The T3sk3y Defenestrator

As I left this tale over a week ago, we were boarding a train from Poland to Hungary late in the evening for an overnight journey to Budapest. Our ever-useful Rick Steves guidebook warned us that the night train from Krak�w to Budapest was a bit of a pain due to a pair of border crossings into and out of Slovakia. The first came at about 2 AM when a trio of border guards rapped on our door and asked for passports. It was coming hearing them pronounce names, which came out like “Maahhrk Villiam Tehhhsskey”. The second crossing happened at about 7 AM as we entered Hungary, but this one was very cursory.

We arrived at a very busy train station in Budapest at about 8:30 AM. This is always one of my least favorite parts of a trip, since I always feel like I’m floundering around. Generally, I’m completely overloaded with gear, I don’t know where I’m going, I’m tired from an overnight trip, I don’t have any of the local money, speak the language, know how the metro ticket machines work, and so forth. Add to that a bit of nervousness about pickpockets in train stations and some hunger and it’s just no fun. This was no exception – we couldn’t find a working cash machine anywhere (it turned out we were asking for too much money), and the place was crowded with very drunk gypsies.

We finally got our money and purchased our Budapest Cards – which got us free entry to public transportation and most of the tourist spots in town. Our journey to the Hotel Delibab should have been easy – if it wasn’t for the closure of a section of the M1 line that we needed to ride. We had to get off, board a surface bus, then figure out when to get off to rejoin the metro – with all of our luggage in tow.

After a little confusion and some false starts, we finally arrived at the Hotel Delibab at about 10:30. It was a welcome relief to be able to check in right away and get cleaned up for the day. Tamara, our fourth adventurer, was waiting for us at the hotel and was happy to see that we made it.

Once we were cleaned up, We set off walking down Andr�ssy �t to the Oktagon area for lunch. Our chosen restaurant was a place called Menza – which was the old communist word for “School Cafeteria”. It was a funky East Eurpoean retro orange and brown cafe that served giant portions of cucumber soup and goulash.

Cafe Menza

Our first touring stop after lunch was the Church of St. Istv�n (Stephen). We couldn’t actually enter the church since there was a wedding taking place. This would mean we wouldn’t get to see the “Holy Hand of St. Istv�n” – a blackened, shriveled fist preserved in a box for all to see. We were able to climb to the top of the dome, however – and this gave us a great view of the city. For the first time in a long time, I wimped out and took the elevator since my multiple-twisted ankle just wasn’t up for 350 steps up and down.

Our next stop was the amazing chocolate mecca called Gerbauds – often rated one of the three best Chocolate shops in Europe. What did we get for a snack at Gerbauds? You got it – Limon sorbet! It was a very fancy place – so much so that it had Villeroy and Boch toilets. I thought it was very funny that the same company that makes Heather’s fancy china also makes porcelain thrones – though it makes sense, I guess. We enjoyed our sorbet while watching an ethnic dance exhibition with some really smoking accordian players taking place in the square right in front of Gerbauds.


Eastern European Dance Troupe

Gerbauds sits at one end of Vaci utca, or “The way of the cow”. It’s Budapest’s version of Rodeo Drive. We quickly made our way down it to the end and avoided all of the overpriced tourist trap stores along the way. At the end, we treated ourselves to a cold beer in an outdoor patio while watching more World Cup soccer. Have I mentioned how much of a soccer fan I am?

The pub that we stopped at was at the base of Liberty Bridge – a scenic way to cross the Danube to get to Gell�rt Hill. Atop Gell�rt Hill is the Liberty Statue – Hungary’s version of the statue of liberty. For some reason it seemed like a great idea to hike up the hill after all the walking we’d done that day. Oh yeah, it’s really hot as well.


The Liberty Statue on Gell�rt Hill

We arrived at the top after meandering our way up the wooded pathways drenched in sweat. Well, I was drenched in sweat. We got there right at dusk when they turned the on the lights illuminating the Liberty statue. This vantage point also gave us a magnificient scenic vista of Budapest with all the lights on. We were a bit worried about getting down in the dark, until we met a Hungarian kid that was going to rollerblade down from the top. He made it ten meters before wiping out.


The view of Budapest from Gell�rt Hill

By the time we walked back down Gell�rt Hill, we were very hungry and were trying to find both food and a place to watch the USA soccer match. This was the hardest time of the day for me, because I was very hungry and didn’t care a bit for soccer. I realized how important it was to the ladies to watch the match, so I soldiered on for an hour to find a place. Ultimately, anywhere that was showing the game was too full.

