4 albums from my 2 weeks in hungary:
http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126655&l=efdb7&id=13615307
http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126685&l=bfaf5&id=13615307
http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126817&l=6cbd7&id=13615307
http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126824&l=5eaed&id=13615307
and one glorious prague album:
http://mcgill.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126856&l=aa29f&id=13615307
Friday, June 22, 2007
praha...and home
i have now been home in toronto for nearly two days. the 4 nights in prague was not nearly long enough - either to really enjoy the city or to get enough of seeing chris. although...and please, please nobody come here and shoot me for this...i didn't find the city itself as life-alteringly wonderful as the majority of people made it out to be. nearly everyone who i told that i was going to prague would get all misty-eyed, sigh, and say "aaahhhh...prague. prague is the best city in the world." i also had a number of people (at least half a dozen) tell me that it was a good thing i left prague to the end of my trip, because otherwise it would have outshone all the other cities. no argument, prague is beautiful and stunning. it has delicate yet grand architecture, a lovely view of the vltava river, rolling and climbable hills right in the city, ruins that pop up out of nowhere, museums galore and some gems of restaurants, cafes and bars. but...how do i explain this right? budapest did it for me better. and so did paris. and more than that, one thing i found about the larger european cities is that there are few parts of them that don't feel like they have been geared 100% toward tourists (which is one thing i appreciated about st-petersburg, as it doesn't like tourists much), and prague was no exception. i get a little tired of being handed the english menu and passing replica after replica of czech crystal in some tacky souvenir-shop window display. moreover, i get really tired of the fact that every beautiful old monument or building or ruin has been cleaned up, revamped and narrated for the gawking pleasure of everyone with a camera. it takes some serious getting lost in these cities in order to find something beautiful that doesn't have 100 people taking photos of themselves in front of it because it was marked on their tourist map, or in order to find anything that doesn't have a clearly-marked and very well-kept path leading up to it. i know these aren't necessarily bad things, but i'm getting the sense that i'm a little more of a 'wanderer' (?) than a tourist; i like to stumble upon sights and never be exactly sure what i'm looking at. i've found that i much prefer the smaller towns and cities in europe to its massive architectural pearls. but before i get into a full-scale rant, yes prague was glorious. it just didn't outshine the rest of the gloriousness of europe for me. and...oh, i know i'm going to get shot for this...i liked slovak and hungarian beer more than i liked czech beer. all 3 are better than anything we have over here, but...yeah.
all of that being said, i had an amazing time IN prague. on the 10-hour train to get there, i saw all of hungary, a quarter of slovakia and half of the czech republic. chris and i met up within an hour or two of each of us arriving in the city (our hostels were down the street from each other), and instantly commenced wandering. i think i actually got a total of 11 hours of sleep over all 4 nights. we didn't go to any museums (not even the sex machine museum), and we didn't go into any stores (except the grocery store), and the only sites we actually searched out were the synagogues and the castle. the synagogues for me were a really emotional experience...similar to what i found in pecs, but on a much larger scale. the first synagogue we visited was the Pinkasova Synagogue, commissioned by my family in 1535. the synagogue is now a holocaust memorial; all the walls (and there are a lot of walls) are completely covered with the names of the people who were murdered in the Terezin concentration camp (which was one of the smaller and nicer camps). upstairs, a room is dedicated to displaying the artwork done by children who were in the camp. it's just like any normal drawing by a small child - but depicting beatings, deportations and starvation. as well as some drawings of rainbows and big dinners and happy families. i never saw anything like that before. there are about 6 synagogues located very close together is the Josefov neighbourhood...we visited a few more (also converted into museums, but generally museums of jewish culture), but the mood for me had been completely set by the first one. this also led into some long and interesting discussions between chris and me about religion and what it's meant in our lives.
the one thing that was especially cool about prague was how nothing seemed to be where you left it when you tried to get anywhere...and i mean buildings, streets and mountains. we got lost and confused a number of times, even with 2 maps, and would often look for something we had seen earlier, find something completely different but think it was the first thing, and then eventually randomly stumble across the first thing. on the first night, looking for the charles bridge, we ended up way out in the suburbs. we climbed up and down the mountain with the castle on it 3 or 4 times before finding that we had been walking in circles around a tower we had wanted to see since the first day. it was an interesting feeling, and not at all unpleasant - we certainly laughed enough.
