Budapest

So this blog is a long time coming as about two weeks ago I spent the weekend in Budapest. We had another weekend off from hockey so I of course look for somewhere to travel. I was looking around and thought that Budapest would be a great place to go. Not to mention I was able to get a bus ticket return for about $40 Canadian - steal of a deal, so off I went.


I arrived there Friday afternoon, thinking that maybe the language would be somewhat similar to Czech, um...not even close. I have to admit that my first impressions of the city were not that great. The bus station was really sketchy. Doesn’t help that it was a rainy cold day, but there were homeless people everywhere, sleeping in the metro station and quite a few sketchy looking characters. But of course I have traveled quite a bit so am to the point where that stuff doesn’t phase me anymore and instead is quite the place to people watch.


I was able to make it through the still communist inspired metro, and found my hostel alright. It was situated a block away from the Danube river so was a great location. The owners of the hostel were just great giving out tons of information about the city. Although I knew quite a bit going in as had read my travel book on the bus already...yes I’m a geek and love travel books! First stop was the Hungarian National Museum. Once again I am a geek and really enjoy history museums. More like information on the country. I had pretty much zero knowledge of Hungary or of any of its history so the museum was great! What did I learn...well to make a long story short the country has pretty much always been occupied or controlled by someone else. The main information that they want to leave you with is that the country was pretty much founded in 896 by the alliance of seven tribes called Magyar (Hungary). Their first king was St. Stephan crowned in 1000. Then in 1541 the Ottoman’s controlled the territory which was huge as in present day Slovakia and parts of Transylvania. Next were the Habsburg’s which is you live in Eastern Europe you know all about them as they were quite a dominate and influential empire in that came into power in 1686. They were in power for a long time where finally there was a duel monarchy Austria creating an Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until WWI. What I found really interesting is that after WWI the country was divided and it lost two-thirds of its territory. I can’t imagine that happening. Then of course came WWII and then after Communist control and finally back to republic in 1989. Such crazy history!

National Museum


Inside...pretty amazing!



After the museum I walked one of the main pedestrian streets and went shopping for souvenirs and finally ate at a traditional Hungarian pub/restaurant. They of course like in the Czech Republic serve goulash as well as make claim to the spice of paprika. You can buy paprika everywhere and it’s in tons of the dishes! I decided to go for the mushroom goulash instead of the gizzard goulash...was not feeling that adventurous that night, and had a great meal. Not to mention it was super cheap. Like Czech it’s a pretty cheap country when you eat in the local places. Oh and the money is quite different as well as it’s about 180 Hungarian Forint to $1 Canadian. So it’s really hard to convert. Not to mention that at night I was still thinking in Czech Crowns where I gave the waitress a really bad tip but if we were in Prague it would have been good. Didn’t realise it until I was a couple of blocks away. Whoops!

Then next morning I awoke to the sun shining. This was pretty much a miracle as in Eastern Europe the sun does not shine. I was expecting rain so needless to say I was extremely pumped as I had planned to do a walking tour. First up I headed out to the Nagycsarnok, or the main market for breakfast. This place was awesome with a ton of stalls inside a huge building consisting of two floors. They sold fruit, vegetables and really any kind of meat you wanted along with a ton of paprika. If lived there I’m sure I would be a regular at the market.



The Market


Inside

From here it was off to my walking tour. I’m a fan of the old walking tour as you can get a pretty good sense of the city after one of these. Our tour was supposed to be about 4 hours but ended up being 5 so was quite the tour. We saw a ton of statues as the city is littered with them. But I honestly can’t really remember any great stories about them. We were then off to Saint Stephan’s Bascilca the church that is named after their first king. It’s exactly 96m high which is after 896 when Hungary was founded, and there’s a rule in the city that no building can be higher than this point. So as you’ll see from my pictures, there are no skyscrapers in the city. Speaking of the city it’s actually two cities as well; Buda and Pest. Buda being on the west side of the Danube and Pest on the East.


St. Stephan's



Next it was a walk up to Varhegy or Castle Hill. Like in Prague there is a large castle on a hill beside the river. I have to say it’s not as nice as Prasky Hrad but it’s still great none the less. The views from the top are amazing of course as you can over look all of Pest and the huge Parliament building that they have. Along with the castle on top of the hill you have an old Medieval town that was built back in...It was awesome to walk the streets and look at the old buildings and churches, not to mention the awesome promenade that overlooked the city...just great views.


Walking up to the castle


The side view of the castle as I could not get far enough back to get the whole thing in a picture


Another view


View from the top of the castle...you can see St. Stephan's in the background


Another angle with the Parliment Building in the background.


