Politically Correct

The Economist.com is prepping to do an article on non-PC jokes. To prepare, they asked their readers to deliberately leave their favourite non-PC jokes in the comments sections. The only guidelines they gave were, "Readers are welcome to post jokes in the comments section below and to recommend the ones they like best. A future column will pick some winners. Political correctness will not be applied, so ethnic stereotypes, historical grudges and other forms of grotesque unfairness will (within reason) be tolerated." Some of them like this jem are hilarious:

A Romanian and a Hungarian fishing in the same River. One of them catches The Golden Fish. The fish proposes to fulfil one wish to each of them.

The Hungarian is the first to have an idea. "Hey Fish, do you know the Chinese wall?"

"Yes."

"Take it and surround Hungary with it, so that no Romanian can ever enter Hungary."

"Ok, no problem."

The fish turns to the Romanian, "What about you?"

"Well, tell me, does that wall have any doors?"

"Nope."

"Windows?"

"Nope."

"Then, fill it with water."

And another:

Bill Clinton, Silvio Berlusconi, and Nicolas Sarkozy were all killed by an al-quaida bomb in Davos. As they stood before God, they were each asked to confess their sins and justify their entrance into heaven. "Well, God" Bill Clinton spoke up, "I know Ive had some trouble with women... but Ive always helped the poor and stood against racism". "OK, you can enter", said God. "Almighty God", Spoke Sr. Berlusconi "I know I have had trouble with the finances... but Ive always protected the Church". So God lets him in too. "Ahem...M. God" Said President Sarkozy, "I believe you are sitting in my chair."

And another:

Communism, Socialism and Capitalism are having a planned meeting: Socialism arrives late, all wrinkled up, sweating, catching its breath and excuses itself:
- I'm sorry I'm late, I was at a meat shop in the queue waiting to be served.
Capitalism ask: - What's a queue?
Communism ask: - What is meat?

And yet some more:

• Scientists conducted an experiment: two men and a woman from France, England and Soviet Russia each, were placed on desert islands. When the scientists revisited them in a year they found the French living on the island with one man married to the woman, another being her lover. The British were not speaking to each other, because they were never properly introduced and the Russians had the following arrangement. The scientists found a wooden house in the middle of the island, two men were inside sitting at big desks - one said: General Secretary, the other Executive Chairman. When asked about the woman, the men replied: "Oh you mean the PEOPLE, the people are working in the fields..."
• Have you seen the French battle flag? A white cross on a white background
• A Pole and a Texan are sitting in a bar, discussing how much land they own. As the drinks become emptier the claims become bolder. In the end after the latest harangue by the Pole, the incensed Texan stands up and says "Son, if I were to get up and the break of dawn and get in my car and start driving. Come nightfall I'd still be on my land." The Pole reaches over, sympathy showing in his eyes, patting the Texan on the back, he says "I'm so sorry, I used to have a car like that too."
• A Gypsy son asks his father,"Daddy, what is democracy?" His father replies,"It is when white people do all the work, and we collect all of the benefits." Son, "Don't they mind?" Father, "Of coarse they do, but if they try to do anything about it, we just shout "Racism!" [This isn't necessarily funny, but wow it's crazy some of the grudges that are carried...]
• A Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian are sitting down, each on their own park bench. All three benches have a nail pointing out of it. First the Russian sits down, feels the nail, gets angry and kicks the bench, takes a stone and beats the nail flat. The Ukrainian gets up surprised, sees the nail and comes to the idea that he might use it for something, so the drags it out with some pliers. The Belarussian feels the nail, but keeps sitting, as he assumes that this is probably the way it is supposed to be.
• If people from Poland are called Poles, then what should we call people from Holland ??

Where there's smoke, there's fire

Sometimes it's hard figuring out why you don't want to get up in the mornings. Today I woke up and really didn't want to get out of bed. More so than normal. And by the time I got to work I was feeling ill, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I had several theories:

1.  I was randomly sick.
2. I was up later than normal last night. Sometimes lack of sleep can make me feel sick.
3. I hadn't eaten enough this morning. Again, sometimes lack of food can also make me feel sick.

I couldn't see options 2 or 3 being the culprits. It wasn't until I checked out the local news that I discovered option #4: I was feeling sick due to the layer of smoke laying over Montreal.

Wait, smoke in Montreal? Yes, that electrical fire smell that I first thought was in my apartment, and then thought was outside in my neighborhood, and then thought was inside my head (since how could a small follow me across half the city to work) is real. It's the result of 52 local forest fires in Quebec, 8 of which are burning out of control.

Environment canada even updated their forecast to have a "smoke" warning. Yikes! And looking at my friends' facebook statuses from Ottawa, they too are seeing and smelling smoke. That's just crazy!

Tough morning

It was tough getting out of bed this morning. I woke up at 2 AM, and then 6 AM. And then I was woken again at 6:47 by the garbage trucks. I contemplated getting up but I was too cozy so I went back to sleep until 7. And when my alarm clock went off I was still too cozy so I reset it till 7:12. (Not 7:10, not 7:15, because one is too early, the other too late.) But at 7:12 I was still tired so I reset it again to 7:25. And at 7:25 I turned it off again and lay there, trying to muster the energy to rise. But mustering is a lot of work, so I didn't get up until 7:30. Thank goodness I had a shower the night before.

Head scarves

Quebec is currently trying to pass a law to ban the wearing of niqabs (the muslim head scarves that cover your entire face) if a) you work for the provincial government or b) you want provincial services.
However, the law for the “reasonable accommodation of minorities” isn’t talking about minorities in general, it’s pretty much targeting muslims alone. I personally am against this law. I’ve been sitting around, quietly disagreeing with this law, but my private musings aren’t going to do too much good if people assume my silence means acceptance. Therefore I am saying out loud (or at least electronically) that I am against this law.

To a certain extent at least. Obviously there should be times when a woman will have to expose her face, but she should be accommodated with a curtained off area, being guaranteed service by another woman, etc.
Of course I am supporting the niqab with the assumption that the woman is wearing it by choice. If the government is against it because they see it as a form of suppression, then they should dedicate their time and resources to understanding why these women wear the head scarf. Rather than banning the clothing, the government should also ensure that the women who are forced to wear the scarves have alternative options, safe havens they can flee to if necessary. If we can provide safe houses, counselling and other resources for abused women, we can surely provide it for victims of religious oppression, right?
Canada is supposed to be a haven of multiculturalism, right? We allow our RCMP officers to wear turbans, people can wear their kirpans, asian restaurants have their mini-shrines, etc. If we’re going to ban niqabs then we should ban all religious symbols including the ones listed above. And let’s not forget nuns’ habits or crosses in public spaces. Hell, to be fair, I won’t even want to see a cross hanging on a necklace! And then there’s the issue of the Lord’s prayer that’s still said in some public schools and even at the Quebec government. Now there’s a religious symbol that bothers me. I first heard the Lord’s Prayer in grade 7. I have never understood why we have a public prayer in a supposedly secular setting.

The Charest government is claiming that 94% of Quebecers and 80% of Canadians agree with the banning of the niqab. However, when the bill was first introduced, it was killed after 3 days. Phew! If this bill does eventually pass, I will seriously reconsider voting for the Liberals in the next election… But of course, my choice will also depend on how much support there is for the PQ and Conservatives.

The New World

Too funny! This is a pic from the Montreal Gazette on the topic of the Kahnawake reserve. I couldn't help but laugh.

White Water Rafting

Several weeks ago my friend Victoria informed me that for her fiancé’s birthday, they were gathering a group of friends to go white water rafting and would I be interested in coming along? I figured, why not? Sure I haven’t gone swimming in years, and am not a huge fan of water in general, but how dangerous could it be if the rafting company was willing to take complete amateurs out into the rapids?

Apparently I was the only one who thought that way. By the time the actual day for rafting came up, only 4 of us, my friend, her fiancé (Rupesh) and his friend (Siraj) showed up. Everyone else chickened out!

We made it to the rafting site by 8:00 AM and went through the process of registering and getting our equipment. Because it wasn’t the busy season, the company provided us with full wetsuits (meaning they covered us from ankles to our wrists all the way up to our necks) for free. I must say that wet suits are very flattering for the figure, but are beyond difficult to get into. By the end of the day though, I was very happy to be wearing it.

Before moving to the water, we were given a basic briefing on our equipment, safety procedures, and possible scenarios we might encounter. Interesting tidbits included our life jackets – these jackets were specially designed for white water rafting (or at least for falling into rapids) because they had a short “cape” on the neck that would flip up and supposedly create a pocket of air for you – meaning that it would force the current to go around your head rather than over it. Of course, this cape only works if you’re facing in the right direction – more on this later.

As mentioned, we were also walked through some possible scenarios and what to do during them. E.g. What do we do if we fall out of the raft? What if the raft flips over? What do we do if we’re swept away from the raft? Etc. At the beginning of the safety lecture, the guides mentioned that there were white helmets and red helmets available. If you took a red helmet it indicated that either you couldn’t swim or you were less comfortable in the water. It didn’t necessarily mean that you would be saved first, but it let the guides keep an eye on you. Up until the safety lecture I had every intention of wearing a white helmet, but after hearing about sharp rocks, riptides that could hold you under the water, etc, I swallowed my pride and nabbed a red helmet and felt so much better for it (not that it did me any good all day).

Upon getting into the rafts we were taught and practiced the various commands. For example, we learned what to do if the guide yelled “paddle hard” (a normal paddle, but faster and pulling back harder – essentially you were paddling like a bat out of hell), “get down” (meaning that you slid off your seat into a crouched position and grabbed on to the perimeter line – also known as the “oh shit” line), and “hold on” (maintain your position, grab the OS line, and hang your body weight down and into the centre of the raft. It sounds simple enough, but until you actually ventured on to the rapids, you continually forgot about the OS line and could not appreciate its security.