chris and i have both spent the past month walking our legs off around various parts of europe (thus no longer feel tired basically ever), and so prague for me was as much walking as any other city, and more. we literally got up in the morning, started walking, and kept walking until we went to sleep - between like 4 and 6 in the morning - with some breaks to eat delicious food, drink a beer or relax in a park. i'm not sure how many parks we sat in, but it was a lot. i found him just as wonderful to get along with as i had in dublin, and there were no dull or bad moments. once again, it was not easy to say goodbye.
i think it's about time to end this blog. i haven't told all the stories, but i've told a lot of stories in pretty exhaustive detail. i'll post the links to the photos from hungary and prague in a few minutes. being home is nice, calm, and a total culture shock. i really feel like i'm seeing toronto through the eyes of a tourist, and i find myself wondering things like 'were there power lines in europe, too?' and 'how are there so many houses, right in the middle of the city?'. i find myself itching to buckle down and do some very concrete things for my future, and somehow i feel more clear-headed about myself, about what to take seriously, and about where i'm going. this trip left me with few bad memories and there were few struggles on it. more than anything, i discovered a lot of things in depth about myself and my personality - mostly things that make me feel like i have a lot of growing that i want and need to do, and soon. the most interesting thing about the trip for me was that i went in with almost no goals (mostly just to see my friends again), but the one goal i had was to exercise being more independent and making decisions for myself. instead, i found this trip was more than anything a lesson in being taken care of, both by people i've known for a long time and people i just met. i don't know if i know much more about taking care of myself at this point, but i think i've been shown a thing or two about true hospitality and friendship.
all of that being said, i had an amazing time IN prague. on the 10-hour train to get there, i saw all of hungary, a quarter of slovakia and half of the czech republic. chris and i met up within an hour or two of each of us arriving in the city (our hostels were down the street from each other), and instantly commenced wandering. i think i actually got a total of 11 hours of sleep over all 4 nights. we didn't go to any museums (not even the sex machine museum), and we didn't go into any stores (except the grocery store), and the only sites we actually searched out were the synagogues and the castle. the synagogues for me were a really emotional experience...similar to what i found in pecs, but on a much larger scale. the first synagogue we visited was the Pinkasova Synagogue, commissioned by my family in 1535. the synagogue is now a holocaust memorial; all the walls (and there are a lot of walls) are completely covered with the names of the people who were murdered in the Terezin concentration camp (which was one of the smaller and nicer camps). upstairs, a room is dedicated to displaying the artwork done by children who were in the camp. it's just like any normal drawing by a small child - but depicting beatings, deportations and starvation. as well as some drawings of rainbows and big dinners and happy families. i never saw anything like that before. there are about 6 synagogues located very close together is the Josefov neighbourhood...we visited a few more (also converted into museums, but generally museums of jewish culture), but the mood for me had been completely set by the first one. this also led into some long and interesting discussions between chris and me about religion and what it's meant in our lives.
the one thing that was especially cool about prague was how nothing seemed to be where you left it when you tried to get anywhere...and i mean buildings, streets and mountains. we got lost and confused a number of times, even with 2 maps, and would often look for something we had seen earlier, find something completely different but think it was the first thing, and then eventually randomly stumble across the first thing. on the first night, looking for the charles bridge, we ended up way out in the suburbs. we climbed up and down the mountain with the castle on it 3 or 4 times before finding that we had been walking in circles around a tower we had wanted to see since the first day. it was an interesting feeling, and not at all unpleasant - we certainly laughed enough.
chris and i have both spent the past month walking our legs off around various parts of europe (thus no longer feel tired basically ever), and so prague for me was as much walking as any other city, and more. we literally got up in the morning, started walking, and kept walking until we went to sleep - between like 4 and 6 in the morning - with some breaks to eat delicious food, drink a beer or relax in a park. i'm not sure how many parks we sat in, but it was a lot. i found him just as wonderful to get along with as i had in dublin, and there were no dull or bad moments. once again, it was not easy to say goodbye.
