August 2007 Travels Journal Official photographers: Claire and Pan-Pan Official journalographer: Claire Table of Contents Day 1: Ottawa to Toronto airport to plane to Vienna Day 2: Vienna Day 3: Vienna Day 4: Vienna Day 5: Vienna to Split to Hvar Day 6: Hvar Day 7: Hvar Day 8: Hvar Day 9: Hvar to Dubrovnik Day 10: Dubrovnik Day 11: Dubrovnik Day 12: Dubrovnik-Budapest Hungary Day 1: Ottawa to Toronto airport to plane to Vienna Back to Top Am on bus to Toronto. I'm excited!! Reading "After Yugoslavia" which is a bit dry but will give me at least some background on Croatia. I'm excited for adventure, and also to see PanPan. I hope she is not all traveled out from her months in Asia. Well, see you later when I have more interesting things to talk about than how sore my bum feels after only 4 hours on a bus. After the plane and such I will have to buy lots of pastries once arrived to comfort my sore bum. Hmm...so far the trip has been..hectic. The bus was an hour late because of an accident on the highway. The line to check in was huge and boarding for Austrian Airlines apparently begins an hour before takeoff...so we had 5 minutes to get to the gate. We found ourselves without seats for a bit...then we did get seats...only to discover that our seats were already occupied by a cute family. So now I'm not sitting next to Pan Pan and I have a nice headache. To make matters worse, I forgot my Croatia book on the bus!! Upsides: PanPan's hilarious China/Nepal stories. Austrian flight attendants (they are dressed all in red with red stockings and shoes and look very odd and vaguely Wizard-of-Oz ish). Also the safety instructions are much more interesting to listen to because they are in German. Day 2: Vienna Back to Top Wow...so it still feels like the same day as yesterday, mostly because I didn't actually get to sleep in a bed last night. We arrived at the pension Carantania at around 10am, i.e. 4am our time, and after an hour or so headed straight out to the Vienna town centre for lunch and touring. It was quite hilarious with the room because our host knew absolutely no English and for our part we knew absolutely no German. It took her about 10 minutes to tell us that breakfast is served between 8 and 10am. But she is a very sweet lady and Mom was right...everything is so CLEAN!!! The apartment is beautiful. We have spent a lot of time today sitting and talking, eating or drinking at cafes and bars. I've yet to taste a famous Viennese strudel: that is for tomorrow. Right now I've just plugged myself into some classical music on my IPOD and this embodies the tourist trap aspect of Vienna: all the slimy men dressed like Mozart trying to sell you tickets to this or that concert/ballet/opera. They really play up the Mozart thing here; there are Mozart cafes, Mozart chocolates...Mozart living statures... Our pension isn't in the 1st district, it's a less touristy area, which makes us happy - complete with an abundance of striptease shops, sex shops and peep shows...a bit sleezy, but not too garish, surprisingly. The best thing about Vienna so far is the transportation system. The subway system is AMAZING. Oh, I have to mention that I didn't do justice to Austrian airlines in my last entry. The food was pretty sweet - they presented us with this little menu, gave us real cutlery, and we had profiteroles for dessert (a little hint of the Viennese pastries to come?) My favourite part was when we landed in Austria - everyone politely clapped and remarked on the nice landing. Austrians are SO politically correct! Day 3: Vienna Back to Top I've decided that Vienna is not exactly me. All the classical music hype is too stuffy for my taste...and the palaces and ornate buildings don't really help to reduce that atmosphere. That being said, we saw the COOLEST museum today! The science of sound fascinates me, and they had interactive exhibits explaining such phenomena as how sounds are overtones on a pure frequency, called a "sine". Or the one that measured your personal threshold of frequency perception - I was just below a grasshopper, Pan Pan just above (I think she cheated). Two things in Vienna are cheap: sandwiches and sushi. Tonight went to a concert of Strauss and Mozart music. The highlight was the male half of the dancing couple, who was obviously not a ballerina like his partner, judging from his slight pot belly, toupee-like hair, and ridiculous grin (picture the Claire dancing grin). He made me laugh out loud .... Then we really wanted pastries afterwards - and sadly, Vienna does not offer 24-hour pastry service. All cafes were closed! So, I'm embarrassed to admit this, we went to McDonalds (feeding PanPan's addiction) But I was redeemed - I got "Giffypommes" (I think that's what it was called) which was basically fries, but in weaved diamond shapes, salted and spiced, served with sour cream for dipping. Basically a bucket of fat. But Jacob, I didn't eat fries! I kept my no-fry oath! I just ate "Giffypommes", completely different and cultured food item. Ooh...TOILET BAR Observe!! And that's not all...they also have the "Opera Toilet" and the "Toilet of Modern Art". I haven't actually BEEN to the toilet bar, but I plan to go to the Opera toilet tomorrow (it's at a main subway station) woohoo!! Day 4: Vienna Back to Top What a day...excellent mix of history and pure amusement, both planned and unanticipated. Breakfast at the pension started off as usual with a healthy dose of Nutella, and then we headed to the Imperial Palace- where Emperor Franz Joseph reigned, where they had the Congress of Vienna in 1815, etc...I was SUPER HAPPY because their exhibit catered to non-oral learners, finally!!! Everyone else had audio-guides but I got something to read, and I was so happy I was grinning like an idiot the entire museum. Audio guides talk too slowly... So anywho I was still really tired (I woke up tired...the woes of traveling in group larger than 2...you don't really get to control your own sleep schedule...) and so I napped in the palace garden while the others when to the palace café. For lunch we had traditional Viennese food at a place that really prided itself on its pretzels - pretzel in its name (Brezl), hanging silver pretzel decorations, delicious warm giant starter pretzels...I ordered cheese dumplings in beer cheese sauce (mm...cheese...) it was SO FILLING and amazing. Also "herbjuice", which I was sort of scared to order because it reminded me of Beetlejuice but ended up tasting like mildly spiced ginger ale. Then we headed to the clock museum. We agreed we are probably the youngest tourists who go to the clock museum of their own volition...so nerdy...too bad the exhibits were in German, but we got to see lots of clocks! My favourite was the "Organ clock" that played a different piece of classical music every hour... "Oh! It's the Polonaise in A minor! 5 o'clock, tea time!" There were also these picture clocks that had moving parts in the picture as the time clicked away. And ones where there was a statue whose eyes moved creepily back and forth. We returned to the center where PanPan and company went shopping and I sampled more apple strudel and then tried to find somewhere to sleep, as usual... Final stop: the Ferris wheel to get a nice view of Vienna. Little did we know we would be stepping into an entire amusement park!! It was a haven of fun houses/haunted houses which is especially awesome when you are accompanied by 3 girls who squeal and get scared almost as much as you do. Blue Planet was a dinosaur fun house (my favourite) and PanPans' favourite was this haunted house that was a cart ride, and at the end the bored teenager Carnie dude dangled this ghetto wig in front of your face as you exited. As if the owners had decided their haunted house wasn't quite good enough and they had to add this one extra scare...PanPAn was practically rolling on the grouns laughing when he did it to Heather and I.... Last stop of the day: Opera Toilet. This was the 2nd time I dragged everyone to the Karlsplaz station (no one likes it because of all the weird druggies who hang around there, but I find it interesting) (The 1st time was because I wanted a pastry - surprise surprise - and they have shops there). Opera Toilet was okaaaaaaay...but on ly okay. Bar toilet would be better, but it's too far away. Oooooh...haha at the fair I wanted a sausage so I went to a vendor and asked for bratwurst but the man was like, "nnonono, BURRENwurst", and I was like, your sign says you have bratwurst but whatever, hit me up with a burrenwurst, what's the difference? So he proceeds to take a foot long roll, poke a giant hole in it lengthwise, fill it with ketchup and then shove a giant purplish oily veiny sausage down the middle and top it off with a little bread cap. Needless to say, many lewd jokes were