Central & Alpine Europe

Budapest: Lost in Translation

It had already been an exciting day in Budapest for me and Annie. We had started off the morning with a visit to the chilling exhibits in the House of Terror, and had then ventured into the famed street market in the center of the city. While the market was fascinating with all of its vendors and activity, the stories of torture had stayed with us from the exhibits at the House of Terror. This in mind, you would think that we would choose an uplifting activity for the latter part of the afternoon. While we had originally planned to visit the Zoo near Heroes Square, timing issues forced us to improvise. Knowing that Annie would be up for anything, I decided to pick a site from the carrousel of traveling brochures located in our hotel’s lobby. I closed my eyes, gave the carrousel a good spin, (nearly knocking it over in the process) and grabbed a random card when it stopped. Praying that it wouldn’t be a pamphlet for a strip club, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that it was a coupon for the Labyrinth under Buda Castle. Annie was equally pleased and hurried downstairs for directions and a map. With our directions in one hand, and a ten percent off of the admission price coupon in the other, we set off towards the bus that would take us directly to Buda Castle. Finding Buda Castle wasn’t an issue, but we realized once we arrived, that we didn’t know how to get under the castle. Not wanting to miss yet another great opportunity because we were lost, I decided to ask someone for directions.

Our first victims were a pair of Hungarian Police sitting motionless in their van. Perhaps in hindsight, I shouldn’t have noted that both of the officers began to roll up their windows as we approached, but I was determined to find the Labyrinth. I began my interrogation with a rap on the window on the passenger side. He begrudgingly rolled down the glass and said something to me in Hungarian, I’d like to think that he said “Hello adventurous American! How can I help you on this beautifully sunny day?” but I feel like that would be exaggerating slightly. Nevertheless, I whipped out my handy dandy JBIB language guide and attempted to ask for directions in Hungarian. Of course he didn’t understand what I was saying so I simply handed him our coupon. He understood that immediately and began to fire off directions in Hungarian and gesture wildly. Thanking him again in a multitude of languages, we nodded our heads and proceeded to walk in the opposite direction of which he pointed, (Annie was convinced that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that we should ask someone else). After about ten more minutes of walking, we ended up exactly where we started. At this time, I reasoned that perhaps we should give the officer’s directions a try. So we did, and we ended up at toll booth for cars going into the village down the hill. With all of our dignity left long behind us, we then proceeded to go through the toll booth, as a car might, and ask the operator where the labyrinth was. Again, we had no idea what she was saying, BUT we discovered as soon as we cleared the booth that there was a rather large sign behind it saying “Labyrinth”. Apparently getting there is half the fun.

In the labyrinth

For anyone who has ever ventured into an underground cave, you know that feeling you get when you walk into a closed in area and realize that the space you have to move is only going to shrink the farther you go. This was my immediate reaction; the hair on the back of my neck prickled and the sweat began to bead on my forehead despite the chill that was drifting towards me from the entrance. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was half tempted to turn around. This feeling of suspense wasn’t helped when the ticket agent handed us a lantern that looked like it could be from the Gold Rush and told us to pay attention to our direction. Great. We began our journey into the caverns wandering from tunnel to tunnel. It wasn’t so bad at first. There was a multitude of other adventurous tourists and everything was well lit. That changed though, after about a minute. The lights began to dim to complete darkness and the large family of Germans we had been following, trailed off towards the other tunnel. We were alone, in the dark, with only a rickety lantern to guide us. To make matters worse, the oh-so ingenious planners of the Labyrinth tour thought it would be humorous to pipe creepy music through the loudspeakers; it truly felt like a scene from a horror movie. Each tunnel led to a sort of cavern where we would either find a statue or illustration from the Greek story of the Minotaur (the famed half-bull half-man monster that resided in the labyrinth). I’m not entirely sure if there were any specific stories associated with these labyrinths, but I had heard that they were used for everything from torture chambers to wine cellars. The Hungarians were quite fond of these hidden tunnels and utilized them in any way possible. After about twenty minutes of stumbling around, ( I was mostly the one stumbling) , we finally reached a well lit cavern where everyone seemed to be congregating. We soon found out why. Smack dab in the middle of the open space was an ivy covered wine fountain. That’s right, I said wine fountain. It was like seeing an oasis after days of traveling through the Sahara. We were both ecstatic. I ran over and stuck my face right up to the spout only to taste the best wine I’ve ever had. After drinking our fill, we wandered towards the back of the cavern to see if there was any information on the purpose of the fountain. We found our answer in a large sign that said “Wine - Not for human consumption.”

