budapest, hungary

6-9 October 2006
I loved Budapest. It was a hidden gem. The first East European city I've visited and it has a tangibly different feel than the west.
A little bit dirtier, less sparkly and a bit dated, like it's playing catching up - but so full of character.

I took a long weekend to met up with Beth my friend from home whose doing a 4 month back-packing adventure. We stayed in this very friendly hostel, with the most helpful staff.

They are locals and pointed out all the underground places (sometimes only denoted by a sticker on the door) to go out at night, that you'd never find in a travel guide and even cooked us pancakes for dessert on the first night.

The ornate building in the picture above is the very ornate Parliament building on the bank of the Danuabe River. Basically the east side, old-part of the city is Buda and Pest is on the west and below is what's known as the chain bridge (pictured below with the moon so low it's sitting inbetween the buildings on the far side), one of the many bridges that links the 2 sides.

Known as the jacuzzi capital of Europe, with many thermal spas we couldn't pass an afternoon in a better way. We sampled the indoor baths that looked very Roman with the collonades, the sauna (remember Eastern Europe haven't embraced the boardshort look yet; the speedo is king) and wallowing in the outdoor pool whatching the afternoon sun slide away in water that's body temperature warm (37-38 degrees). Lovely! It's such a local past time you get a refund on your admission price if you leave within 4 hours of arriving.

Apart from doing other customary things like eating goulash, we got our hair cut as a Beth's hairdresser back in Oz was from Budapest and said there were many very qualified, but poorly paid hairdressers - hence is more to Sydney. It was certainly cheaper than London!

Speaking of money, I've very proud of my budgeting having only 74 florints (AUD $0.50) left at the end of my trip. It's the non-Euro challenge of how much money to pull out of the ATM, trying to the balance between not having wads left over and not having to incur bank fees for multiple transactions.

Although, having said that if I did have a few thousand florints left over... it wouldn't have been a problem as I could easily be tempted to return.

6 months on

Hello my dears,

I’m feeling a little out of touch and just wanted to send a hello and let you know what’s been happening.

I’m certainly enjoying being over here – the novelty hasn’t worn off and it still feels like an adventure of sorts. At this point in time I’m still working on a 2 year plan of working in London, which means I’ll have to start thinking of apply for a different visa and the associated hassle and rigamarole of government red-tape.

Davina is still sharing her room with me whilst I look for a place (i.e. room) of my own. Yes it’s been 6 months since I left home! In my defense, the plan was always to stay together until Deev got back from her summer travels and we both benefit from half price rent. She’s been very patient thought and letting me find the right place rather then setting a fixed date for me to move out. It’s such a painful, frustrating process looking for a place which fits all or most of the criteria of location, price and housemates. I can’t wait to find something and settle in.

I’ve been travelling a little – when I first arrived I saw a bit of Spain (south coast, Benidorm to be more exact), Switzerland (Geneva and Zurich) and Austria (Salzburg), and Ireland (the south) and since then have visited Copenhagen for 4 days (not what I expected; good, but you don’t need more than 2 or 3 days there) and Budapest (was fantastic! There’s a sense of discovery about it. The history of the Nazis coming in and then after that the Soviet occupation of the land that ended about 2 decades ago). There are all these cool, grungy ‘underground’ bars, which the hostel pointed us in the right direction of. There’s no signage, just a sticker on the door or a guy sitting out the front. Great architecture and the thermal spas! It’s supposedly the Jacuzzi capital of the world. The locals spend hours there, so much so that you get a discount if you stay for less than 4 hours!). And closer to ‘home’ I spent a weekend visting Matt in Leeds, north of England. My next London escape is to Amsterdam for a long weekend at the end of this month.

It’s been nice making friends and having old friends come for a visit.

The days are getting noticeable shorter week by week and I’m rather scared about the cold to follow. According to BBC weather in the space of 5 days (yesterday to Sunday) London loses 15 minutes of daylight! That’s an incredible rate that we’re losing sunshine (or more correctly grey sky).

Still working for a marketing agency in SW london. And look to be here until the end of the year at least and re-evaluate in the new year.

