[Note: if you're one of the complainers who have been demanding more posts, notice that I just gave you 4 at once. Reading should begin with Winter Break I and move back up the page.]
So we headed back to Berlin from Budapest, planning to spend just Saturday night at Colin’s before going back to Zwonitz on Sunday. But we couldn’t find any Mitfahrgelegenheits (With-Ride-Opportunities, thank you to the German language for its literal and compound nature) from people driving from Berlin to Chemnitz or Aue on Sunday. So, since Bill’s schedule has changed from Monday through Thursday to Tuesday through Friday, we decided to go home Monday and give ourselves more time to nurse our hangovers from Saturday night (which was awesome, but I’m getting sick of writing).
So home we went, to find that it had been snowing the ENTIRE TIME WE WERE GONE. Like, the snow was deeper than I’d ever seen it. It was crazy. But it was a fairly sunny week, warming up a bit. I don’t know if it’ll last, but spring is creeping ever closer, so I’m hopeful.
This week I’m studying for another Sexuality exam, preparing for a group project and an individual term paper in the same class, and a term paper in my Gerontology class, as well as normal weekly assignments. So I’m busy. I’ve also been asked to teach another class next week, with the 5th graders. And I’m going to the 6th grade classroom as well on Tuesdays, and the teacher would like Bill and I to both teach lessons, and teach some together. And in English club we’re having our girls read “The Lottery,” that really creepy short story every American (it seems) read in middle school or high school. So that’s fun.
In a couple weeks we go back to Berlin for a weeklong Fulbright conference or convention or whatever. And then Bill’s mom, who will be at a publishing thing in Frankfurt the same week, will be meeting us in Zwonitz for a weekend. Should be very interesting, as I don’t know what of Zwonitz might interest an American visitor. None of it really interests me much at this point.
Oh, and before I sign off of this terribly long post (which I might break up into several, but it should be known that I wrote the whole thing as a five page single-spaced Word doc. I have not forgotten about my readers, much as a several week gap might indicate. In fact, I made some notes for the blog while I was in Budapest, so I wouldn’t forget any details. Oh, and one of the details I forgot to include, in fact, is that it seems to be every Hungarian and Slovakian girl’s dream to someday own a big fur coat, because the number of women wearing them was outrageous. But anyway.), I’d like to tell everyone that one of my best friends, Matthew Martin, has been fully inducted as a police officer, badge and all. And I’m very, very proud of him.
As Paris would say (on the show Bill and I love most, Paris’s New BFF), “Love you, bitchesssss!”
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Winter Break III (Bratislava)
The train station was something out of a soviet nightmare, packed with people smoking and staring up at the single arrivals and departures board, watching trains get delayed and waiting for platforms to be listed. But we found ours and got two decent seats and the ride was easy, though the views of Hungary’s small, snow-bound hamlets were depressing. We got into Bratislava (it’s in Slovakia, which I didn’t know until last week. Actually, I don’t know if I’d ever really heard of Bratislava until we decided to go there. Hmm) around 6, followed the instructions from the hostel and got on a tram, then arrived at the designated stop, exited, and could not find the street we were supposed to walk down (“Take the tram to ____, then walk down Marianska Lane to blahblah Street. We are in the courtyard on the left”). So we walked up and down random streets for an hour, then ended up at the Crown Plaza hotel and asked them directions to our cheap-ass hostel. They were able to direct us. All we had to do was find the huge Tesco and we’d find Patio Hostel. And we did. And we immediately visited the Tesco to buy frozen pizza and wine, because Patio Hostel advertised that it had kitchens on every floor. And when we got back to the hostel, we found that they did! …have a microwave and a hotplate on every floor. So we cooked our frozen pizza in a wok that we stole from another floor, because of course there were no pans of any kind in our “kitchen.” So I wasn’t in a great mood after being lost for an hour and then eating stir-fried frozen pizza. But then Rob arrived, and we were all cheered up by the familiar faces. As I said to Bill, I hadn’t seen Rob since August. I had to immediately follow that with the realization that the only time I’ve ever seen Rob was last August. But still. A familiar face in Bratislava.
