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

Final Days

Alright, it's wrap up time! While at my sister's last Wednesday, I had issues connecting to the internet and when I got home, I just sat around the house and relaxed.

It's been almost a week since I've ended traveling and it is really hard to believe what I accomplished, where I have been and people I've met along the way. Before I get to some reflections, I need wrap up the last two days of travel.

Well starting out Wednesday morning, it was nice knowing there was no hotel/motel room waiting at the end of the day. My sister's place was the last step before home and even though it wasn't home, it sure felt like that was where I was headed.
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The morning was nice and overcast and cool. Imagine the weather being cool on this trip. Baffling. While loading our bikes it started drizzling. Looks like the day was going to start out pretty wet. Me and my dad got out on the road and it started raining. Luckily it never really picked up that much.

We took a break and I added on another layer of clothing because it was really cool out riding. I wasn't expecting it to be this cool. Most of the roads were pretty straight and lots of off and on rain. Nothing too hard but just enough to be annoying. I think at this point I had lost my drive to capture pictures. Everything was looking the same at this time.

Grabbed a quick lunch and pushed on that 120 miles into Canton. Those were some long 120 miles. Most of the roads that we were traveling were narrow two lane roads and by the time you start rolling along, you were hitting a stop sign and making a turn. This went on for about an hour or more. That kind of riding hits you hard and really starts to wear you out.

The final push was on and had a pretty easy ride into my sister's place. We arrived and it felt good to be done for the day. While it was only a 260 mile day, it felt like a 350 mile day instead. It felt good to see family and it felt good to be in a house instead of a hotel! Oh yeah, and to sit on a couch for the first time in 5 weeks.

My sister really made a fantastic meal. She made some ribs (best ribs I've EVER had), a pork sirloin (with pineapple salsa), some baked beans and a nice pasta salad. It was heaven. After dinner we enjoyed a wonderful dessert; pumpkin bread pudding. Wow was that tasty!

After some extended visiting in the evening, I hit the sack and passed out. Six o'clock came really early the next morning. I probably could've had about another 3 hours of sleep, but there was 360 some miles ahead of us and an early start would be the best.

The day was pretty nice. Some clouds, but it looked like it was going to be sunny and some what warm for the day. I was hoping that my last day of riding wouldn't be like my first day of the trip. Looks like I got my wish.

For the most part, the ride home was pretty uneventful. Me and my dad blazed down I-275 and I-75 and weaved our way east of Toledo. Instead of taking the turnpike, we took US 20/18 east and it pretty much paralleled the TPK. We made pretty good time the whole way and hit Canton, OH by lunchtime. I was pretty happy about that. Almost at the PA border by lunchtime, should be home around 3:30 or 4 at this rate.

That was until we ran through the last few miles of eastern Ohio. Congestion, loads of traffic and stop lights and construction. I think it took us around an hour to go about 20 some miles. It was pretty painful, but it ended before we got to PA.

There was one sad little moment around here. We crossed into PA and I felt something hit my thigh. I knew it was a bird. I've had several near misses and have killed one or two other ones along the way. I looked down and didn't see anything at first. Then I thought, "Heh, bet Dad got a show there. Feathers bursting in the air and all that. Hmm, wouldn't it be something if it was in my lap?" So I looked down and sure enough in my lap was the dead bird laying there. A little goldfinch laying there in my lap. I felt bad for the poor fella.

We stopped for gas in Mount Jackson, PA and I picked up his little body and carried him off to a trash can. An odd thing to happen here on the last day of the trip. At this point, it was the last fuel up for the trip. Kind of funny that it was all coming to an end.

Got on 422 and rode it on into Indiana, PA and took a break just outside. One last rest and the final push into town. There was no traffic on the way into Johnstown and I'm not sure how I was going to feel about coming home. I think I was pretty ambivalent riding into town. I wasn't relieved to be home and I wasn't excited to be home. I'm not sure what it was that I was feeling at this point. It was kind of nice being home and it was kind of sad being home. What I did find interesting was that home was just like any other place I was on the road.

