I am now in the mind-blowing city of Granada at the amazing residencia where we’ll stay for the first month, after which we’ll move into apartments. But I’ll rave about this city and its awesomeness soon enough—for now, I have to cover my travels.
Prague: A better version of Venice. Like Venice, it’s somewhat small and jam-packed with tourists. Differently from Venice, the city is clean, interesting, and far more beautiful. I spent the first day wandering about and visiting tourist destinations with a Canadian girl I met, discussing life and the politics of our countries. That evening, we tried to go to a club, but it turns out that Sunday is not a big day for going out. Go figure. Nevertheless, the next day was spent lying in bed, listening to the rain, and eventually, watching Harry Potter in English. On the third day, I wandered a bit more, hitting a few tourist spots I’d missed on the first day (museum highlights included the Museum of Sex and the Museum of Communism) but also taking the time to explore the different interesting neighborhoods. That’s when I fell in love with the city, for a few reasons:
1) As I was in the Jewish quarter, I overheard a tour guide telling the story of the Golem, a clay monster animated by a famous rabbi who came to life and protected the synagogues and the Jewish communities in times of need. I’d heard the story of the Golem among the millions of wonderful Jewish folktales I heard as a child, but it seemed incredible that I was in the city where one of the major legends had originated.
2) In one market selling various fresh groceries as well as souvenirs, I saw stands selling these hilarious little witch decorations, with a little doll sitting on a tree branch who would cackle, pump her legs up and down and have glowing red eyes with either a sound or motion sensor. After passing by the stand, I noticed that puppet and marionette stores were all over the city. Finally, I appreciated the prevalence of fairy-tale, gingerbread house style buildings: in addition to the big castles, there were a number of normal-sized buildings with little turrets, that were perfectly rounded, that had quirky, imaginative decorations, that somehow seemed to be part of a fantasy world rather than our own.
With all that put together, I appreciated that Prague is a fairytale city that has inspired fairy tales and legends of its own. It’s magical.
Vienna: Not my thing. It has an incredible history and some of the best museums in Europe, but it felt like a big urban city like any other that just happens to have some museums in it. (However, if you really like classical art, opera, and classical music, it’s probably the place for you.) After two days of feeling totally uninspired by the monuments and museums, I decided to spend my third day in a suburb called Grinzing, home of the city’s best known heuringen, or wine taverns. It felt like a charming town of its own in the Viennese countryside (which, by the way, is incredible. On the train ride from Prague to Vienna, I had my eyes glued to the window as I watched the forest pass by). I took a short walk in the hills and had a lovely picnic lunch on a field surrounded by forests, overlooking the valley of the city. I also met a guy named Paul, who asked me if I knew where to get a drink, then told me his life story, which involved skateboarding in Cameron Park, a moderate interest in neuroscience, interning for an oil company in Texas, doing lots of drugs, stopping most of them when his best friend died of a heroin overdose in his arms, growing medical marijuana, not being as dumb as he looked, and having a beach house where Ron Paul is from. (Kid is also 20, by the way.) Anyway, Vienna isn’t a bad city. It’s full of modern culture and would be a lovely place to live. For instance, I ran into a free outdoor film festival while wandering around the city, and had a delicious dinner of chicken tikka masala and a mojito from different food stands.
Budapest: AWWWW YEAHHH. So cool. SO friggin’ cool. Well, actually, friggin’ hot. It was about 100 degrees the whole time, with limited relief at night, so I didn’t have the energy to go to a fraction of the places I wanted to visit. I’m still trying to process the city, as I can’t quite figure out how to describe what struck me as so damn neat about it. It was beautiful and picturesque. It had hills to explore with remnants of ancient buildings, as well as interesting neighborhoods with unique stores and unique vibes. Anyone who feels like they can’t be impressed by any more buildings, castles, or interesting architecture should go. One of my favorite stylistic elements was the use of faces and figures in doorways and as decorations on buildings. It also didn’t hurt that the hostel where I stayed was rad. There seems to be a newer trend of hostels that feel like hotels with bunk beds. This was the only hostel of the three that fit my image of a nice, but real hostel: small, a cozy common area with a couple of slow computers, some couches and a kitchen, a cheap, simple option for dinner, and a cozy bar offering beer in the evening. Given the vibe and size, it was actually possible to meet people, including the staff, who took a few of us out after work to a ruin bar. These are Budapest staples: large, outdoor garden bars decorated as though a thrift store exploded all over the walls. There were old bikes painted all colors hanging from the ceiling, a gnome in a hammock, old bathtubs and sinks all around, not to mention the industrial vibe from the gears and chains…very odd, but a very cool vibe. I had a lovely dinner of kabobs while overlooking the river with what we called the Meeting of the UN: a Spanish guy, a French guy, a British guy, and myself.
Obligatory introspection: last year while traveling, I specifically noted that although traveling alone was not nearly as scary as I’d imagined, I would never do it in a country where I didn’t speak the language. I just did it for two weeks, and it was generally not any more stressful than traveling alone anywhere else, mostly due to the fact that I was traveling to big European cities where most people speak enough English to get by, or are at least used to dealing with dumb tourists who don’t speak their language. As the Spanish proverb goes, nunca digas: de este agua no beberé. (never say: I’ll never drink that water.) A friend oh-so-cleverly noted after I posted that proverb on Facebook that he had that attitude once in Mexico, then spent two days throwing up. Idioms.
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