The beginning of the end...and the end of the end.

Recently, I've been skimming over all my old travel blogs.  Once upon a time, just over six years ago now, I landed in Nice all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, ogling at the Mediterranean and stumbling through conversations in French but so ready to learn and to let life happen to me.

I will admit freely that spending four months abroad is much different from packing up your life and moving to another country, especially when the "where" and "how long" of your stay are unknown and somewhat out of your hands, and when you sometimes don't know where you'll be living two weeks out.  As I've written, simple life tasks become difficult:  Why have I been here three weeks with no cell service and no Internet?  Do I have health insurance or not?  Did she say 50 Euros would be charged to my account or credited to my account?  In which aisle can I find the hair mousse in this stupid supermarket?

Nearly two years ago, I stepped off a train from Paris and took my first look around La Roche-sur-Yon, a rather small town.  In the absence of a point person at an American university to contact when times got tough, I eventually came to lean heavily on colleagues and friends, exasperatedly bringing them my lists of inane questions and difficulties.

My colleagues at the three collèges I worked at over the past two years (fifteen English teachers plus several other teachers and staff members who reached out as well!) have been incredible beyond words.  They responded to my 11pm emails asking about the health system; they braved nasty bouchons (traffic jams) to drive me to and from work; they invited me to spend days or even weeks with them and their families; they made sure I had housing and offered their spare rooms just in case; they texted me to wish me happy holidays, to check in and to plan lessons, or just to share funny stories.

My five English department colleagues from Belleville took me out to dinner mid-May in Les Sables d'Olonne.  May 31st at the collège Saint Exupéry was certainly my most difficult "final day" of all; most of my classes made and signed goodbye cards and my colleagues presented me with gifts at the morning pause (break) in front of all the staff.  I very much appreciate that my Belleville colleagues were always caring and never failed to nag me for all the right things...or to text me and make me laugh.

During the previous week, my English colleagues from collège Haxo had also taken me out for lunch at a lovely crêperie in La Roche.  About a month later, at the beginning of July, I was able to attend their end-of-the-year dinner to say goodbye to all the staff.  I found Haxo's staff to be fun and dynamic with a great sense of humor (which is necessary when you work in a city school!).  I'll never forget my fun stories of students at that school, nor will I forget the staff lounge ambiance and laughs.

One last surprise was getting to go out to lunch with a handful of colleagues from collège Soljenitsyne, where I worked in Aizenay during my first year.  I had almost forgotten the joys and antics of that staff until I heard their banter again.  After conversations and many laughs, a delicious meal, coffee and more laughs at my colleague's home, and finally, so many bises (cheek kisses), it was time to say goodbye indefinitely.  As we waved goodbye, I felt a thousand times more heartbroken than when my plane took off from Nice for the USA five and a half years ago.  It began to hit me that this place I've slowly learned to call home...well, soon it won't be my home anymore.

After a short trip back to the USA in June, I returned to France to jetlaggedly participate in my second Fête de la Musique in La Roche.  La Fête de la Musique is a huge music festival that takes place in nearly every city all over France on the same evening in June.  In La Roche, there are several small stages and music groups scattered all over town, with multiple concerts going on continuously.  I played first in a concert at the Conservatoire with a student group, then joined a friend for a brief impromptu salsa dancing performance in Place Nap, La Roche's main square.  Finally, it was time for my community orchestra's performance in front of the préfecture.  It was a gorgeous summer evening, perfect for outdoor playing and listening.  Here and here are a couple of videos of other music groups I caught in town after our concert.

Tiphaine, Christophe, Juliette, Hélène, et moi

The next week, we had our last orchestra rehearsal of the year, and my last ever.  Traditionally, we go out for a drink after the rehearsal; we all headed over to a place called the 18B in Place Nap and had a nice evening deep in post-Brexit discussion.

While several friends left the region for summer vacation, I found myself once again in visa limbo and decided to take advantage of this summer en Vendée.  It's truly the season when the region shines.  One day, I ventured up to the only lake in La Roche, called Moulin Papon.  It's a 90-minute walk from my lodging to there, and more than a 2-hour walk around the lake, but it's well worth it for the scenery.

I thought I'd finally start learning the regional bus system, which is actually rather extensive.  Thanks to les soldes (sales!), I bought a swimsuit and sunscreen and headed out to St. Gilles Croix de Vie - this time by bus, so I had enough energy to explore and then enjoy the beach.  St. Gilles is a cute beach town with cafés and shops, always bustling with tourists during summer.  A port sits next to centre-ville, and beyond that is la Grande Plage - the large beach.  Some days, the Atlantic waves are too intense for swimming, but you can watch surfing students learn to ride the waves; other days, it's rather calm and you can really swim.  Some days (or maybe just the one), you can catch a Dutch parrot whisperer at a beachside café.