We didn’t do much that night, as Bill wasn’t feeling so hot and all of the bars seemed to be closing early. So we came back to share our six-bed hostel room with three Italian men. So, if you’re reading this Kent, I spent two nights in a bedroom with five boys. But I survived. Except for coming back from the shower to see grotesquely long, hairy Italian legs extending from two butt cheeks hanging out of a pair of tiny briefs (horrifying, as for a second as I came through the door I thought they were Bill’s legs), nothing inappropriate happened.
The first morning in Bratislava, Bill, Rob and I walked down to Tesco where we miraculously found Honey Nut Cheerios. Like, the real thing. Can’t find that in Germany. Back to the hostel to eat breakfast, then out into the snow and onto the slushy, muddy streets to find out if Slovakia really was “Part of Europe Worth Seeing,” as the travel posters in the hostel common room proclaimed with terribly mediocrity. Bill found Maalox, and a pharmacist who offered to speak Slovak, German, Italian, or English, in the first place we entered. Germans don’t believe in heartburn, I guess, because we’ve never found any equivalent here, and not for lack of trying. We found the old section of town, with cute cobbled pedestrian streets, and followed signs pointing us to the castle, which sat on top of a cliff. That was a tough climb, especially as we decided to avoid stairs and wound our way up the gradual slopes of the neighborhood below the castle. Once we got to the top, we were able to see that the entire castle was shrouded in scaffolding and surrounded by chain link fences. And nothing besides the guest shop was open, except a bathroom I found with my superior observational skills. So we walked back down and found a coffee shop. Rob seriously changed the mood of the place by choosing Elton John and Queen on the jukebox, which replaced the metal-like music that had dominated when we came in. I don’t think the pair of cops eating fried chicken and drinking beer, guns at their waists, were too happy with his choice, but luckily for us they went back out on duty, having finished their 1pm beers, not long after. We soon followed, and went back to Tesco to buy sandwich stuff, including cheddar cheese (not cheap, but worth it), a cheese Germans have yet to discover. After lunch, I worked on some stuff for my classes, took a quiz in Gerontology, while Bill and Rob napped. We got up a few hours later to get ready for dinner, which was entirely motivated by the “Mexican” section we’d found in Tesco. Tortillas, salsa, taco seasoning, guacamole. It was bliss. And we were able to make our bliss entirely in the wok on the hotplate at the hostel. I did forget to mention that on each of these trips to Tesco, we had to stand in line at the register for a minimum of 15 minutes. The place was packed every time we went, with lines curling all through the aisles. It was insane. And so soviet. After we ate our tacos and showered, we were joined in the hostel room by the Italians.
Though Bill and Rob spent our initial time there talking shit about Italians, especially Italian travelers in Europe, on that second night the loud threesome became our friends, making an initial appeal by offering Bill and I vodka while they pregamed in the room. We had our own vodka, and got it to make drinks (it was about 8pm by this time. Nothing scandalous), and they waited until we mixed ours to toast with us and begin imbibing. And then came back an hour later to tell us about a club they’d heard of that was supposed to have good dancing. So dance we did.
But first we had to find the place. I asked at reception and the girl drew an X on my map in some white space (ie no roads) between the castle and the river. Hmm. So we made a few false starts trying to find our way across the snowy terrain. And unexpectedly came across a break in some fence that revealed an arch-shaped opening into the hill upon which the castle sat. We walked through a long tunnel, and came to another tunnel which opened onto huge arched rooms, one for smoking and sitting, the other for dancing. It was quite a scene. The music was excellent but the lights were very strobe-y, kind of too strobe-y. It was a little overwhelming. But fun. We left around 3am, as our next day was to be travel-filled. Got home, went to sleep, and were awakened by the Italians getting in and getting to bed around 5am. And then had to get up ourselves a few hours later to pack and eat breakfast and make our way back to the train station, where we bid farewell to Rob. As Bill and I sat down in a compartment on the train we thought was going back to Budapest, where we’d catch our plane, I turned to the girl sharing the compartment with us, to confirm that we were on the right train. It turned out that she was the one on the wrong train, and would have been taken hours out of her way if I hadn’t asked. And that meant that Bill and I got an empty compartment to read and sleep and eat in for the journey.