made, mostly on the part of Pan Pan. Day 5: Vienna to Split to Hvar Back to Top Very full traveling day. Subway-bus-plane-bus-ferry-bus-taxi!! But the ferry from Split was very much fun. Oh hahaha we had to go to Bratislava to catch our flight and we were confused about which country we were in...Slovenia or Slovakia?? Haha such a Blonde American moment... "Um excuse me what country are we in?" as we hand in our passports... (Ok that didn't happen but still). The signs didn't really help because they said "Slovenska" and that could be EITHER ONE!! SO haha the ferry ride was super fun because we were sitting next to a small group of French kids who a) were dressed in an amusing way (big ugly red sunglasses, hats, longish hair), b) looked chill smoking their cigarettes drinking their beer c) played Amazing music...like Accordion trance (I asked them for the name of the artist) - Gotan Project - old French music, etc...NO HIPHOP!! Also they reminded me of what I picture my Dad would have been like at that age. I think they were intrigued by PanPan because they wanted to take a picture of her (and me by default, whee). At Starigard, we had to board a bus to Hvar and it was like trying to catch a Tricolour in Kingston - people just mashing into each other towards the door...what made matters a little more interesting was the drunk Australian guy (at 4pm) also trying to mash his way through...PanPan felt bad for him, I was repulsed. The taxi from the bus station to our pension was exorbitant, but when we arrived a cute little shrivelled old man was waiting for us and PanPan was like, "I hope he's our guy!" hehe..he was!! The couple is really cute, and fed us drinks and sweets and gave us a map and were just nice in general. The room was sort of another story though. The cheapest thing we could find (about ½ price of staying in the hostel), we got what we paid for...I will describe to you in order, shower, kitchen, bedroom. Shower has mold on tiles, smells mouldy. Couple of seconds after I start, I spot giant millipede on floor and start screaming. PanPan comes running thinking, as she said later, that "blood was coming out of the shower or something". She had to get rid of it for me. I feel like such a girl, but I hate millipedes ewwwwwwwwww. Later PP showered and silverfish were coming out of the drainage. Okay so I exited the shower all shook up only to discover that the black flecks on the kitchen tile - that I presumed decorative - were in fact SQUISHED ANTS (some of them alive) - hundreds of squished ants. Let's get something straight. Ants in of themselves do not bother me so much - we have them in Ottawa for heaven's sake, and I flick them around like little toys. But the fact that they hadn't swept up the ants before we arrived made me wonder how dirty the place was. Side note: PP was quite pleased with the place, compared to some spots she had to stay in India...anywho we swept up the ants, you can see in picture. Bedrooms: no bugs (as far as I can tell), but we wake up with sore backs from the beds. (I'll add this in now - there were bugs after all - SUPER bugs, like in Kingston). Anywho, we walked to town (about 20 minutes) and both of us were in shock. SO BEAUTIFUL. Most beautiful place we could imagine. Octavian would have a heart attack. Blue sea, lush vegetation (succulents, cacti, palm trees etc), cute little houses all white with red roofs, boats in the harbour, mountainous backdrop, islands in the distance..SO BEAUTIFUL!! We had dinner at a seafood-ish restaurant, both ordered the seafood pasta and a ½ litre of white wine...we were undoubtedly the most animated people in the restaurant, guffawing etc. Jacob would not have been happy at the sight of the dinner, full of tentacles and gonads and shrimp heads that come off and mix wit the spaghetti and are impossible to separate. Mm... So anywho, apparently Hvar is like the party city of central Dalmatia, unbeknownst to us...there is an after beach party every day with dancing near shore and loud music. Everyone here is tanned, leggy, mostly Italian, with skimpy swim suits (guys included). I guess it's like the Caribbean for Europeans! Very festive! Haha Panpan and I clash, we look like scientific trekkers or something, so much skin covered...and afraid of the sun....cowering under Panpans rain umbrella... Day 6: Hvar Back to Top This day was discovering Hvar and what there is to do in