An example of the Medievil Streets


Pomenade on the opposite side of the castle overlooking another part of Buda



There was a ton of information on that tour and I’d be lucky to remember half of it. The tour guide definitely loved his country and kept telling us stories on how they were the first to invent this and that. Apparently the telephone that Bell discovered was because of his time spent with Hungarian scientists and so on. They do have the oldest metro station in Europe as it was built in the 1890’s. Only some parts of it are still opened and I actually did ride it. Quite small but to be expected as people back then were not as huge as we are now. Also they built the first suspension bridge. I took a ton of pictures for my dad as I knew he would be interested in that. Although I did see pictures from WWII where I think most of the city was destroyed along with all of the bridges, but they did rebuild them back into their original state.


The suspension bridge


View from the bridge looking back at Pest


View looking at Buda

After the tour I headed to the House of Terror; a museum displaying information when the country was run by the Nazi’s and Communists. I found it really interesting especially all the information from the Communist time. What struck me the most or what I remember most vividly was a video I watch on the work camps they used to have. They documented survivors of these work camps and their stories. Everyone was always in fear of being sent to one of these and rightfully so as there was one story of a women who was found making out with her boyfriend behind some leaders house. Well she got caught and was sent to a camp. They also had about 6 women who used to be in one of these camps and showed them returning to the camp a couple of years later when the Communists had left. They also had their guard or Communist head lady (I’m not sure what you would call her) there as well. It was quite something to watch these ladies confront this lady who used to control their lives as she could decide pretty much anything for them...as in are they are allowed visitors, or scrubbing the toilet as punishment. It kind of seemed as those she didn’t think she was as harsh as what the ladies claimed her to be...I think she was in denial of course One of the ladies openly forgave her which was awesome to see and pretty big of her. I went for a walk that night and here are a couple of night pictures...


Agricultural Museum at night




View of the castle at night

Sunday morning I got up fairly early as I really wanted to make it to the baths. Hungary is known for their thermal baths, a fact I knew nothing about until a friend told me about it before I left. So naturally I had to take that it in as well. I went Szechenyl Furdo a huge bathhouse in the middle of this beautiful park. I looked like I was entering a museum it was so big and old being built in 1908. I paid my entrance fee and was told where the change room was. Upon entering the change room I see a man in a towel blow drying his hair. Hum...they told me the wrong one. So I went back outside to ask again. Um...nope that’s the right one. They have little small enclosed change rooms where you can change into your bathing suit and then lockers on the side where you can put your clothes. Like I said the place was huge as I had to ask in order to figure out how to get outside to the thermal pool. Granted inside the place was filled with pools, saunas and places where you could pay extra and receive a massage. The water was about 35-37C so quite warm but not as warm as the Moose Jaw Spa. Or maybe that’s just because the temperature there was probably only about 0C compared to -20C so maybe that’s why it felt hotter. I don’t have any pictures from the inside of the pool as I kept all my stuff in the locker but you would have seen a huge outdoor play with statues everywhere and water pouring out of them into the pool. You kind of felt like you were back in the days of the Romans at one of their bath houses. There were a ton of local people there as well just hanging out for a Sunday swim, along with lots of large men wearing speedos (this is Europe!) playing chess in the water too.


The Bathhouse...as you can see it looks more like a museum.


Side profile

My last big sight to see was the Parliament Building. It’s the third largest in the world so I really wanted to take a tour of it and was not disappointed. It took about 9 years to build and was finished 1905. They have 20km worth of hallways in it along with Hungarian crown which was stolen in the past and then found and now displayed in one of the main rooms. They also house parliament there two or three times a well. It’s really quite amazing as you can see from the pictures.


Outside the Parliment






The roof of one of the many hallways


The Parliment seats

All in all my time was awesome and I think I learned more in regards to history than I did all through my high school years so the $40 bus ride was definitely worth it!

Hotel Prague!

Things have been pretty crazy around our house this last month of January. We kind of have started our own hotel at Pplk. Sochora 35, byt 10. We don't charge, so if any of you would like to come and visit, feel free!

It started with my friend Corrin Bredin coming for about four days back in January. She had some time off from hockey as she is playing in Russia, so she was able to make it over to Prague. We had an awesome time with her and she even watched a game of ours. I toured her around Prague, eating at all our favourite restaurants and even walking around Prague at night. Prague at night is pretty spectacular as the castle is all lit up and nothing beats the view from the Charles Bridge. Not too mention it was snowing that night so even better.

Then lucky for us, like I said we've had Jeni's friend, Kelly, staying here for about a week. It's been great having her, kind of like another roommate in the house, and a fun one at that. Then Arielle's friend, Damian, is here for about 5 days. So lucky for everyone we have a closet, or as we like to call it, a guest room, where people can stay. It's a large walk in closet attached to the main hallway in our house and acts as a great extra room. So far we've had no complaints from people staying there. Oh and did I mention Damian is a professional poker player. He does have a real job of course but has entered in the world poker championship and placed 230th in the world. So I thought that was pretty amazing. Better yet is that he went to the casino the other night here and won 2 grand Canadian. He paid for supper that night so he can stay as long as he likes!