Also, before each rapid, the guides would also give you a briefing on what to expect, what you were trying to do, and what to do if you fell out or if the raft flipped over. Therefore they’d say, “Okay, if we flip over, I want you to swim towards the boat. If you can’t reach the boat, swim towards the left shore. We’ll pick you up from there!” (Before each rapid, our boat was filled with my out-loud muttering, “Okay, Mau, aim for the boat or left shore. Boat or left shore. Don’t go right.”)

One thing that I never really clued into before was the fact that there’s no way to secure yourself to a raft. I always assumed there was a rope or something to help keep you in there. But there’s not! (Which makes sense, since if you were strapped in, it would be very unpleasant when the raft flipped over.) To sit in the raft, you have to sit on the outside edge of the raft (again, I always assumed that you sat on the middle sections that look like inflated seats) and then you wedge your feet into the crevice of the inflated cross-tubes in front and behind you. That’s all. The only way to attach yourself to the raft is by holding on to the OS line, which is hard to do when you’re being thrown about and also trying to hang on to your paddle – and it doesn’t help that you’re usually holding on to the paddle with your dominant hand meaning that you can’t grab the OS line with your dominant hand. Therefore I always found myself holding both my paddle and the OS line with one hand, meaning my paddle would smack into the water and cause both me and the boat more turbulence!


Finally we arrived at the rapids. I must admit that when I first saw them, I wasn’t overly impressed. They looked small! How on earth could this be exciting? Well, I asked, and Nature answered.

Our raft was always the first one into the rapids. The guide yelled for us to paddle hard, so I started paddling like mad, except, suddenly I’m paddling air! That’s right – my side of the raft has literally bounced out of the water and I can’t reach the river anymore. The next thing I know, we slam back down into the water and so I start paddling like crazy again only for the raft to fly up into the air again. The third time we slam up, we continue to go up, up, up and over. That’s right, we flipped the raft completely upside down! I came up underneath the raft, bumping my head – I panicked and started kicking my feet like mad until I came up to the surface.

And then I realized where the true dangers of rafting come from. Sure, I was on the surface of the water, but I was still caught in the dissipating rapids. I kept getting waves in the face, causing me to gulp in water – I couldn’t get a full breath of air. Finally though, the waves slowed, and I saw our raft. Victoria was near me, and I could see Siraj and Rupesh getting towed back to the raft via a safety kayaker. Our guide (who by this point had righted the raft) threw the tow line to me and Vic, so we managed to get back on the raft too.

Wow. I cannot believe how physically exhausted I was. My entire body was trembling. I could barely manage to sit upright – nevermind helping my friends back into the raft. We all lay at the bottom of our raft for a few moments, gathering our wits and strength. When I finally gathered myself and sat up, I was surprised to see how far we had drifted from the rapids!

Our guide was completely enthusiastic, happy with our results, etc. Meanwhile I’m huddling in the raft, wailing internally, “What did I get myself into? How can I go through that again?” But since I didn’t want to be a spoilsport for everyone, I kept my mouth such, even as my stomach twisted with nervousness while paddling back to the rapids. (It turns out later that all of us were experiencing the same emotions, but none of us wanted to say anything.) One amusing thing to happen though was that the first thing Victoria said when she got back in the raft was, “I lost my shoes!” Yes. Her water shoes were literally ripped off her feet by the rapids. Whoops!

The second time we went through was a bit better – we had a better idea of what to expect (e.g. I knew not to be surprised to find myself suddenly paddling air). We also managed to NOT flip the raft over, which was a huge plus in my books.

On our third time through the same rapids we managed to catch the “surf.” Essentially that means that we had guided our raft into a spot on the rapids where the conflicting currents captured the raft and kept it in one position, so we didn’t have to paddle or anything. However, all good things must come to and end. The front of our raft started drifting out of position, and the next thing I know, I’m flying through the air again. Luckily I was holding to the OS line this time. I came up underneath the raft this time, was able to grab a half breath of air from the air pocket, and then I popped to the outside of the raft. Everyone had managed to hold on to the line, so our guide was able to flip the raft right side up and get everyone in. I was very happy after that second flip – it was a lot less chaotic and I didn’t get mouthfuls of water this time. Now that I knew what to expect, I was reassured by the whole process.

The next set of rapids we went to were called the Garburator. Our guide assured us to not worry if we couldn’t catch the surf because it was very hard to do at this time of year, etc. He also told us that if we fell out, or if we flipped the raft over, to not worry about getting back to the raft. Instead, we were supposed to swim towards the right side of the shore where other guides were waiting with ropes to tow us in, and there were safety kayakers waiting downstream to help guide us in.

So we went over the rapids and then paddled to get into position for our first “run.” When all the other rafts were in position and the safety people in place, there was nothing left but to paddle hard into the rapids. We didn’t quite catch the surf – instead we bounced around a bit and then got spat out. We paddled like mad to get back into calm waters so we could try again and wasted our time watching the other boats and kayaks go through. We also got to watch the other 6-man raft in front of us flip over. Reassuring? I think not. Then it was our turn again.

We paddled like mad with our guide turning our raft as necessary. Suddenly we hit a massive wave and boom! We caught the surf! Our raft was bouncing around in one spot. We kept getting faces full of water, but it was cool knowing that we weren’t doing anything except sitting there holding on to the OS lines.

But all good things must come to an end. The front of our raft started drifting sideways to the current. By this time I had developed a Pavlov-like response – I knew that when we drifted horizontally in the rapids, it usually resulted in our raft flipping. Once again I was airborne and flung into the water.

I popped up and immediately saw the kayakers pointing me towards shore, so I started fighting the current to get close enough. A guide threw me a rope and I caught it. Rupesh’s and my ropes got tangled, so we had to drift a bit downriver before we could be pulled up. Getting out of the water proved to be a harder feat than expected – the shore was really steep, and although the rocks on top were dry, just below the water line they were slimy slimy slimy – so slimy that you couldn’t get any traction!

With a guide’s help I crawled up to shore. At that point I heard them telling us, “Don’t worry about your friend – they’ve got her down at the end.” Eh? Friend? I look around, I see Rupesh and Siraj, but Victoria’s nowhere to be seen. I glance down the river, and I see her waaaay downriver, holding onto our raft that had also drifted quite far. Rupesh, Siraj and I portaged our way down the river to meet up with Victoria at our lunch site.

Poor Vic! The Garburator was not kind to her. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when we slammed into that massive wave and caught the surf, Siraj had actually been launched out of his seat and back on to Victoria’s lap! In the video that we bought, you can actually see him flying out, and his half-hearted attempts to get back to his seat, but the current and waves were too rough that you didn’t want to stand up. Apparently when our raft flipped over, Siraj landed on Victoria. And when she popped back to the surface, she was facing upstream, getting the full strength of the Ottawa River current in her face! So, like me when we first flipped the raft, she kept getting a face full of water. And then she missed grabbing the safety ropes. And then she was still panicking and not able to breathe when a kayaker helped her out. She lost her hold on the kayak and ended up getting swept all the way downstream through ANOTHER set of rapids by herself. By the time we met up with her, you could tell that she was not a happy camper, and I don’t blame her at all. In her shoes, I’d probably have burst into tears.

After a light lunch (I was worried that my lunch would revisit me if I ate too much), it was off to the river again!

We had to travel through some small rapids with no problem. And then we came to another set and waited for the group to catch up. While waiting, the guide explained that we weren’t going to try any tricks on these rapids – we just wanted to get to the other side. However, if we did fall out or flip the raft, we were supposed to either grab on to the boat or swim towards the left shore. He then elaborates, “If you find yourself going towards the right shore and can’t escape, flip on to your back and be prepared to brace your feet against the shore. This area is called Butcher’s Knife for a reason. The rocks on shore are very sharp and have been known to pop rafts and pop people.” Umm, gulp? We made it through unscathed and waited to make sure none of the other rafts needed help.

The group then took another short break where everyone clambered out of the rafts and went cliff jumping. I and two other people stayed nice and dry on shore. I figured that I had already spent more time in the water than I have in the past 5 years, and I wanted to conserve my strength for whatever insanity happened next.

Our last set of rapids involved us trying to do a trick that made our boat stand up at a 90 degree angle. Yikes! Our guide made us shift so that we were all sitting in the front compartment of the boat. We then paddled like crazy against the current to get into the right position. Suddenly the guide yells for us to get down. I’m sure some people can do this and look like a professional, but I essentially flung myself down on the bottom of the raft.

Apparently we did manage to make the raft stand on end. And I say “apparently” because I didn’t actually witness it. I saw the end of our raft lifting up at a 45 degree angle, and then I became occupied with the fact that we were sinking into the water face first. And then I became even more occupied with the fact that we all then fell out of the front of the boat. LOL Luckily the raft didn’t flip over and we all held on to the OS line.

The guide pulled Victoria in, and then started yelling at Siraj, Rupesh and I to lift up our feet. I didn’t understand what the issue was – I mean, I could touch the bottom of the river, but since he was the boss I did what he said. The current was pushing the boat towards us, and we were between the boat and the shore. That’s when I became very thankful for the full length wet suit. I could feel my legs scraping against the rocks. If I hadn’t had the wet suit on, my thighs and calves would be scraped beyond belief!

That was essentially the end of our rafting experience. We traveled downstream and stayed around to make sure that the big 12-person rafts didn’t need help while they were doing tricks. (Our rafts were too small to try to do tricks in the rapids – apparently if we fell out, we’d get caught in a riptide and the only way to get out would be do roll into a ball and sink to the bottom current, and hold your breath for 30 seconds until the current spat you out on the other end. No thanks!) We then had to paddle for about 20 minutes to get back to the base camp.
Overall it was an amazing day. I never really thought about doing rafting before, so I’m happy Rupesh organized it. I think he and I were the only ones to escape relatively unscathed. As mentioned, Victoria lost her water shoes on the first rapid. At lunch she discovered that she lost an earring, and every time she fell in the water, she lost her paddle too. Siraj lost his sunglasses. My “souvenirs” consisted of two blisters, water in my ears, some massively sore triceps the next day, and an impressive sunburn on my face. (My hands were also massively sun burnt – they were so red they looked like a baboon’s behind!)

