Photo Update

Just a quick update here. While I was in Budapest, I had set the camera to take two pictures at the same time. The technical mumbo-jumbo is that I shot photos in JPEG and RAW at the same time. The JPEGs being the photos that I posted at the time and the RAW files would be used later to help me fix any horrible exposure issues or let me clean up an image in a quick fashion.

Final Budapest Pictures

So here are a few examples of before and after...

Before


After



Before


After


Before


After

Last Day

Well, not much to post here today. I got home late last night (~2:30AM) and promptly fell asleep. Again, nice warm bed and tired from all the walking around earlier in the day led me to sleep pretty well. So I woke up about 11:30AM and slowly dragged myself out of bed.

Two things of note. On Thursday I had noticed a slight rub on the back of my left ankle. I thought nothing of it and felt a small blister there when I went to bed Thursday night. As I was getting ready to meet up with my friend on Friday afternoon, I noticed these little red crescents around the floor. What is that coming from? Then I noticed it was everywhere I stepped. Looks like the back of my foot had bled a little and ran through the sock. So I mopped up the floor, changed socks, put on a band-aid and switched over to wearing my sneakers. No more sore walking!

Second thing of note. I believe I'm coming down with a cold. I'm hoping like hell that holds off until I get home tomorrow night. I dread the thought of having to travel 8 hours with the start of a cold.

So as for today, I decided to lay low and just rest (feeling a bit under the weather and all) and pack everything up and be ready to roll tomorrow. Adrienn's parents are letting me stay with them for the evening and her father will take me to the airport tomorrow morning.

I had hoped to get some items to bring home with me today, but the shops were pretty much closed..it being Sunday and New Year's Day. Drat.

All said, this was a great time. I had a lot of fun and got to see a lot of amazing sites and experience something I will not likely forget. As I walked over to my friend's one last time tonight, I just looked around and listened. Different cars, different sounds (even the crows sound a little different), and the different styles of buildings. It's all foreign but doesn't seem so unfamiliar any more. I wonder if I've taken that for granted or not? I like to think that I haven't wasted an opportunity here.

In the past few days I've seen and been a part of much. A building from the 11th century, seen the ugly scars from the remnants of an unpleasant past and been warmly welcomed (and very well fed) by a family of a friend.

It is strange though, I find that I look forward to coming home but, at the same time I wish I could stay a little longer to see just a little more. But, I think that was my whole idea for the duration of this trip. Satisfy the need for adventure but still leave myself wanting more.

Until I'm in America again...good night!

Pest and Happy New Year

Well, in few hours here it will be 2011 in Budapest. Today was another walking day for me as well as some time on the Budapest metro system up to Hero's Square (Hősök tere).

Slept another good night here and woke up again at 10AM. Felt really good and felt fully rested. Rustled out of bed grab a shower and sat down in front of my good friend Google Maps. I wanted to go over and get some pictures of the Chain Bridge, the Parliament building and St. Stephen's Basilica (Szent István-bazilika).

Trekked on through the tunnel to get to Chain Bridge and navigated my way through traffic. Lots of people crossing the bridge and was sometimes hard finding a open time to take a picture.


Once I got over to the Pest side of the city, it was a little difficult getting through Roosevelt Square. Normally most of the city streets in Budapest are fairly pedestrian friendly, but this particular section was a little tricky crossing.

Around here was the Four Season hotel and to the left the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Apparently this place is older than I had realized. Established somewhere around 1826.


As I turned up Akadémia utca there was a building right on the corner that I noticed looked a little different. There seemed to be chunks of stone missing. What saw then was that there were machine gun hits. There were even places you could see the slugs still buried in the stone.

Walking down this street made me feel a little different. Makes you realized how different the world can really be. Sure you could go to Gettysburg and see bullets still in the walls there, but this is from modern weaponry...very sobering.

But Akadémia held some beautiful other buildings as well.