Nantes was a must-revisit; I didn't have a lot of time to spend there this past year.  I lounged on the castle grounds for a sushi picnic and ate dinner at my favorite crêperie, called Après la pluie ("After the rain").  But the real experience was visiting le Jardin des Plantes, a large English-style garden near the train station.  As I've said before, I think of Nantes as France's hipster city; you will never fail to find interesting and baffling but kind of cool modern art in unlikely places.  As soon as I'd walked through the main entrance to the garden, I stumbled upon the start of an exhibit by Claude Ponti.  Bear with me.  Here is where we begin, with a giant flowerpot made out of hundreds of flowerpots:

The empty, overturned pots file away from their mother the Potanpo and into a pond: step one in the development of the species.

The pond seems to breathe life, or kale plants, into the pots; they become Koifanchou and turn over and continue their march with their newfound greenery.

The pots then pass through l'Oeilazieu (the eye)...

...and emerge with eyes!

The march continues to le Kuiné...

...where they receive noses!  Et voilà, the plants can continue on to fulfill their destiny, whatever that may be.

The names that Ponti (a children's author, by the way) gives to each stage, as well as the descriptions, are full of witty wordplay.  In any case, the display was a pleasant surprise to discover; the art of the garden is always changing.

Just before my train left, I caught the beginning of part of Nantes' summer concert series; an instrumental group was playing at the base of the castle.  I wished I could have stayed later to hear the rest of the performance, but I had at least seen their warm-ups earlier in the day.

Cécile, Valentin, me, and Clémentine on the 14th

Le 14 juillet, or the 14th of July, or Bastille Day, came next.  In the morning, I got to play flute for another concert with the Philhar for a ceremony in Place Nap and then again outside in the gardens of the préfecture.  After a reception, I joined friends for dinner and another outstanding fireworks display in a park not far from the center of town called les Oudairies.

La Roche hosted a free outdoor summer concert series over the summer.  Every Wednesday and Thursday, there was a concert near l'Hôtel de Ville (city hall).  I made it once to see a jazz group from England called GoGo Penguin, which made for a very enjoyable evening.

Another Sunday afternoon in August, a viola/cello duet passed through on tour to fund their first recording.  I sat and listened to them for a long time.  In this video, try to ignore the background sounds of children playing with the mechanical animals of Place Nap...

After a random summer of both new experiences and goodbyes, I walked back to the train station with a single carry-on suitcase on a sunny, hot day, exactly 23 months after my arrival in town.  It took some time for me to feel at home in the Vendée, but now I feel as though it will always be one of my "homes" in the world, where I have many friends to visit and places to stay.  I will never forget the kindness and warmheartedness of those I met there, and I'm certain I will be back often.

I think I have grown quite a bit since my arrival in Nice six years ago.  I have decided that I will also, as a life goal, refuel my readiness to learn and especially my willingness to let life happen to me.  It may be scarier and more difficult at this stage of my life, but no less important.  As I inch toward settling in to my new surroundings in Lille and in the north of France, I've decided to end this blog and open another, which you can follow if you wish:

Exister, c'est oser se jeter dans le monde

Thanks for reading.
À très bientôt.

 

Encore les ponts de mai

Coming back from the April break was not the easiest rentrée (back-to-school) I've had, mostly because I still had the stress of "What happens after May 31st?" looming over my head.  I'd been sending out my CV to dozens of universities all over France and had a few leads, but jobs are competitive.  My Skype interview for a university in Nancy went well but went nowhere.  My next project was a phone interview for the Université de Valenciennes, a school in the north of France near the Belgian border.  I came down with laryngitis that day, and my phone gracefully sent the interviewers' initial call to voicemail so that they had to call back later...so I mentally threw that possibility out.  At the end of April, I traveled to Clermont-Ferrand, a city in the Auvergne region a bit west of Lyon, for an in-person interview.  I had an inexplicably good feeling about everything - I loved the ambiance of the city, my potential colleagues, the musical opportunities, the surrounding volcanoes, and of course the proximity to Lyon and the south and east of France.  I felt calm leaving, certain I'd be staying in France, and certain I'd be returning to Clermont-Ferrand.

This was, of course, the point where life decided to throw a giant wrench in my hopes and plans.

The rejection email was a difficult one to receive; between that and the decent but failed job prospect in Nantes, I realized that I would either be back in the United States next year or be moving to and starting over in a completely new region of France with few friends nearby.  I was also quickly realizing that the university position I was seeking was much more competitive than I'd anticipated.

Around this time, I unexpectedly received an email from Valenciennes; I had been selected to advance to a Skype interview in May.