Only 6 weeks until I’m back home and very much looking forward to catching up with you (all of you!)

coming home

Quick update to let you know that I'll be back home on the 14 November for 3 weeks until the 13th December for Kristy and Shane's wedding!! Yay!!

salzburg, austria

"Brown-paper packeages tied up with string... Schnitzel and strudel; these are a few of my favourite things..." add in a beer and Maria would have summed up Austria in a song.




This is Deev and I on the quintessential Salzburg Sounds of Music tour, in front of the glass gazebo famous for 'I am 16 going on 17' song.






The Festung Hohensalzburg is the fortress that sits above the city and was built in 1077...

Great views from the top

And Brad got to play with dolls (marrionette puppet actually)! There was a mini museum in the fort on the art of being the pupetteers and marionette puppets.

Deev in the rain, by a lake... okay so I can't remember where we are exactly. This was on part of the tour outside the city, in the town where the real Mozart's mother grew up... perhaps?!?















The very lovely Mirabell gardens (where in the movie the Von Trapp kids skip through singing Do re me) with the Fort in the background.

All in all, a thumbs up for Salzburg.

my borrowed room

To reassure those that are wondering if London and living out of home means I'll be a different person when I come home... don't worry some things don't change! In my defense we had a moth fumigator come round on Saturday and we had to bag all of our clothes. So that's effectively Deev's and my clothes that your looking at. I've tidied up after taking these pics, as after putting it off for Sunday and Monday it was getting out of control and trying to find clothes for work was a bit of pot-luck.

fruitstock

Christina and I had impromtually seen a play at Shakespeare's Globe, Under the Black Sun, the night before. It was about Long John Silver and the story was a fictitious telling of his life leading up to losing his leg. Twas a bit strange but entertaining, with some nudity and lots of singing, but the real attraction is the venue. We had standing tickets so it was nice and cheap, although a little tiresome by the end or 3 hours (including an interval), especially in heels.

London comes alive on a sunny summer day. And yesterday was a beautiful Saturday!
Chris and I met up again and went to Borough Markets near London Bridge. We were on a mission to put togehter a yummy picnic to take to Fruitstock. I was very excited just looking at the yummy food. Plus, I recalled watching a Jamie Oliver episode last year in my living room at home where he goes shopping in Borough Markets to collect ingredients for his cooking session. There's the usual mixture of stalls of 'raw ingredients' like butchers, fruit and veggie shops but also ready to eat foods, like a chorizo burger/wrap, venison burgers, lots of delicious-looking patisserie cakes, bread and cheese... so much choice for a hungry stomach!!

With our bags filled, we headed to Regent's Park for Fruitstock. Organised by Innocent drinks (exactly like our Nudie drinks at home - even the bottles look the same but with a different colour lid), it is a free music festival. With the weather being so nice I think everyone had the same idea and it was packed. It was a great afternoon just chilling in the sun listening to live music and people-watching.

• the first 3 are at Fruitstock with half of London
  
• Borough Markets and one of the fruit stalls
  
• Next is a photo of a pub next to the markets that was used in the Harry Potter films as the outside of the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley.
• And the last one located just 2 shops down from the pub; was my florist. What a daggy thing to take a picuture of, but it had to be done... don't roll your eyes; you've all done it!
  

time warp

This has become a retrospective blog, but I have good intentions to change that! well I'm no longer travelling and haven't been for 2 months now, so it's about time I wrote in the present tense. (I will come back and fill in the gaps of Austria and Ireland).

After arriving back in London after a fantastic holiday with Deev and Brad, the reality of living in London started to set in. Converting Australian dollars into pounds was scary at the best of times and when I started dwelling on the uncertainty of how long it was going to take me to find a job, I could convince myself that an hour's walk home was by far a better choice than the 80p fare for the bus. I admit I even went to ask at the Pizza Express (gourmet pizza chain restaurant) around the corner if they were looking for waitstaff... they weren't!

But as it happens, I found work and started a week after arriving back in London. Funnily enough I met with the agency on the Wednesday morning and before I had arrived home I had a contract job. No interview. Start 2 days later on a Friday; the only reason they didn't ask me to start the earlier on the Thursday was that my boss had meetings planned for most of the day.