Would I do it again? I’m not sure. I had fun, but it was continually nerve wracking. I don’t know if I liked that sensation. Every time I went under the water, I had to keep my eyes screwed shut so that I didn’t lose a contact, which most assuredly did not help with the panic issues. Maybe if I had laser eye surgery it’d be okay. At least we had a great day with great weather for the experience!

The dangers of frisbee

Since moving to Montreal I've started playing Ultimate Frisbee. I started off with friends, playing for fun outside. And throughout the winter months, I joined a league to help players improve their skills.

During said league (during which my team epically sucked - out of 12 games we lost 12 times) I managed to run into another player and we tumbled. My knee ached a bit, but I ran it off.

The next day I was limping, but by this time I was used to minor scrapes and bruises from the game. However, as time went on, this limp refused to go away. Now, whenever I sit for long periods of time, when I get up to walk, my knee is very stiff and it takes several limping steps before the limp goes away.

At least that injury didn't cost me money. Last week while playing with my friends, one guy, Johnny, caught the frisbee with his face. His lips was bleeding and sore, and he mentioned that a tooth felt loose, but he kept playing.

Yesterday though, we saw him again and learned that the effects of his injury were a bit more severe. Indeed, his tooth was loose. He actually had to go to the dentist whereupon he learned that the bone holding his teeth had been fractured. He was fitted with a metal retainer (or similar gadget) to hold the tooth in place in hopes that the bone would heal over. In another week he'll return to the dentist. If the bone hasn't healed over, he'll need to have surgery. Yikes!

And of course, about 60 minutes after hearing this story, I too caught the frisbee with my face. My lips swelled a bit, but it seems like I got off easy compared to Johnny.

Signs of spring

Spring has arrived. Some might say that it's been here for over a month. After all, the snow has been (mostly) gone since late March. We've had temperatures that fluctuate anywhere between 10 to 30 degrees. Trees and flowers are starting to bloom. Birds cry out, squirrels chitter, and the little old lady is wishing everyone a good day.

Wait. What?

You heard me. On my daily walk to work there's a little old lady who sits on her balcony (or at least pokes her head out the door) and calls out, "Have a good day" or "Passez une bonne journée!" as you pass. (This morning she told me, "Bon appetit" because I was eating a muffin.)

The whole thing both irritates me and amuses me. I get irritated because it means that I have to rouse myself out of my morning lethargy to smack a smile on face and acknowledge her. I'm also amused by how persistent she is. She makes sure that she calls out to everyone - even if they're wearing headphones or talking with other people.

I am Aboriginal. I’m not a good Aboriginal, but I am registered with the Canadian government. While growing up, I picked up a few Cree words from my mother but I never learned to speak the language. During high school, I found a Cree/English pronunciation guide and tried it out on my mother. I had her so confused that at times she forgot how to speak her language herself!

However, my incompetence with the Cree language isn’t only due to my lack of learning. Sometimes I’m just too lazy to learn how to say the word properly, or sometimes I’m just too inept to get the inflections right. And sometimes, my entire family has adopted the mangled word too!

The prime examples include:

• Pissonacat (pronounced “Piss on a Cat”) should actually be Attawapiskat. This is the name of my band. I coined the new name after getting tired of having to pronounce all the syllables for the proper word (among other reasons).
  
• Couchcaching. I don’t even remember if this is a Reserve, lake, river, or what. I found this word when I was at Casino Rama with my mom and sister. I didn’t realize that it was a real name – I thought it was a joke with the “caching” being the stereotypical sound of a slot machine. My sister laughed and immediately started making fun of me.
  
• Wannagosomewhere - I was recently wasting time looking to see how much it would cost me to fly from Montreal to Attawapiskat. To get there you had to transfer through a place called Waskaganish. Do you think I could remember how to say that word while talking with my mom on the phone? Wakasomething. Wakawhatsit. I kept saying "Wannagosomewhere" until my mom finally realized which reserve I was talking about. I thought she'd drop the phone she was laughing so hard.
  
• Go go gadget– I used to own a shirt that had really really wide sleeves. My mom and sisters called it my “butterfly” shirt. Somehow we started using the Cree word for butterfly. Well, my mom and sisters did. I could not for the life of me pronounce butterfly properly. To me, it sounds like someone is saying, "Ghoghomenahgeishish” but when I try to replicate the sound it’s apparently intelligible. Instead I gave up and started calling it my “Go go Gadget shirt.”
  

Ticket shopping

After my last post I was still so jazzed over the Habs’ winning that I decided to try to buy a ticket to see a live game. The ticket prices were insane, but I figured that this was something I would never ever do again, so it was worth trying to get. I spent 3 hours on Saturday trying to score a ticket!

To buy a ticket you had to go to the NHL.com website at 1:00 PM and enter the virtual “waiting room.” At 2:00 PM you were assigned a random spot in line and then had to wait until your turn came up. While waiting you were able to see as the different types of seats sold out, and the different games sold out. The cheapest (and worst tickets) ranged from $70 to $90. The best tickets cost $502. The rest of the tickets ranged anywhere between those figures.

As seat availability waned, I started having to triage my seat choices. My original choice was to sit in the cheaper seats that still had a good view. But as time when on, suddenly those seats were no longer available. Crap! I quickly surveyed the other choices and decided that I’d be willing to pay more for a better seat. And then those seats sold out too! Crap! This process repeated itself several times, with my seat selection slowly getting more and more expensive, but when the only available seats left were $430, I had to admit that seeing a game wasn’t worth that much to me.

Thankfully I never did have to make the choice between my wallet and seeing a live game. After 2 hours of waiting, all three games were sold out entirely. Phew! Problem solved!

Admittedly I might have had the opportunity to get a ticket, but half way through the process I accidentally left the “waiting room” by going to a different website. (I had meant to go into a different window, but I messed up.) When I realized what I had done, I frantically mashed the “back” button on my browser and re-entered the queue. I can only assume that I lost my original place in “line.”

Now, after having gone through all that drama to try to score a ticket, I don’t even know if it was worth it. The game last night was atrocious! I was revolted by how poorly my team played! WTF Habs?! (And apparently I’ve waxed on too long and hard about my love for this team. My mom phoned me last night to mock me for their bad showing. And this morning my friend emailed me to jeer at their loss.) They better make an awesome comeback on Thursday!

Hockey Fever

Hockey is Canada’s sport. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never watched or played a game in your life. We will defend our country’s national pastime. It’s a part of our popular culture. It’s part of our national identity. Even for those of us who aren’t glued to the TV during the NHL season, we all know of “Hockey Night in Canada” – broadcast over our most well known national TV station. Heck, they even made the search for the new theme song part of a reality contest!

There are times that even non-Hockey fans come together to root for the sport. I am of course referring to the Olympics. It’s even more important for us when we face our closest rival, the US. I remember the hockey fervour that struck the nation during the 2002 winter Olympics. I had to work during the game, but we had a TV set up in our lunch room, and we kept asking for (and getting) updates from customers sprinting to and from the store during breaks in the game.

And of course in our most recent Winter Olympics, we Canadians were damned near beyond excited to win the Gold medal against the US again. For weeks after the Olympics we congratulated our team and country on our hockey prowess. Articles flooded into newspapers telling hockey-related stories. (My favourite news article was hearing about how an Air Canada flight was delayed because passengers refused to board the plane until the game ended.)

However, I have recently learned that hockey fever isn’t necessarily relegated only to hard core fans or to people who watch the Olympics. It can grip an entire city. And I have been caught in the excitement surrounding the Habs, Montreal’s team. I have never been so excited to watch a hockey game. I cheer, I curse. When we win, I have a high. When we lose, I am overcome with despair. The rest of the city is pretty much the same. You see Habs jerseys everywhere. Cars proudly hang Habs flags out the windows, etc.

Until recently, the only knowledge I had of hockey was from playing it in middle school. In the past few weeks though, I have been frantically scouring the internet and asking friends for explanations on how the NHL (National Hockey League) works.

The reason I am so excited is because the Habs have been defying the odds to get closer and closer to winning the Stanley Cup (the penultimate hockey trophy in North America). No one expected the team to win. They were at the bottom of the heap when they started. And then surprisingly they managed to beat the number 1 team in the league. And then we just beat the former winners of the Stanley Cup. The Habs have actually made hockey history in that they are the first team to accomplish this kind of feat. It hasn’t come easily though. The team must win 4 games to move on to the next level of the playoffs. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) for the Habs, they keep getting tied, winning 3 games and losing 3 games, and then having to enter into a tie-breaking game.

My life has revolved around their games for the past few weeks. I plan outings to friends’ places so I can watch the game with them. On a night that I wanted to do baking, I dragged my laptop into the kitchen and streamed the game live. I skipped my French language group so that I could see the game.

In the Habs’ final game, again they were tied 3-3. Even though the 7th game was being played in the United States, I and my friends bought tickets to go to the hockey arena just so we could watch the live broadcast of the game on the big screen TV with 21,000 other fans.

The arena was sheer pandemonium! The atmosphere was amazing. Everyone was hyped up with excitement. And there wasn’t even a live game! I can’t fathom what it would be like with both teams playing right in front of us! Every time the Habs got a penalty, the fans booed the referee. If a Pen got a penalty, we cheered. Every time the rivals were close to getting a goal there were gasps of apprehension. And when we got a goal? We went wild. Non-stop cheering 5 minutes. People leapt out of the seats, clapping, yelling, and jumping up and down. I was caught up in the thrill as well. My ears were ringing from the sheer force of sound. My throat was sore from cheering wildly. Even my hands hurt from clapping so hard. And for the final 2 minutes of the game, we stayed on our feet, cheering with all our might, knowing that we had secured victory!