So, we arrive again at les ponts de mai; if you don't remember from last year, literally the bridges of May.  There are several bank holidays during the month that often fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays; if the holiday is on a Tuesday, most workers take Monday off; if it's Thursday, Friday is off too.  Thus, you should faire le pont (bridge the gap) between Thursday and Saturday.  This year, there was a bit of grumbling because we only eked out one three-day weekend and one four-day weekend out of the deal.

My four-day weekend was free for me; my host family headed up to the north of France for a baptism.  I kicked it off with my Valenciennes Skype interview, during which I simply tried to be honest and myself despite my stress about the following year.  Even though I wanted to stay in France more than anything, I finally couldn't bring myself to just say what I thought the interviewers wanted to hear in order to nail a position.  I came into the interview instead having thought out my answers over several sleepless nights and with a list of my own questions to ask in order to find out if the school and position would be a good fit.  I x-ed out of the Skype screen after twenty minutes, happy with how it had gone, maybe a little nervous about the honesty of some of my answers, but no longer allowing myself to have the overly upbeat delusions I had after Clermont-Ferrand.

I celebrated that evening attending la Fête de la Sardine in La Roche with friends.  Yes - our local Sardine Festival.  Quite literally smushed like sardines into a small town square, there is food (sardines, of course), drinks, and live music.  We unfortunately never got through the long line to try the sardines, but it was a nice time to unwind and connect with some friends I hadn't seen in awhile.  It's also one of the most hoppin' nights one can experience in La Roche.

The following day, Thursday, was one of the most beautiful weather days of the year in the Vendée, so I downloaded the Vendée Vélo (regional biking trail) app on my phone and decided on a tentative route.  This region is known for its biking trails, but because of the rain, it's been difficult to find an opportunity to go out and take advantage for a whole day.  I decided to go out to the Atlantic coast; there is a beautiful (paved and flat!) trail that extends from La Roche to Aizenay to Coëx to a seaside town called Saint Gilles Croix de Vie.  I had tentatively planned to bike south from there to Les Sables d'Olonne and take the train back in the evening, but the stretch of terrain between Coëx and Saint Gilles turned out to be more difficult than I expected.  It took about four hours to reach Saint Gilles, where I ate the best ice cream of my life and chugged water before going straight to the train station.  My only option to get home was to take a bus all the way up to Nantes and a train back down to La Roche, three and a half hours total.  A true adventure, but it was worth it to bike through all of the beautiful Vendéen farms that supply the fresh local produce that I eat daily; the fields of flowers in Aizenay were gorgeous as well.

On Friday, I decided to pick out a random nearby city to experience.  Vannes is in the (far) southern Bretagne region, accessible by a train connection in Nantes.  I was surprised at how "Bretagne" the town really felt to me; I recalled the salty sea air that I inhaled daily last summer in Saint Jacut, which is much further north.  Vannes has a romantic centre-ville with houses uniquely misshapen and outwardly colorfully boarded.  I walked its port to see a variety of boats and its opening to the Gulfe de Morbihan, which eventually opens to the Atlantic.  At lunch, I also tasted a tiramisu that beat what I had in Italy...  Your move, Italy.

I was too sore to move much Saturday, but on Sunday, a friend of my host family took me to a Vendéen gem that I'd only previously heard of: Puy du Fou.  I went twice during the month, again a few weeks later with a group of friends.  Puy du Fou is a massive, internationally-known award-winning attraction park located maybe forty minutes from La Roche.  It's a bit like a Renaissance Festival, but covers several ancient eras; instead of a bunch of crazy people in costume running around yelling at you, the focus is on several short, theatrical performances that you can attend around the park.  The story lines are often cheesy, but the special effects, stunts, and coordination are magnificent.  There is a show about the Vikings with a ship and pyrotechnics; one takes place in a Coliseum with real lions and other animals; some have horse stunts; one is a bird show; the new one this year is a giant indoor circular theatre in which the audience seats rotate so you can see different stages (I'm still searching for the soundtrack to this last one!).  We even caught a live Vendéen folk group.  The whole park is something to see several times, as you cannot make it to all performances in one day.  The main pull is a night show that runs during the summer only, but already at the beginning of May, tickets were sold out for the entire season.

I came back down to reality for my last couple of weeks as a language assistant and au pair (and potentially my last weeks in France).  Most of you reading this probably already know the next part of the story, but I'll tell it anyway because it's one of my favorite moments.  As I was walking to an orchestra rehearsal one mid-May evening, I received an email on my phone (on the rue Clemenceau, just under our stern Napoleon statue's watchful gaze).  I stopped in the middle of the street for a few seconds and blinked as I read and re-read, not a rejection email, but a position offer to teach at the ENSIAME engineering school, part of the university in Valenciennes, France, starting in September.  Though I had many other applications still in limbo, I knew I was ready to accept this one.