We didn’t do much that night, as Bill wasn’t feeling so hot and all of the bars seemed to be closing early. So we came back to share our six-bed hostel room with three Italian men. So, if you’re reading this Kent, I spent two nights in a bedroom with five boys. But I survived. Except for coming back from the shower to see grotesquely long, hairy Italian legs extending from two butt cheeks hanging out of a pair of tiny briefs (horrifying, as for a second as I came through the door I thought they were Bill’s legs), nothing inappropriate happened.
The first morning in Bratislava, Bill, Rob and I walked down to Tesco where we miraculously found Honey Nut Cheerios. Like, the real thing. Can’t find that in Germany. Back to the hostel to eat breakfast, then out into the snow and onto the slushy, muddy streets to find out if Slovakia really was “Part of Europe Worth Seeing,” as the travel posters in the hostel common room proclaimed with terribly mediocrity. Bill found Maalox, and a pharmacist who offered to speak Slovak, German, Italian, or English, in the first place we entered. Germans don’t believe in heartburn, I guess, because we’ve never found any equivalent here, and not for lack of trying. We found the old section of town, with cute cobbled pedestrian streets, and followed signs pointing us to the castle, which sat on top of a cliff. That was a tough climb, especially as we decided to avoid stairs and wound our way up the gradual slopes of the neighborhood below the castle. Once we got to the top, we were able to see that the entire castle was shrouded in scaffolding and surrounded by chain link fences. And nothing besides the guest shop was open, except a bathroom I found with my superior observational skills. So we walked back down and found a coffee shop. Rob seriously changed the mood of the place by choosing Elton John and Queen on the jukebox, which replaced the metal-like music that had dominated when we came in. I don’t think the pair of cops eating fried chicken and drinking beer, guns at their waists, were too happy with his choice, but luckily for us they went back out on duty, having finished their 1pm beers, not long after. We soon followed, and went back to Tesco to buy sandwich stuff, including cheddar cheese (not cheap, but worth it), a cheese Germans have yet to discover. After lunch, I worked on some stuff for my classes, took a quiz in Gerontology, while Bill and Rob napped. We got up a few hours later to get ready for dinner, which was entirely motivated by the “Mexican” section we’d found in Tesco. Tortillas, salsa, taco seasoning, guacamole. It was bliss. And we were able to make our bliss entirely in the wok on the hotplate at the hostel. I did forget to mention that on each of these trips to Tesco, we had to stand in line at the register for a minimum of 15 minutes. The place was packed every time we went, with lines curling all through the aisles. It was insane. And so soviet. After we ate our tacos and showered, we were joined in the hostel room by the Italians.
Though Bill and Rob spent our initial time there talking shit about Italians, especially Italian travelers in Europe, on that second night the loud threesome became our friends, making an initial appeal by offering Bill and I vodka while they pregamed in the room. We had our own vodka, and got it to make drinks (it was about 8pm by this time. Nothing scandalous), and they waited until we mixed ours to toast with us and begin imbibing. And then came back an hour later to tell us about a club they’d heard of that was supposed to have good dancing. So dance we did.
But first we had to find the place. I asked at reception and the girl drew an X on my map in some white space (ie no roads) between the castle and the river. Hmm. So we made a few false starts trying to find our way across the snowy terrain. And unexpectedly came across a break in some fence that revealed an arch-shaped opening into the hill upon which the castle sat. We walked through a long tunnel, and came to another tunnel which opened onto huge arched rooms, one for smoking and sitting, the other for dancing. It was quite a scene. The music was excellent but the lights were very strobe-y, kind of too strobe-y. It was a little overwhelming. But fun. We left around 3am, as our next day was to be travel-filled. Got home, went to sleep, and were awakened by the Italians getting in and getting to bed around 5am. And then had to get up ourselves a few hours later to pack and eat breakfast and make our way back to the train station, where we bid farewell to Rob. As Bill and I sat down in a compartment on the train we thought was going back to Budapest, where we’d catch our plane, I turned to the girl sharing the compartment with us, to confirm that we were on the right train. It turned out that she was the one on the wrong train, and would have been taken hours out of her way if I hadn’t asked. And that meant that Bill and I got an empty compartment to read and sleep and eat in for the journey.
