The old world: 2013

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Day started early, and we were picked up promptly at 6:15 for our transfer to the airport. Getting checked in was easy, and I received my first female pat down. I have no idea why I set off the sensor gate. I've worn similar clothes in the past, no underwire etc. I guess it was the screws and anchors in my shoulders, because the lady gave me a nice massage on both shoulders. She also gave me a thorough rubbing of my ankles. Once we got inside we started our wait. Our flight was delayed over 1.5 hours, but fortunately I had planned on us spending the night in Dusseldorf. It would have been tight making our connection. I've been E-Mailing with Jaime in hopes of meeting up this afternoon.

It's a small world. After getting to Dusseldorf and checking in to our hotel, we had several phone calls from my cousin Jaime Andres. His parents, Jaime and Maria Helena live in Bogota Colombia. They happened to be visiting Jaime Andres in Essen Germany, which is about 1/2 hour train from Dusseldorf. Rosario, Jaime's sister therefore another cousin, was visiting from her home in southern Germany. I met Rosario in the lobby and she went up to our room, and about 45 minutes later Jaime, Maria Helena, and Jaime Andres showed up at the hotel. This was not planned as part of our travel , but it just happened to work out that my cousins from Colombia and Germany were able to meet up with us in Dusseldorf! What are the odds? What would have been more amazing would have been stumbling across Jaime, Maria Helena, and Jaime Andres in Istanbul, because they were in old Istanbul the same time we were. Anyway we had a GREAT VISIT with them, although it took a couple of reminders to get Rosario to either speak in Spanish or English and not German. Roger was sort of able to follow the conversation in Spanish. Jaime Andres has excellent English, so poor Roger wasn't completely out of the picture. I think the last time I saw my Colombian cousins was 3 years ago. It has been probably 15-20 years since I've seen Rosario. Rosario recounted a story about my parents' last visit, it had something to do with remodeling and not having a bathroom in the house in Hungary when my parents and their friends visited. We had some EXCELLENT wine from Rosario's vineyard which is in Hungary. She said that one of her friends wants to export her wine to the Philippines, so she's in the process of figuring out how to do that. Her wine is a three grape blended red wine, with no additives, and no added sugar just the sweetness from the grapes. It was very good, especially since I'm not a big fan of red wine. Rosario also brought some smoked pork from a local place in Bad Reichenhall, where she live. After the wine and meat, we left for a short walk about in Dusseldorf with Jaime Andres as our guide. The Rhine river is very full in Dusseldorf, with a strong current still running. The didn't have a lot of flooding, because the river is wide in Dusseldorf and northwest of a the extra rain that caused flooding elsewhere.

We went to a place that Jaime Andres likes and the restaurant brews its own beer. Apparently most restaurants brew their own beer and each says their beer is the best. At the restaurant we had beer, and it was good and cold with a little bitterness to it, all in all not bad. We also ordered a board for 4, which is a platter of meat for 4 people with potatoes, mash potatoes, and saurekraut . The 6 of us made a dent in the food, but there was still a quarter of a pig on the platter. There was pork knuckle fixed two ways, pork steaks, bratwurst, spicy sausage, and ham. It was a lot of meat. Rosario ended up with a large "doggy bag" of food. Roger and I looked at the platter and thought of it as "a coronary attack in the making." The company made it worth the sit down and supper. We parted ways about 2230, and we got on the tram and they were going to catch a train back to Essen.

When we got back to the hotel, it took my brain a long time to process all the conversations we had. Plus the fact that I had to replay and translate some of my thoughts. Roger said he was mentally exhausted, and impressed with Jaime Andres' language skills (Spanish, German and English). Maria Helena was enjoying her European trip and had the pictures on her iPad to prove it. We did take a lot of pictures, so hopefully when I get theirs, we'll have one good one of the group.