And so begins my marketing agency career. It's a great office; hard-working but relaxed, casual atmosphere in terms of dress code ( I can wear jeans and flip flops if I want, which is fantastic because my one suit wouldnt' really cut a business wardrobe) and as a case point there was a beach ball being tossed around the office on my first day. I'd say just under 50% are aussies working there with a handful of kiwis too. This is because they have a high proportion of freelance and contractors (like myself). The work is very different from what I was doing at home. It's taken a while to get into the swing of it, I enjoy it most of the time but do find it stressful. The nature of the work means you're in the meat in the sandwich between the client and the creatives, or as i like to put it, I'm the piggy in the middle running after the ball as it goes back and forth.

The last couple of weeks London experienced a heat wave with temperatures in the mid to high 30's. They're not used to those sort of temperatures and tubes were delayed and unbearably stuffy, bitchumen was literally melting and in the case of our office building we overheated and blew a fuse. So of course, being English, everyone goes down to the pub to wait until it's sorted! However this week we've had a cold snap and I've already heard too many people say "well that was the summer!" But I'm optimistic we'll have another bout of good sun before the Autumn.

Apart from work, there's been plenty of good distractions. Christina Eriksson from CBTB at home, who came over a couple weeks after me has been a great friend and it's been nice hanging out with her shopping on High St Kensington, picnicing on top of Hampstead Heath and making bread with the bread maker at her place. I also got to see the lovely Susan, also from church at home, who was on holiday/business over here. Albeit a brief meeting, it was lovely to see her (thank you for the vegemite!). Other highlights are:

• Deev and I went to Wimbeldon, sat on the hill and watched the big screen, watched a match where they manually changed the scoreboards AND saw the Woodies.
  
• Visited Brighton for the day with Matt and Deev. Tested out the pebble beach, which hurts a lot on bare feet. We didn't swim but as far as I can tell from wading, the water is decidely cold and brown with the odd patch of scum. It was a fun day just wandering.
  
• £12.50 tickets to see the production of the Blue Man Group. It's hard to describe what they do but essentially 3 guys painted in blue who do skits. We were in the poncho section (read potentially in paint splattering distance.)
• Tori came to stay and together with Deev we enjoyed the city skyline from Primrose Hill, Camden markets, club called The Church (worthy of a whole blog entry for those of you that have been or heard about it, but this will suffice for now), Johnny Depp in Pirates 2 and Primark undie shopping.

Don't give up on checking the blog! It was worth the wait, wasn't it?! :)

chocolate coated

Zurich, Switzerland
Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian and Romansch)

By this stage, after travelling from Spain through Geneva and arriving in Zurich all in the space of 30hours, all the while trying to greet, thank you and apologise for walking into people in Spanish, then French and German respectively - I was horribly muddled and would blurt out “Gracias” rather than “merci” and “bonjour” instead of “Guten Tag”. If I’d stuck with English like Brad I would have made more sense to the locals. More often than not they speak English as a second language; not Spanglish or Frerman!

As criteria for every picture perfect Swiss town, Zurich has a lovely lake and river running through it. The cold front that was moving across Western Europe had well and truly caught up with us, bringing with it rain and resulting in wet shoes and enjoyment from the small mercies of packing extra socks and thermals. As such, we had planned to hire free bicycles to cycle to the Lindt factory, but opted for the train.



The Swiss consume approximately 86,899 tonnes of chocolate products was consumed in Switzerland in 2005. Ranking it first among the consumer countries, Switzerland has an average per capita consumption of 11.6kg, compared to Australia with an average of 4.4kg per person.

Even walking around the perimeter of the factory, you could smell sweet chocolate in the air. I could almost have done introductions: You factory; me Charlie. Unfortunately, with no golden ticket (the exhibition was closed for renovation and they no longer do tours) we were given a complimentary box of chocolates and directed to the shop. I was disappointed there were no samples, but it was cheap and we bulk-bought. Surprisingly, after 5 weeks Deev and I have only polished off one block out of our 15 or so (2.5kg; equivalent of 28% of our average yearly consumption).

After conquering another church spire and admiring the view, exploring streets of funky shops, adding to our souvenir collections and have a tea break, our time in Zurich came to an end like so many travel stories… at the train station.