We finally found a place on Budapest’s version “Eat Street” and pulled up next to a bachelor party from Scotland. They had been drinking for days and had played a number of cruel practical jokes – including a (ahem) “Special Little Haircut” on the groom-to-be. A couple of them noticed us immediately and wondered if I was “the luckiest man in America” being with three beautiful ladies. When he found out one was my wife, he started unsuccessfully working very hard to make time with Beth and Tamara. As we discovered, they were also fond of imitating Americans by repeatedly saying “Heeyyyyyy Maaaaaannnnn…”

By the time we were done eating, the public transportation was shut down. This meant we either had to hire a taxi or walk. Though we imagined it was a few miles, we decided to hike home. By our calculations, it turned out to be about 5. By the time we got home at 1 AM, we were all completely smoked. By my math, we walked somewhere between 12 and 15 miles during the course of the day – and our blisters proved it.

Before bed, I indulged in what was becoming a habit – the ice cold shower and washing my shoes. It was the only effective way to beat the heat in a country that really didn’t have air conditioning. This is something I ended up partaking in at least twice a day during the trip.

Check out the rest of the pictures at:
Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

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I love the creativeness of the American spirit.

Secret Beer Belly

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I’ve fallen a little behind in my picture editing the past week due to a variety of demands on my time. I’m back in the swing of things now and was able to get another day worth of pictures edited and placed online. These pictures are all from our first day in Budapest when we met up with Tamara.

Check out all the photos at: Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

A statue at the top of Gell�rt Hill

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Okay – this is brilliant. It’s the entire movie “Big Lebowski” condensed to two minutes – using only the F-Bomb dialog. I wouldn’t recommend watching this if you are easily offended – there is about 500 F-inheimers in a row on here..

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Only 1 week to go before RAGBRAI 2006 – and I’ve got about 150 of the 600 recommended training miles under my belt. Truthfully, that’s probably even padding things. Of course, I am only riding 3 days of it – and it’s a couple of fairly short but hilly days.

More importantly, the Team Froggy Style jerseys are ready to go!

Team Froggy Style – Ribbited for HER pleasure since 2005

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I know it, you know it, and Pat Metheny really knows it. According to a recent interview in JazzOasis.com, Metheny had a few kind, and thousands of not-so-kind things to say about Mr. G.

But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis’s tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture – something that we all should be totally embarrassed about – and afraid of. We ignore this, “let it slide”, at our own peril.

Ouch. That was in reference to Kenny G overdubbing himself over Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”.

As my favorite joke goes..

Q: What did Kenny G say when he got on the elevator?
A: “Dude! This music ROCKS!!

Here is a link to the entire article: Pat Metheny on Kenny G

(thanks, Anderiv..)

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No, not THAT number two – sicko.

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I finally figured out why I have a fetish for pinball machines. I’ve always thought it was as a result of a misspent youth in the King Subs arcade in Waseca. Actually, I have Sesame Street to blame.

Just like a big steaming batch of Veg-All and a pair of JC Penneys “Plain Pockets” – this brings back amazing memories.

I want to own this machine very, very badly…

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Wow. There is something that just isn’t right about this.

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(note: This is a repost of the earlier article thankfully retrieved from the archives by anderiv after an accidental deletion)

Something about vacations make me change my schedule dramatically. For most people, it’s a long awaited chance to get a little extra sleep. Not me! I generally need a vacation after my vaction because stay up too late, get up too early, and go full blast for 18 hours a day in between there. June 16th was no exception – I was up nice and early for a long day of touring. We had about enough time to eat a very quick breakfast at the B&B, then run to the train station to catch our 9:35 AM train to Osweciem (the city where Auschwitz is). Remember, if you will, that we checked the train schedules the day before to verify that the train leaves at 9:35.

Apparently there are lots and lots of tourists going to Auschwitz from Krak�w, because the street to the train station is mobbed with “tour guides” hawking a ride to Auschwitz and a guided tour for a fairly high price. We pushed past them and made our way to the station and checked the departure board to figure out what platform our train was leaving from. The only problem was that our train wasn’t listed on the board – not at all. We quickly consulted the detailed schedule and figured out that there wasn’t a 9:35 that day – and that the next train wasn’t until 11:20. After a moment of panic, we realized that we’d still have plenty of time to make our tour if we left then.