Many emotions and logistics and certainly endless stacks of paperwork will accompany this transition, but I am beyond thrilled to open up the next two years of my life to a new and unexplored region of a country I love, a professional change, and continued personal growth through a fresh slate of travel opportunities.  Tchin!

Even if you weren't born then, remember.

The train ride to Poland was a little less than clear; my ticket showed me arriving at 7pm and having no connections, but I realized (thankfully before getting to Warsaw) that the train I got on in Vienna was not going straight to Kraków.  I had to get off at Katowice and hoped my connection to Kraków was legal; the train controllers didn't seem to be sure, either, but let me off the hook and I arrived around 10pm.  I was more than happy to join my friends Annie and Rodrigo at our hostel.

It was the strobe lights shining from the window of the hostel that worried me at first glance.  Its name was "Greg & Tom Party Hostel" ...and during the high tourist season, it probably is exactly what it sounds like.  Luckily, mid-April is a pretty quiet time, and our room was calm and never full.  Dinners were included, catered from the hostel's partner restaurant.  Not a bad deal at all.

Wawel castle

We had planned two days in Kraków.  It's a small but beautiful little city, but it has been improving over the past twenty years, and it's now charming and full of history.  Our first morning, we began by simply wandering the main city squares, some churches, and the Wawel Castle.  We didn't take the tour of the castle, but you can see the outside and walk through its cathedral for free.  The architectural mishmash interested me the most; the castle looks like several buildings from several eras smashed together.

We of course also tried some local specialties; I especially liked the stuffed cabbage with tomato sauce and the pierogi (Polish "ravioli", typically filled with cottage cheese).

 

In small European cities that "all start to look the same" in a way, I love finding small, unique places.  In Kraków, it was the Stained Glass Museum.  Tours run every hour on the hour...if there are tourists.  Tour guides are staff who work there and actually create the stained glass, so they walk you through the work rooms and explain what is happening as you watch the progression of their projects.  The three of us were alone on our tour and were able to ask plenty of questions and spend as much time as we wanted marveling over the process; it was truly incredible.  The work that is put into stained glass (cutting and molding the pieces, painting the pieces - maybe twenty times depending on the shading necessary - and the agony of messing up just one piece and having to completely start over on a project) is incredible.  Once a piece is finished, it also needs to be safely transported to its new home and placed correctly without being broken.  The work in matching colors, textures, and styles, is overwhelming, but our tour guide explained it all magnificently and answered our questions with ease.

Afterward, I walked almost an hour in the rain out of the city center and into the Jewish Quarter to visit the Schindler Factory, now turned into a museum.  Just before coming to Kraków, I had talked to a friend for recommendations; she said (and I pass on to you), if you have the opportunity, you absolutely need to visit Auschwitz.  As difficult as it is, it's important for every human being on this planet to go and see what humans are capable of, and remember.

Schindler's list

I started at Schindler's Factory.  There, I learned that much of the movie Schindler's List (which I haven't seen) is fabricated, but that Oskar Schindler did create a factory with decent living conditions for Jews at the time.  (He didn't have much to do with the list, though, but you can see a list of names in a circular room at the museum.)  The museum is so well done and moving, it will likely bring you to tears.  I recommend making the trek.  It's focused not exactly on Schindler, but on the lives of the Jews in Kraków leading up to their placement in camps like Auschwitz.  Germans slowly took over the center of town where Jews originally lived and forced them from their homes, placing them in what is now the Jewish Quarter; walls resembling gravestones were eventually erected around the zone.  In the end, they were almost all sent to Auschwitz or other death camps in the area.

Do not try to do both Schindler's Factory and Auschwitz in one day; you will need time to process each experience.  Rodrigo and I, and eventually Annie, decided to sign up for a tour with our hostel (for about 4 Euros more than going on our own, we avoided hours of waiting in line).  We were all nervous about what to expect, but we didn't think twice about giving up a sunny day relaxing on patios in Kraków.

Auschwitz is divided into two parts:  Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau).  The first camp is smaller, comprised of barracks that were mostly occupied by German officials (some workers and some prisoners on death row too).  The barracks have been turned into museums showing the estimated (probably vastly underestimated) number of people killed there and rooms full of the personal artifacts stolen from prisoners upon their arrival.  After the guided tour, you board a ten-minute bus to get to the second camp.  Annie and I were shocked by how modern the areas surrounding both camps were:  you can see supermarkets, freeways, and people living their everyday lives just five minutes from the former death camps.

Auschwitz II is a vast camp.  A double line of train tracks runs in through the front gates and stops in the middle; this is where families were brought in and separated, but, even in that moment, convinced that they would be okay and taken care of.  Those able to work were separated from the "weak"; even the weak were calmed and reassured as they were led to the gas chambers.  Much of the camp was destroyed by the Germans at the end of the war once they realized they'd lost, and wanted to hide what they'd done, but you can still see the blown up remains of one gas chamber.  The barracks are rebuilt every few years so that visitors can see where they were; the ground is too unstable for them to hold long-term.