Right now, we're at the Dusseldorf Airport waiting for our flight. If all goes well we'll be in San Antonio this evening and hopefully home before 2200. It has been a good trip and hopefully I haven't rambled you to boredom with all my blogging.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

16 June pictures

16 June

Pest and Buda today. We're staying on the Pest side of the Danube and took a walking tour through both Pest and Buda. Pest is more "modern" than old Buda. Pest has the new government buildings built in the 1850s, whereas Buda has older structures that date back to the founding of the city including over 10 km of city wall. There are new buildings in Buda, which includes the buildings in Trinity square, and the view from higher up Buda to lowland Pest was good this morning. The Danube is lower now, but it is still high after the floodings, which is seen as old news since it happened almost two weeks ago. Finally, we have a very nice view outside our hotel room window. There's a traveling Ferris wheel "eye" (like in London) which is in the park outside out hotel. The wheel will be in Pest for 6 weeks, and then it will go to another European capital city. Our walking guide told us the tickets were expensive, and since we've been on the London Eye, we'll skip it, especially since the lines are really long.

Apparently it is going to be "hot" today in the cities, predicted to get up to 85. It was warm walking, and it's funny to us to hear the Brits say "it's bloody hot!" We just enjoyed the walk, since we've been doing a lot of drive-by bus touring. Our guide was very good, and we all had radio receivers so hearing her wasn't a problem. Sonja speaks Hungarian, English, Russian, and German. This helped her get her job as a tourist guide. She initially learned Russian in school as a mandatory language and after 1989 she switched to English and found out she was good in languages so she added German to her skill set. Puts us from the USA to shame, in that the average citizen only speaks one language. Of course our country is a continent and wasn't occupied by the Russians.

This afternoon we went out to Godolloi, which was the Palace of King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth in the 1800s, although construction started in 1725. Queen Elizabeth, "Sissy" was extremely popular as queen. Unfortunately her husband Frederick was a philanderer and gave her VD. Sissy also had anorexia, and was a typical reflection of Eastern European royalty, who was married off to her first cousin. Sissy ended up spending a lot of time at Godolloi without her husband. She was eventually assassinated by a Russian anarchist. Godolloi Palace was plundered by the conquering military, depending upon which period in Hungarian history. It was renovated with EU assistance. Roger and I have learned a new term with regards to the contents of a historical site "genuine authentic copy." Our tour guide used this term quite often throughout the no photos allowed tour. There were several items that were exact authentic copies of portraits, photos and furniture. The gardens of the palace are about 1/3 of what they used to be, as the Russians confiscated the land and re-purposed it for the good of all Hungarian people.

Tonight we'll be repacking for travel tomorrow. Off to Dusseldorf and then on Tuesday we'll be headed back to the USA.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

15 June pictures

15 June

The ship got us going only to have to sit on the buses for almost an hour, not a great start to the day. We left at 9 and headed north to Budapest. Rest areas/gas stations in Serbia are not designed to have 5 buses pull in at the same time. So our scheduled 15 minute stops turned into well over a half an hour, with the women commandeering the men's room once the men were finished with it. We suspect the average age of the group might be 67, so there are a lot of folks who suffer from TWB. Seniors are also slow getting off the bus, and back on the bus due to mobility issues and just getting them up and going. Once we all got back on the bus, we headed towards the Serbia Hungary border. It took over 45 minutes to leave Serbia. We don't know why Serbia was so particular on scrutinizing our passports when we were leaving the country? It took about 20 minutes to clear Hungary border control. Fortunately we weren't headed into Serbia, because there was well over a kilometer of commercial trucks waiting to clear with trucks and buses in the same line. After the border, we had to make another restroom stop. Are you getting the picture that our 5 hour bus ride might take a lot longer than advertised? Once we were all back on the bus, we actually did some traveling and stopped at 1 at a Hungarian farm that raises and trains world famous Hungarian trick horses. We had a typical Hungarian lunch that included goulash. After lunch we watched about a half an hour show that demonstrated various skills of the horses and their riders. It was more a country demonstration than a formal dressage demonstration, that a lot of people expected. To me it was like a cowboy show with horse tricks. After the show they offered wagon rides, and of course the seniors wanted to take their wagon rides, since they paid for it. I passed, because the wagons were kicking up a lot of dust, and I was already sneezing/coughing a lot. Roger went to see the livestock and I went as far away from the animals and dust as I could get.

We finally got to Budapest around 6pm. Of course we had to stand in line at the hotel to check in, but it was organized chaos, so things went surprisingly quick. Note to self-- don't get in way of a senior who is trying to check into their hotel room, they'll whack you with their cane, because they have no spatial perimeter.

