June 26 – July 2, 2014, Keszthely and

I see it is not just Vancouver where the auto drivers are homicidal maniacs around bicycle riders.  In the parking lot in front of Vonyarcvashegy (or “Vaya Con Dios” if your Hungarian is as lame as mine) I was almost run down four times in today’s outing.  That doesn’t count the pedestrians who ran in front of me and my fellow bike riders who tried to blow me off the path.  It’s a dog-eat-dog world out here folks, and you can’t afford to be timid.

You have to be careful riding or walking on the bike paths in Hungary.  It is legal here for “mopeds” to ride on the path.  Of course, some of these “mopeds” have 500 c.c. engines and the name “Harley Davidson” in large friendly letters on the side.

*****



It's America Month at Aldi!

It is “America” month at the local Aldi store – the sales flyer came today.  This document says that interested Hungarian shoppers may delight in American delicacies like Peanut Butter (smooth and crunchy), frozen “Wraps” and “Chicken Nuggets,” Hamburger and Hot Dog Buns as well as Hot Dogs in a glass jar (You can’t buy white bread “buns” in Hungary at the store, but they have them at McDonald’s), “Frozen Milk Shakes,” and Miller Genuine Draft.  Seems about right to me – except they forgot the “Wings” and the “Pizza” (the latter readily available already).

 

*****

My chores as “chauffeur” this year frequently involve driving the ladies to the local “China” store to shop for “Shoes” and “Clothes.”  In the US, out clothes are made in China and sold to us through corporate middlemen.  In Hungary, they cut the middlemen by having the Chinese sell directly to you, saving you some sheckles.  As a result, the locals all wear the same badly fitting clothing with strange English sayings on the front.  Some examples:

·        U.S. Mershall (sic), Dept. 1976, Miamt, Flarida (sic) – I’m not sure “Miamt, Flarida” is, but I would be careful of the “Mershalls” there.

·        This is my Little Black T-Shirt – on a pink t-shirt

·        If You Want Me I Tell You My Phone Number – ‘nuff said

·        Some Things Never Happen – not a lie, I guess

·        Flick A Man Open of Lonesome – what was that?

·        Atlantic Sanfrancisco – it’s just north of Miamt Flarida, you can’t miss it

Of course, you can make anything more hip at the “China” store by adding the phrase “Of Athletics” or “University” to the front, so:

·        YUES New York of Athletics – Umm, seems a little blatant

·        University of Special Girls – somehow I don’t think I would enjoy this college

·        Athieltcdpt (sic) University Athletic Dept – Huh?

·        Meow University – I don’t think that means what you think it means, fellows

And then, by sheer number, they occasionally get it right:

·        Your Wings Already Exist, All You Have To Do Is Fly – Isn’t that sweet?

·        More Respect Less Attack – words to live by

*****

7/2/14 Pécs

It's "baby" season.
 Z has lots of pictures of blurs like this. 
I think it is supposed to be a stork,
but no promises

We went to the pretty city of Pécs today, but not to sight see.  Peter needs to have some important medical tests performed that they can only do there.  So, once again at the wheel of the Mighty Opel, off we go on the 2 and ½ journey.

I have a challenge for the guys on the BBC TV show “Top Gear.”  I double dog dare you to start at a town in Hungary that is on an Autobahn – say Györ (just because it is going to be the name of my heavy metal band someday).  You get two cars.  One of you only gets to travel on the most direct route to Pécs.  The other only gets to travel the Autobahn.  Who wins?

You need to have this factoid first.  Years ago when they started building Hungary’s modern road system, they decided that “all roads lead to Budapest.”  So to get from Gyor to Pécs, you have to travel several hundred miles out of your way to Budapest first.  And yet, you probably still will win.

The back roads we took from Keszthely to Pécs were easily the best ride I have been on since doing the roller coasters at Knotts Berry Farm.  At 100 KPH I only hit my head on the roof of the car once – and that was wearing a seat belt!

*****

It is what you think it is - yikes!