An inviting fountain??

With that in mind, we decided that it was probably best if we started to head towards the exit. We attached ourselves to a couple who looked like they knew where they were going, and also like they wanted to be alone, and followed them towards the exit. They may have been trying to shake us off; it seemed like we went in several circles, (why would they put the exact same statue in five different areas of the cave) and were led unnecessarily through the tunnel of hanging chains but we still managed to find our way out. And while it could have been partly from the undrinkable wine I consumed, I have never been so happy to see the sunlight in my entire life. For anyone who ever ventures into Budapest, I highly recommend the labyrinths, though I do recommend reading every sign you come across, especially the ones near wine fountains.

Vienna: A Night at the Opera (Attempt # 2)

Music anyone?

Anyone that knows anything about music will tell you that Vienna is the place to be if you want to see an Opera, or Concert. It doesn’t really matter which one, as long as you have some sort of musical experience. The best part about it is that you only need about four euros to have a great cultural experience in this city. As soon as we arrived in Vienna, Annie and I had been determined to go to an Opera. This desire for a story told entirely by song was fueled even more by our failed attempt in Prague. We set our sights on the third day and managed to cajole the rest of our classmates into accompanying us. Everyone dressed up to the nines and we all set out towards the box office with our student IDs in hand, (students always get better prices at these sort of events). Annie was the first to reach the box office and she quickly informed us that the cheapest seats for students were twenty euros. There was a unison of groans from the group. “BUT” she shouted, “ If we stand, we only have to pay four euros.” It’s amazing how a difference of sixteen euros can convince twenty college students to stand for three hours straight through an Opera sung entirely in German. We all agreed and quickly purchased our tickets. We had about an hour to spare before it began so everyone went there separate ways with the agreement to meet in fifty minutes. Annie, Andy and I decided that we would spend our pre-Opera time at the famed café at Hotel Sacher. We walked into the extravagantly decorated restaurant and were speechless for about a minute as we all stared at the lush decorations and mouth watering cakes displayed in the center of the room. Home to the notoriously “healthy” Sacher tort, this café was the one to come up with the recipe for the rich chocolate cake we were about to gorge ourselves on. We each ordered a different delicacy, and I, of course, picked the Sacher tort. For about five minutes, we were silent as we tasted and devoured each of the different cakes. We had just enough time to run back to the doors of the Opera and grab our seats/spots for standing.

The opera began pleasantly enough with a festive dance scene, but I could already see some of my classmates start to fidget. The standing space was crowded and hot, and the usher was quick to yell if she saw you try and sit. After about 30 minutes into the opera, the first students began to leave. It continued like this until the scene where one of the characters was shot. We all clapped energetically thinking that it was finally the end. I must point out here, that the Opera was thoroughly entertaining and beautiful, but you try standing for two hours straight in a hot, stuffy room. We all headed happily of off the balcony towards the door when we heard someone say, “Intermission ends in twenty minutes.” We all looked at each other with guilty expressions. After about two minutes of pleading statements and justifications of why we should leave, we guiltily filed out of the Opera’s double doors. We had walked a block away from the Opera house when we came across a crowd of people standing in front of a large flat screen. The Opera was being shown LIVE, on the screen. I was thrilled and quickly came up with a compromise for the rest of our classmates. All we had to do was grab some pizza and drinks from the nearby cart, and set ourselves down on the sidewalk in front of the screen. This is how we watched the remaining forty five minutes of the Opera. While we didn’t have the convenience of the subtitles screen, like we did inside, we were able to figure out what was happening by the actor’s facial expressions (which were impossible to see when we were standing inside). Overall, I think our experience was extremely cultural, and while we had to cheat a bit at the end, we still managed to sample some of the best of Vienna and we didn’t even get lost while trying.