Even after we won, the fans continued to stand and cheer wildly. And even as we left the arena, filing through the hallways and filtering out the multitude of exits, people continued to cheer and sing victory songs at the tops of their lungs.

Luckily Montreal has plenty of experience with hockey fever. At 7 PM the city shut its main shopping street to cars so that the fans could celebrate outside. We flooded on to the street and had a 50,000 person party. People were drinking, having fun. Some malignant fans even burned stuffed penguins in effigy. For the most part people were rowdy but not unmanageable. I found out later that a few hooligans who got out of hand and a small riot occurred.

Overall the whole hockey experience in Montreal has been awesome. No matter where I go afterwards, I will always hold the Habs in my heart!

Prague et fin

Prague

When I was originally planning my trip, I kept thinking, “Geez, 5 days in Prague seems like a long time!” Well thank goodness I did have those 5 days, because I was a waste of skin for 2.5 of them!

When I last wrote, I was planning my attack on the city for the next day. Well, that attack kind of fizzled out. I was able to force myself to leave the hostel, but I was very unhappy to do so. I was whining and complaining internally the entire time. The smells of certain foods (okay, make that most foods) aggravated my latent nausea. I had no energy. I was worried that I might be without a toilet if there was an emergency.

I ended up just wandering around a bit – I walked to the Vltava river and enjoyed the scenery and sunlight for a bit, but in the end, I just did not have the right mindset to be out in the city. E.g. I found the famous Charles Bridge, walked half way across it, and then I was so grumpy that I turned around and walked back. I ended up returning to my hostel 2 hours after I had left and slept some more. I admit that I did look at the costs involved in changing my air ticket to come home sooner, but in the end it would have been a lot more money to change my flight than to stay in Prague.

For “dinner” that night, I left the hostel again to go to Subway for food. Oh my gosh. That wasn’t the best of decisions. I forgot that even though countries have the same menus, the ingredients aren’t necessarily the same. The chicken in my sub was slimy and pinkish looking. I ate about half of my sub and then I had to scrape the chicken out of it so I could finish the rest without ralphing. I ended up going back to the hostel and sleeping again. By this time I was getting antsy with doing nothing all day, but I have nothing to entertain me beyond my book and a magazine I bought.

By the 27th I was feeling human again. As a matter of fact, with the exception of some latent weakness, I felt pretty dang good! I therefore decided to tackle Prague Castle.

Of course, I didn’t realize just how damned steep the climb to the castle was! I had taken the long route to get across the river and then had to climb up the hill to the castle in the humidity and heat. As mentioned, I was weak from my recent illness, so the climb was brutal. I was worried that I’d fall over for a bit because I couldn’t catch my breath, the humidity was destroying me, etc., but I persevered. I managed to rent an audio guide and then set out to discover this famous Castle area.

Now, firstly I should clarify: When I describe it as being a “castle” – it’s not the kind of stereotypical castle that Westerners envision with stones and ramparts, etc. Nope. I find that in Europe, a castle just refers to any big, famous building that was once used by royalty. This means that the term can include Baroque buildings, etc. Therefore I’ve never actually seen a real “castle” in my sense of the work. Also, many of the old buildings aren’t old anymore – they were either destroyed or burnt down to their foundations, and when they were rebuilt, they were rebuilt in the modern styles. Therefore when you read about them, they sound really impressive (e.g. this church was built in 920 AD blah blah blah) but then you find out that it was burnt down and renovated in the 18th century and is not a generic Baroque building.

Prague Castle was a series of large Baroque structures. They were pretty and everything, but I had seen the same things in other European countries. The Castle area started off with the Cathedral of St. Vitus. The outside of the cathedral is very impressive – it was a gothic style building with lots of buttresses, etc. I was less than impressed with the interior though. I found it very sparse and it lacked the sense of serenity or awe that other churches have given me. The one thing I did really like were the stained glass windows. They were some of the largest I’ve seen and since I was there during the day, the sunlight poured into them. I was intrigued by the Chapel of Wenceslas even though you weren’t allowed inside that section (you could peer from the doorway). It was very old, and the walls were covered in gemstones, etc.

One thing that especially amused me was that when I was leaving, I passed some covers of tombs and one reminded me so much of the knight’s tomb from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I had (and still have) the sudden urge to go rewatch the movie. Ahem. Let’s move on, shall we?

The rest of my ticket for “Prague Castle” got me admittance to several different famous buildings. Honestly, most of them weren’t interesting other than to admire a single feature or two. E.g. In the Theresian Wing building, there was an amazing ribbed and vaulted ceiling. The rest of the building lacked any interest for me. I also got to go into the Basilica of St. George. This small building was slightly more interesting just because of its age – it was built in the 10th century and even though was rebuilt several hundred years later, some vestiges of its former glory remained.

Afterwards I entered the Golden Lane – again, a bit of a let down. It’s just a very short lane with expensive artisan shops lining it. It’s apparently famous due to a) the fact that it use to house the castle archers and b) Kafka either lived or had an office there. But seriously, the lane was a grand total of maybe 15 houses long – and one of those houses is known as being the smallest house in Prague. Get the idea?

Lest you think that I did nothing but complain on my Prague Castle experience, I will tell you that my fave part of the complex was visiting the Daliborka Tower. Built in the 15th century, the tower was originally meant for city defenses but later became a prison instead. The first “resident” of the prison was a knight called Dalibor (whom the tower is now named after). He apparently sheltered some upstart peasants and the King wasn’t too pleased with him. Popular legend says that Dalibor learned to play the violin while he was in prison and his music was so beautiful and sad that people would gather below his window to listen.

Now, here’s the thing that I love about history and what you can learn. As mentioned, the legend said that Dalibor played music, etc. Well, historians claim that this legend arose because of the torture Dalibor underwent while in the tower. He was tortured and eventually changed his story to comply with what the guards wanted to hear, therefore he “changed his tune.” Somehow this morphed into him fiddling his tune and then into stories of him playing a musical instrument. Heh. The real story is a lot less romantic, eh?

The tower was originally 7 floors high but the top 5 burnt down. I was surprised at how small the tower was in general. It’s now filled with historical torture devices and you can see into a couple of the cells. It was very dark and creepy – especially the hole at the bottom of the lowest section of the tower where they put extra troublesome prisoners. The hole was only maybe 1.5 feet wide and probably 15 feet down. Prisoners were tied up and lowered into it. There were no windows and now way to clean any filth out of it.

The other thing that caught my attention in the tower was the Spanish boot. I’ve always known that the Spanish Boot was a torture device but my understanding of what it exactly did was vague. The one that I saw was a vice that was tightened around the foot/ankle – but this one also had large inward pointing spikes. Yikes!

The view from Prague Castle was absolutely lovely. Several times over my self-guided tour I stopped to admire the view. However by the time I was finished in Daliborka Tower I had to hustle back to the entrance so that I could return my audio guide. (Okay, seriously Prague – you have got to install a place to return your audio guides at the end of the Castle district.) I was so tired and I did NOT want to have to traverse the castle again to return the damned guide.

I returned to the old section of Prague via Charles Bridge. The bridge is very pretty, full of artisans and buskers. There are also statues of people that I assume are saints and kings lining it. My knowledge of historical or religious figures is not enough to be sure.

I was running out of steam at this point, so I just wandered around some of the side streets. I found a long set of stalls selling produce, souvenirs, etc. It was pleasant ogling all the goodies. I also grabbed a bite to eat at an Italian restaurant followed by some delicious gelato.

Random rant: One thing I hate about traveling is figuring out how to tip properly. In some countries it’s normal to tip, in some it’s not. Some countries demand 10 – 15%, in others you just round up the bill. I’m pretty sure that I overtipped at every restaurant I went to in Europe (with the exception of one). Part of this was because I was calculating prices in Canadian dollars, sometimes it was because I forgot which country had which requirements, etc. And sometimes I just tossed down money and hoped for the best. (In the Italian restaurant in Prague, the guy looked too appreciative of the 10% tip that I left, making me suspect that I left too much.) The thing that sucks though is that I find the service in these restaurants to be worse than in Canada. And the quantity of the food is not reflected in the prices. E.g. At the Italian restaurant just mentioned, I paid about $15 for a small plate of pasta with half a tomato, a sprinkle of mozzarella, and .33L of apple juice. (Ugh, don’t get me started the size of beverages either!)

If I recall, I wound up back at the hostel shortly thereafter. As mentioned, I had no energy left so I slept pretty well. I also finally had roommates again (after my first night in Prague, I had the room to myself for 2 full nights). I met two Chinese girls who were studying in Slovenia, and then by random chance we had two more Slovenians join us. The Slovenians were so super friendly and nice. I had a lot of fun talking to them. And their accents were amusing me for no reason that I can discern.

On my second last day in Prague I ventured out to visit the Jewish quarters. I only wanted to visit two specific sites: The Old Jewish Cemetery and the Old-New Synagogue. Unfortunately those business savvy people bundle up all their tickets so that if you want to see one you have to buy the more expensive package, and then the other site is in another package. It cost me nearly $26 by the time I was done!

The Old Cemetery was amazing. If I recall, it was started in the 12th century. At that time the King of Prague decreed that Jews could only be buried in this one small cemetery. To conserve the space, the Jews had to dig their graves 12 people deep, and then they placed the gravestones in front of each other.

What fascinated me about this particular cemetery was mainly its age. The tombstones were so old and faded. Plus, the sheer number of markers and the changing terrain meant they were falling over slowly, knocking into each other, etc. I saw one stone that had fallen over I don’t know how many years ago on to a tree. The tree was actually growing around the stone. That particular stone will always embody the graveyard for me. It seemed to show the passage of time in ways that calendars and history books cannot.