i think it's about time to end this blog. i haven't told all the stories, but i've told a lot of stories in pretty exhaustive detail. i'll post the links to the photos from hungary and prague in a few minutes. being home is nice, calm, and a total culture shock. i really feel like i'm seeing toronto through the eyes of a tourist, and i find myself wondering things like 'were there power lines in europe, too?' and 'how are there so many houses, right in the middle of the city?'. i find myself itching to buckle down and do some very concrete things for my future, and somehow i feel more clear-headed about myself, about what to take seriously, and about where i'm going. this trip left me with few bad memories and there were few struggles on it. more than anything, i discovered a lot of things in depth about myself and my personality - mostly things that make me feel like i have a lot of growing that i want and need to do, and soon. the most interesting thing about the trip for me was that i went in with almost no goals (mostly just to see my friends again), but the one goal i had was to exercise being more independent and making decisions for myself. instead, i found this trip was more than anything a lesson in being taken care of, both by people i've known for a long time and people i just met. i don't know if i know much more about taking care of myself at this point, but i think i've been shown a thing or two about true hospitality and friendship.
Friday, June 15, 2007
hot hot heat
today is my last day in hungary before i spend 10 hours on the train tomorrow to take me first to budapest and then prague. and, in fact, in less than a week i'll be home. at this point that feels so, so strange...i haven't spent more than 7 nights in the same bed in over a month, and i'm about to go stay in one for 2 months of nights.
southern hungary is pretty amazing. i'm staying here with my friend aniko from my first summer at camp, an organist who helped me become a much better violinist through hours of bach duets in the basement of the camp library. her boyfriend zoltan is also here, visiting from his town in the north-east of the country. aniko's mother's house is basically a full-grown version of a dollhouse; it's over 150 years old and the furniture hasn't changed since then. all the couches are upholstered in brocade velvet, there are chandeliers and crocheted doilies. the garden is so big that you can't see the house from the front gate, even though it's only a few metres from the gate to the front door. the house used to be a large restaurant with tables all over the garden, and in the parlour (which i can really call a parlour) there is one of those pianos that plays by itself. on the first night here i opted to sleep on the balcony, as (yes i know it's horrible) i'd never slept outside before. it was really nice, but after that i decided to move back inside as i woke up with 7 mosquito bites on my face that make it look like i have bad acne.
the heat here is incredible. it's already 30 degrees outside by 8 or 9 in the morning, then it gets hotter and hotter until finally it goes back down to 30 around 6pm. you can be outside from about 6-8am and 9pm-3am. this is also the first time in my life i've ever experienced dry heat. you torontonians know our incredible summer humidity...here the heat makes my lips chap, and i almost never actually sweat because the sweat evaporates instantly. i never thought i'd say htis, but i actually prefer the humidity...although not our wonderful smog. pécs is the second-largest city in hungary, but the sky is sooooo clear...last night i sat outside for about an hour just staring at the stars. i got mosquito bites all over my legs, but it was worth it.
the atmosphere of this city is really cool, too. there are a couple universities in pécs so the city is very full of life. there are festivals almost all the time in summer and autumn. right now there's some kind of theatre festival which for some reason means that there's tons of live music on open stages at night and the evening streets are lined with stalls selling hungarian and croatian delicacies and top-quality wines for the price of...well...actually cheaper than anything you can buy in canada. hungarian wine is truly amazing, and i can understand why they drink it two or three times a day. i've had 6 or 7 types now, usually costing about 3 dollars a litre, and they've all been delectable. speaking of which, i am officially swearing off alcohol for a considerable amount of time when i'm home. i calculated that i've had at least one drink at least 27 out of 43 days that i've been on the road. considering that this includes the week in paris when i didn't drink at all, i would say it's too much. i am also swearing off coffee.
my feet are much happier now as i purchased a pair of nice leather italian sandals (soooo cheaply for like 40 bucks), and now i can't even feel the cobblestones under my feet and the blisters are finally disappearing.