I then walked into Szabadság tér and found the monument erected to commemorate the liberation of Hungary by the Soviets during WWII. Right now there is a gate around it to stop Hungarians from vandalizing it. Apparently it's not a very welcome monument.


And some there are some other beautiful buildings just nearby.



Next I headed over to the Parliament building. Man, what an impressive structure. I just couldn't find a spot to really capture this place. It was so big and ornate. What a gorgeous building!



And then across the street the Museum of Ethnography



Finally I wanted to get over to St. Stephen's Basilica. So back across Szabadság tér..and really, you could see this towering above the other buildings.




Headed back to "home" and across the Chain Bridge again.


And here is the traveling route for the day
Parliament, St. Stephen's, Chain Bridge

After I got home, Adrienn got in touch with me and we were going out for dinner and then head up to Hero's Square.




So this was New Year's Eve day for me. Now I'm going to take a shower and head on over to Adrienn's place and hang out for the evening and relax!

Happy New Year to all my friends and family!

Royal Palace and an Old World Feel

So today was the first full day here in the city and also a day of other firsts as well. First day alone in a foreign city and first day talking to strangers.

I got a really good night's sleep. I got to bed around 11:30PM local time and slept without waking up until about 6/6:30 AM. I fell back asleep and then woke up at 10AM! Amazing what a nice warm bed will do...and 12 hours of traveling! Had my breakfast here and started studying the map on how to get from here up to the (for lack of a better word) compound that encloses the palace and Castle District. A few problems with this at first because I wasn't exactly sure where I was on the map, but after I did some looking I wrote down some street names and hoped that I would find where I needed to be. Confidence level was at about a 4 out of 10.

Out the door and onto the streets I went. A lot of the apprehension and self-doubt went away once I started walking on the sidewalk. Going the way Adrienn had taken me yesterday and my thorough scouting of the map, I found I knew exactly where I was and which way I had to go.

Even better, I saw a sign that pointed to a long set of steps up to the Palace, it really could not have been much easier. Once I got to the top of the steps, I turned around and looked where I had come from.


Note the yellow church in the left of the photo. I'm not too far away from right there.

So now within the compound, it was wide open at the top. Was really cool being there despite the 14 degree temperature.


As you saw yesterday from the night pictures of the illuminated palace, here is a shots looking back towards the Pest side of Budapest.


If you look to the very far right of the last picture, that is where I took the night pictures from.

For those Johnstown folks, guess what, there's another inclined plane out there!


But it was a lot of fun walking around up here around the palace. Was so exhilarating to be seeing this with my own eyes.











I walked to the other side of the palace and came upon a large set of statues. While I had no idea what it was all about, Adrienn later in the evening explained to me that the top figure was King Mátyás. A very revered and popular ruler of Hungary. He was also known to be a very learned king and housed one of the largest libraries which unfortunately was lost to a fire.


There were several large courtyards all around. I had a longing for my widest lens on the camera to try and fit all this in. Still hard to believe even now sitting here that I was there taking pictures of it.


After I finished touring the palace area I moved into what is called the Castle District. This was a really amazing area. Some spots there were hardly any people walking around, but around the larger tourist areas there were plenty!

This is what I would have to say is my quintessential idea of what I envisioned old world Europe to look like. Narrow roads, colorful walls and wrought iron decorations.





Here's a curious little finding. I'm quite sure this cathedral is from 1269.


Here is the one inscription on the front (click for bigger image):


One other observation that I've made while here is the doors to buildings. Most are very large. I'm guessing most of them are about 15 feet tall and about 4 to 6 inches thick. They are very ornate and decorated with some sort of wrought iron too. This is not just in the Castle District either. Even more modern structures feature tall doors (although, not as elaborate in most cases).




By this point and time I had been walking around quite a bit. My left knee was aching slightly and I could feel the back of left foot had developed a blister. I checked the clock and I think I had been out around 4.5 hours by this point. I wasn't overly cold, but my face was feeling a bit numb and my fingers had gotten pretty cold too. Again, not in pain, but I was thinking it'd be nice to be somewhere out of the cold.