After the cemetery I went to the Old-New Synagogue. This is the oldest synagogue in Europe and you could tell – it was very small and built on a different scale from today. I can’t wax on about it too much because it was only one small room with a few tiny windows. I was amused to read the historical info in which it mentioned that some of the small holes on one wall was so that the women could sit in the smaller, sparser room and still hear the sermons. Other than that, the place smelled funny.

I also went into another small “museum” which was empty. The only adornments were on the walls. Each wall listed the names of all the Jews killed in the Czech Republic during WWII. They were listed in order of region followed by alphabetical name. It was very sobering to see it all laid out.

By this point in my trip, a sense of malaise had set in. Part of it was due to the illness I had suffered, but I was also just tired of traveling. I missed the comforts of home. I missed being able to lay down on the couch and watch TV. Hell, I was missing clean clothes! I had no ambition to force myself out to see the other sites in Prague. I had hit up the main sites and that was enough for me. By this point, everything was started to look the same.

I found myself back at the small market from the day before. I grabbed some pizza and gelato and wandered to Wenceslas Square, a long shopping street. I ended up sitting on a random bench and people watching for a couple of hours. I also went for a long walk along Vltava river and just explored random side streets.

In Prague’s Old Town Square there’s a famous astrological clock. It tells the time, date, month, year, etc. It’s also the penultimate cuckoo clock. Every hour it rings and there’s a small show of saints and demons that emerge. I finally happened to be in the square when the show started.

Wow. I felt like I was joining the masses to worship some kind of pagan god. Seriously. A small crowd gathered below the clock tower and we stood like sheep, gazing worshipfully at the clock. Finally the clock struck 5 PM and one of the skeleton gargoyles adorning the clock started tugging on a small bell. And then the doors on the clock opened and in the recessed shadows wooden figurines rotated along slowly. And then the clock stopped tolling, the doors closed and that was it. Wait, that was it?! Talk about anti-climatic! LOL

Because there was some kind of event with live music going on, I ended up people watching and just relaxing in the square for the rest of the evening.

On my final morning/afternoon in Prague I was essentially wasting time until I had to go to the airport. I had to check out of my hostel by 10 AM but luckily I was able to leave my luggage in storage with them.

For my final breakfast I found a great little bakery. I highly approve of European patisserie’s. They don’t just serve frou frou baked goods – you’ll find sausages and meat buns too. I pointed to some random Czech bun with a meat looking substance poking out of it and had it for breakfast. Turns out it was sausage in a pastry. It was delicious. I ate it while sitting on a bench in the town square.

I wandered around the side streets for a bit and ended up at a park, people watching. I then decided to walk to the river, but a different section than I had ever been to before. Well, 20 minutes later I hadn’t found the river – meaning that somehow I was lost despite having wandered in a rather straight line. I decided to cut my losses short and change directions towards where I thought the Old Square was. 2 blocks over I tripped over the river. Doh! It turns out the river changes direction more dramatically than anticipated. I had a terrific saunter along the water’s edge before winding back up at the small market.

I grabbed my final lunch at a cute café that was playing awesome chillout music. I also bought my last helping of gelato and finished off my day by sitting in the sun and watching all the brides and grooms getting their photos taken in the town square.

Now there was little left for me to do but pick up my backpack and head towards the airport. Now, I found Prague to be very easy to negotiate sans using the metro. To go to the airport though I had to take the metro and bus. Wow. Czech transit passes are crazy. I had to buy a ticket for myself AND a reduced price ticket for my backpack! (Of course I couldn’t figure out how to buy them via the ticket machines so I had to wait in line at the metro station instead.)

Getting to my bus wasn’t a problem either. The real issue was trying to figure out when I was supposed to get off the bus! I didn’t realize until I was on the bus that Prague airport had multiple terminals, and my flight itinerary didn’t tell me which terminal to go to either! So essentially I’m sitting on the bus, gawking out the window trying to identify which airplanes are leaving from where. I ended up getting off the bus when everyone else did – sometimes that’s the safest course of action. And it worked. By random chance I had found my terminal. Huzzah!

Of course I had to use the self-check in machine and I ran into problems. Firstly I couldn’t scan my passport (I was holding it in the wrong way up). And then after asking for help from a customer service woman, she couldn’t get my ticket to work. And when it did work, it showed me as having two tickets under my name. To condense my story, she had to get a new electronic number for me to work with, and even then she had to type in all my passport info by hand. Phew! Thank goodness she was able to help me, or I’d have had a complete meltdown!

The Prague airport is rather boring. I think the most exciting (I use that term loosely) thing to happen was scaring and being scared by a bag lady in the washrooms. I startled her when I entered. I felt bad for her too – she was doing her laundry in the bathroom. So sad.

The flight home was great. I had a seat neighbour on the way to Paris, but from Paris to Montreal there was an empty seat between my neighbour and I, so it was relaxing. I watched many movies, read my magazine, tried to sleep for an hour but it didn’t work.

The only issue I had upon landing was with immigration. I had no problems with the customs line, but after I exited the customs section, I followed (like a good little sheep) the people into the glassed off area right behind customs. I’m waiting and waiting in line and I’m getting irritated at how few people are manning the desks! And then I see some people being told to skip the line. That’s when I start paying more and more attention to the people around me and I start to wonder if I should even be in the line! I finally slip out of the line quickly to ask at the reception desk (it hadn’t been manned when I first entered) if I had to line up or not and lo and behold, I didn’t have to! As a citizen I should have gone straight to baggage instead! Whoops! (I blame my stupidity on being a) a sheep and b) the fact that the customs kiosk I went to was directly in front of the immigration section.

Despite the delay, I managed to get to the luggage belt just as my backpack exited. And to make things even better, I caught the necessary bus just before it left the airport. And then when I got to the metro station, my subway was just arriving too! How fortuitous!

By this point I was running on adrenaline. I was tired (it was about 2:30 AM for my body when I landed) but I was excited to be home. I enacted the lessons learned from my last trip and I went to the grocery to pick up eggs and milk so that I’d at least have something to eat the next morning. (Last year I woke up at 4 AM and had NOTHING in the house to eat – I had to make do with a can of soup!)

I phoned home to let my family know that I had arrived home alive without being consumed by a volcano en route and finished my evening by puttering around, tidying up my baggage, prepping my dirty clothes for the wash, etc. It was divine!

Despite my illness I had a great trip in Europe. I have to admit that I am getting tired of the continent though. I don’t want to go back there for awhile (unless it’s to the UK or back to France, or maybe to the Nordic countries). I’m just fatigued of visiting the same tourist sites over and over again. I am glad that I got to see Eastern Europe though. It’s definitely not a place I ever anticipated going.

Costs of Eastern Europe

I still need to post about Prague, but right now I just want to say that I like the costs of traveling in Eastern Europe more than Western Europe. Here's a breakdown of my expenses (including trains/food):

- Vienna - 128.22 Euros
- Bratislava - 34.63 Euros
- Budapest - 50,000 Florint
- Prague - 3242 Kry

Converted into Canadian, that's about a grand total of 642.11. Plus I spent about 203.68 CAD on my hostel rooms. Not bad for 16 days!

Budapest, the finale

As warned in my previous blog, any abrupt endings were to be attributed to the rebellion going on in my gut. There was a minor war waged, but the peasant have subsided and all is calming down in gastro-land.

As mentioned previously, I had skipped the Art Museum to go to Castle Hill, so armed with a breakfast of two bananas, I had go check that out on my final day. The Art Museum is listed as being one of the top art museums in Eastern Europe. I'm no art connoisseur, but it seemed relatively impressive to me.

I got to see originals by Picasso, Degas, Rousseau, etc. I also saw some sculptures by Rodin. I don't know how or why some of these names mean anything to me - I blame my Arts 301 course in university. It was essentially only the one temporary exhibition (with Picasso, etc.) that was interesting. The rest of the museum was full of religious and/or medieval art. It was pretty, but to wax on about it would be to indicate that I cared more than I did. It was art. It was famous. I went so I could say that I've seen it.

By the time I left I was ravenous and wanted to try the well-known restaurant called Paprika. I literally cannot go into detail on what I ate because literally the mere thought of my meal incites nausea now, but at the time was amazingly delicious.

Fast forward an hour later and I was feeling overly full. I decided to return to my hostel to lay down. I crashed for two hours and then the real trauma started. I don't think you need a detailed description of my last night in Budapest. Let's just say that I became intimately acquainted with the hostel's bathrooms. The staff were also kind enough to check in on me once in awhile. I ended up sleeping like shit since I had to wake up once every hour to return to the facilities.

However, by 7:30 the next morning I had no choice but to get up and get to the train bound for Prague. Due to the night's intestinal antics, I was running on empty, so I also had to stop by the grocery store or risk starving. Mau on an empty stomach tends not to function too well. I grabbed some provisions and got to the station with no problem.

On the train I was seated in yet another 6 person car with 4 other people. And of course I was on the seat furthest from the windows and hence the air conditioner. And the sun was shining in. I had a yogurt drink to help assuage the rumblings in my tummy, but the heat was making me feel ill even more. I ended up taking one of my apples and venturing out into the passage between trains in hopes of finding some fresh air.

About five minutes later I lost the yogurt drink and the quarter apple I had consumed. Even more unfortunately an old lady had gone into the bathroom right before the urge to spew came on. I almost wanted to laugh at her face when she emerged and sees me huddling on the floor. You could tell she felt bad. Oh well. I admit that I made a half assed attempt to find an attendant to clean things up, but couldn't, so I fled the scene of the crime and found my own compartment.