Random notes that occurred to me while we were on the bus:

-- In Belgrade, newspapers are printed using both the Cyrillic alphabet and Latin alphabet using both Serbian and Hungarian languages.

-- Graffiti is international, every where we've been there's been lots of it.

-- Pharmacies are separate stores from food stores. All products are behind a glass partition, and I can't read ingredients in Cyrillic to guess what's in the cold drug.

-- The crops we've seen in the Puszta River plain included corn, wheat, sugar beets, carrots, and onions. If the family house has a yard, there's a garden which has peas and generally a plastic arched "hot house" for tomatoes. Paprika is a very common Hungarian spice.

-- Roger got an unsolicited "welcome to Hungary" text on his phone from Vodafone, which he had to pay for. What a great business trick.

-- In Hungary, if the town has a stork family it is up to the townspeople to take care of the stork's nest when it has migrated to Africa for the winter. It is considered a privilege to have a stork live in your town. Townspeople often do winter repairs to the nest if damage occurs from a hard winter. Storks raise their young from April until September in Hungary.

-- The land between the Danube and Puszta River is really sandy and flat, as a result of being former river basin land.

Friday, June 14, 2013

14 June pictures

14 June

Finally a "brochure day." Not a cloud in the sky, 82 degrees with a light breeze. No rain in the forecast! Roger and I went for a walk this morning, opting out for the first time on a guided bus tour. We walked across a Danube bridge and up the hill to Novi Sad's 17th century fortress. I was a really nice walk once we turned and got into the park of the fortress. At the top of the bluff there's the old Palace, which has been turned into a five star hotel. At the ground level of the Palace, there are artist shops, although very few were opened when we walked by. I suspect it's a weekend thing. We passed on flooded restaurant, and the Danube is supposed to crest locally some time today. River traffic is still stopped up stream from Novi Sad. It is a really weird visual feeling, when you look out the window and see the current go by, give you a sensation that the boat is moving when it is tied up safe and secure. I asked the Captain how fast the current was moving and he told me over 6km/hr. That equals about 4 mph, which is fast. There are a lot of large logs moving down stream, and the Danube is a muddy looking brown. Yesterday in the lowlands of both Serbia and Croatia there were a lot of trees in the water.

We came back to the boat for a restroom break (TMI?) and headed out again. This time we went to town and the main plaza. Novi Sad is a very clean town and has a very nice pedestrian walkway plaza. We were in search of a money exchange, post cards, stamps and ice cream, in that order. The money exchange was 112 Serbian Dinar for 1 euro, and we ended up with 1200 SD. After our shopping we still have a few SD left, so we might go back into town after Roger has his pilot house tour. According to Roger the ice cream is way better in Serbia than it was in Istanbul. So I suspect our last few SD will be spent on ice cream, which is a very practical use of left over money according to Roger.

We disembark tomorrow with a 5 plus hour bus ride to Budapest. We have to have our suitcases out by 7 am, so I guess it's time to start thinking about how we want to pack our dirty clothes. We'll be in Budapest until 17 June, when we fly to Dusseldorf. On 18 June we'll fly from Dusseldorf, to Chicago, to San Antonio, with a 1500 arrival time at SAT.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