its environs. PanPan and I are so sad sometimes, everyone else is frolicking in the sun, and if we try we get headaches and moan a lot. In the morning we were eating breakfast outside our pension and PP was like, "Is that a mini hummingbird?" I said, "No silly, it's a bee..." Then we got closer...it was a hummingbird...INSANITY!!! I didn't know birds got that small...it was the size of a bee, for real. We tried to get a photo but so far to no avail...it's too fast for us... Another point...everything here is SO RANDOM!! As in, hours and schedules for things...for instance, we want to get to Bol to go windsurfing (windsurfing capital of Croatia). If you look on the ferry schedules posted in front of the travel agency, there are non that go on Tuesday. Then we ask inside - yes, there's something Tuesday to Bol (catamaran?) but you get lunch too. Or you could take taxi boat, but only one way. Etc. etc....there are so many options and nowhere is all the information compiled into one place so you can properly weigh those options!! It's like, yes you can go to Bol - but if it's a leap year, or if the moon is waning, or if the cows lie on their left sides that morning. Also, shops have random hours like they close in the afternoon and open again at 5:30. But it changes day to day. So PP and I decided that everyone here is having very *physical* experiences...soaking up sun, dancing, then sex...people don't talk to each other a lot...whilst PP and I are having *cerebral* experiences...we sit in cafes and chat, we get headaches, we go home at 7 and gab some more whilst everyone else is partying it up (ok in our defence we were in pain). Day 7: Hvar Back to Top We spent the day on a tour of the Blue Grotto, one of the highlights of Dalmatia as listed in the Croatian guidebook. Well, more like we spent 15 minutes at the grotto, and a whole lot of hours on ferries. It was really cool though, as PP put it she had "never been anywhere so cool that people actually gasp when they see it". We entered the caves in a small motorboat (almost getting decapitated in the process- it was a tight fit) to find eerily blue water in enchanting caves...the light appeared to be coming from a passage underneath the cave wall. But my favourite part may have been the "Green" grotto, a stop on the way, where everyone promptly jumped off the ferry and swam around the caves...put me in the mood for spelunking, and the small opening in the cave ceiling had PP and I singing Little Mermaid ("look at this stuff...isn't it neat....") We didn't arrive back to Hvar in time for the sunset but we went home and PP cooked up the most delicious omelette I've ever had (PP is a GENIUS with the eggs! This morning we had this crazy egg sandwich thing) and we bought Korcula-ian wine to loosen up before going out for the night. Hvar is a party town after all. Strangely, that just made our legs feel weird and soft and our heads just sleepy. We managed to drag ourselves to the local disco...only to find out that 1) it was still empty and 2) we didn't bring enough $$. Trekked back home, got cash, went back to the disco...to discover that it STILL was empty!! (This at 1am). Yup, in Hvar the dancing starts at 2am and goes till 5am. Anyways we went to bed. Oh, but in an attempt to peer into the disco for a glimpse of what it was like, I cut my hand on barbed wire. You see, the disco is in an old stone fortress...scaling the wall was kind of challenging to say the least. Day 8: Hvar Back to Top We slept in and bummed around Hvar, the highlight being our swim at the hotel beach near our pension during the sunset. All the hotels here have luxurious waterfront areas. Something PP and I enjoy about Croatia, being the kitty and sticker kind of people that we are, is the abundance of cats. They pop their heads out at your from garbage bins (we nickname them "cat boxes"), they beg from you at restaurant tables, they are around every corner. PP is the official cat-spotter. Once, there was quite the confusion because PP exclaimed, "Look! A kitten!" and I was like...that's not a kitten...and PP was like...uh...that's a kitten...and we were getting very upset with each other...until we discovered that there were TWO cats standing next to each other (cat + kitten) and I could only see the one, which was most definitely not a kitten. WHEW. No one is crazy. Another remarkable thing about Croatia is all the fruit