Then on top of that my aunt Myrna came to town this past weekend. She didn't stay at our house which was probably a good thing as we're pretty maxed out. I was able to spend the afternoon with her on Saturday and the whole day with her on Sunday. She treated me to a Prague tour at night on Saturday with the tour ending in the Krosovice brewery with a free drink and accordion (sp?) entertainment. It was great as Prague is always awesome at night and I learned some new facts about the city. The accordion player was pretty entertaining as well playing all the old classics and some traditional Czech folk music.

Then the next day I met up with my aunt to go on a lunch boat cruise down the Vltava river. It was really great! I had never been on a cruise on the river before so had a great time and of course learned more about the city. The food was all traditional so it was great to introduce some of the native food to my aunt. From there we went shopping for anything and everything looking for presents for all of her family members. I think we were successful as I took her to a crystal shop mostly only known to locals so she was able to find things in there. It was pretty funny as we were looking for jewellery as well since Prague is known for it's garnet and amber. Well of course I try and help her out in the shop by speaking a bit of Czech to the manager of the store. Well he's all pumped that I speak czech, or really quite little at that and just goes on and on in czech. I was like "Um...could you repeat that and slowly, please." It's funny how sometimes people hear you speaking czech and just go on and on and really fast. Little do they know that it would be best if they were to pretend that I was a five year old and talk to me that way, then I would understand everything. hehe.

Next at Hotel Prague we'll be having one of Arielle's friend, Ashley, come and stay with us for a couple of weeks at the end of the season. Afterwards they plan on traveling around Europe together. But of course there's always room for one more so feel free to come and stay with us at Hotel Prague!

Roommate Night!

On Thursday we decided to have a little roommate night supper, or family night as we like to call it. We haven't had one in a long time so it was nice to just sit back, eat and relax with one another. Jeni's friend Kelly, who plays in Austria, was here for the supper as well. I think we all consider her as our friend as well, and one of the family as she's made quite a few trips to come and visit us in Prague.

I made my "famous" honey almond chicken for the meal. It's not really my recipe as I got it from our church's cookbook back home. But since I made it quite a few times last year for the girls it's now known as mine. Chelsa helped by making a salad, and for desert I made my mom's homemade chocolate pudding. It was an awesome meal and we had such a good time sitting around the super table taking and such, just like you would at home. I think we'll be trying to do more of these in the future. Here are some pictures from the night...


Chelsa did a great job of setting the table as she has the eye for those things.


I'm just cooking away!

Kids will be kids...

Last week I had an interesting day at school. If you remember or need a reminder, I work at Riverside School, a private Christian school here in Prague. To many it simple I work with kids who need a little extra help in different subjects. Well the other day working with one of my Year 3 students I had the funniest conversation. His teacher told me that we were going to be reading through a book and then writing down words that he didn't know. Then the following session together we would look up the words in the dictionary and figure out what they mean. Well upon hearing this the little guy told me that it wouldn't be necessary as he knew every word and that he studied the whole dictionary. Oh really I asked "the whole dictionary?" Yep all of it. Oh okay...well we were stuck on the second page with what rope meant.

Then later that day I was taking the Year 3 kids swimming as I do every Wednesday afternoon. Well one of their teachers has just recently announced that she is pregnant and the kids can't stop talking about it. So on the bus ride home they were discussing it again and one little girl asked the teacher if it hurt when she swallowed the seed. Ah...hum...what parents tell their kids I don't know.

Last weekend Moose Jaw, this weekend Fussen

It’s funny how the other weekend our family took the “big” trip to Moose Jaw to go to the spa and then the first weekend I’m back in Prague, Chelsa and I decide to head to Fussen, Germany. What a contrast of places, granted nothing knocking Moose Jaw as I had a great time there. So the reason we decided to head to Fussen was because the U18 Women’s World Championship was taking place there. We have three girls from our team on the Czech National team, and then along with that my old coach from Wisconsin, Mark Johnson, was the head coach for the US.
We drove there on Friday morning to catch two games, the first one being the semi final of Canada vs. Sweden. Then the second one that night with the US vs. Czech Republic. The drive there was awesome to say the least. It’s been cold here (well for this region) and there was hoarfrost all over the trees as it was sometimes quite foggy. Then as we started heading towards Fussen, which is southwest of Munich, you get into the wine region of rolling hills and cute little renaissance looking towns.