13 June Pictures

13 June

When life gives you lemons, try to make lemonade. At least that's what Viking is trying to do. We are as far west as we can get up the Danube. It is closed to navigation at Novi Sad Serbia. Therefore we're tied up three abreast in Novi Sad with our boat being the furthest from the river wall. Yesterday the boat got to Novi Sad with less than a meter to spare under the lowest bridge on the Danube. We've been watching graffiti on the opposite side of the river wall and the graffiti I picked out as a frame of reference is 3/4 of the way covered now with the rising water. Supposedly the Danube is going to crest sometime today. However it will be several days for safe navigation to resume. So today Viking offered us a plan B, which was to take a bus to Ilok Croatia, which is less than 60 km away, but we have to go through two border controls. One for leaving Serbia and one for entering Croatia, and of course the opposite upon our return. Viking was estimating that it would take the buses about half an hour to do the border crossing. This was extremely optimistic, as it took well over an hour to get through passport control to leave Serbia and about 45 minutes to enter Croatia. And unfortunately the town we went to visit was not worth going to in my opinion, despite being told by Viking that it will be "a fantastic experience". The town of Ilok was more or less spared destruction during the 1990s Serb/Croatian war. The people abandoned the town to the Serbs and fled to safer places. Consequently there was little destruction of the town, other than Serbian looting and general neglect of buildings for about 10 years until the locals started to migrate back to their abandoned homes. Ilok was chosen by Viking to tour, because there is a palace that was of historical significance in the 15th thru 19th century. The Palace was restored and in the literature is also referred to as a Castle, because there was a wall around the town that protected the grounds. There is a museum inside the Palace, that has artifacts that date back to the first century AD. The Palace has been restored, but the walls around the palace are still being excavated, so there really isn't much to see, except for the small museum that is housed inside the Palace. The curator of the museum was very proud of the museum's exhibits, and I'm glad nobody burst her bubble, because there was very little to be seen in each room. After the museum tour we headed to the other side of the compound where the Ilok Winery is. We were promised a wine tasting of three types of wine, but were given barely enough to wet our whistles. One lady took advantage of an empty seat at the table and got two samples each. We were served two white wines, and one red. Roger and I both liked the first white the best. The claim to fame of the Ilok Winery, is that allegedly this wine was served during Queen Elizabeth II's coronation celebration. This left us wondering what have they done in the last 60 years, other than to survive communism and the Serb/Croatian War. Roger and I went for a stroll, but overall today was a bust especially considering how much time was spent waiting, either at the borders or for the restroom. Although the women did take over the men's room at the Winery. There was a man who informed us that we were using the men's room and I simply asked him if he had a men's room at home or if he and his wife shared a toilet. He told me they shared, and so I said he could share here too. His wife thought this was funny. Of course what I should have also said to him that his fly was undone, but I told his wife and she said that it was wise of me not to further embarrass him. After we left Ilok we spent 45 minutes clearing the Croatian border and just 10 minutes at the Serbian border. We got back to the boat and everybody was glad to get back after our uneventful day.

Tomorrow we're going to get a fortification tour of Novi Sad's fort. Which from what we can see from the boat, promises to have more to show than the ruins of Ilok palace. A couple of people have walked around Novi Sad and say it is a nice place to stroll.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

12 June pictures

12 June

Mother Nature is playing havoc with Viking. We were supposed to be in Belgrade Serbia all day today. We've been coming up the Danube and have been watching the water rise as we've progressed westward. Last night plans were changed and we were told that we had to be back to the boat by 1300. This morning as we were just about to leave on our bus tour, we were told the boat would be leaving at 0900 and that passengers would be bused to Novi Sad which is about an hour and a half bus trip through the Serbian plains. We did our bus tour of Belgrade, starting with seeing the old fortress that went around the city started by the Romans and expanded by subsequent reigning powers up until about the 1800s. Then we visited yet another Orthodox Church. The tour through Belgrade was a history lesson on all the regional problems since the Romans, including a drive by several buildings that were bombed by NATO in 1990. The city isn't all that impressive, and there are lots of communist built buildings that add to a dreary place. It was raining off and on, so that didn't help make the city more impressive. The church that we visited was started in the 1920s and isn't finished, because construction is funded by donation. Considering that there was WWII and 45 years of communist rule by an extremely oppressive dictator, Marshal Tito, when Serbia was part of Yugoslavia. The church appears to have it's superstructure completed by the interior is unfinished concrete. I think the reason why we were taken there is to have a better understanding of the effect of communism and to see a big empty shell of a church.

We had to carry our passports while in Serbia, because they are not part of the European Union. This is the first time we've seen our passports since boarding and I can happily report that our passports have been getting stamped as we pass through the various countries.

My most loyal reader request pictures of our boat, room and so I'm including them. Our room is plenty adequate and we're happy with our little window. If we want a bigger view, we can go to either the lounge or sun-deck (when its not raining.)