I chose not to take photographs at Auschwitz; anything you really want to see can be found via Google search, I'm sure.  Photos are permitted as long as they are tasteful (no selfies, no having someone take your picture...) but we unfortunately saw those rules broken and were shocked and ashamed at how some (mostly, but not limited to, Americans...and not young Americans, either) behaved on our tour.  Depending on how you choose to get there and tour it, it can take around 8 hours; it is emotional, moving, and perhaps confusing, but you do not need to spill your every emotion to your whole tour group; you also do not need to "raise the group morale" by making goofy comments.  Hold your emotions and nervous commentary during the tour and debrief with your travel companions later.  Auschwitz is a burial ground and a reminder of terrible human capability; it is not a tourist site to check off your list; it is not the Eiffel Tower.

To summarize our tour guide's last words to us at Auschwitz II and echo with my own:  Let's be very careful of how we treat other ethnic groups and remember that we've already allowed similar camps to exist in America during WWII.  "Ethnic cleansing" is not a thing of the past; the holocaust is not a historical fluke that's now behind us.  It started somewhere and few noticed or stood up to how terrible it was becoming at the time.  Before you believe yourself to be superior to another race or any group of people in any way, remember to stop, sit down, and listen.  You may be different, but not in any way superior.  Yes, that can be a challenging concept, but the moment you sit, listen, and connect is the moment tensions subside, even on the small scale.  Ask, "Why?" or "How can I help?" or "Can you explain?" instead of making assumptions and passing quick judgment.  The answers may surprise you, and in the smallest of ways, help stop a new disaster.  Auschwitz is not a thing of the past; it could happen again today, maybe in some other way.  Instead, let's choose to be tolerant.

Dear Vienna

If you took the classical music out of Vienna, I wouldn't have liked the city much at all.

Fortunately, I don't think it's possible to separate Vienna from its classical music history, and I left with some beautiful memories and would definitely go back to hear more music.

I must have used up all my sunny days in Budapest, because after the three-hour train ride west to Vienna, I spent the afternoon wandering in the pouring rain like a drowned rat.  That made the city rather difficult to navigate for a first-timer; my phone's GPS bowed out on me as well leaving me with only a soggy, inaccurate tourist map.

Mozarthaus

It was therefore a perfect day to visit Mozarthaus, the only Viennese residence of Mozart that remains; it's not far from St. Stephen's Cathedral.  The composer lived there from 1784-87.  The museum itself is small but covers four floors; it's very polished and well-done.  Some rooms are set up as one would assume Mozart had them arranged during his lifetime; others have been turned into a museum of his musical works and the history of his time.

St. Charles Church

That evening, I headed to St. Charles Church for a concert (Vivaldi's Four Seasons: third edition).  Concerts in Vienna are certainly less relaxed than in Budapest.  I watched people try various tactics to cut in front of each other in line while waiting for the doors to open.  The church was full; you had to pay for a program; and instead of switching on the heater, they handed out blankets.  The string group that played was excellent, but I was too stubborn to pay for a program and cannot tell you their name, nor can I identify the first piece they played.  The music itself was some of the smoothest and most polished work I've ever heard; the musicians were powerfully confident and hardly seemed to communicate onstage.  (Maybe a little bit over-confident, too - the solo violinist added a cadenza in each movement...so, yes, twelve cadenzas.)

One absolute must-see in Vienna is Schönbrunn Palace, just outside the center of town.  Because of its size and large adjacent gardens, it's a bit like a mini-Versailles.  Schönbrunn's added bonus is a ban on all photography inside the palace; people tend to walk through the rooms at a normal pace and you don't repeatedly walk into the guy in front of you who feels the need to take a picture of every chair.

Schönbrunn was built around 1640, but it is best known for its style since its remodeling around 1740-50, when Empress Maria Theresa lived there.  The palace has a rather varied interior mostly representing two distinct periods of history:  the Rococo-style rooms of Empress Maria Theresa's time and the neoclassical rooms of Franz Joseph I (1830-1916), the longest-reigning emperor of Austria.  The Rococo rooms are, of course, over the top, with gold, intricate carvings, elaborate wallpaper, and paintings.  The neoclassical style, in contrast, is much simpler; though he was one of the most important ruler's in Austria's history, Franz I's bedroom and bed were tiny and unimpressive.  I liked both styles, but my favorite was of course the Mirror Room, decorated in white, gold, and deep pink.  This was where Mozart gave his first concert to Empress Maria Theresa at the age of six.

Gloriette

After the palace tour, I took a walk in the gardens despite the drizzle.  They are less impressive than those of Versailles, but you can walk straight back and up a hill to the Neptune Fountain and continue to the Gloriette.  From the top, there's a nice view of Schönbrunn with some of the city center and beautiful dark hills in the background.