The first game we watched was fairly interesting until the second period. Sweden scored first to scare the Canadians, and then the Canadians answered back with 8 goals. So they took it to them. Then the second game was so hard to watch as the Americans annihilated the Czech’s 18-0. There were a couple of problems with that game. One the Czech’s only have two lines so were double shifting those girls and they had zero energy left. Second, they had no goalie and I mean no goalie. The poor girl got just lit up on every shot taken. It was a great time as after the game Chelsa and I were able to head out for pizza with Mark and his staff and catch up. I also met a friend of his who was coaching in Switzerland, well actually he just got fired and is now the head coach of the Slovenian team and is about to try and qualify for the Olympics. So great stories coming from both of them.

Saturday morning we had time to tour the Neuschwanstein castle. Stunning is all I can say. It is the castle that Walt Disney modeled the Disney castle after. It’s a romantic medieval castle that King Ludwig II built. The crazy thing about it was that he only spent 170 in residence and it was never completely finished. Really crazy as you can see the enormity of it. It’s also a fairly new castle as it was started in 1869. The tour was great, granted we had a really weird tour guide, who was fragile as Chelsa described him. I could just imagine as a squire back in the day living in the castle, although we had our own theories that he still lived there. The inside of the castle was amazing with this one particular room standing out to me with all the wood carvings in it. I was told that it took 14 carpenters four years to finish it. Unfortunately we could not take pictures inside the castle as I would love to have put the picture on it.

So after the castle we watched the bronze and gold medal game. The Czechs were blown out of the bronze medal game losing 8-0 to Sweden which was too bad. Then there was the gold medal with Canada vs. US. It was an awesome game with the US taking the lead going up two goals then to have the Canadians tie it up to force OT. Really exciting, but the Canadians took a penalty while playing four on four and the US scored on the power play to win. It was a great goal and shot which was nice to see instead of some little weak shot going in. Of course I was happy to see Mark win gold but of course deep down wanted Canada to bring home the gold.


The hoarfrost from our drive down to Fussen




On the walk up to the castle


Pretending I'm a photographer


The castle


It's quite big!


Chelsa and I


View from the castle


Streets of Fussen


Canada vs US Gold Medal Game

Back to Prague and back to salads!

I just arrived back in Prague yesterday after being at home for about three weeks. Yes I know that was a pretty long break from hockey at Christmas, but for some reason our coach was feeling nice and decided to let us go home early. We did have some games but were able to miss them. One of them was a Euro League game but since only three of us foreigners can play in it we were okay to miss it as the two Slovak girls on our team were still around.

For some reason I had this idea in my head that when I was going home that I would have all this time to relax and catch up on emails and so on. Well nope that wasn’t the case or never really is the case so I’m not sure what I was thinking. I did have a bit of time to relax but that felt funny as I was usually on the go. I did have an awesome time at home hanging out with family and friends and with that mostly my friend Andrea who was back in town from Australia. I hadn’t seen her in a year so we spent as much time together as possible and even at that I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. I had an awesome Christmas day which was spent at home but unfortunately my brother was sick with the flu so he pretty much stayed on the couch the whole day and luckily he didn’t give it to me. Then on the 27th my family headed out to Moose Jaw for my cousin’s soon to be wife’s bridal shower. Had a great time at that, and then my dad booked us in for two nights to stay at the Mineral Springs Spa. That was just awesome as there is an outdoor part to the pool so you can sit in the hot water outside when it’s about -25C. Kind of like a hot tub outside but only bigger with salt water. Then from Moose Jaw we headed up to the farm for a few days to spend some time with the Willms clan. This is my first year without a Willms family Christmas as my grandma died last year. So it was a bit different but was still awesome to get out to the farm for our annual wiener roast. Then it was back home to head to my cousin’s, Mel, 30th birthday party which was a blast! Finally I spent New Year’s with my friend Chan and her fiancé, Mike, and had an awesome time with them going out for super and then hanging out at their house ringing in the New Year. Granted we found it strange as Saskatchewan is not lined up with any of the major time zones, aka the eastern time zone, so there is no real “ball” drop when it hits midnight, you just kind of celebrate it on your own.

So now I’m back in Prague and like I said back to salads as I sure ate a ton over the holidays! The constant eating was topped off with my going away five course meal that my sister-in-law put on! It was amazing to say the least. My brain hasn’t quite turned on the Czech yet but I knew I was back when the customs agent smelled like B.O. and when I went to the grocery store today all they had was beef, no chicken. Yes, back in the strange but never dull ways of the Czech.

Here are a couple of pics from my time at home...


Out for supper with the family for my mom's birthday


What I woke up to almost every morning while I was home.


Me standing on what will eventually be the front of my parents new house in Deer Valley!


The Valley at sunset.


Amanda and I shopping in Moose Jaw.


Scrappy and the cats, along with my two cousins starting a fire. Within 5 seconds of your mitts being off your hands were frozen so hats off to them for getting that fire going!


Me and Scrappy.


Off roading with the Hummer.


Making our own trail through the snow.


About to start our five course meal...not a bad going send off!