The thought had crossed my mind to just head back to where I was staying where I knew it would be very warm, but I stopped and thought "you know, you read about these cafes and coffee shops...man up and get your butt in one. worst that happens is you mess up a phrase and no one will care." Man up I did and went to the one shop that I saw advertised "cafe lattes". There was a man outside who saw me and said "one?" and at this point I gave myself away as American and said "yup"..haha..he said "yes, ok, one!" Ahh..you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. I drank two latte's, warmed up and dropped a few kösönöm's (thank you's) and decided to head back and start this post. It noticed it was about 2:30 in the afternoon and had taken somewhere around 160 pictures today.

For those interested, here's a basic route of where I walked today. Might not be completely accurate, but close enough!
Palace and Castle District

Just as I had finished transferring the pictures off of the camera and started looking through them, Adrienn gave me a call and said she was on her way to get me. She was taking me to meet her parents and feed me a late lunch/early supper so I was introduced and was greeted warmly by her parents. Her mom doesn't speak much English and her father speaks some so we couldn't communicate that well. Before dinner I was offered a cup of strong coffee. Apparently Adrienn's father was told I like strong coffee, so he brewed up a cup of espresso. Of course, I don't drink coffee with milk or sugar (except for my lattes), so even her father was surprised when I drank the espresso black.

After espresso I was given a very tasty meal of cabbage, meatballs and meatballs with rice wrapped in cabbage and some ham and sausage in the mix. It hit the spot and was pretty tasty too. After I finished my plate, I was then cooked up a second portion and then given a plate full of Christmas cookies. Needless to say I was very full when we left that evening.

We went back up to the palace grounds again for some night shots of Pest and the area. Had some funnel cake as a treat. Funny thing is, this is shaped like a funnel and is more like a cinnamon bread instead. Still sweet and tasty though!


Tomorrow I will be off to Hero's Square and some other places in the Pest side of the city. Til then..I'll leave you this tidbit..

In Country

Well, it's been quite the day..I guess you can say. As I've spoken to some of you via e-mail, I really don't know what day it is or where I'm at. The flight wasn't too bad..I'm used to sitting on my butt for long extended periods of time, so this was no different I guess.

On check-in, I decided to upgrade to the Economy+ seat, I'm not sure it was worth it or not..but I think a window seat was better than sitting in between two people.

I grabbed a little sleep here and there, maybe 20 minutes to a half an hour's worth. Just couldn't get comfortable or my mind wouldn't let me sleep. Somewhere over the Atlantic I started feeling a little sick and grabbed some sleep and woke up feeling a bit better afterwards. I saw Ireland for a little bit..looks just like everywhere else from 40k feet. Shortly after they served breakfast, I got a little coffee in me and I was good.

I wasn't sure what to expect for my connection at Munich, I figured it would be like a US domestic flight. Pass on through to the next gate..done. Well, turned out to be a bit more involved than that. Passport stamp, rescan the bags and find my gate. Turns out German security didn't like my camera in my bag. I had to pull it out and show them it had pictures on it.


Hello Munich...

Munich turned into "find the gate for the Budapest flight." It changed on me three times. Thank goodness for my paranoia about missing a flight, I checked the departures board and it had moved from G27(from check-in at Dulles) to G26. I sit down at G26..where a flight to Rome(Roma) was waiting to board. The airline pilot comes out to inform those who were waiting that their departure is going to be delayed. Why? Some banged the door up and it won't seal..gotta change planes. I wait a little bit figuring, yup, it's gonna change again. Sure enough..off to G21 now. I knew I was in the right place because I heard a lot of Hungarian being spoken..now I knew I was set. Unfortunately, Lufthansa doesn't like announcing boarding for this flight. Nothing over the intercom to announce, people just started in line. Luckily I followed and made the flight.