trees. Grape trees, peach trees, lemon trees, everywhere you look. At dinner I saw what looked like an onion tree until PP reminded me that Onions don't grow on trees and then we realized it was pomegranate tree. Finally...we spent a good part of our day trying to make phone calls and not having them work - PP to her bank to get her withdrawal limit increased and me to our pension in Dubrovnik to let them know what time we'd be arriving. Very frustrating. Also there is no difference between a ring and a busy signal, as far as I can tell... Day 9: Hvar to Dubrovnik Back to Top We rose early to catch our ferry to Split, sadly without any pictures of the fairy-size hummingbird (you better believe us!) Pension man was nice enough to give us a ride to the harbour. The bus ride from Split to Dubrovnik was INHUMANE...PP says James would have just de-boarded the bus. IT was probably around 36 C the entire 4 hour ride. I needed to burp really badly, but I couldn't so I suffered the entire ride with a strange knot in my throat. Add the insanely windy shore route and you have the bus ride of hell. I think if there had been an old person on the bus they would have passed away. I asked the driver if we could stop for water and we did, after 3 HOURS OF BUS FUN OH MY GOD. We debarked in Bosnia (we saw a road sign for Sarajevo!) which we passed through for about 15 minutes, and as we disembarked we were like, ooh...it's so nice and cool out...and then looked at the temperature...32C... To be fair, the scenery was gorgeous...but mostly everyoen had their curtains closed anyways, and tried to sleep away the horror. Begovic Boarding House is delightful however (thank you last year's lonely planet) with AC (!!), it's SO CLEAN, good location, nice people...and cheaper than our place in Hvar, only 20 Euros each per night. I am so HAPPY! I realized now that cleanliness is very important to me on vacation (I blame you for that Mom) and also a comfortable bed. Oh, the view from our room is delightful as well. Just down a long, long flight of stone stairs is a street full of cafes that lead to beaches. On such café is an INTERNT café...in a park. Apparently receiving an email from this Internet café is a souvenir in of itself (or so it says on the sign). Each computer is set up at a little table amongst the trees. And no, we don't know what they do when it rains. We had an early dinner at a grill near the water, which I didn't want to frequent because whenever they show menu pictures it reminds me of Denny's. I was a fool and ordered lobster tail, because it was so cheap (only $13!) and got ground up lobster and water and god knows what else reshaped into little rounded cylinders. BLARGH. PP got the seafood risotto. Suffice it to say, I bought a prosciutto and cheese Panini 10 minutes after we left the restaurant. Note to self; don't buy cheap seafood. We noticed a sign advertising a Croatian mandolin band playing at a waterfront hotel that evening, so went there for a cheese plate and took in the atmosphere. The band had like 7 mandolin players (very important instrument in Croatian folk music) and completed a beautiful scene with sunset, tiny sliver of a moon, shore, lighthouse in the distance...there were some incidents with the cheese plate, like when I ate a chunk of butter thinking it was "creamy cheese" or when I ate a PP-saliva-covered olive pit thinking it was a piece of walnut, but on the whole it was a delightful evening. Day 10: Dubrovnik Back to Top I finally convinced PP to come scuba-diving with me!! After a delicious proscuitto, cheese and grape breakfast sitting in front of the view over Lapad from our room window, we headed over to Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, where Blue Planet Diving Center was located. Since had 2 hours to kill before the dive, we lounged around the hotel waterfront...it was sweet. In looking for a place in the shade to lay our towels, we ended up in the VIP section of the waterfront - which was in fact gated off from the rest (we inadvertently charmed a couple of staff as they were going through who let us in). We didn't realized we were in the VIP section, but we did feel a bit out of place, considering everyone else was lounging on white chairs with matching blue towels, topless, tanned, serene, with nice hair, whilst we were on the rock ground, snorkelling, with messed up hair and full-covered tankinis (me at