Day 19: 30/04/2006 Vienna/Budapest

Belvedere and me :)

Tk, the handsome & romantic perfect guy

Yj very excited...

The red train on the left is from Austria, and the one on the right is Hungarian... See the difference?

This was the Sunday which I had been waiting for: Vienna Boy's Choir! All those people around me e.g. Jeff, Tk, Yj, etc had been teasing me when I suggested attending their concert but I went ahead planning for it nevertheless.

The excellent thing about the concert was: they give out free standing spaces! For backpackers like us it was just great. It was supposed to be part of a Sunday service held in the Royal Cathedral inside the Hofburg, however, the main attraction here was definitely not the priests but the Choir. They charge 30 Euros for those sitting spaces inside the Cathedral: which church on Earth would ever charge for their services?!

We set off really early in order to get a ticket. When we were there, there was already a long queue in front of the door in the Swiss Courtyard. We tried to find out whether that was the correct queue while attempting to eat our breakfast. We got in after quite some a lot of queueing, finally...

We were squeezed in a small space in the center together with other poor people who cannot afford 30 Euros. There were plenty of tourists from Asia; we were standing together with this group of young Koreans who were backpackers too I think. There was also this French couple whose view was blocked by me and asked me to give way, which I *graciously* agreed...

The service was completely in German and I did not understand a single bit. Nevertheless, it was not important as the choir's music could be understood in whatever language it might be in. Throughout the whole thing the choir was out of my view, hiding somewhere upstairs on the balcony. The singing was excellent; they have a reason to be famous. Though, it got really a bit irritating when some tourists (esp the seated ones) decided to leave halfway through the service.

We stood there until the whole thing was over; from around 8am to 11am without any support. It was kind of worse than any parade I have attended. I feel that it is worth it though.

Our train to Budapest would only leave in the afternoon so there is still plenty of time to spare. So after getting some Kebab lunch and returning to the hostel for Yj to use the Internet (for me to sleep and Tk to fiddle with the guitar hanging on the wall while waiting for our hero), we decided to venture to Belvedere, an imperial palace currently used as art galleries. On our way to Belvedere we passed by this huge memorial with greek pillars at the back and a statue with inscriptions in RUSSIAN in front. Apparently it is a memorial for the liberation of Vienna from the Nazis by the Red Army after WWII.

It was drizzling heavily (you will know what I mean when you really experience that kind of weather) by the time we got to Belvedere. The gardens were mostly under renovation and under this kind of circumstances you can't really blame us for not being impressed by its architectural design. However, we can imagine that it could really be quite beautiful when the sun is shining and when the gardens are freed of all barriers...

Alright it was time for us to move on to Budapest, so we embarked again on a 3-hour train journey across to Hungary.

On the way there was this particular place which had a SPECTACULAR amount of wind turbines: the fields were full of wind turbines in all directions and that stretch of land was at least 2 km long. Most were actually turning. I took a lot of video clips of them :) And one more thing: the reapseed flowers are blossoming in the fields! Along the way there were plenty of those fields filled with yellow flowers and it was really spectacular too.

By the time we reached Budapest it was already evening. The first impression the city gave me was that it was old and not well maintained: that could be easily seen from the train station's signboards, the building itself, and the enormous amount of people who approach you telling you that they have cheap apartments for rent. We had already booked our hostel way in advance and it was really near the train station so we just ignored them (it was common sense anyway).

Our hostel was in a residential building. After we checked in, we were given 2 access codes to gain access to the main gate and the hostel's gate. We stayed in this mixed dorm which was huge; there were already a few ladies which couldn't speak English staying inside (so I really don't know where they were from). The floor was rather dirty though, but the bathroom is fine, and most importantly there was free Internet access! And of course, it was dirt cheap: 9 Euros per night if I remembered correctly.

Hungary does not use the Euro; it was still using its national currency Forint, which 1 Euro = ~280 Ft. Yj seemed quite excited when he got hold of a 10000Ft note and requested a photo.

We had MacDonald's for dinner. MacDonald's in Hungary was cheap: in the range of 490 - 510 Ft, which was <1/2 Switzerland's price?! We ate MacDonald's 2 or 3 times during our short stay in Hungary. And after dinner, we bought quite a lot of bottled water and drinks from a minimart nearby; although they say that the tap water in Hungary could be drunk directly we just could not trust it. They might still be using the Comminists' water pipes; who knows.