architect and designer. Even the Chinese communist stuff had some sort of Chinese art influence. It was like tasting Orwell's 1984 here. I found my host's place at 530pm without any trouble. Julan Nisbet is a nice Canadian young lady teaching English in Bratislava. Right now, the students are having their final verbal 20 minute exam. The boys have to wear cuff-link quality clothes and the girls wear prom dresses to this test. Apparently, the suicide rate takes a huge jump around this time due to the intense pressure of passing the tests. Jolan lives with 2 Solvak men and 1 Polish woman on her floor and with several other Slovakians in the attached flat upstairs. Living the student and instructor life is always an alter experience. Aga (Polish woman), Michael and Peter are all very nice people. On hearing I'm from California, Aga asked why I'm not an actor andy if Hollywood was beautiful. In retrospect, I should have just said that the Hollywood area is gorgeous. Heck, Beverly is close enough and it's pretty, so it's just an extension at that kind of distance. It seemed better not to bust down some impressions. It certainly wasn't intentional but it didn't occur to me at that moment that the portrayed reality of California is important to keep up in peoples' minds, even if it's not totally true. Jolan took me for a walking tour of the old part of Bratislava and showed me where the student travel agency is. I had huge trouble trying to purchase a train ticket, 499Sk (Slovak crowns) to Budapest. The only arrival time I could get out of the ticket agents at the train station was 11pm. No way, I am not going to arrive that late into a huge, unknown city. Jolan suggested I just stop at the student agency where everyone speaks English and purchase a far cheaper bus ticket to Budapest. As Jolan related, everyone pretty much under 25 speaks some English her, as when the Soviets pulled out, people quickly figured out they have to learn English to survive in this world, being a very small country with a complex language. She said the ticket agents still have the communist approach to service and just aren't required or motivated to help you out. Yes, I did try and stumble through some Slovak phrases but that got me nowhere. Jolan and I had a pleasant conversation over a dark Slovak beer at a café near the Slovak National Theater (Slovenske Narodne Divadlo), across from the now-fenced off American consulate, full of unfriendly looking types. It was a great way to spend an afternoon. How could I go wrong by hanging with a Canadian in Slovakia? All of the women dress fashionably here and show more skin than their Eastern European neighbors and they really look good doing it. Being a university city, many of the women are younger, too. The girls here look much better than the Austrians or Germans. I can see why so many Slovak women have come on to the international fashion and modeling circuit. They just look better on average than most places I've been. Though, they don't share lingering eye contact with you. Jolan explained that the eye contact thing is a remnant of the Iron Curtain, where you just distrusted everyone, creating a shifty-eyed populace. Too bad, some of the girls here have great eyes. However, if you catch someone's glance, say 'Hello' in Slokan (Doh-bree-dem) and sometimes you can crack a longer glance and a smile. That's better than home. Girls here must not be as spoiled. No complaints! Jolan took me over to a nice Slovak restaurant near her place, down a very non-descript street. It was a breaded chicken and spiced and chopped potato supper, a classic Slovakian meal. Also, she introduced me to Kofola, a communist throw-back Slovak national cola that the people here are quite proud of. We wandered back to her place and bid goodnight to her gaggle of roommates, said goodnight to Jolan and I crashed out on the couch. Quite comfy, really. Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Woke up, cleaned up and enjoyed my communist breakfast of a cellophane-wrapped cookie for breakfast. I'll have to pull the name from a picture I took. I can only describe it as a cookie, though it was much lighter and crunchy, not sweet at all, light and pleasant. This, too, was a common staple in communist time and still survives to this day. It was neat and tasty the first time but I can imagine that it would lose its charm quickly if I had to live off of it. The Rick Steves' Bratislava walking tour was fairly on target, with all the interesting sights covered in about 7 hours without going too deep into anything. The suggested chocolate store was wonderful. And the girl running the place was cute, too. I didn't bother with any of the museums because based on the directions and signs I read, I didn't anticipate the museums would be that interesting. And thus, I followed Steves' suggestion. The day was getting to be quite warm and humid, reducing me to self-humidified clothing. A stop in St. Martins cathedral was a nice respite from the sun. The conditions are not that terrible, just not quite comfortable. The crypts of the cathedral were quite cool, though the exposed lead sarcophagus was gated off. And I'm sure for good reason. Apparently the young male Brits have a very bad reputation for extraordinarily drunk stag parties and really tear up the city. They've ruined several statues in the city and caused the parks to be closed at night, when they used to be open at all hours. Strange. Europe has always been terrorized by one invading group or another. It just now