Upon returning to the center of town, it was obvious that the weather was not going to cooperate for a nice afternoon outside, so I ended up at Hofburg Palace, the former imperial palace.  It's been through many renovations going back to the 1400s, but today houses a museum with three parts: the Imperial Apartments, the Sisi Museum, and the Silver Collection.  I passed first through the Silver Collection, which readily blew my mind; it houses endless collections of royal silverware and takes you through the changes in table setting style over the decades.  The Imperial Apartments were nothing special after Schönbrunn, but the real draw is the Sisi Museum, following the life of Empress Elisabeth, the wife of Franz Joseph I.  She was born in Munich, which was then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, and married rather young into Austrian royalty.  Despite her privilege, she had difficulties all her life adjusting to being in the royal spotlight, and was eventually assassinated in Geneva.  The museum effectively displayed the complications of her life in an objective way.

When you are all museumed out on a rainy day in Vienna, there is a solution:  Demel, a fancy tea and cake shop.  If you want to sit down and eat or drink, there is a lengthy and rather confusing process; I finally snagged a table after an hour of waiting.  I was happy with my hot chocolate and whatever cake I chose (due to the treble clef written on it in icing).

My anticipated moment of the weekend happened late Sunday morning.  Before the vacation, I had found advance tickets for the Vienna Philharmonic matinée for six Euros!  What a deal.  I was expecting general admission nosebleed seats, but acoustics in the back of the hall are usually better anyway.  I arrived at the music hall and collected my ticket, which read Stehplatz, and then shuffled into a long line.  The doors opened and we were let loose into the hall, which brings me to my:

German Word of the Day
Stehplatz - standing room

We were put into a small area on the ground floor in the back of the hall where there was much shuffling and craning of necks in order to see anything.  Once the concert started, many people dropped like flies and sat on the floor.  I wasn't sure how my legs would hold up being crunched in a small space for two hours, but if I was uncomfortable, I didn't notice at all: that is how incredible the Vienna Philharmonic was.  I even splurged on a program this time, and during the second half, I could see most of the right side of the stage, including the flute players.  The guest conductor was none other than the "Dude" - Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  The highlight of the concert was Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, already a powerful piece.  Thanks to the acoustics of the hall, the cohesiveness of the orchestra, and the clearest of tones from every musician, you could hear every instrument perfectly, and they were all completely in sync.  The ending left everyone speechless...and I realized afterward that I hadn't given my legs a single thought during the whole piece.

I could move to Vienna just for the six-Euro standing room tickets.

You know you've been traveling alone too long when you start playing the statue selfie game.  After the concert, there was a marathon blocking much of Vienna, and the sun started peeking out, so I naturally decided to hunt down every musical composer statue in the city. I believe I hit them all: Brahms, Beethoven, Gluck, Bruckner, Schubert, Mozart, Strauss, and Vivaldi.

Once that was accomplished, I went grave-hunting.  Most composers are buried in Zentralfriedhof, the national cemetery of Vienna and one of the largest in the world.  To get there, you need to take the tram out of the center of town and then walk another thirty minutes.  When I arrived, I was disappointed not to find a map pointing out the locations of the composers like in Père Lachaise in Paris; this cemetery is massive, and I was also afraid that the gates would be closed and locked for the evening if I strayed too far from them.  Discouraged, I was ready to give up and turn around when I ran into them completely by chance, nicely clustered together: Brahms, Strauss, Schubert, and, of course, Beethoven.

Beethoven

Brahms

Mozart

Mozart was too cool for the national cemetery; he is a tram stop and another thirty-minute walk away in St. Marx Cemetery.  It's a smaller and quieter place (though they built an obnoxious elevated freeway above the cemetery); I just needed to follow a guy taking photos with his iPad to find the grave easily.

My last morning, I had a couple more places on my list to hit.  Naschmarkt was first after a long walk: the huge, daily outdoor market.  It was too early for a meal, but I did swipe some delicious-looking pastries for later on the train.  After, I hopped on the tram and up to take a peek at the Hundertwasserhaus, an interesting and colorful apartment block designed by the artist Hundertwasser.  You can admire it from the outside and from an inner courtyard for free: the pavement and building lines are uneven; there are trees growing from inside the apartment; grass grows from the roof.  It's one of Vienna's lesser-known gems, and doesn't take much time to stop and see.

 

That is where my solo travels ended; next stop is Kraków, Poland.

Everything I ate in Budapest...and some bonus material

St. Patrick's Day at Cup

The six-week stretch between the February and April breaks was the busiest I've had since moving to France.  Between my regular assistant and au pair duties, planning weekly lectures and lessons for my university students, teaching private English lessons, and translating documents for friends, my plate was pretty full.  Add to that the job search, application submissions, and trip planning...and you'll understand why the morning of Sunday, April 3 was such a welcome relief.