Winter Break II (Budapest)
Monday morning we flew to Budapest. In the airport, having trouble figuring out the rate of exchange, Bill got out 1,000 whatevers from the atm and we got a cab to our hostel. The cab fare was 6,000 whatevers. Oops. So we felt like ballers the whole time we were there, dishing out 5- and 10-thousand whatever bills. And everything was very cheap, which was a great blessing. What wasn’t a blessing was waking up Tuesday morning with a terrible cold. Both of us. So we went back to sleep until the afternoon, then ventured out into the snow to explore Buda and Pest (each city on either side of the river). I didn’t get far. After lunch in a very nice restaurant having a “Recession Friendy, 50% off all food” sale, Bill went on to cross the river and look around the castle district while I went back to the hostel to nurse my illness and escape the snow.
The first night in the city, having premonitions of the colds that were looming, we decided to take it easy and see a movie. We had an English-language monthly city guide that showed that Revolutionary Road would be shown, in English, at a theater about halfway between us and the main train station, on one of the bigger streets in the city. We walked along said road, stopping in one theater that apparently was the wrong one, until we reached the train station. Without finding the correct theater. So we walked all the way back down the road (it was about a 30 minute walk between the hostel and the station) determined to find the theater. Along the way we stopped back in the theater we’d checked out before, thinking we could see Vicky Cristina Barcelona if we couldn’t find the right place. But that movie was playing in Magyar (Hungarian). So we went back to the hostel and watch movies in the common room (they had about 200 on-demand movies, which was providential for sick travelers like us). The next day, after being sick and sleeping a lot, we decided to look for the theater again. I GoogleMapped it, found the exact block it was on. We walked there and…it was the same theater we’d visited twice the night before. We hadn’t known because Revolutionary Road was listed under its Magyar title, though it was playing in English. We felt dumb. To comfort ourselves, we had gelato for dinner, saw the movie, and went back to the hostel with brie and crackers to watch more movies (all in all, we watched The Departed, the new 007, Boogie Nights, and The Wedding Singer during our three nights at the hostel. We were acutely boring).
The next day I woke up feeling better and the sun was out, so we felt impelled to make the most of Budapest. We asked one of the girls at the hostel where we should get breakfast and were directed to a restaurant called Stex Haz. It was a bit startling to see men and women, young and old, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at noon in a restaurant on a Wednesday. And Bill and I weren’t super hungry so we decided to split a large-looking entrée (we arrived too late for breakfast), composed of roasted potatoes, two rump steaks, “Parisian-style” chicken, sausage, and pickles (bleh). But the waiter said this was a meal intended for one person, and maybe we could split it but we should probably have appetizers first. We were suckers, so ordered mushroom soup and cheesy bread. Then couldn’t finish them. Then our enormous, “one-person” platter of Hungarian food arrived, served on a cutting board because it would never have fit on a plate. Needless to say, we didn’t even come close to finishing, so we had all but the pickles put into a leftover box and we took it home for the next day’s lunch. We walked down to the river and across the bridge, then along the river until we got to the cable car that climbs the cliff up to the castle. It was a very brief ride. In trying to get good photos of the river and city, I stepped over a knee-height chain that surrounded a very formal building and went to the edge of the cliff. As I was trying to take the photo Bill pulled me back, as we were being quickly descended upon by two guards wearing sunglasses, fur hats, and forest green snowsuits. And carrying weapons. We left, though one followed us for a minute.
The castle was interesting. Some ruins, or something, were behind it. They looked like old dungeons, but didn’t have any explanatory plaques, so who knows. I think it’s coolest to say dungeons. We walked a little. I wanted to find the castle labyrinth, which I found on the map. But it turned out to be more of a kid’s tourist destination, and the entry fee was too high for us to stomach. Plus, we’d just been in much cooler Erzgebirge mines. After dismissing the labyrinth, we walked back across one of the bridges to Pest, circled Parliament, paused so I could, somewhat discreetly, pull up my sagging tights, and found a coffee shop. Then we bought our tickets for the next day’s train trip to Bratislava, bought frozen pizza and wine, and went back to the hostel for more movies.