The rest of the trip passed better, but that's probably because I was in a semi-comatose state. I honestly slept probably about 70% of the ride. I only woke up to hand over my train ticket as necessary, or when other dared to venture into my den of pestilence. It's a shame really, because the scenery, when I did wake up, was very pretty.

Upon arrival in Prague, I discovered that the instructions and map for getting to my hostel were horribly vague. I was so tired and miserable and frustrated that I just wanted to curl up and die in the middle of the street. After feeling sorry for myself for about 10 minutes (and wistfully thinking of invoking my medical insurance so I could be sent home early), I trudged my way downtown, through the heat and crowds, and eventually found my hostel.

By this time it was about 5:00 PM. I immediately crawled into bed and slept until 9:00 when one of my roommates came in. We talked a bit and then I ventured outside for some fresh air. I swear, I wasn't even out for 15 minutes when I had to return and go to bed again. I blame my weakness on dehydration and lack of food - I was feeling so fragile that even walking up a flight of stairs left me winded.

As for today, I wish I could report more exciting happenings, but it's not meant to be. I woke up, prepped to face the day, but by the time I had gone downstairs to check my email, I couldn't do it. Instead I crawled by into my bed and slept until nearly 1:00 PM. At that point I knew I had to go out for sustance if only to ensure I didn't die from starvation.

I am ashamed to admit that my first meal (or at least the half that I consumed) in Prague was at TGI Friday's. I just could not stomach the idea of eating anything unfamiliar at this point. Or even familiar things. E.g. I couldn't eat my french fries because they were too reminiscent of the mashed potatoes I ate in Budapest.

After forcefully gnawing down my food I found a grocery store and stocked up on some provisions (aka bananas, oranges, and some rye crackers - the latter being wonderfully bland and filling) and returned to my hostel. I slept again until 6ish and then I spent the rest of my evening reading my book. (Dad, I finished reading Oath of Fealty!) Now I'm just wasting time until I can go to sleep again.

Luckily it seems like I'll have an empty hostel room again tonight - a 5 bed place to myself. Too bad the beds aren't comfier. I can actually hear (and feel) each individual spring shift whenever I move. I feel like I must have woken up my roomies last night whenever I got up to go to the washroom. Whoops!

Anyways, for most of my trip I've been doing my planning on the fly - e.g. I read my guidebook a day or two before I head to my destination. Due to my illness, I was unable to do this for Prague. Therefore I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or see in this city. I shall now retire to my bedroom and commence my plan of attack for tomorrow's adventure.

Cheers!

Budapest, the adventure continues

I shall warn you right now that this post might end abruptly. I had my first Hungarian meal at a highly recommended restaurant today. Unfortunately, either the goulasch soup or the roast pork dish I had is not agreeing with my gastro-intestinal tract. (AKA vomitting and diarreah - I'm kind of wondering if I have the Norwalk virus again because I either have massive stomach pain or massive bloating. I can't tell which.) I'm mostly okay now though. I think.

On to less gross stuff, shall we? Again, I don't have my notes on me, so I will cover what I can from memory.

On last year's trip, and thus far on this trip I've been on the go pretty much non-stop. I walk to my destination, do what I need to do, and then go straight on to my next destination. The longest I sit down is for my meal or a quick 5 min rest on a bench. Well, yesterday I made a concerted effort to sit down and relax too.

I originally planned to go to a famous art museum, but I realized that my transit pass was ending soon, so I decided to attack Castle Hill instead since it's just that - on a hill. With the transit pass I could at least knock off part of my walk.

So off I went. The view from Castle Hill was terrific - On one side you could see most of the Pest side of the city, and on the other you could see Buda and Old Buda. Of course, I was often dodging other tourists - I saw more of them on Castle Hill than I have at any other tourist location thus far on this trip (but not nearly as many as I did during peak tourist season in Italy/France).

I didn't do much on top of Castle Hill - I walked around the buildings but I didn't have much interest in actually going into them. The only one I actually entered was Matthias Church - it was funded by an old King of Budapest and several other Kings were married in there. It was a very pretty church - it reminded me a lot of Sienna's duomo because the walls were painted with intricate patterns, etc. The outside of the church (reminiscent of the duomo in Milan, so it must be gothic-style, right?) was under construction, or at least being "cleaned up."

It seems like a lot of places in Eastern Europe are under construction, and they also seem to be taking a massively long time. My guide book was published in mid-2009 and it mentions "at the time of printing" that things are under renovation/renewal, and when I arrive, it turns out that yes, they still are under construction! (E.g. the castle at Bratislava was also under construction - you could walk around it, but not enter it.)

After my brief foray into the church, I wandered around the rest of Castle Hill. I made a half-hearted attempt to go the Museum of Military Weapons, but I entered the wrong entrance and was too lazy to go find the correct one. Instead, I found a shady bench overlooking Buda, copped a squat, and read a book that I found at the hostel. I was there for at least a couple of hours. Every once in awhile I'd glance up, think, "Holy mackerel, I'm reading a good book on a bench overlooking Budapest! How cool!" and then return to it.

Unfortunately around 1 PM my stomach started reminding me that I hadn't eaten yet, so I ventured back towards my hostel area (which has a lot of good, inexpensive restaurants) and had Thai. After lunch I wandered over to Margit Island (a giant local park) and promptly flopped out on a bench again with the aforementioned book. I stayed there until 5ish when the wind became a bit too bitter to stay outside.

I returned to my hostel and spent the evening relaxing, a task easier said than done. It was a bit busy since a bunch of people had arrived that day and they were making a bunch of noise, and then people kept asking me how my day was, etc.

Budapest

I don't have my notes on me, so this will be a summary of what I can remember the most from the past two days.

The train ride from Bratislava to Budapest was amazing. The train travelled along the Danube for about 60% of the trip and it was BEAUTIFUL! I also had a 6 seat car to myself, so I had no problems with rolling down the window and hanging my camera outside the window. My only issue was trying to figure out when my stop was going to happen, because the train I was on was actually going all the way to Beograd (I had a moment of panic when I first arrived at the station - I wasn't sure where my train was because nothing was listed with "Budapest" as its final destination!). Every time the train slowed down (there were multiple stops at small Slovakian and Hungary villages on the way) I had a panic attacking, thinking that it was my stop and that I would miss it.

The only issue I had in finding my hostel was that the damned metro had about 16 gazillion exits so I kept going through the wrong ones. I finally did make it to my hostel (after again getting lost in the interconnecting hallways) and checked in. This hostel, Tiger Tim's, is by far the "homiest" hostel I've been in. They sat me down with a map and pointed out all the most interesting sights, etc. I actually had to ask them when I could pay for the room (but this is part of Tiger Tim's appeal).

Anyways, since I was starving - I had only eaten the free apple and croissant given by my Bratislavan hostel, they also pointed me out to a couple of nearby restaurants. I ended up grabbing a ridiculously delicious pita from The Hummus Bar. Can I import that chain to Canada? Mau highly approves of it.

I originally intended to walk to the famous Andrassy Street, but I caught sight of an interesting building further down a side street and ended up investigating. Lo and behold, I found Hungary's parliament buildings! They're small, but beautiful - they're very reminiscent of gothic churches and apparently that was done on purpose. Also, the building is only 96ft (or 96 meters?) which is, by law, the tallest a building can be in Budapest. (96 or 896 is a very important number for the Magyars - it has to do with when they became a country, etc.)

Since Parliament is located on the Danube, I walked along that for awhile. I came across a bunch of cast iron shoe statues along the edge of the water - I could guess that they were memorials of some kind, but I wasn't sure for what. (At dinner that night, I asked the other hostellers about them, and I found out that yes, they're a memorial for the Jews who were lined up during the holocaust and shot into the Danube. Great dinner conversation.)

I was going to walk across the river but then my camera battery died and I discovered that I left spare in the hostel, so I had to go back and fetch it. After grabbing it, I ended up going up to Heroe's Square/Park, hanging out a bit, and then grabbing the metro back to the Danube. From there I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to walk across the Danube afterall and climb Gellert Hill so I could get a view of the city. Great ideas for me though often result in exhaustion. The view was fantastic, but it did take awhile to gather the will to go back down and walk back to the hostel.

At the hostel I ended up just hanging around with the other patrons - we also had a homemade hungarian meal (which needed a lot of salt in my opinion). We chatted for a bit and then most people started watching a movie.

As some of you may have seen on my Facebook status, it was at this point that I tried to befriend the Nigerian guy staying at my hostel. I'm going to assume now that his attempts to ask me about my age, state of marriage, whether I had a boyfriend, and his need to tell me his own age, were just his culture's conversation starters. At least that's what I'm telling myself, and I won't let you tell me different.

Today I rolled outta bed by 8:30 and ended up having a European breakfast (aka a pastry or roll - in my case a pastry with a ham and cheese substance) and started on my day of museums. I actually went to St. Stephen's Basilica first just because it was on the way.

The basilica was very pretty - I think it's probably one of the top 3 basilicas I've seen with regards to opulence. It was like a mini-St. Peter's Cathedral from Rome. Gorgeous, but not very inspiring. (My all time fave church remains the duomo in Siena, Italy.)

I then went to the House of Terror. Wow. This memorial/museum is probably the best combination of artistry and information I've seen. Considering it's subject material, I hesitate to call it "cool" but that's the first word that comes to mind. The only downside is that most of the information (if you don't invest in an audioguide) is presented on 8x11 sheets of papers, so you end up standing in a dimly lit room reading a small novel.

The House of Terror was originally known as the House of Loyalty. It was first used by the Nazis to torture and kill anti-fascists and all potential "enemies" of the regime. Later, the Soviets took over and used it for the same purposes. As mentioned, the place is now a memorial/museum, so not only did they provide the information, but it was presented in representations and artistic manners. E.g. In one room they had fake election booths with TVs showing news broadcasts of the times. The information presented in that room was about the electoral fraud that broad the communists to power. Behind the election area was a "hidden" backroom that represented the machinations used to enact these changes. And, when you finally took the elevator down to the former torture chambers, the elevator moved very slowly and played a video of a man describing the process they used for hanging. It was a very powerful display.