i got the opportunity to visit the synagogue in pécs, which is only open for 2 hours every day. it is large and gorgeous and honestly felt a bit more to me like a church than a synagogue (it even has an organ)...but it really drilled home what for me is the most unnerving thing about my trip to europe. it's that in most of europe, judaism is a dead thing, completely of the past...to visit a synagogue here is like to visit a museum about vikings or early primates. there are now 140 jews in pécs when before the 1940s there were over 40 000. it's really terrifying for me to think about, and to me it somehow is just as effective i think as if i had visited one of the concentration camps...aniko told me that for her it was such a shock to come to the usa and work in a jewish camp, because she didn't know there were still really jewish communities anywhere outside of israel. when i said shalom to the man working at the synagogue, he seemed so surprised.
so. the trip is almost over. i can say now that for 6 weeks, i've gone where almost every north american woman fears to tread...meaning that i have eaten the fattiest meat 2 or 3 times a day, i have covered it with sour cream and cheese, i have paired it with potatoes, french fries and 4 or 5 slices of bread, i have followed it with dessert and with whole milk, and somehow....somehow, i have survived. without gaining a pound. ladies, food is good. and yet, some of the skinniest people i know are still sitting beside me and eating twice as much as me and telling me to eat, eat, eat more. europe is one strange entity.
southern hungary is pretty amazing. i'm staying here with my friend aniko from my first summer at camp, an organist who helped me become a much better violinist through hours of bach duets in the basement of the camp library. her boyfriend zoltan is also here, visiting from his town in the north-east of the country. aniko's mother's house is basically a full-grown version of a dollhouse; it's over 150 years old and the furniture hasn't changed since then. all the couches are upholstered in brocade velvet, there are chandeliers and crocheted doilies. the garden is so big that you can't see the house from the front gate, even though it's only a few metres from the gate to the front door. the house used to be a large restaurant with tables all over the garden, and in the parlour (which i can really call a parlour) there is one of those pianos that plays by itself. on the first night here i opted to sleep on the balcony, as (yes i know it's horrible) i'd never slept outside before. it was really nice, but after that i decided to move back inside as i woke up with 7 mosquito bites on my face that make it look like i have bad acne.
the heat here is incredible. it's already 30 degrees outside by 8 or 9 in the morning, then it gets hotter and hotter until finally it goes back down to 30 around 6pm. you can be outside from about 6-8am and 9pm-3am. this is also the first time in my life i've ever experienced dry heat. you torontonians know our incredible summer humidity...here the heat makes my lips chap, and i almost never actually sweat because the sweat evaporates instantly. i never thought i'd say htis, but i actually prefer the humidity...although not our wonderful smog. pécs is the second-largest city in hungary, but the sky is sooooo clear...last night i sat outside for about an hour just staring at the stars. i got mosquito bites all over my legs, but it was worth it.
the atmosphere of this city is really cool, too. there are a couple universities in pécs so the city is very full of life. there are festivals almost all the time in summer and autumn. right now there's some kind of theatre festival which for some reason means that there's tons of live music on open stages at night and the evening streets are lined with stalls selling hungarian and croatian delicacies and top-quality wines for the price of...well...actually cheaper than anything you can buy in canada. hungarian wine is truly amazing, and i can understand why they drink it two or three times a day. i've had 6 or 7 types now, usually costing about 3 dollars a litre, and they've all been delectable. speaking of which, i am officially swearing off alcohol for a considerable amount of time when i'm home. i calculated that i've had at least one drink at least 27 out of 43 days that i've been on the road. considering that this includes the week in paris when i didn't drink at all, i would say it's too much. i am also swearing off coffee.
my feet are much happier now as i purchased a pair of nice leather italian sandals (soooo cheaply for like 40 bucks), and now i can't even feel the cobblestones under my feet and the blisters are finally disappearing.
