Books in Berlin

Berlin was my next stop after Budapest, and I must admit that I enjoyed it far more than I expected. I spent almost all my time in East Berlin, which is an amazing place to explore, since the majority of the city has been rebuilt within the last ten years - and is still being rebuilt.

It is also East Berlin which was the original city - West Berlin is actually outside of the old city borders. Went on an amazing walking tour of East Berlin (mostly, some of West Berlin as well) which went for nine hours. The guide was a British man, who used to be a history teacher and had worked for the British navy, stationed in Berlin for a dozen years, before working for the British embassy for a number of years, including during the fall of the wall. Although very British in his point of view, his knowledge of the city and it's history - both recent and ancient - was fantastic, and his accounts of families and friendships torn apart by the wall were ... they really made it real to me - brough it home to me.

Another place that did this, was the site of the book burnings by the nazi party. There is an amazing piece of art now in the square before the Humboldt library to commemorate the tragic event. It is a pane of glass placed in the floor of the square. When you look down into it, all you can see is empty bookshelves, stretching as far as you can see, if you step back slowly, continuing to look into it, you first see the bookshelved continue to stretch, before the glass becomes a mirror, reflecting the library and other university buildings. Wow.

Budapest (and McVeigh)

From Salzburg I flew to Budapest, first in a little baby plane (with propellers) from Salzburg to Vienna, via Linz. I then had a five hour stopover in Vienna (I've discovered that stopovers are not too bad, when you can spend them in the business class lounge, enjoying complementary food and drinks, comfortable couches and chairs, and access to the news (the first I'd really seen since leaving Bangkok).

Most of the stopover was taken up with watching the coverage of the McVeigh execution with some kind of morbid curiousity, and debating with a couple of other watchers, the validity of the death sentence (I'm against it). A strange afternoon.

Eventually my plane to Budapest was ready to go, and after some apprehension regarding being able to get from the airport to my hostel in a country where I had no hope of understanding the language, I arrived at my new temporary home. My first thought was 'I'm not in Austria anymore' (the three Austrian hostels I stayed in were all wonderfully clean and modern places), and although the first impression was one of 'oh my god' I ended up loving this hostel.

I met some really fun people and we had some great times out in the city, and staying in at the hostel. Budapest is wonderfully cheap too. I went out for dinner one night and although we both had mains, sides, desserts and lots of wine, it was still less than $10 AUD each.

Pretty cool. Unfortunately there was a coldie-fluie thing running rampant through the hostel which I managed to catch, meaning I did less in the city than I planned, I still had a wonderful time. The mineral baths were fantastic. There was one only a few minutes away from our hostel that we visited almost every afternoon.

The two cities, sitting side by side, divided by the river (Buda and Pest) are a great contrast - Buda with its hills and medieval town, and Pest with its great flat plains covered in industrial and residential zones.

One of my favourite sightseeing thingies was the statue park - when communist rule was ended in Hungary, instead of tearing down and destroying the propaganda statues, they were set aside and put on display in a special park. Took lots of photos. These structures are incredible, and I'm glad they were saved - if only to act as a lesson of how communism did not work there.

The sound of ...

I caught the train from Vienna to Salzburg, and although the scenery was lovely, I could see the weather change as we moved across the country - from lovely sunny days with crisp mornings to grey drizzly coldness.

Did I say drizzly? I meant rainy - occassionally torrential.

It pretty much rained the whole time i was in Salzburg, except for one morning when I went for a walk and ended up in Salzach (a neighbouring town).

I managed to watch The Sound of Music many more times than is healthy, and left the town as soon as possible. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate salzburg. The old town was pretty, but all the lovely old buildings were inhabited by tourist type shops - from tacky crap to class. I just didn't love it there.

Strudel, surely there's strudel

I spent almost a week in Vienna. I loved Vienna. You could walk everywhere, and the whole city was incredibly ... pretty. And friendly, although there did seem to be an abundance of old people. Not that that is a bad thing. there were lots of young people too ... I guess it's just a place where more older travellers go too.

The highlight, I think for me in Vienna (apart from the amazing music played everywhere) was going to a concert at Stephansdom, right in the centre of the stadt - in the middle of Vienna. It wasn't too expensive, and the music was great. as was sitting right in the middle of an amazing cathedral to hear it.

The other highlight i guess what the morning I arrived. I flew into Vienna at around 5am, and caught the airport bus to the city, then walked into the stadt. Then I sat on a park bench and watched the city wake up. It was ... just gorgeous.

The museums were also great. Plus I managed to get a visa for Hungary with very little difficulty.