Off to Crotia this evening, as our boat made it under the critical bridge. The Danube is definitely full and creeping up the sea walls and out of the banks in low lying tree or farm areas that weren't protected by levies.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

11June pictures

11 June

We transited overnight and at a little after 8 am, we entered the largest lock on the Danube. There are two locks at the location, one on the Serbian side and one on the Romanian side. The Romanian side was the only one functioning, and the commentary said that the Serbian side needed a lot of repair work. Both were built during the Soviet period. The drop in river height was a total of 30 meters, with two 15 meter lock sets. The commentary indicated that the lock doors were "guillotine" style invented by d'Vinci as oppose to swinging door style. Once we passed through the locks the Danube enters "some of the most scenic shoreline." To us, the Danube looks high, but it is not up to previous high water marks. No commentary was made on this point, so there was a lot of speculation as to why it wasn't up to the former high water mark. We passed a Roman marker that was carved in 100 AD, when the rode alongside the Serbian side of the Danube existed. Apparently there have been floods that washed away the road and the only thing left can be the holes in the rock side. There were a couple markers that were on the Romanian side that were built during the country's socialist period, however the commentary indicated that the Russians kept tight border control during the same period. There were also several new waterfront homes built in the post Socialist period that the commentary also pointed out. There was also Europe's largest carved face on the Romanian side. It was in honor of one of the King's. The dimensions were given but I didn't catch them all, other than the face is bigger than the Statue of Liberty. Right now it's raining (no surprise for us) so we're inside the lounge and Roger is taking in the sights with the binoculars. The cloud layer looks like we'll be in and out of rain the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow we'll be in Belgrade Serbia.

Romanian cough medicine knocked me out. I have no idea what it has in it, but an hour after I took it, it was lights out for me. I took a nap this morning and was only disturbed by the commentary on what we were passing. Roger was topside and took all the pictures . Hopefully I'm turning the corner on this silly cold, and I'm glad we're on the boat, because having a moving bed is a nice thing to have. We definitely like not having to pack up each day.

Monday, June 10, 2013

10 June

From being cold, to having a cold is how it is going. I now have a sore throat and cough. I just hope I don't pass it on to Roger. Today was the first chance I've had to get some OTC drugs. Hopefully they will treat the symptoms and I'll sleep without coughing.

We're now docked in Vidin Bulgaria. Our morning excursion was inland to Belogradshick, where there is a rock fortress. Along the way there was stork's nest. It was huge. Sparrows live with stocks as they eat parasites and bug that find their way into the nest, whichh is added on to each year. They migrate and return to their nests annually. This fortress was used by the Celts (who were the first people in Bulgaria) and the Romans. The Romans built three gates as the fortification climbed up the hill. Roger and I made it to the top of the hill; however there were lots of people who didn't or couldn't. I think the average age of the people on board is 70, based on our small sampling of talking with people at the various meals.

We traveled through several small towns and the impact of 45 years of Socialism is very noticeable. There were several old factories and "commie condos" along the way. The Russians thought it was a good idea to build factories where the labor was communist, so in this region there were several in active factories that are shells of buildings and just a general eye sore. The brewery we passed still works, and is now owned by Carlsburg. It isn't profitable due to outdated equipment, but so far the government has incentivized Carlsburg to keep it open, with extremely low taxes. The same can not be said about the tire factory, that required importing rubber and steel to make the tires. Our guide said that this factory had 10,000 workers and 2,000 supervisors, which was typical of any Soviet project. There's a statue in Vidin dedicated to the people who were lost to socialism.

Vidin is a tourist town. There are usually 3 boats tied up; however our boat is the only boat today because so far we're the only boat that is down stream from the flooded Danube. Right now we won't be able to get to Budapest, because the water level is too high and we can't pass under the bridges. FYI the pilot house of this boat is on hydraulics, that lifts up and down in order to have enough clearance to pass under some bridges, yet raised it has better visibility and frees up some deck space. The top deck has a small walking track, the Chef's herb garden, and three putting greens.

In Vidin there's a Synagogue that was built in 1894 and it was Bulgaria's second largest synagogue. The Jews came from Spain in the 15th century and eventually got around to building in 1894. Today unfortunately the synagogue is in ruins; however there is a campaign to re-build it to show that Bulgarians are very free thinking in their religious views.

We went for a walk in Vedin. It is a very pedestrian town. We're finding that once you get away from the big cities, bicycle or foot is the most common means of transportation. There is no public bus service between towns. There are some really old Soviet made cars still on the road, but gas is over $8/gal so people walk or ride their bikes like they have for the last century plus.