i got the opportunity to visit the synagogue in pécs, which is only open for 2 hours every day. it is large and gorgeous and honestly felt a bit more to me like a church than a synagogue (it even has an organ)...but it really drilled home what for me is the most unnerving thing about my trip to europe. it's that in most of europe, judaism is a dead thing, completely of the past...to visit a synagogue here is like to visit a museum about vikings or early primates. there are now 140 jews in pécs when before the 1940s there were over 40 000. it's really terrifying for me to think about, and to me it somehow is just as effective i think as if i had visited one of the concentration camps...aniko told me that for her it was such a shock to come to the usa and work in a jewish camp, because she didn't know there were still really jewish communities anywhere outside of israel. when i said shalom to the man working at the synagogue, he seemed so surprised.
so. the trip is almost over. i can say now that for 6 weeks, i've gone where almost every north american woman fears to tread...meaning that i have eaten the fattiest meat 2 or 3 times a day, i have covered it with sour cream and cheese, i have paired it with potatoes, french fries and 4 or 5 slices of bread, i have followed it with dessert and with whole milk, and somehow....somehow, i have survived. without gaining a pound. ladies, food is good. and yet, some of the skinniest people i know are still sitting beside me and eating twice as much as me and telling me to eat, eat, eat more. europe is one strange entity.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
p.s.
one more thing...i also just found out that chris is going to be in prague when i'm there, so i get to see him again for a few days before coming home.
cherries are soooo good and soooo cheap
i'm now in szombathely (pronounced som-but-hey), renata's home city, on my last day with her before i get on the train to visit aniko in pécs (pronounced paitch) tomorrow in the early morning. i can't believe how quickly this week has flown by. renata hs taken me all around western and northern hungary...we spent a beautiful although extremely busy day and a half in budapest, which is one of the most beautiful cities i've ever seen and which i'll have to return to some day. when we were there, we stayed in renata's wealthy friend's empty apartment (that she's going to be moving into in a few weeks), which was totally gorgeous. then we took the train a couple of hours (everything in hungary is a couple of hours away by train) to balatonfüred on the edge of lake balaton, and lay in the sun and swam in the warm, clean, strangely milky-looking lake and ate gelato. in balatonfüred we stayed in a room in the home of a very kind elderly lady who has children in vancouver - she showed us all her photos - and the room was absolutely gorgeous and came with the use of the full kitchen and bathroom. she had a very large and full cherry tree in the yard which she hadn't taken any cherries from, and she told us to take as many as we could before they went bad. i've never eaten so many cherries in my life, or such delicious ones. here in szombathely, i also bought a half kg of cherries as a gift for aniko, very delicious and fresh ones, and they cost only about 60 or 75 cents. holy crap! the only thing that gets in the way of the time in hungary is the intense heat - it's already 30 degrees by 10am every day - and teh extremely strong sun, which has been giving us some headaches. and in my case, i seem to have developed my father's sun sensitivity, where i'm getting a bit of an allergic reaction to the sun - which is keeping me uncomfortably in long sleeves today. i should get going because renata's waiting beside me, but i'll be home veeeeeery soon. i'm now thinking about foregoing a summer job and looking into doing the GRE's the next time the're held, and focussing on studying for those, researching grad schools etc., learning to drive and yoga. haven't decided yet, though. first things first, i'm going to give myself a mad pedicure to get rid of these blisters.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
i'm in hungary, and soooooo full
okay, a quick recap of my first day and a half in hungary. yesterday afternoon i arrived in győr to find renata waiting at the station. ivan picked us up in his car and drove us to their university dorm, which is gorgeous. renata's room, where i'm staying, has a fridge and small kitchen and lots of floor space. in the evening, ivan cooked some traditional hungarian food - pronounced something like 'laugoush' - which is like thick, fried pancakes, with garlic, sour cream and cheese - for us and his girlfriend, yudit (also from my summers at camp). i also got to try hungarian beer, which is somehow slightly different from slovak beer, and an interesting hungarian chocolate bar made of chocolate-covered cottage cheese. much of the evening was spent with me trying to call delta airlines for ivan so that he could make some changes to a flight he'll take from new york to LA in august. győr is lovely and small, and hungary feels very different than the other countries i've been in. this afternoon, after ivan made us an interesting breakfast of hot dogs stuffed in loaves of cheese