First, the holidays:  Saint Patrick's Day was celebrated with some of my colleagues from Haxo.  We made a reservation for a special dinner at Cup, a tiny but adorable English tea shop run by an English woman here in La Roche.

Post-chasse aux oeufs

I spent Easter revisiting Biarritz and looking after the kids.  We spent most of our time at the park or on the apartment terrace overlooking the city and Atlantic ocean; the weather was perfect.  One of the highlights was the chasse aux oeufs (Easter egg hunt) on the terrace.

The Friday before the April break was my first April Fool's Day working in a French middle school.  In France, they call the day poisson d'avril - literally, "April fish" - and the tradition is to spend the day trying to stick paper fish on others' backs, among other more inventive pranks.  Pairing poisson d'avril with the last day before a two-week vacation is a recipe for mass pandemonium.  Elaborate cut-out paper fish were strewn everywhere, white board markers regularly went missing at the beginning of class, flash drives were switched, teachers arrived to class to reach into their bags and find that their photocopies and lesson plans had been swiped (that last one was teachers pranking teachers, I'm fairly certain)...

Snazzy shot of Notre Dame

Sunday, I had a nice long train ride date with my Kindle, down to La Rochelle and back up to Paris for an overnight stay at the foot of the Eiffel Tower where Elyse lives.  It was the first real spring day in Paris, and I spent most of is basking on the Champ de Mars...on the phone with the airline because the passenger information on my ticket listed me as a 116-year-old man.

After three phone calls, they finally believed that I was a 26-year-old woman and the next day allowed me to board the plane to Budapest, Hungary.

hortobágyi palacsinta

Getting in late in the evening, my initial blind attempts at public transit and taking out and using cash (Hungarian Forint) went rather smoothly.  My hostel pointed me in the direction of a traditional restaurant, where I tried hortobágyi palacsinta - meat-stuffed pancakes.  Lessons learned:  Hungarian food is delicious but heavy, and Hungarian wait staff is almost frighteningly attentive.

English is sufficient for getting around in Budapest, but a small effort in Hungarian tended to end in more fun-filled conversations.  Through geographically surrounded by Germanic, Romantic, and Slavic languages, Hungarian is a relative of Finnish and Estonian.  Once you learn the pronunciation of each letter, word stress is always on the first syllable, and you're ready to roll.  Here is the crash course:

szia (pronounced "see ya") - hi and bye
köszönöm - thank you
kérem - please
beszél angolul? - do you speak English?
igen - yes
nem - no
elnézést - excuse me
hol van ... ? - where is ... ?

Deciphering the currency was another fun game.  The cost of nearly everything (restaurants, food, museums, household goods...) is much lower than in western European countries, so you are not very likely to overspend even if you don't get out the calculator every time you scan over a menu or buy a keychain.  I mostly thought in terms of Forint to Euros, but here are some benchmarks for the U.S. dollar (at the current rate):

$1 = 275 HUF
(just under) $15 = 4,000 HUF

One of my first projects was a walking tour covering the basics of Budapest.  The city is divided in two by the Danube river; the west side of the river was originally its own city called Buda, and the east side was called Pest.  Hungary gets some of its traditions from Turkey, like paprika, public baths (I didn't go, but there are several popular baths you can visit throughout Budapest), and coffee, though it was later replaced by Italian-style coffee.  Ernő Rubik, inventor of that famous and frustrating cube, is a native of Budapest; Zoltán Kodály, creator of the solfège system (do-re-mi) and music teaching pedagogy was also Hungarian.  Hungary also claims composer Franz Liszt as its own; he was born in the town of Raiding, Austria, which in 1811 was Doborján, Hungary.  I guess Austria has enough composers to keep track of already, so they generally allow Hungary to keep Liszt on its list of achievements.

Matthias Church

After the walking tour, I spent some time on the hill of the Buda side.  The main attractions include the Buda Castle, Matthias Church, and Fisherman's Bastion.  Interested mostly by the colorful roof, I went inside Matthias Church; you can apparently buy the roof tiles as souvenirs in gift shops.  The inside of the church is dark and painted simply, but looks ornate when you step back to take it all in.  Just outside, Fisherman's Bastion offers a panoramic view of the Danube and Pest.

Chain Bridge and St. Stephen's

langós

I retraced my path down the hill and crossed over the Chain Bridge (the most famous of a few connecting Buda and Pest; the other two important ones are creatively named Green Bridge and White Bridge) back to Pest.  I spent a few hours walking around the Jewish Quarter, which was my favorite area of the city; there's a beautiful synagogue, restaurants, and hidden alleyways with street food.  Nearer to St. Stephen's Basilica, I found temporary markets in city squares selling more street food and artisan goods.  I sampled langós, supposedly in the "snack food" category (but I could have stretched it into two meals): it's in the pizza family, soft flat bread topped with garlic sauce, cheese, and whatever other toppings you'd like (meat, vegetables, etc.).  Hungary is also known for its wine, especially sweet white wine.