The only part of the museum that truely disturbed me was the final hallway before the exit. They had pictures and the names of all the Victimizers of both regimes along with the dates of birth and deaths (or blanks if they were still alive). I don't know how to describe it, but I found it very disturbing to see these pictures and to know that some of them still existed on Earth. Not that I want them dead, but seeing the blank dates of death made it feel like the Hungarians were just waiting for them to perish. I didn't even walk through the whole section - I backtracked and made straight for the exit.

One of the things that I never realized until I was done with this memorial was how, shall I say, naive I was. In Canada we tend to learn our history as being, "Yay, the holocaust is over. Now we just have to defeat the ideals of these pesky communists!" But here in Eastern Europe, they had the holocaust and then they were all placed into the suffering under the Communists. It was never ending for them.

To continue on my fun filled day I decided to go to the Budapest Holocaust Museum next. It was mostly stuff I knew before, but presented from a Hungarian point of view, so that was very interesting. They had very sad and sobering displays, more than I've ever seen before. Also, all their videos had English subtitles and they relied a lot on personal testimonies, so you'd see a lot of posters telling the stories of individuals victims or survivors. It was amazing. One thing they placed more focus on than I've seen before was the medical experiments that went on, including experiments on twins.

After the museum I was going to walk along the Danube again, but my legs protested too much. I think I strained my thigh muscles or hamstrings - they're not painful, but each step is a bit sore. I made a conscious effort to know go gallivanting around like I normally do. And, mom will also be pleased to hear, I also had 2 meals today, and bought food to make my third. Yahoo!

Anyways, I'm pretty tired so I shall leave off here. I haven't got a clue what I'm up to tomorrow, but I'll figure it out by tonight. Cheerio!

Bratislava

Slovakia's tourist motto is, "A part of Europe worth visiting." That sounded so pathetic (as in, "Gee, we'd love for you to visit us but we don't really expect you to") that I actually laughed out loud. Even my guidebook didn't sound too enthusiastic about Bratislava. But hey, how often can you claim to have been in Slovakia? So I planned on spending a single night here.

Wow. And 1 night is all you need. Even my hostel receptionist said that the city isn't that interesting. Sure, you have all the pretty European buildings, but nothing overly magnificent, and they're less upkept than other European countries I've been to.

The historical centre is there, but there aren't many museums (even my guidebook only lists 1). The rest of it is full of restaurants (mainly non-Slovakian food - I saw a zillion Mexican restos) and stores like Swarvoski, Body Shop, etc. It was rather sad actually! Even their huge castle is closed due to renovations! So after arriving at 11:30 AM an walking around until 2:30, I had pretty much seen everything there was to see.

I ended up eating at a tourist "pub" and I tried the Slovakian version of a perogy and a tomato salad. Okay - the tomato salad was good, except for the excessive onions... but the perogy made with sour goat's milk cheese? Umm, I'm not a hater, but I'm not a fan of it either I doubt I would ever order it again. (Oh, and holy bacon grease Batman! The bacon bits that were a garnish were so NASTY!) Bleeeh! I should have gotten the national dish of dumplings instead. Hopefully I can redeem my palate in the next few days in Hungary - I'm looking ridiculously forward to Goulash!

By 4 PM I returned to my hostel. It turns out that most people have cancelled their reservations due to the volcano issues, so it's essentially me and 3 other people.

One of those people is a German guy. He came out on the patio where I was relaxing and started chatting, but his English was rather poor, so we couldn't really understand each other. (e.g. We'd both talk, get parts of the conversation, and smile and nod through the rest of the sentences because we were lost.) We also tried speaking in French, but his French wasn't much better than his English! I finally fled to the computers.

Unfortunately people are smoking down here (I'm in their basement bar) so I'm going to flee soon. Hopefully I'll be on the train to Budapest by tomorrow by 10 AM. Bye everyone!

Fleshing out the story

I've decided to take the evening off, relax, and plan for the next segment of my trip. But of course, the internet must take precedence. I shall attempt to now flesh out some of the stuff I didn't mention in my first post.

Apr. 14
So on the first night I arrived in Vienna I had to go find a place to eat. Now, most of you know that I despise eating alone. I'm terrible at finding restaurants. It gets even worse while on international trips. I keep procrastinating on finding places to eat and end up walking and walking and walking until desperation forces me to either a street meat stall or to cave and go into a restaurant.

Well, this happened here in Vienna. I found this nice "local" shopping district - a huge long street full of stores and once in awhile a restaurant. I'd peek at their menus (most of which weren't in English) and then continue on. Fast forward to 2 hours later where I'm on the point of collapse from low blood sugars - I find this cute little cafe and force myself to step inside.

I immediately panic when the owner starts talking to me German. I stutter over telling him (in German) that I can't speak German. Then I discover that he speaks English. Fluently. Anyhoo, I see that he has daily specials so I try to order Tuesday's special. Two problems: a) I accidentally say "Thursday" because my German is reeeeally rusty and b) due to the time change, it's actually Wednesday. Doh.

Anyways, I ordered the special - now I remember what I hate about European restaurants. you get squat for your meal! I ordered a bowl of spaghetti and it cost me nearly 9 euros for a plate of spaghetti noodles covered in butter and sprinkled with cheese. Where's the meat? Where's the spices?! Doh! Oh well, at least my impending collapse was averted.

Also, most of you know how much I love seeing elderly people (lovingly nicknamed "pets") - well, I find EAstern European pets to be even more cute!!! The little old ladies all wear checkered head scarves that make me think of Hungarian matrons. However, there's also something more sad and pathetic looking about a Eastern European pet begging for money. :(

(Umm, weird - some guy just came bounding through the computer room to use the washroom here, but he didn't bother closing the door the entire way. Awkward! LOL, and now it sounds like he broke the flush handle.)

Apr. 15
After my meeting I ventured out for authentic sightseeing. When I happened across the St. Stephansdom church, that's when it finally hit me that I was back in Europe! (Granted, last trip I was sick and tired of churches by the end of it, but I guess having nearly a year away from them renewed my interested.)

As mentioned, I spent most of this night wasting time until the ballet started. After the ballet I was hungry (since I had been in line from 6PM and then in the theatre, and I didn't know I wouldn't have had time to eat before then, so I didn't eat) so I stopped by a street meat stall and had my first Viennese schnitzel. It's sad to admit, but that was the best schnitzel I've had. yeah it was deepfried and the equivalent of a hamburger, but honestly, I don't get what all the hooplah is over schnitzel - if you've eaten it in Canada, you've eaten it everywhere in my opinion.

Amusing anecdote: I am soooo lower class. Before the ballet started I had to use the washroom. Bathrooms with attendants disturb me. I'm also a cheap bastard, so I managed to dodge out of the bathroom while she was cleaning another stall so I wouldn't have to leave her a tip. (When I went to the opera again later for the opera itself, I was in the nosebleed section and there was no attendant in that one. Phew, I was back in my own economic range!)

I also did my good deed and helped a girl from Malta find the hotel (she was staying in the same one as me) - she was in Vienna for a meeting on Human Rights.

Apr. 16
On thise day I slept in and missed most of the morning. :( I really wanted to go on a tour of the UN buildings but I missed the first tour and therefore ended up rearranging my whole schedule to see them.

I ended up going back to the area around the opera house. I tried schnitzel again at Mama's schnitzel House. Hmm. Somehow I doubt that was the best choice of places. Oh well. They fed me a lot and that's all I cared about at that point.

After the UN tour I got lost looking for the DOW museum. As mentioned previously, I accidentally went into the DOM museum instead. So sad! The DOW is only open on weekdays, so I missed my chance to learn about Austrian resistance to nayism and socialism. :( And the DOM museum was full of religious relics and all in German. Oh well, at least I recogniyed some of the concepts from my trips last year and therefore I wasn't totally confused! And they also had free washrooms. That's always a bonus.

Speaking of washrooms, I refused to pay to go in for giggles, but near the opera house there's a pay toilet called the Opera Toilet - the big sell is that they play classical music inside.

I ended up going to the "train station" to scope out the area near my hostel so I wouldn't be overwhelmed the next day. And I put train station in quotations because there wasn't a train in sight. I have no idea why I
was convinced this was the train station, but I found out later that nope - it has NOTHING to do with trains. More time wasted.

I did however find Statdpark, a well known park in Vienna. It's rather small, but very very pretty, and it's fill with statues of famous musicians and composers. I ended up sitting there for a bit to relax.

By now I felt like I could retire to my hotel room without feeling like the day was a total waste. I did try going to Pratern, a local themepark. It was amusing - it felt like a carnival out of the 1950s. Plus it has a really famous ferris wheel (famous from a Austrian movie). It takes 20 minutes for 1 rotation of the wheel, but I wasn't willing to pay 10 euros for the ride!

Apr. 17
The first thing that amused me this day was seeing a guy in the u-bahn pimping out the German version of the Watchtower. The Watchtower! In Deutsch! How AWESOME! The rest of the day felt like I was stuck in one u-bahn or another. Seriously. Everytime I got on a metro, it broke down. I was stuck at Kagran station for 30-40 minutes!

I transferred my belongings to my hostel and you guys got your first internet update.

I ended up going to the Nashmarkt - it's a local farmers market and on Saturdays it also has a big flea market. For the most part, the food area was just like a regular North American market. Just more crowded. The snack stalls did have a lot of pastries and non-North American goods though. And I found there were a lot of Middle-Eastern snacks like donairs, kebabs, falafel etc. As for the flea market. Ugh. Can we say tacky? For those of you who will get the reference, I think I found Rosemary's long lost illegimate children. CREEPy!