bread, the four of us drove to ivan's village - čičov - which is in slovakia on the hungarian border. we walked around for an hour or so with one of his hunting dogs, it was somehow both modern and very old. then we drove back across the border into komárom, which is yudit's village. there, yudit's mother cooked us a massive, massive, massive lunch of cheese-covered chicken, salad, cakes and bread. we walked in the sunshine and blistering heat back across the border into the slovak side of komárom (called komárno). it was really adorable, although very touristy. there, ivan insisted on highjacking my camera and taking tons of photos of me with absolutely everything in the town. then he insisted that we all have gelato (i was still full from the last 3 meals). about 3 hours later, we wandered BACK across the border into hungary (komárom again) where we stopped by the apartment of a girl named Vicki who also worked in the camp kitchen the first summer i was there - we'd had no contact since. she seems well although still doesn't know any english, we exchanged cheek kisses and smiles and then ivan, yudit, renata and i went back to yudit's house where we drank a ton of fanta, played table tennis, had a glass of champagne, looked at all my photos from europe, and then - for some reason - had dinner. i have never been so full in my life! dinner was followed by pudding, which renata and i managed to not completely finish by god's good graces - we had to get to the train station to head back to győr. ivan and yudit drove us, and we had a long goodbye on the platform. since the beginning of this trip, i've experienced so many times remeeting people i've been close to and known for awhile, spending long, relaxed hours with them - and then having to casually say goodbye again, not knowing if i'll ever see them again. it's a very strange feeling, which always makes me thoughtful - and makes me wonder about whether anything or anyone really is constant in my life (or should be) and about what it really means to be at home. this trip has long sicne passed its halfway point, and is actually almost finished - and at this point, i'm feeling like 7 weeks was not nearly long enough, that there's still so much i should be seeing and doing, that there's so much unfinished business, and that home is really another world with another me. on the other hand, it would be nice to get rid of these blisters and eat properly again and sleep in the same bed every night and actually speak the same language as the people around me. this remains a very surreal experience.
oh, one interesting thing: we crossed the slovak/hungarian border 4 times today. each time, the hungarians showed their EU cards and went through no problem, and each time my canadian passport caused us problems. the border guards were very curious about it and examined it in detail, then they had to look me up in the computer, and then i had to get stamps. i now have 2 pages full of stamps from slovakia and hungary, most from the same 2 towns which are really one town, anyway.
tomorrow morning, renata and i are going to the spa in győr, to try out the many thermal baths and the water slides. (can't you tell that spas here are very different than the ones we're used to?) in the afternoon, we'll take the train to budapest to stay in her friend's apartment until friday afternoon, when we'll go south to lake balaton. from there, we'll go to renata's hometown of szombathely in the west to meet her family and boyfriend, and on monday morning i'll take the train to central southern hungary (pecs) to spend a few days with aniko (who was a close friend in camp the first summer i was there, and who i'm really looking forward to catching up with). and then i take the train to prague and the trip is basically over...a few days there and next thing you know, i'm back in canada. so surreal. completely surreal.
oh, one interesting thing: we crossed the slovak/hungarian border 4 times today. each time, the hungarians showed their EU cards and went through no problem, and each time my canadian passport caused us problems. the border guards were very curious about it and examined it in detail, then they had to look me up in the computer, and then i had to get stamps. i now have 2 pages full of stamps from slovakia and hungary, most from the same 2 towns which are really one town, anyway.
tomorrow morning, renata and i are going to the spa in győr, to try out the many thermal baths and the water slides. (can't you tell that spas here are very different than the ones we're used to?) in the afternoon, we'll take the train to budapest to stay in her friend's apartment until friday afternoon, when we'll go south to lake balaton. from there, we'll go to renata's hometown of szombathely in the west to meet her family and boyfriend, and on monday morning i'll take the train to central southern hungary (pecs) to spend a few days with aniko (who was a close friend in camp the first summer i was there, and who i'm really looking forward to catching up with). and then i take the train to prague and the trip is basically over...a few days there and next thing you know, i'm back in canada. so surreal. completely surreal.
Monday, June 4, 2007
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