Vienna.

Now for Vienna, which is the world's music capital! Our bus dropped us off at Praterstern metro station (which is called the U-Bahn), and we took the train to our hostel from there. Praterstern is known for its ferris wheel and the amusement park, but we did not visit it as it was too expensive. It was also intolerably COLD, even worse then Budapest because the 2 days we spent there were rainy and windy. =/ The hostel we stayed in Vienna were the most expensive of all the hostels we stayed in this trip, and the worse in terms of service! The location was lousy too, as it was considered far from the city area and is situated on top of a hill.



The public transport system in Vienna is also quite complicated, compared to the other countries for it has at least 2 different railway systems and on top of that, there is also tram and bus systems. It was the hardest, in my own opinion, to get around in Vienna. We just tried our luck and explored the city, not knowing where the places of interest were, and stumbled upon St Charles' cathedral... (which we all thought was some palace! =/)



After that. we came upon this fountain square, with a statue of a soldier holding a flag. We also dont know if this is an attraction or not, but we just took photos, thinking we shall just google for information lol. The fountain is quite pretty!



Then we walked and walked and became very hungry, so we stopped for pizza at a kebab stall by the road. It costs 1Euro for a slice of pizza, and is considered cheap for the size of it. =)



We decided we had enough of walking, so we went to the nearest train station, and it belonged to the other train operator called OBB and the trains from OBB were damn cool! It was so different from the other trains! Some cabins of the trains had 2-storeys, and even toilets!



We took the train to Stephansplatz and when we came up from the train station, we felt as if we were transported to another city altogether. The streets were bustling with tourists everywhere, there were rows of shops along the streets, there were baskers playing music and there was a grand building to the right of us. The building is the famous St Stephen's Cathedral or they call it Stephensdom. (I dont know why all the saints are called Stephen! =/) We could go in for free so we went in for a visit, and sadly to me, it was like the other cathedrals we have been to. (I think it is just me la, dont know how to appreciate buildings, but I seriously think that the interiors all look the same! =p) The exterior of the building was however, really GRAND.



As we were admiring the cathedral on the outside, a salesman wearing some old english theatre style costume approached us and sold us 5 tickets to watch the Vienna Imperial Orchestra. (There is also opera singing and ballet dancing) We were all quite afraid that he is a conman, but he kept assuring us that he is for real and since the original ticket costs about 2X more than the price that he gave us (saying that since we are students, and he will give us 1 ticket free for the price of 4 tickets...), we decided to go for it as all of us were really interested. Morever, what's Vienna without getting ourselves soaked in Vienese culture?! =p So we took the chance and bought tickets from him. ( Afterwards, before we went for the concert, we kept speculating if we got conned and tried to comfort each other that it would just be an expensive mistake! LOL.)



The next day, we went to the Danube Riverside to buy ferry tickets to get to Bratislavia, but they were all sold out! So we tried our luck on the trains and luckily, there were seats and it costs lesser than the ferry. We also saw a very funny sign at the train station! 'Kiss and Ride'!!! Oh, and on the way to the riverside, we also came across this fairytale looking castle which we all believe it to be a church. (afterwards I went to google and found that this castle looking church is called Franz von Assisi Church!)








As we walked pass a small garden, Tan Pin Jin did this:



He scares pigeons WHEREVER he goes! *Rolls eyeballs. It is quite funny really.

We then took a trip down to Nashmarket, which is their weekly saturday flea market and it was very fun to explore the flea market. There were many rolls of stalls and makeshift stalls selling 2nd hand items, food, fruits... I even bought a bottle of homemade wine called Strum. It is more fruity than alcoholic and tastes GOOD! First time in my life I felt compelled to buy wine! (But unfortunately, the bottle of strum 'popped' the cork from its mouth and more than half of my strum flowed out of the bottle! It happened at 7am in the morning whilst we were all asleep and the loud POP! sound woke me up. =( I really cannot fathom the reason for it popping and I was quite heartbroken at the wastage of such lovely wine!!!) Along the streets of the flea market, we also saw a few interesting looking buildings.