Turning up my street seemed very foreign. I recognized it, but something just didn't seem quite right about it. I pulled into my driveway and got off the bike, took off the helmet and just kind of stood there looking at the bike and the house. Wow, I left here went across the US and made it home in one piece. I went and opened the door to the house and felt like a stranger. So I tore the bike down for the last time and instead of pulling the gear into a hotel, it was coming home after 5 weeks of travel.

Met up with my friends for dinner and it was great seeing them again and it was like I had never left. Later that night when I got home and just sat there on the sofa and I didn't know what to do with myself. I actually pulled the laptop out and figured I better get the route for the next day laid out and loaded into the GPS. I had to laugh at that one.

The rest of the weekend I just relaxed did some house work and visited with my brother and his family and have been organizing the video.

So that's the final days of the trip. I expected this to be a little shorter, but it looks like I ran a little long here. One more post to come. A reflection of the trip and some thoughts. Nothing too terribly exciting. So for those who were wondering if I made it home, well, now you know!

Slow Boat to Michigan

High adventure on the seven...err 5 lakes today. What a short day of travel. I think today's total mileage of riding was 9 miles. The rest was done via our car ferry from Manitowoc, Wisconsin to Ludington, Michigan.

Started off the morning nice and slow. There was no hurry today since our boat wasn't leaving until 1:15 central time. So me and dad hit up the Perkins next door to the hotel and had a nice breakfast. After that we walked across the street to the Lowe's. I wanted to clean my hideous looking chain and get it lubed up. So I grabbed a can of WD-40 and headed back. After about an hour's worth of soaking and rubbing, the chain was finally clean and looked brand new. The chain is all set to take me home now. Man, this bike is going to take weeks to get clean again.

After that we loaded up and headed on down to the dock. It was hard finding it since there were no signs to the loading area. You could see it sitting at the dock, but there were no signs saying "Turn here." After a quick "scenic" tour through downtown Manitowoc, I found my way over to it. Checked in and lined up for our entry onto the ship's hold.




We were told by some other guy we met the other day that motorcycles go on last so we figured we would be waiting around for a bit. Just as we turned our motorcycles off, we were greeted by a police officer and struck up a nice conversation with him and were told that we would probably go on relatively early. Maybe a half hour later we were driving on and tying down the bikes.

Headed upstairs and took a quick tour of the ship and went down below and grabbed some snack food. Little did we know that we should've secured some food at that moment. Since later on, our hunger became real and started looking for food. The cafeteria was closed!




With no annoucement, the ship's engine churned to life and we were off and moving. We moved to the top deck up to the bow and watched our exit out to Lake Michigan. The ship lumbered out of port and just traipsed along the waters.


My dad and I took up residence on the bow area for awhile. It was protected from the wind and really quite comfortable. The whole time was really just relaxing listening to the water below being pushed away and feeling the boat gently roll side to side. It put you to sleep...or almost asleep.

While the trip was four hours, it seemed like a really fast four hours in the crossing. Before you knew it, you could see the sand hills/dunes of Michigan on the horizon. At first they look like a mirage, but after a little while, you see the hills for what they really are.


The ol' Badger approached the port of Ludington and eased its way on it. The engines were pulled way back and we drifted into the docking area. Then a great loud clanking sound, a splash and you knew the anchor on the starboard side (right) dropped. This is the docking method that they use. Drop the anchor down, then let the ship pivot and swing itself around on its anchor. Pretty fun to witness on board.








The crew mates threw out the mooring lines and we backed into dock. It was amazing how fast everything moved off the ship. The cars aren't driven by the owners but by the employees of the SS Badger. So you have these guys unloading a car and then sprinting back on board to get to another car. Meanwhile, me and my dad undid the tie-downs and backed up and got the heck out of there. A few miles down the road was home.


While it wasn't a very long day, it was very tiring. Both us were feeling pretty wiped out from the day. Not sure exactly why either. But here we are in the Eastern time zone. Last time I was in this time zone was May 18th...haha..almost an ENTIRE month out of my own time zone!

Well, tomorrow we're off to my sister's place down in Canton, Michigan for a visit and my first home cooked meal since I left. I'm really looking forward to that! I'm also looking forward to not living in a hotel/motel room and NOT having to tear everything off my bike..and of course seeing my sister and her family!

Today's Pics