The next day was our last in Budapest. We woke up sort of late, of course. After breakfast we headed up to a park in the city’s northeastern corner, motivated by the nice-looking green space on our map. There was a castle there as well, and some impressive museum buildings. But the park itself was depressingly post-Soviet, aesthetically. And much smaller than it looked. So after circling it once in about 30 minutes, we found another coffee shop and walked back to the hostel to heat up our leftovers and pack. And walk to the train station with Bill carrying our enormous duffle bag with the straps backpack-style over his shoulders. Thank god I’m the girlfriend, because I never have to carry anything heavy.
The first night in the city, having premonitions of the colds that were looming, we decided to take it easy and see a movie. We had an English-language monthly city guide that showed that Revolutionary Road would be shown, in English, at a theater about halfway between us and the main train station, on one of the bigger streets in the city. We walked along said road, stopping in one theater that apparently was the wrong one, until we reached the train station. Without finding the correct theater. So we walked all the way back down the road (it was about a 30 minute walk between the hostel and the station) determined to find the theater. Along the way we stopped back in the theater we’d checked out before, thinking we could see Vicky Cristina Barcelona if we couldn’t find the right place. But that movie was playing in Magyar (Hungarian). So we went back to the hostel and watch movies in the common room (they had about 200 on-demand movies, which was providential for sick travelers like us). The next day, after being sick and sleeping a lot, we decided to look for the theater again. I GoogleMapped it, found the exact block it was on. We walked there and…it was the same theater we’d visited twice the night before. We hadn’t known because Revolutionary Road was listed under its Magyar title, though it was playing in English. We felt dumb. To comfort ourselves, we had gelato for dinner, saw the movie, and went back to the hostel with brie and crackers to watch more movies (all in all, we watched The Departed, the new 007, Boogie Nights, and The Wedding Singer during our three nights at the hostel. We were acutely boring).
The next day I woke up feeling better and the sun was out, so we felt impelled to make the most of Budapest. We asked one of the girls at the hostel where we should get breakfast and were directed to a restaurant called Stex Haz. It was a bit startling to see men and women, young and old, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes at noon in a restaurant on a Wednesday. And Bill and I weren’t super hungry so we decided to split a large-looking entrée (we arrived too late for breakfast), composed of roasted potatoes, two rump steaks, “Parisian-style” chicken, sausage, and pickles (bleh). But the waiter said this was a meal intended for one person, and maybe we could split it but we should probably have appetizers first. We were suckers, so ordered mushroom soup and cheesy bread. Then couldn’t finish them. Then our enormous, “one-person” platter of Hungarian food arrived, served on a cutting board because it would never have fit on a plate. Needless to say, we didn’t even come close to finishing, so we had all but the pickles put into a leftover box and we took it home for the next day’s lunch. We walked down to the river and across the bridge, then along the river until we got to the cable car that climbs the cliff up to the castle. It was a very brief ride. In trying to get good photos of the river and city, I stepped over a knee-height chain that surrounded a very formal building and went to the edge of the cliff. As I was trying to take the photo Bill pulled me back, as we were being quickly descended upon by two guards wearing sunglasses, fur hats, and forest green snowsuits. And carrying weapons. We left, though one followed us for a minute.
The castle was interesting. Some ruins, or something, were behind it. They looked like old dungeons, but didn’t have any explanatory plaques, so who knows. I think it’s coolest to say dungeons. We walked a little. I wanted to find the castle labyrinth, which I found on the map. But it turned out to be more of a kid’s tourist destination, and the entry fee was too high for us to stomach. Plus, we’d just been in much cooler Erzgebirge mines. After dismissing the labyrinth, we walked back across one of the bridges to Pest, circled Parliament, paused so I could, somewhat discreetly, pull up my sagging tights, and found a coffee shop. Then we bought our tickets for the next day’s train trip to Bratislava, bought frozen pizza and wine, and went back to the hostel for more movies.
The next day was our last in Budapest. We woke up sort of late, of course. After breakfast we headed up to a park in the city’s northeastern corner, motivated by the nice-looking green space on our map. There was a castle there as well, and some impressive museum buildings. But the park itself was depressingly post-Soviet, aesthetically. And much smaller than it looked. So after circling it once in about 30 minutes, we found another coffee shop and walked back to the hostel to heat up our leftovers and pack. And walk to the train station with Bill carrying our enormous duffle bag with the straps backpack-style over his shoulders. Thank god I’m the girlfriend, because I never have to carry anything heavy.