The unplanned delay gave us a chance to visit the booths inside of the cloth market that were closed due to the holiday the day before. The booths contained a variety of Polish crafts including amber jewelry, chessboards, and the painted eggs that Heather was coveting in Prague. This gave us the chance to buy a couple for our Christmas tree. The delay also gave us a chance for Heather to see St. Mary’s Cathedral, which had been closed to tourists due to religious services. After seeing that it was still closed, we suggested that perhaps Heather should duck inside for a quick peek.. or.. prayer..

A cloth market booth in Krak�w

On our way to the train station, we made a quick stop at the post office to buy souveniers. There was a huge line inside that looked like a very long wait – until we spotted the sign that said “Filatelikczsch” (or something like that) which we guessed was the collecting counter. We made our purchases and hurried to the station.

We arrived in Osweciem about an hour later after a train ride that started late and was extremely hot. Like the rest of the tourists, we poured out of the train with no clue where to go. Our Amazing Race skills paid off again as we decoded a Polish map that directed us straight to the camp. It was about a 4km hike from the station to Auschwitz I – that was made more difficult by my freshly twisted ankle. Over the first week of the trip, I turned my ankle about a dozen times by stepping off of curbs funny. The twist on the way to the train station was the last straw – but I still wasn’t going to let it stop me. We arrived at the camp 5 minutes before the English tour took off – which was great, except for the fact that we got no lunch or bathroom break.

We spent the first half of the tour visiting Auschwitz I – the original concentration camp used for political prisoners, intellectuals, gypsies, homosexuals, and later.. Jews. It’s fairly small and doesn’t look all that different from a small college campus with two story brick buildings and tree lined boulevards. It was hard to believe the place was so sinister. We saw displays of the horrors of the camp, including a mound of human hair 75 feet by 15 feet by 7 feet deep. We also saw the ‘death block’ where many were tortured and executed for all manner of crimes – mostly imagined. Towards the end of the Auschwitz tour, we saw the execution site of the camp commandant after the war. It was conveniently right next to the original gas chambers that he perfected for mass exterminations. We were able to visit these as well – and it is hard not to imagine what people felt like as they were herded in.

A warning sign near a guard tower at Auschwitz

The second half of the trip was of Birkenau, located about a kilometer away in a wide open field. Birkenau was gigantic – and had only one purpose. Birkenau’s lone purpose was to act as a factory that produced only human ashes. It held up to 100,000 people living in hellish conditions for an average of three months before they were sent to the gas chambers. Half of the people shipped in were marched straight from the train to the gas chambers. They may have been the lucky ones.

There isn’t as much to see at Birkenau. The Nazis tried to cover up the evidence of their crimes near the end of the war by burning down the prefab horse barns that held up to 400 people – along with the warehouses that held plundered goods. The gas chambers were dynamited in an attempt to destroy them – but it was impossible to remove the evidence of 1.1 million deaths. As the guide put it, Auschwitz/Birkenau is the largest cemetary in the world – with no headstone. After walking through the camp, we ended the tour at the giant memorial monument with plaques in many languages. There were several people expressing their grief in front of their national language plaque while we visited.

The womens camp at Birkenau

As deceptively pleasant as Auschwitz was, Birkenau was a hellhole. We were miserable after a couple of short hours of walking in the sun. We were covered in dust and dried sweat and couldn’t wait to retreat to somewhere that we could get a cold drink and a place to sit. We raced back to the train station to try to catch the 5:30 train home but missed it by 5 minutes. This made us pass the next ninety minutes in the train station enjoying… more ice cream!

When we got back to Krak�w, we ate dinner at the Ipanema Brazilian Restaurant. We tried to find a recommended Indian restaurant – but it had apparently gone out of business. The meal was quick and very tasty – and left us just enough time to get back to our hotel to pick up our bags.

We made it to the train with about 5 minutes to spare. As we were boarding the train for Hungary, Beth dropped her sunglasses right on the edge of the train platform just one inch from falling three feet down to the tracks and under the train. She picked them up, and immediately fumbled them down onto the tracks. There was simply no way for her to go down to get them. We boarded the train and found our sleeper cabin. Shortly before we pulled away, the female porter for the car stopped by our room and said “Something for you!” and handed Beth her sunglasses. She had apparently climbed down and retrieved them from beneath the train car.

By the time the train left, it was 10:30 and time to go to bed. After we all got attacked by the splashiest sink in the Polish railway system, we curled into our bunks and went to bed.


Heather and Beth looking out the window on the way to Budapest

Check out the rest of the pictures at:
Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

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