Weekend Getaway: Vienna and Bratislava

Hungary is really nicely situated smack in the middle of Europe, making travel to surrounding countries super easy. I've been traveling a lot for family reasons, and not for sightseeing -- so, when my friend Jasmine suggested a trip to Vienna to explore the world-famous Christmas markets, I jumped on the idea-- and added a stop in Bratislava. We invited the rest of the Fulbright crew, and surprisingly seven people wanted to come!

When I told the ticket lady in Budapest that I wanted seven tickets to Vienna, and she said "Yeah, you and everyone else!" (more on this later). The only space left was on a train at 6:30 in the morning --ugh! The upside was that we got to Vienna with plenty of time to explore. Of course, none of us had done a lick of research prior to going on the trip, so we googled it on the spot (what did people do before smartphones?) and headed to St. Stephen's Cathedral, which seemed like as good a place as any to start. The cathedral was beautiful, but crowded -- as to be expected on a weekend.

St. Stephen's Cathedral

None of us being the worshiping type, we continued walking through the streets of Vienna until we stumbled upon a Christmas market (albeit not the one we were looking for.) It was really, really cold that day, so most of us took the opportunity to eat or drink something hot. I introduced some of my friends to kartoffelpuffer, or potato pancakes, which were a huge hit.

We then made our way to a palace that we basically picked at random from a list of Vienna highlights, called Hofburg. It was HUGE. At that point, we were basically walking icicles, so we went inside and bought tickets to the trio of inside exhibitions. These included a collection of an inconceivable amount of plates, cups, silver, and gold; an exhibit dedicated to Empress Elisabeth of Austria, otherwise known as Sisi; and a recreation of the royal apartments, completely furnished (including a replica of the Hungarian coronation crown!). All the exhibits were really interesting, and it was a nice way to warm up. I probably would have still paid the admission fee to just stand inside a heated area, but it was nice to get some culture!

Hofburg Palace. It started to snow several seconds later.

Just a normal amount of gold...

By this time, we were all pretty hungry, and we wandered around until we found a nice Italian place to eat, where I inhaled an entire delightful pizza.

From there, we went to our final destination in Vienna, the thing that brought us there in the first place -- the Christmas market in from of city hall. It sprawled as far as the eye could see! It was beautifully decorated and lit up, just pulsing holiday cheer. The only thing was, the Hungarian ticket seller was right-- apparently everyone was at this market. I have never seen so many people in my life! There were lines for everything! It took a good 20 minutes to get a cup of mulled wine, and just as long to return the cup. And the funniest part was that most of the people there were Hungarian! We probably heard more Hungarian than English and German combined. Well, after about an hour of this, we had had enough. I'm glad that I experienced it, but I would like to never experience a crowd like that ever again.

Entrance to the Christmas market.

SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

The market left us exhausted, so we decided to say goodbye to Vienna and make a move to our next destination, Bratislava, where warm beds awaited us for the night. We took a tram to the main train station and hopped on the next train to Slovakia (they run every hour).

Arriving at the main train station in Bratislava was a very different experience -- the station was much more run down (even compared to Budapest's stations) and the signage was terrible. Well, either that or our brains were too fried to read. With difficulty, we eventually found the tram that took us to our hostel, where we had booked a dorm room just for us. There, we gratefully put on pajamas and fell into bed, exhausted.

After a good night's sleep, I was awake and ready to explore Bratislava the next morning! Again, none of us had done any research so we began just walking around. Bratislava is a much smaller city than either Vienna or Budapest, so it was pretty easy to find the center of the city, where we sat down for a hot breakfast. 

Then, we wandered around the quaint Old Town, where we discovered lots of shops, old buildings, and even a statue of a friendly dude coming out of a sewer.

"Cumil the Sewer Worker"

Further east of the old town, we paid a visit to the Blue Church. This was the only thing on my list that I specifically wanted to see in Bratislava. Eleven years ago, I visited a place called Mini Europe in Brussels, where they have miniature models of famous sights from countries all over the EU. I remember seeing the Blue Church model and making a mental note to go see it in person. It only took me a decade...