least) . But we were used to feeling out of place, so we didn't really think twice. As we were leaving (a full 2 hours later) and washing the salt off under the outdoor showers, a hotel man cautiously approached us and asked if we were "guests"...we just sort of said "ohhhhh...we didn't know" a lot and giggled, and that was that... PanPan and I were trying to figure out what gave us away...my bathing suit, our lack of sun chairs, or the hotel lady who brought us a pizza whom we forgot to tip? Hehehe... So anyway...DIVING!! SO MUCH FUN!! (But a cause of much back pain, as will be expounded upon later...) We were a group of 6 with a slightly disgruntled female dive teacher, but once I got over the pressure problems I had a blast. Also it was the first time I saw PP look evil - the fully zipped wet suit covered her face up to the eyes, and without those pouffy cheeks it's just slanty eyes- pure evil thief-ness. So anyways, I saw lots of starfish, a jellyfish, an old pot, an anchor with some weird purple and white dotted blob on it...but my favourite was just the plain old fishies, because down there you can come face to face with them, and it's quite hilarious, and reminded me of my old fish pen. To sort of round off our hotel VIP experience, PP went for a swim in their pool and we both took some apples from a little basket by the restaurant. Thank you, Dubrovnik Palace. Dinner was drinks with an amazing sunset and a fish platter from a restaurant Lonely Planet had suggested...good but a bit pricey. We decided to go to Old Town after dinner just to check it out, and my favourite part was the little sign on the bus - little pictures saying no bathing suits, no dogs, no ice cream. Yes, not no FOOD, but no ice cream. I ate a lot of ice cream in Dubrovnik. It's pretty cheap, and they store it in these amazing swirly mounds that I'm always gushing about and for which PP makes fun of me (how do they DO that!). We didn't stay in Old Town long- the diving had really tired us out. Day 11: Dubrovnik Back to Top This morning we made vague attempts to go for a massage (either spas didn't' pick up their phones or were too expensive for our tastes), went to the internet café, etc., before heading to Old Town. Old Town wasn't my favourite part of Dubrovnik, although it's the most historic and the most touristy. It's a walled off section with marble streets (one very wide called the Placa and the others narrow), many small shops, cafes, restaurants, the 3rd oldest synagogue in Europe or something, a monastery...some other historic stuff. But it was so BUSY, and completely devoid of any green...and the cool flora and fauna is a big part of what I love about Croatia! BUT there was one awesome part about Old Town and that was the fact that there is an even denser cat population there than in the rest of Croatia. Cats everywhere - some pretty battered looking unfortunately. My favourite part of the day was the cat garden - we found this little haven after our scorching walk on top of the fortress walls - some benches with a bunch of different plants, cats lounging in the shade, some water and food laid out for them - complete with a donation box to buy the cats food. Sitting in the cat garden is sooooooo relaxing. Oh haha, before I forget - remember how PP and I are kitties and stickers people? Well Croatia actually has BOTh...in the post office was a large display of shiny, colourful stickers for sale. So random. That night we had tickets to Lindo, a Croatian folk music and dance group that was there as part of the Dubrovnik summer festival. It was hilarious, mostly because the musicians and dancers looked like they were having SO much fun - giant goofy smiles on their faces. My favourite dance was the "silent" dance from a region whose name I forget and probably wouldn't be able to spell anwyays. It had the dancers keeping rhythm with their footsteps, making giant leaps and moaning ominously. I think I share an enjoyment with Jacob of evil-sounding music. PP's favourite were the musical numbers, with 5-6 little mandolins and a cello, and 6 or so male voices in beautiful harmony. PP, I hope this made up for not being able to see the Boy's Choir in Vienna. Also an interesting dance was the one where everyone looked like they were having constant mild seizures - they had to pulsate their bodies really quickly and it was weird but also virtuosic. Anywho, the entire