happens to be young Brit males looking for a cheap, good time while leaving destruction in their wake. I'm not sure how much irony there is in that situation, though. I was disappointed with the Bratislava castle because the 280' deep well was closed off, so I couldn' throw my 1Sk coin down the well to wait the 4 seconds to hear the kerplop. Again, I didn't bother checking out the museums there as the pictures enticing you to visit just didn't look that interesting. By now, I'd blown through 80% of my Nikon D200 battery life shooting 500 photos today. My chimping rate was killing my battery. And it was only 3pm. I had to take my best guess at some things because I didn't have my spare battery with me. The bright, hazy light tended to cause underexposure of 0.3-1.3 stops, depending on the brightness of the foreground items. Even though the camera takes the approach of avoiding blown out exposures at all costs, I don't always like that so I have a tendency to adjust on the fly. This is at the expense of battery life. Finding a public phone to make phone calls is a challenge here. Figuring out how to make the phone call is even more difficult. I ran across a T-mobile "handy" store (they call cell phones 'handies' here) and bought a 200Sk ($9US) phone card to call my other couchsurfer.com contact, Michelle. She didn't get out of work to meet me until 6pm and I had to be back at Jolen's by 7:30pm. Why is it, that you come all the way around the world and you end up with only an hour to visit with someone? I met up with Michelle and she drove me to the top of a hill and we went up into an old Soviet-style architecture tower with a rotating lounge at the top. The place had a commanding view of the Carpathian Mountains leading to Poland with Austria and Hungary in the hazy distance. If one were on a date, I can see how the place is rather romantic, but you must have a car or a taxi to take you to this place. We passed the Slovakian movie studios where Hollywood makes their movies in this country on the way down. Michelle was interesting because at 36 years old, she said she liked the communist state days better because there was no overt drug use, obvious prostitution problems, but at the expense of having difficulty traveling anywhere. You were "taken care of" by the state and she was nostalgic about that. She enjoyed living in Canada for a while because they have a similar socialized system there, but I wondered silently if she had to have anything actually done, for sometimes in the socialized system you would be dead before you ever had your free procedure done.. She works for Lenovo, the IBM personal computer spin-off company. She enjoys the work but wishes to leave her home of Slovakia because it has nothing for her. She says life in the city is good with the conversion to a capitalist system but life in the country for people is much worse, because there is no system to take care of them and they have great difficulty competing. Communism was probably better for the country folk. I never anticipated in my life finding someone who longed for the communist way of life. But then again from her perspective, under the communist state, she could have run away and gained asylum, easily becoming a permanent resident in a western country. However, with the open border now, it's impossible to gain asylum because you can come and go as you wish. And it takes years and years to gain citizenship, if ever. It was an eye-opening conversation and visit. Time was running out, so my 6'1", blond, thin, tight-pants Slovakian guide drove me back to the city. It was peculiar because her conversation rhythm only opened up in the last 20 minutes of our visit and she grew comfortable with eye contact - just as Jolen had said about people here. The icy rift between East and West only melted a tiny bit. Michelle zoomed through the city and after a comedy of my bad directions due to a lack of familiarity and directing her down the wrong way of one-way streets, she dropped me off. We shared the Euro-cheek kiss. I still don't quite have it down because I tend to bump cheeks a little hard. Oh well, you can't expect to get this all down in a few days. Jolan had prepared a tasty spaghetti and meat dish from a recipe she had learned while living in Italy from her adopted Nana. We added some Hungarian chili for extra kick and enjoyed it in the back yard. As we chatted, her female roommates did yard work while the guys, Jolan and I sat around. I loved it! All the while, we swapped stories and shared laughter. After the wonderful dinner, I rushed down to the President's Palace to take some shots and then down to old town to grab some night shots. There was some big-wig at the Slovak National Theater, as there was a red carpet, a hoard of police and clapping as the important people emerged. These people were escorted by a 5-car security detail. I didn't get back and to sleep until past midnight. Terrible mistake. Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Okay, sleeping in late was a mistake. I'm an hour behind schedule. I crammed all of my stuff into my bag in a hurry and jogged down to the annoyingly unmarked post office, mailed my 4 postcards for 100Sk ($5US). Being very late, I had no choice but to take a taxi down to the Autobus international terminal for 120Sk ($5.50US). That doesn't seem like much until you compared it to the 3 hour bus ride to Budapest which cost me 100Sk. A 10 minute Mr. Toad's Wild Ride across the city cost more than transport between countries. All this effort and the bus was a good 20 minutes late. Good thing, because it took me a few to figure out where to stand with others carrying ridiculously massive backpacks touring Europe. We were at the Hungarian border in no time and here I am, on the student transport bus. Budapest, Hungary $1 US = 191 Hungarian Forint Do not change money at the bus terminal unless you absolutely have to at the bus station. They'll kill you here. You only get 140Ft (Forints) per dollar here while on the street, you can easily find 180Ft / $1US. Owch. I headed over to the Ibis hotel I found on Steves' map near the end of Vaci Utca and pretended to have a reservation. However, that ploy didn't work this time as they claimed to have no rooms. But, they happily made reservations at another Ibis location more in the middle of the Pest side of the city, right next to a metro station. It ended up working better, anyway. Apparently the show-up technique doesn't work here as well. You have to call ahead just a bit, like in Japan. Just a day advance call works much better. I'd stayed in Ibis in Morocco and was really happy for the amenities versus price and service, so it was a sure bet. After walking 20 minutes across the city, showering, cleaning up and downloading photos, I struck off to the railway station to purchase my overnight sleeper to Prague. I ended up standing in the wrong line for 10 minutes (it was 14 minutes before ticket sales closed) only to be redirected to the international garden. I bought an 18,000Ft (~$108US) ticket to Prague. With minutes to spare before the ticket window closed. That was terribly close for comfort. Walking down the street to the city's not-so-central park, I discovered a street that everyone seems to walk their dog on. The old building facades were quite beat up, with some showing exposed lapboard and plaster. It was fun to be off the beaten path from the tourist routes. Hero's Square is awesome. It contains massive bronze cast statues of Hungarian historical figures. They all looked imposing and unfriendly. One interesting statue on top of the back columnade represented "packing light while traveling", so says Steves' book. I liked it. I headed over to the replica Transylvania castle in the central park to get some evening shots. The place was fairly deserted and had the creepy raven watching you from dark trees feeling about it. Unfortunately, the castle lights weren't cooperating and lighting up the place for me. However, I heard music in the distance and decided to investigate. I wandered over to find a bunch of Hungarians parting out to a Beatles and 60's to 80's cover band. Needing an emotional lift, as I was tired, I bought a tasty Hungarian beer and lightened my mood a bit. The band was pretty good and the old folks hanging out really cut up the dance floor. It was odd. I came all the way to Budapest, Hungary, just to catch an American and British music cover band. Right then, hunger called. Screamed is more like it. Rick Steves' suggestion of Bagolyvar (Owl's Castle) was pretty tasty. It would have taken reservations to have a patio seat, so I landed a seat inside the restaurant all to myself, listening to the conversation outside. Just then, an annoying couple showed up and pestered the head waitress about an outside seat. Every 5 minutes. Every time the waitress returned from their table and passed me, we traded a knowing and humored look. Eventually, they snagged an outside seat and left me to eat in peace. The meal was good, though that empty seat across from me sat staring, unblinking... Although I wanted to photograph Transylvania replica castle at night, missing the last metro of the evening for it would have cost me a 40 minute walk back to the hotel when I was already quite tired. That just wasn't attractive at 11pm. So, I ditched the photo op and caught the metro station back to Oktagon, then walked the rest of the way because I hadn't totally figured out the metro system. To sleep at midnight. Thursday, May 24, 2007 I slept in decently but had to get myself up and going. The beds at this Ibis Emke are fairly stiff, so your back won't let you stay in them forever. Today was the walking tour of the Pest side of the city, with the Buda side of the city to be captured this evening. I rode the metro down to the Great Market Hall area. I walked past the Hungarian National Museum to get there and was fairly tempted to visit by an exhibition of the Mongol Empire. However, I skipped because Hungarian descriptions of museum artifacts and descriptions would do nothing for me. The Great Market Hall was pretty cool, with grocery vendors on the ground and tourist junk and food vendors on the mezzanine. I tried Hungarian fried bread with veggies on top. Should have skipped on the cold veggies part, though. (Now, looking back on it, that could have been what killed me later, but it's weird that it would have taken 6 hours). The food looked better in the photo. The bread was good, though. The walk down Vaci Utca was pleasant enough, with a short stop in a pretty cathedral. And, it was nice to hide in the cool air inside. Seeing the first McDonalds behind the iron curtain was fun. It was a large establishment, bigger than a good portion I've seen at home. However, a grouchy guy made it clear he didn't like my taking video of the place very much. Though he spoke in Hungarian, it was clear what he was communicating. Seems that most commercial establishments are that way all around. Previous page   Next page
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