The hospital in Pécs is in the middle of one of the largest Soviet era “Complexes,” or perhaps “Projects,” I have seen in Europe.  This, of course, makes it a natural as a teaching hospital, and so it is.  While Peter gets his test (“Your radioactivity rate will be very high for the next two days.  Don’t be around any young children.”  Yikes!), he sent us away to have lunch with Angi (whom you met earlier in the blog).

Restaurants in “the Projects” are geared to the large student population nearby.  Prices are low and the quality is acceptable for the simple bar-type fare they sell.  My lunch started with a pretty good vegetarian mushroom soup (it could have used a little more pepper), followed by the Mains of a cabbage salad and a traditional Hungarian dish of, in this case grilled (it is more often breaded and fried), camembert cheese with rice and cranberry preserves.  Z had a traditional bean and sausage soup, followed by the cabbage salad and what she thought would be mac & cheese, but ended up being noodles with scrambled eggs.  She said the soup was good, but the noodle thing needed catchup or something.  Price for the meal was 1150 Ft – about five bucks.  I bet this is a happening place on Friday and Saturday night.

June 14 – 15, 2014, On the road again….

Here we are again, at Portland International Airport, waiting for our flight to Vienna, via Vancouver B.C (eh?) and Munich.  I put that “International” part in there because I think we are this week.  With Portland, you can never be quite sure from week to week.  The flights will total 18 hours of flying and layover time.  This is to be followed by a two plus hour drive to beautiful Keszthely.  Strangely, we are looking forward to this and can’t wait to get started.

Dave and Zia always look
 happy going on vacation!

As usual, we met a familiar face to hang out with while waiting for our flight at PDX.  It has become so much of a tradition now that we would be disappointed were it not to happen.  This year, we found Hannah M., the Columbia River High School Drum Major, who was on her way to Berkeley, CA for a conference.  We had time for a nice chat before she had to dash off for her flight.

*****

Dear Laurelwood Brewing Company,

A $3.50 bottle of Laurelwood Brewing
Company water.  Times must be
 tight in the brewery business.

Thank you for selling mineral water at the airport.  We really enjoy it, so it is appreciated that you carry it for us.  A couple of things, though:

1.      Seeing as we have all just cleared security, and the requisite emptying of our pockets of everything, including bottle key rings with bottle openers on them, don’t you think it would be a good idea to have twist top bottles?

2.      If not, don’t you think it might be potentially useful if the clerk had a bottle opener at the cash register?

3.      If not, don’t you think it might be useful to tell said cashier where to find one, so that he doesn’t have to spend five minutes looking for one?

And while we’re on the subject –

4.      Don’t you think $3.50 is a little steep for 16 ounces of soda water that can be bought at my local Safeway for less than a buck?

Thanks awfully,

Z tells me that taking pictures of
 your feet at the airport is a thing. 
OK, so here....

Which, of course, brings me to my annual rant.  I’ve been to the Laurelwood Pub on Sandy Boulevard in Portland.  I can guarantee you that they don’t charge $3.50 for a pint of club soda there.  So why the price gouging because we are captives at the airport.  It doesn’t encourage me to visit their restaurant.  I like their beer, but I like lots of beer in Beervana.  It becomes pretty easy to make other choices.  So why do they do it?  Why do they dis the very customer base that they are trying to build?  My thoughts, because they can.

I have written my congress person about this and received no response.  Maybe if you join me in this, we can see a change?

*****

Longtime readers of our blog know that I am a big fan of Airplane TV on international flights.  I love the adventure of seeing how far we have traveled, and the esoteric and sometimes strange names people give their hamlets.  My favorite was always Godthåb, Greenland, which the locals call “Nuuk.”  I became so fascinated by this place that I’ve even looked it up on Google Earth and researched it online.  It’s the capital, you know, and the largest city in Greenland.  And it looks about like you would expect, if your expectation is that it would look about like frontier Alaska. 

The Airplane TV folks were pretty fascinated with the place, too.  It showed up on almost every map except the really close detailed one – and most of those on the way to Europe.  Of course, that was the old Airplane TV.  Lufthansa has a new version of Airplane TV, with 3D views of the plane, genuine simulated views from the cockpit, this really weird thing where you fly into the plane from billions of miles out in space.  They have pretty much done away with the “town view” map except for a little bit when you are leaving and just before you land.