shows I really wished I was part of the group because it looked like sooo much fun. Day 12: Dubrovnik-Budapest Back to Top This morning we got a ride from Mr. Begovic's son, about 30 years old with a single hoop earring and an alternative look about him. IT was about 5am. PP was pretty sleepy but I tried to keep a light conversation going with him since I like talking to the inhabitatns of the country I'm visiting...but ‘light" was definitely the wrong term to use. Although he started off relatively innocently, talking about how he liked Canada and asking if we had ever heard of such and such comic book, it soon proceeded to a dark, eloquent, gripping account of the hardships of his life so far, with PP and I unable to gage the proper reaction to this, especially so early in the morning. Let's see if I can remember. He started off by saying how he had worked in Canada for 7 years as a sailor...and how his ship had got stranded in the ice in Quebec...for EIGHT DAYS. Or how the best years of his life are gone because he spent his teenage years cooped up during the Croatian war for Independence. Or how 10-20 of his friends are missing limbs and many of his close friends died....how his wife's father had spend time in concentration camp, how everyone had to start from scratch after the war...how one war wasn't enough for the Serbians and so they com and set Dubrovnik coast on fire (we had heard about this on the news but there had been no mention of the cause..) Whether to believe him or not I was unsure. All of this (and more) spoken in fairly good English, with just enough grammar mistakes to make it sound sort of foreign and antiquated and therefore wise...and just enough lack of vocabulary to make it sound romantically abrupt (if that makes any sense). I wanted to ask him why Croatia has so much coastline and Bosnia/Herzegovina, for example, has almost none, but he seemed quite nationalistic and I wanted to get to the airport on time. But what a way to wake up, I tell you... Hungary Back to Top Since Croatia we have passed briefly through Budapest and are now in Szarvas, a town of 18,000 south-east of Budapest, near the Romanian border, where we are doing our Habitat for Humanity work. I have to write a separate report for this leg of the journey to hand back to Millennium, so my personal journal writing has pretty much come to an end...I just don't have enough time. But I wanted to write down the things I have found intriguing/interesting about Hungary so far: -common appetizer: fruit cream soups (peach, strawberry...)...delicious -condiments like mustard, ketchup, mayo...you can buy them in squeeze tubes!! 100ml! GENIUS -language is weird, but often awesome: hello is "siya" and goodbye is "hello", often leading to much hilarity and confusion -the spa culture is very much to my liking. IN immense pain from scuba diving, I narrowly avoided spending 26,000 forint to get a massage at the Fairmont in Budapest by discovering the 2800 forint massage at the bath house some metro stops away from our hotel. Beautiful Turkish style, high-ceilinged, ornate baths, indoor and outdoor, of varying temperatures and types, filled with fleshy Hungarians, mostly 50+. One of the best massages of my life, by a large, giggly Hungarian woman who didn't understand much English judging by the way she laughed when Lauren said "Pain" during her massage or when I showed her my chiropractic card. Climbed on the bench to exert her full weight onto my back...cracked my neck and my back (grabbing me under my arms and swinging me wildly back and forth, meanwhile I am topless and Lauren is sitting 2 feet away). SHE FIXED ME!!! -August 20, the national holiday in Hungary...the little fair, the fat fleshy man sleeping in his trailer with his belly and bum hanging out over his wares in boxes out front..and the mechanical bull thing, and the little girl who I smiled and waved at who rolled her eyes, flicked her hair, and gave me the too-cool-for-you treatment -the joys of a good nail hammering (that satisfying clink and seeing how deep you can get the nail to plunge in one swing) -scary construction manager Levi -weird ice cream cones - ice cream in the pit of the cone, can't lick it, have to break off cone and use it as a scoop Personal trip expenses: 1580 (2 intereurope flights, all expenses in Vienna and Croatia, some minor expenses in Hungary ( accomodation/meals were included)