(It was so cold I had to wear gloves! No kidding.)




Next, we took a trip down to Zentralfriedhof, which is Vienna's central cemetry and it holds famous musicians' graves of honour such as Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss. (photos are in order) We searched for quite awhile, walking from one end to the middle (the cemetry is HUGEEEE!) of the cemetry before we came to their graves!






And now the grand finale of our Vienna journey was the concert! It was really worth the money because the concert was so entertaining! The classical music they played were not only famous but lovely and the opera singers were FANTASTIC (and not to mention the fact that the tenor was HANDSOME!). The ballet dancing were A-O-K only la. =) We each got a coupon for redeeming a glass of wine during the interval. The hosts also played a few small games and in one game, the drums player used a popping equipment to 'pop' bottle corks at the audience and I managed to get one! The cork can be used to exchange for a glass of wine too! =) It was so fun! ( Actually I didnt catch the cork, it rolled off under the chairs of some old people to the chair behind me and I was just quick enough to get hold of it before someone else did heehee.) Afterwards at the end of the concert, we saw the 2 opera singers and I went up to the soprano and asked to take a photo with them. =)










Our breakfast the next day was provided by the hostel, and there was this liver paste that we are supposed to spread on the bread. It smelled like liver and the guys all did not like it. I tried it and thought it was ok so I ate 2 slices of bread with the liver spread, but after that both Ivy's (she was also brave enough to eat it!) and my stomach felt weird and I even had diarrohea. =/ Well, at least I tried! =) You dont find such liver paste in Singapore I think.




We set off for the train station after breakfast and all of us kinda could not wait to leave Vienna. Perhaps it was due to the lousy weather, for it kept raining and it was so cold, and also maybe because we spent the most in Vienna and bust our budget, but all of us were quite happy to leave for Bratislavia. Vienna is a nice place, but I think Budapest is better. And with the happy thought of leaving Vienna, we boarded the train to Bratislavia, which is only about 45 minutes away. The train that we took was operated by OBB and it was very clean. The toilet was also very big!







Well that is all for Vienna! Next up, Bratislavia. =)

Budapest.

We are back from our travelling! =) Our first stop was to Budapest (Hungary), and the first thing that struck us was the freaking cold weather! All of us happily left Oslo with the thought that we would be escaping to warmer places, but it turned out that the countries we were going were colder than Oslo! *faints.

We arrived at Budapest around mid morning by Wizzair. Their planes are very pretty (mainly because the dominant colour of the planes are purple lol.) and the seats are more comfortable than Ryanair's.





We took a bus from the airport to the nearest train station, and I cannot believe that the first thing that caused much excitement amongst us when we got down the bus at the metro station was this...


Burger King in Oslo is freaking expensive (but then again EVERYTHING else is also expensive =/) so when we saw that a set of cheeseburger and small fries cost 330FT (about S$2.80) we were HIGH! We were SO excited that we kept looking around for the nearest BK, but we had to check into our hostel and put down our bags first. The trains in Budapest were quite run down and very rocky and noisy (because of the tracks), making it very hard to be heard inside the train.



And this was what greeted us when we came up from the station.



We almost could not find our hostel because it is situated inside a building with other offices and there were no signs indicating the hostel except for a smaller than A4 sized piece of paper! We managed to find it though, and we took the super small elevator up to the 2nd floor. (In most of the places in Europe, ground floor is level 0 so 2nd level is actually the 3rd floor! It was a teeny weeny bit confusing at the beggining. =p)



Our first stop after checking into the hostel was to locate the nearest BK for lunch. =) We then went to their central maket, and it was BIG! (by singapore standards.)








The market had 2 levels, the first floor consists of many similar fresh meat, vegetable and fruit stalls whilst the second floor had souvenir stalls selling the same merchandise and some food stalls.