Winter Break I
Bill and I are in our second week back from winter break, which gave us two weeks off from school. The first week we didn’t do a whole lot. I was studying for my first exam in Human Sexuality, which I uncharacteristically over-prepared for. The first Saturday, Bill had his second tennis match. He won the individual match 14 games to 2, which everyone found very impressive. But he and Nico, as well as the other two Zwonitz player, Hubert and Uve, tied their doubles matches, which naturally made Bill very frustrated.
On Wednesday, a teacher from school, Herr Auerswalt, took Bill and I to an old mine in Aue. The region we live in is called the Erzgebirge, or the ore mountains, and it’s riddled with out-of-use mines dating back many centuries. The tour was pretty cool. It was, and had been, snowing like mad for a couple of days, so the drive was a little frightening (small, windy roads, fast German drivers, etc). We arrived and had to dress in appropriate gear: cloths wrapped around our feet, then high rubber boots, then big yellow plastic jackets, then these leather belts with heavy battery packs on them connected by a long hose thing, which wrapped under one arm and over the other shoulder, that ended in a sort of flashlight, and finally lovely plastic helmets. It was only the three of us and our guide, a young dude whose English was not quite sufficient (but working together, we translated most of what he was trying to say). We descended into the mountain, first noting the opening cut in the top of the door for the bats to get in and out. The tunnels were very narrow and low (not ideal for Bill, who was fortunate to have his helmet) and we were quieted a few times so as to not wake the bats sleeping a couple feet above our heads. It very much reminded me of the mines of Mordor, from Lord of the Rings (dorky me, I know), especially when we looked down at one point into the caverns below us, once active parts of the mine, that were entirely flooded. It turned out to be a very worthwhile and interesting cultural field trip. Bratislava, which I will talk about later, turned out to be less worthwhile and interesting, unfortunately.
Thursday morning, while I was studying and then taking my exam online, Bill made a big show (for the Lehms) of cleaning the apartment. We packed, I took my exam (and missed only one question, which was annoying), and then Herr Lehm drove us to the train station. We didn’t get to Colin’s apartment in Berlin until after 10 that night. Then we spent the weekend in Berlin, met several of Colin’s new friends there, went back to the really really cool club I mentioned in my New Year’s Eve post, and had a generally good time.
On Wednesday, a teacher from school, Herr Auerswalt, took Bill and I to an old mine in Aue. The region we live in is called the Erzgebirge, or the ore mountains, and it’s riddled with out-of-use mines dating back many centuries. The tour was pretty cool. It was, and had been, snowing like mad for a couple of days, so the drive was a little frightening (small, windy roads, fast German drivers, etc). We arrived and had to dress in appropriate gear: cloths wrapped around our feet, then high rubber boots, then big yellow plastic jackets, then these leather belts with heavy battery packs on them connected by a long hose thing, which wrapped under one arm and over the other shoulder, that ended in a sort of flashlight, and finally lovely plastic helmets. It was only the three of us and our guide, a young dude whose English was not quite sufficient (but working together, we translated most of what he was trying to say). We descended into the mountain, first noting the opening cut in the top of the door for the bats to get in and out. The tunnels were very narrow and low (not ideal for Bill, who was fortunate to have his helmet) and we were quieted a few times so as to not wake the bats sleeping a couple feet above our heads. It very much reminded me of the mines of Mordor, from Lord of the Rings (dorky me, I know), especially when we looked down at one point into the caverns below us, once active parts of the mine, that were entirely flooded. It turned out to be a very worthwhile and interesting cultural field trip. Bratislava, which I will talk about later, turned out to be less worthwhile and interesting, unfortunately.
Thursday morning, while I was studying and then taking my exam online, Bill made a big show (for the Lehms) of cleaning the apartment. We packed, I took my exam (and missed only one question, which was annoying), and then Herr Lehm drove us to the train station. We didn’t get to Colin’s apartment in Berlin until after 10 that night. Then we spent the weekend in Berlin, met several of Colin’s new friends there, went back to the really really cool club I mentioned in my New Year’s Eve post, and had a generally good time.
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