I ended up meeting my former boss at her hotel so we could do lunch and go to an art museum together. First off, her hotel. Oh my gosh. Fancy schmancy! Again, I felt soooo lower class walking in there. I honestly felt like they were watching me to make sure I didn't steal the silverware or something. (Okay, slight exagerration, but I felt like they should be watching me.) To give you an idea of the price of this hotel, for .33L of coke (stupid Europe likes bottles in the siye of .33L) it cost 5.50 Euros. That's just for a freaking POP!!!!

Anyways, Jenny and I had a long lunch and chit chatted about everything and anything. We ended up going to the Belvedere museum (we were going to take a tram, but couldn't find the right one, so I got us there via map instead. Can we talk about the pressure of trying not to get one of the top hepatologists in the world lost?!)

The Belvedere was beautiful - unfortunately I didn't know that there was a huge set of gardens, so I had us walking on the opposite side of the wall they were on. Oh well - I got to see them on the walk back. Jenny was able to explain the significance of some of the paintings, so it was very handy.

Afterwards we walked back to her hotel and she mentioned that the opera playing that night had a very famous singer - one of the top 5 female singers in the world. Since Jenny is an opera buff, I decided to try to get standing room tickets again.

Oh my gosh, the line for the opera was even longer than for the ballet! (Even though it was at the same location.) I ended up chatting with an Indian medical student (he was involved in liver transplants or something like that).

Unfortunatley I didn't get as good of a seat this time - I was stuck in the nosebleeds. I can't believe how poorly the opera house was built! If you were on either side of the balcony (where I was), you could literally only see half the stage. And this damned opera seemed to be sung on the half of the stage I couldn't see. I can't help but wonder how much the tickets cost for the people sitting in front of me, because it seemed like they had as bad, or worse views that I did if they remained seated. Of course, for the lady directly in front of me, that didn't seem to be a problem for her. She kept standing up, leaning forward, blocking the view of the cold couple beside her, whipping out her opera glasses, etc. And at one particularly poignant song, she was cheering wildly and gave no less than 5 "bravos" to the male lead.

While at the opera I ended up chatting with a Japanese tourist. She was supposed to have left earlier in the day, but due to the volcano, her flight kept getting pushed back, so she extended her vacation until Wednesday. Ouch!

I ended up staggering back to my hostel at around 10:30 PM. Sooo tired. I seem to have 3 brayilian roommates, a Korean, and I don't know who else. I had a Serbian dude sleeping above me last night, but he left today.

Apr. 18
The first thing I did this morning was go to the train station to check out how to buy my ticket to Bratislava. yikes! Talk about crowds! Thankfully the train staff were out in force and one fellow helped explain to me that I needed to go to a different train station and showed me how to get there. (It turns out that I could have bought my ticket at that station - but I'd have to go to a different one tomorrow to depart.)

Anyways, to get to the other station (Sudanbohf), I had to take the regular metro system, and an S-bahn train, the equivalent of a GO train. Oh my gosh. I used a similar system in Paris with little difficulty. This time though I was so confused! I couldn't figure out which train I needed to go on, which platform I was even on, etc! Thankfully there was a bilingual guy there who was able to help me. I got to Sudanbohf, bought my ticket and came back. (Of course I ran into similar problems trying to get back and I hopped on the train that I *thought* would get me back, but I wasn't sure if my transit pass was valid, so I was sweating through the two train stops, worried that someone would check my ticket and fine me.)

Oh, I should also mention that I thought this expedition would be a short one, so I hurried off without eating. By noon I arrived at the Schonbrunn Palace and still had an empty stomach. I was starting to feel ill I was so hungry. When I arrived at the palace, I walked around the neighborhood outside trying to find a street meat stall or corner store or SOMETHING but it was all closed for Sunday!!! And then I kept having to dodge city workers who were cleaning up after the Vienna marathon that was also going on. I ended up giving up and going into the palace gardens.

The gardens were so pretty - but they ain't got nothing on Versailles! (Of course, they were also still in the process of budding/blooming so it's not a totally fair comparison.) I then went to find the ticket booth so I could actually go into the palace itself - and then heavenly choirs started to sing and a beam of light fell upon a food stand inside the info centre! Oh heavenly Lord, I thank thee for this bounty. Of course I got charged up the ass, but I was too hungry to argue for the sandwich.

After inhaling my "meal" I signed up for a guided tour of the Imperial apartments. (Of course I didn't realize there was a non-guided option available until later. Whoops!) The tour was very interesting and amusing. E.g. I learned about one Austrian lord's attempts to create and implement a "re-usable" coffin - apparently it wasn't well received by his subjects.

After Schonbrunn (I wish I had had more time for the gardens and maybe the greenhouses, but my train expedition in the morning wasted so much time!) I went back downtown to go to the Imperial Apartments and Sisi Museum. Then I had MORE issues in that I kept tripping over the damned marathon! The easiest access to the museums were blocked by barricades and it took me about 20 minutes to get to the entrance.

I really enjoyed the Imperial Apartments and Sisi Museum. However, the first part of the museum is dedicated to the imperial silverware, china, etc. Now, you may remember that I am not a fan of looking at pottery. I don't care if it's gilded or made of solid moonbeams. A pot is a pot is a pot. I was ready to gnaw my arm off looking at all the cutlery, porcelain, etc. I had an audioguide and I kept skipping through most of the explanations. (Except for the one section on napkin folding - that was kind of cool and nifty to learn!)

After the cutlery crap I went into the Sisi museum which was also kind of cool. Princess Sisi (actually Elisabeth) is Austria's poster-child. And apparently her popularity didn't blossom until after her death. The exhibition was the closest I've found to a North American style museum in all my travels. I was amayed (and at times bored) by the wealth of information the audioguides provided.

Finally I got to see the Imperial Apartments. Essentially it was a repeat of what I saw at Schonbrunn earlier in the morning, but it was still nifty to see.

By this time I was getting hungry again. I ended up wimping out and going to the same restaurant that Jenny and I had gone to the day before. While digging through my purse though, I started laughing. The entire time I was wandering around, wasting away from hunger, I forgot that I had a small bag of dried fruit Jenny had given me the day before! Whoops!

Anyways, I think this will conclude the Vienna portion of my trip. I'm going to do my best to get up on time tomorrow and head to Bratislava. After 1 day there I'll (try) to head to Budapest.

Cheerio!
Mau

Guten tag!

Forgive me in advance for any typos I make. The Z and the Y keys on German keyboards seem to be switched! And the apostraphe symbol is also misplaced!

Anyhoo, I'm alive! I just checked out of my hotel and am now at my hostel, hence the internet access!

The plane ride coming here was amazingly uncomfortable. I got stuck next to the washrooms. And worse, next to a baby. It was a bit fussy but slept through most of the night. I think the worst part was that my seat wouldn't recline, so I had a horrible backache and also people kept brushing my hair on the way to the washroom so I kept waking up. Upon arrival in France for my connection, I had to do one of those stereotypical airport scenes were you run from one side of the airport to the other to make it in time. Yikes! Luckily my boss (for the meeting) was also on the plane, so we were able to talk about the meeting and get some last minute planning done, it made me feel so reassured. Plus, she also gave approval to use meeting funds to take the taxi to our respective hotels. Yay for less stress!

Vienna's weather was rainy for the first two days I was here, which translated into coooold. I was a bit worried that my "spring" jacket would't be warm enough, but now that it's sunny again, life is good!

To get the boring stuff out of the way, the meeting went really well. It was very productive and I wasn't the only one suffering jet lag, so life was good! There were a few "oops" moments (like when I realized that I forgot to provide a list of participant names - I hear that's important when people meet for the first time) but it went very well in general. Yahoo! I also got to skip out on the after-dinner. My boss asked if I wanted to join them but the subtext was that I didn't have to so I begged off.

On to the fun stuff: I haven't done too much touristy stuff so far - the first two nights were a waste since I was too tired and it was too rainy to enjoy myself. And then yesterday I slept in a great deal, so all my plans were screwed up. Mainly I've done my generic "walk-abouts" AKA Mau wanders around the touristy areas randomly, hoping to see cool stuff. And boy, I sure have! Vienna is so pretty - it feels cleaner, greener, and more modern than Rome or Paris ever did.

So far I've wandered around St. Stephandom's church, I've walked around the Hofburg area (but not inside yet), walked up and down a massive shopping street which wasn't touristy at all but was full of bonafide Viennese, gone on a tour of the UN buildings here (that was the other reason yesterday was a waste - I slept in, missed the first tour, and decided to wait until 2pm for the second tour - I was insistent on seeing the damned UN!). I also accidentally went to the DOM museum - a museum filled with religious relics, etc. I say "accidentally" because I was actually trying to get to the DOW museum (full of Jewish/holocaust info) and I mixed the two up on my map. I'm bummed because the museum is closed for the weekend now, so I won't get to see it afterall. Oh well, let's hope that the Museum of Terror in Budapest makes up for it!

By far, the coolest thing I've done so far is gone to the State Opera House (Staatoper) and got standing room tickets (literally standing space only) to go see a ballet of "Ein Sommernachtstraum" - that's A Midsummernight's Dream. I swear, my standing ticket probablz had the best view in the house! It was so neat seeing the ballet in German - but I do need to read the actual play so that I can catch the information that I missed - and because there were a few spoken or sung parts in German. (I don't mind hearing spoken German, but German singing? Sounds terrible!)

Anyhoo, I think I shall leave off here for now. I've got about 2 hours till I meet my old boss - we're going to the Belvedere museum together. Not a clue as to what that holds, but it's in my guidebook, so it must be good! Tomorrow I shall dedicate my day to going to Shünbronn Palace (or however you spell it) which is supposed to be the equivalent to Versailles. I'll also try seeing the rest of Hofburg, and then I'm off to Bratislava on Monday!