Landed safe and sound made through all security and popped out the door to what looked like an audience. I wish I could have had a camera there to capture my reaction. It was wall to wall people waiting for people to come out. I was looking for my friend Adrienn but she found me first. She had a taxi cab waiting and I enjoyed the thrill ride into town. I really never knew you could ride that close to someone's bumper. Fascinating!

Adrienn got me settled in and took off to let me get some R&R and a shower. We talked later about getting back together for dinner.

Off we went to one of the main shopping centers of downtown Budapest. It's all done up right now for the holiday season and tons of outdoor vendors. We had some fresh sausage cooked over hot open coals on a grill. Wow..that was some GREAT sausage.

It went great with some fresh baked bread and mustard. Tasty! Yeah..I wasn't sure what those things on a hook were..some part of a pig that's for sure.

Adrienn suggested a short walk from the food vendors for some good pictures. Unfortunately, I could not do the view justice. It is quite an amazing site to behold. So while messing with a gorilla pod in about 14 degree weather and setting up a long exposure shot, doesn't always shake out to a good set of pictures.

Looking at the Hungarian Royal Palace.


Looking to the right of the Royal Palace and behind the famous "Chain" (Szècheny) Bridge you see the Matthias Church.

After nearly loosing the feeling in my finger tips and legs, we headed back to the open air market and grabbed a hot spice wine (mm..best I've ever had) and a hot chocolate.

That was pretty much the evening for me then. Looks like I've successfully stayed up to about my normal bed time here and now I'm ready to check out for the evening. I plan on heading up to the Royal Palace/Castle District and Matthias Church tomorrow.

Year On (++)

Well, look at that. Talk of motorized adventure in a far off land and updating the CSS of the style of the blog and no new posts forever. Things can most certainly change a whole lot in a year's worth of time.

As a bit of an update, the current plan of a New Zealand adventure in April of 2011 is probably not going to be a reality. Due to poor planning and a savings discipline that has not been adhered to; New Zealand is a bit more of a ways off right now.

However, there is a smaller adventure in the very near term. During this time last year, I had planned on jumping on a plane to Florence, Italy for a few days. Unfortunately work schedule would not allow me that luxury, but come a year later, the wanderlust took hold again. So now, with plane ticket in....inbox... and passport read, I am set to depart to Budapest, Hungary.

I know that seems like a pretty strange turn of events. Turns out I have a friend that lives in Budapest and was offered a place to stay and a hand getting around the city some. So I'll took up the offer and decided to throw myself out into the rest of the world. The step is being taken and the world is coming into view.

So, keep an eye out here on this space for pictures and my take on the city and people I'm about meet.

(Yeah, it might not be one-up in the sense of a motorcycle...but I got two legs instead of two wheels this time)

A Year On ( + )

Well, it's been quite awhile since I've posted anything up to the ol' blog here, but it's time to get back to work. There is another trip in the works now. The next destination was pretty much chosen during my last trip while riding about. I figured I've seen a great big part of my own country (and not just from this trip) and that it's time to reach out and see the rest of this world. I decided that I'd try to go to New Zealand. Why there? I think it was probably while leafing through a National Geographic as a child and daydreaming about being there in some photo. So now, I'm about to make that a reality.

I did some preliminary calendar checking and I've started with the 12/30/2010 as a departure from the States. However, after doing some reading on the Lonely Planet site, I found that things can get a bit crowded during this time of the year. True, since it will be full on Summer at that point. Right now, I'm contemplating an April arrival, you know, the whole "Happy Birthday" to me kind of deal. But everything is still flexible. From week to week I'll be trying to do updates. This will make me give due diligence to research and get my blog updated.

In addition to that, I plan on updating the layout on here from the default style and something a bit more personalized. While it might not be obvious, some of the pictures have been cut off since the style provided by Blogger forces certain sizes. I plan on remedying that!

One last note for any of those are still reading or just happen by, I've started and completed many of the videos from the past trip. Right now, I've only got a few more to complete (6 more mabye) and this trip will be behind me. Kind of bittersweet.

Anyway, here's a link to all the movies so far:
One Up Journey: The Videos

Over and out