So colorful and cheerful! Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside because they had Sunday services going on.

From the Blue Church, we walked back through Old Town (stopping at another Christmas market, of course) and continued on to the western side of town to climb the hill to Bratislava Castle, which overlooks the city and the Danube. The castle itself is a sight to behold, but we didn't behold much of it, because the blustery winds at the top of that mountain were very quickly giving us frostbite. Once again, we sought refuge from the cold in the exhibits inside. The inside was an odd combination of beautiful baroque interiors with very modern furnishings and artwork. There's also an old Crown Tower which you can climb to the top, to get a lovely view of Bratislava -- and at the bottom was another replica of the Hungarian coronation crown (It's true what they say about imitation being the highest form of flattery).

Hello, Bratislava!

After thoroughly exploring the castle, we descended back down the hill and found a place to eat a traditional Slovakian meal (which is not that different from Hungarian or Austrian meals.) I chose a plate of potato gnocchi smothered in cheese and bacon bits. YUM.

Finally, the time had come for us to return to Budapest -- and we were ready, at that point. It had been a really enjoyable two days, but very intense, too. I was happy to return to my apartment and enjoy peace, quiet, and warmth. I hope you are all enjoying those same things! From Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava, happy holidays!

Phone Credit and Nuts

When you move to a foreign country, especially one in which you have no grasp on the language, doing simple, basic tasks can often make you feel like a complete idiot. Sometimes, this can be stressful, but most of the time, it ends up being something you can laugh about later on.

Take refilling your phone credit as an example. Here in Hungary, you can get a SIM card from one of a number of providers, and then you just buy phone credit and use it up as you go. Incidentally, this is how most of the world does phones, and to this day I do not understand why Americans make it so difficult on themselves with their phone plans and contracts...but I digress. It was my fourth day in Hungary, and I was trying to add credit to my new SIM card. I went to my nearest Metro stop, found the Lotto store (where I had heard you can do this) and went inside. I was greeted by an extremely grumpy Hungarian lady with a furrowed brow, whose response to my asking her if she spoke English was a grunt, which I took as a 'no'. So I pointed to my phone and held up a 5,000 Forint bill. She grunted again and shook her head, furrowing her brow even further. I thought to myself, maybe she needs my phone number? So I wrote it down on a post-it note, stuck it on my phone, then mimed putting the money into the phone. I thought my intention was pretty clear, but again, she just grunted and shrugged. At this point, I don't think her brow could furrow any further into her face without causing permanent facial damage, so I gave up. I went to the phone store instead, where a very kind young man was able to help me within minutes. However, to this day I make it a point to go and buy various things from the aforementioned lady to see if she ever gets friendlier. (She does not.)

But I have learned a lot since then, and feel much less lost these days, even if I still have trouble with communication. Last week, my friend Jasmine invited me to a cookie party she was hosting for a bunch of her colleagues and friends. (Let's gloss over the fact that I'm a little jealous of how many Hungarian friends Jasmine has.) I was supposed to make and bring cookies. I decided to make one of the cookie recipes that my mom and I always make for Christmas, a traditional German cookie called Nussecken. For this recipe, I needed ground almonds and hazelnuts, which I had never seen in the grocery stores. Nelly suggested I might find these items in the Grand Market Hall. She also (very helpfully) wrote down the words for "ground almonds" and "ground hazelnuts." 

Armed with my list, I hopped on the trolley to the market, and started to wander around. The market is one of those places where it is easy to get distracted, because there are just so many things to look at -- stalls with cheese, salami, fruit, handicrafts, paprika, etc. etc. etc. 

Central Market Hall...danger of losing track of time

 Not deterred from my mission, though, I went up to one stall, where I saw almonds, and I pointed at them and tried out my Hungarian. I was armed with the following vocabulary: I want, ground, hazelnuts, almonds, yes, and no.