Iron Curtain monument

I also took a walk up and down Andrássy út (avenue), known as Budapest's main shopping drag.  What I was really looking for was a chunk of the Berlin Wall and an Iron Curtain monument outside of the House of Terror museum; I found them both, as well as panels with information on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

That evening, I went to a concert in St. Stephen's Basilica, part of a small series of concerts at various venues throughout the city.  This one featured organist Gyula Pfeiffer; there were also performances on trumpet and violin, and by a tenor and soprano.  Here is part of the opening piece, one of my favorites, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  The concert was also a nice way of seeing the basilica itself; it's named after the first king of Hungary who reigned from about 1000-1038.  His fist is the relic that sits in a side chamber of the church; you can put a 100 Forint coin into a slot to shine light on it for a few minutes.

My final stop for the day was one of several ruin bars in Pest.  Ruin bars are located in the 7th district, built on ruins of buildings that have been abandoned since as early as WWII.  They can be difficult to find if you don't plan ahead, as they look like normal homes from the outside and are guarded by bouncers who make sure that no noise disrupts neighbors.  A group from my hostel chose one of the most well-known called Szimpla Kert.  Once you walk inside, it feels like you are in a different world, an old mini city in a cave.  It's quite dark, and the floor and walls are made of uneven, unfinished old stone.  There are vintage decorations, even cars turned into tables, and neon signs and colored lights covering several floors; the ambiance is fantastic.

kürtőskalács

Day 2 was all about walking:  I made a huge loop around Pest before heading up to Margaret Island on the Danube, on the north end of Budapest.  The island is rather large with trails and parks; I hiked up to the northernmost point and back.  On my way back, I swung by the market again for kürtőskalács, or chimney cake, a sweet Hungarian snack food with Transylvanian origins.  It comes in several flavors: vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, etc.

That evening, I went to a second concert, this time featuring a small string chamber orchestra at St. Anne's Church.  It included my second (but not last!) rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons that week.  The church was small but cozy, and the pews had heated seats.  Very heated.  Maybe I got the rogue pew, but the German woman next to me and I wound up kneeling for the last part of the concert because the pew was so hot.  ...Anyway, the music was good.

Budapest is a great city for walking, and the weather was beautiful all week, so I didn't mind covering a lot of ground on foot.  During my last full day, I managed to clock about 13 miles.  I headed up to the northeast corner to take a peek at Hero's Square and Vajdahunyad Castle, which is beautiful but overrun by tourists with selfie sticks, so I turned around and headed back into town.  Before lunch, I stopped into a Hungarian national history museum, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, which gave a thorough but not overwhelming overview of the country's history.  I still can't quite keep track of all the changes in borders between eastern European countries over the years, but I did appreciate the piano that belonged first to Beethoven and that was later passed to Liszt.

Next stop was the Nagy Vásárcsarnok: the main market.  It's a massive indoor market with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, and artisan stalls.  I wasn't hungry enough to partake in the upstairs hot food vendors, but did get some freshly-squeezed orange juice and make the tour of the building.

Late in the afternoon, I had a ticket for a tour of the Hungarian Parliament Building, a definite must-visit if you go.  The tour itself is not long - less than an hour - but it's the only way of going inside the building, and you should book a day or two ahead of time if you want a specific tour time.  Parliament is the largest building in Hungary and is exactly the same height as St. Stephen's Basilica; no taller building can be authorized in Budapest.  It took nineteen years to build (completed in 1904) and houses the Crown Jewels of Hungary, guarded by soldiers with swords (we were advised to stay clear and certainly not take pictures).  The inside is magnificent, decorated in gold and red.  Much of the building had to be rebuilt after WWII, but certain things - like the original stained glass - were hidden and protected in the basement and reinstalled afterward.

Shoes on the Danube

Not far from Parliament, on the banks of the Danube, you can find Shoes on the Danube, a memorial honoring Jews shot on the river by Arrow Cross fascists during WWII.  It's very simple but moving: several pairs of shoes cemented to the ground facing the water.

Last but not least, with my last bit of leg strength, I crossed back to Buda and climbed Gellért-hegy (hill) a couple of hours before sunset for a nice view of the city.  The hill itself has several nice places to relax and read or enjoy the view; at the top is the Citadel as well as Liberty Statue, which was put up by the Soviet Red Army in commemoration of their victory after WWII and the end of the Nazi occupation.

Finally, my last meal in Budapest was the best: I went to a restaurant called Fat Mama for traditional goulash.