After the marketplace, we went to the post office to buy stamps for our postcards, and Horse (the oldest member in our group I must add haha!) fell asleep whilst waiting for us. =X



We then walked pass this church and I decided to be a kaypo and peeped inside. The interior of the church was hell of a difference from the plain and white exterior!




We had dinner at a restaurant and everyone of us each ordered the 'local food for tourist menu' comprising of Goulash soup and pork cutlet in Hungarian sauce. The soup was okay, but the pork cutlet was SO SMALL the sauce totally hides the meat! It was the most expensive meal we ate in this trip and yet it was not worth it. Lesson learnt anyway, not to settle for tourists menu from restaurants along tourists streets.




After dinner, we went to the Danube River (which is well known for it runs through 4 countries - Austria, Hungary, Serbia, and Romania) to take some photos. We could not last long out there because it was damn chilly!




The next day, we joined a free walking tour lead by a Hungarian. It is not really free since we have to give 'tips' at the end of the tour. We also joined free walking tours when we were in Spain and the guide usually brings us to places of attractions which are free, explains the histories and origins of the attractions and provides us tips on where to have good food at a good price. =)

We visited St Stephen's church... I think it is one of the largest cathedral in Europe. (I wasnt paying much attention to the guide. =p)






Oh and before I forget to mention, do you know that Budapest is actually split into Buda and Pest? The 2 cities are split into 2 by the Danube River, and connected to each other by at least 5 bridges! Haha, I did not know it until I went on this trip. =) Interesting eh.

We started the tour at the Pest side, and we crossed a bridge to Buda to visit the Royal Castle. The scenery from the bridge was gorgeous!!! We can also see the Royal castle from the bridge.









The castle was not grand, in fact it was ordinary compared to the cathedrals and other buildings in Budapest. The only thing I appreciated about the castle was the view we got from it. =) We could overlook the whole coastline of Buda from the castle, and it was really pretty.












We had lunch at a cafeteria inside the 'castle village' (the castle had its own village!) which the guide took us to, and he introduced us the meatloaf with sourcream sauce and cheese, deep fried rolls which had meat in it and liver sausages with mashed potatoes. This hungarian meal was so much better than the one we had the night before, but it was salty and the portions were so big we could not finish them.



Then it is POSTA time! All the countries we went to used the same post sign: a horn-like symbol.




We passed through this tunnel even though there was a sign outside discouraging people not to walk through it. Check out the sign, it is one of a kind la! The walk through the tunnel was really horrible because of the exhaust smell, and all of us could not wait to get out to the other side! It felt like the longest walk ever! Only after experiencing the walk through did I 'smell' the reason for the sign. Serves us right for walking through it! =p





We then ended the day's visiting by climbing up to Budapest's 'Statue of Liberty' which was at the top of a hill. It was taller than Bukit Timah Hill, and the climb up was exhausting. We could view the whole of Buda from the top of the hill, and that was the only good thing since our aim was to get closer to the statue but because it was so tall and we were too near, we could not take any nice close up photo of it. =/







We went back to the central market to get a Hungarian snack called Langous. It is deep fried like 'youtiao' and even tastes like it except langous is circular and they put grated cheese and sour cream on it. It was so-so for me because it was very oily. The Hungarians seem to like sour cream alot. =p We then had dinner at BK again and that about sums up our trip to Hungary. We spent another night at Colours Hostel and we made 2 new friends from Brazil who are currently studying Animal Production in Denmark and like us, are taking the opportunity to travel eastern europe. They taught us the Brazilian (western) greeting which was to kiss the cheeks left right and then left again, and we made plans to visit each other sometime before we leave Oslo. =)




The next morning, we left after breakfast (breakfast was provided by the hostel and this hostel by far provided the best breakfast out of the other hostels) for the bus station and got on a bus to Vienna. The ride was about 3 and a half hours long. That is all for Budapest, and I guess I can say that I enjoy Budapest so much so that I felt a little reluctance to leave. =)

Next up, Vienna!