"Almonds!" I said.

"Yes," said the salesperson.

"Ground almonds?"

"No."

"No? I want ground almonds."

"No ground almonds. Just these," she said, pointing.

"Hazelnuts?"

"No hazelnuts."

Well, whole almonds and no hazelnuts wouldn't do me much good, so I thanked her and kept looking. Almost all the stalls had dió, or walnut, which is a traditional winter food, but almonds and hazelnuts were scarce. Finally, after much wandering, I did find a store selling all kinds of nuts, including almonds AND hazelnuts!

Success! There was a whole nut section at this stall!

"Almonds!" I tried again.

"Yes," said the salesperson.

"Hazelnuts!"  I exclaimed happily.

"Yes," she repeated, probably wondering why this American was so excited about nuts.

"I want ground almonds and I want ground hazelnuts." I said carefully.

"Ground?"

"Yes, ground. Almonds. And hazelnuts. I want." Quickly running out of vocabulary, I tried to mime a grinding motion with my hands. I pointed at my piece of paper that said (in Hungarian) "100 grams ground hazelnuts. 100 grams ground almonds." 

She nodded and got to work measuring and grinding the nuts. She carefully put them into little baggies, and labeled them mandula (almonds) and mogyoró (hazelnut). She gave them to me and pointed at each one, saying "Ground almonds. Ground hazelnut." She seemed concerned that I would not remember which one was which, but I definitely did not have the vocab to tell her it didn't matter since I would mix them anyway. I thanked her and went on my merry way.

The rest of the ingredients were much easier to find, except that I don't have cell reception in my grocery store, so it's difficult to look up translations on the fly. There were two kinds of flour to choose from, and one said (I think) 'fine flour', and the other one said (from what I can gather) mother-in-law flour (pretty sure this is an incorrect translation). The mother-in-law flour had a picture of cakes and cookies on it, so I went with that one. Still not sure what the difference was. (Maybe mothers-in-law are known for making delicious baked goods?)

Ingredients for cookie making (the beer is for the baker)

The cookies turned out just fine! A little taller than usual, but that may be because I don't own a rolling pin, so I used a round bottle of olive oil ... not exactly the right tool for the job. They tasted good, though, and that was the most important thing! Plus, at the cookie party I got to try lots of different kinds of Hungarian cookies -- one of my favorites was this one called Cow Cake, which was (you guessed it) marbled chocolate cake with some kind of white creamy stuff. Delicious!

Success!

I often still feel like a dummy much of the time, but at least I did this thing more or less right!

Family Shenanigans, Part 2: A Wedding

"Wait, so you're flying home, working for two days, and then flying right back again?" my aunt asked me after Oma's birthday, with a look on her face that said that I clearly did not understand how to do vacation. But it's true; while the rest of my family continued on their road trip to the shore, across the Channel, and to London, I flew home to Budapest to teach for two days. Soon, though, I left my little apartment again, and met back up with the rest of the Schaefer-Shaws in London for an auspicious occasion: the marriage of my big brother to one of my oldest friends.

What a wedding it was! First of all, the venue was at a beautiful Georgian house, like something straight out of a Jane Austen novel, surrounded by beautiful gardens.

You know what else was amazing? The FOOD. Oh, my goodness. A wonderful three course dinner, culminating in an amazing sticky toffee pudding that I think I might have dreams about for years to come. And the cake! So light and fluffy, so flavorful, and none of that gross fondant icing -- just 100% delicious. And, later in the evening, after everyone had had time to digest dinner, suddenly little mini-baskets of fish and chips appeared! I stuffed my face.

 But the best part was being there to be a part of my big brother and my friend's big day. This was a long time in the making, and they have overcome many obstacles, and I know that they are going to be so happy together, and it was an honor to be present at their wedding. They are both such special people to me!

Three cheers to the happy couple!