And evidently the good folks of the Visitors and Information Bureau of Godthåb haven’t paid their bills to the new Airplane TV people.  Sadly, I didn’t see them come up even once.

*****

We were entertained on the Munich-Vienna leg of our journey by two good-natured but slightly dense Cal Poly students hitting on a couple of stewardesses that were deadheading it to their digs in Vienna after having worked our Vancouver flight.  We learned from this male brain trust, in no particular order:

·        That Lufthansa stewardesses get paid by the unit for their trips (although the stewardess told him this first thing in their conversation, it took him 5 minutes to put together that they got paid by the unit).

·        That, although he was going to start student teaching in the fall, he had “really no clue” what it entailed (ummm, maybe teaching?)

·        That Cal Poly means, ummm Cal Poly (that would be “California Polytechnic”)

·        A long involved conversation in which he assumed that she was Catholic, although she repeatedly told him she was not

·        That Austria looks nothing like America (well, probably not California – and as we all know, America is California)

·        Upon discovering that she had trained to be a professional opera singer: “we don’t have that in the U.S.”  (I’ll remember to tell that to my friends in the Eugene Opera)

·        The “like” tax would, like, have run him, like, thousands of, like, dollars, like.

·        A long involved conversation about native foods of Austria, schnitzel, palatschinken (crepes), sausages, Kaiserschmarn and the like, and ending with the brain trust asking, “Do you eat as much sauerkraut as the Germans do?” (I hate to break it to you, friend, but the Germans don’t eat that much of it either.  And you should have listened when she tried to explain the Kaiserschmarn, it’s pretty tasty – crepes torn up with raisin-y goodness on top)

To make it through the program at Cal Poly they likely are very book-smart.  But they are pretty naive at the whole life thing.  It’s probably a good thing they are getting out and seeing the world a bit.

And strangely, neither one of them got a phone number.

*****

We were met at the Flughafen Wien by András and Péter and whisked away to Keszthely (if being “whisked away” involves a two and ½ hour car ride), where chilled pálinka and pogácsa awaited, followed by dinner (roasted duck with stuffing, fried squash and roasted sweet potato) and a flat place where we could put our feet up and call it a day.  A happy place, indeed!

July 10-12, 2013 Croatia and Venice!

July 10-12, 2013 Croatia and Venice!

Dave and Zia in Opatija - taking a selfie
with a real camera is a little complicated!

A four hour drive took Vera, Z and myself to the Croatian coast and the little berg of Opatija – a pretty little casino town on the Adriatic Sea.  Although I guess they are all pretty little casino towns on the Adriatic.  We ambled about the waterfront for a bit and watched the increasingly ominous black clouds move in.  About the time the lightning strike hit the bay just off the shore with instantaneous thunder, there was a mass exodus off of the beach – including us!

We hit a machine to get some Kunas, or as the smart-alecky American quickly retitled them, Kahunahs, and then stopped and enjoyed an espresso at the Café Bar of the Bellevue Optija and a really great vegetable quesadilla at the walk up stand down the street.  Back into the car, we left with the rain and jumped over the mountains.

*****

I am startled of course, but no longer surprised, that I am alive to write this rant.  In the course of our journey today I have had near misses with a bus, a couple of trucks, many cars, brain-trust motorcycle riders, and even a girl on roller blades while walking down the street in Opatija.  At one point, nearing a stop light on a corner, and following a large truck, I was passed on the left by a Darwin-Award winner, who then raced to the trucks right to get to the intersection first, narrowly missing death and dismemberment from the truck driver, who evidently has very good breaks.  Of course then missing the short green light while he patted himself on the back for his exploits probably didn’t win him any friends either.

And I thought Serbia was bad!

*****

We traveled over the mountains and through more tunnels than I have ever seen in my life.  The best was the magic three-mile long tunnel with rain on one side and sun on the other!  Back to nice weather again, we dodged the traffic back down to the coast.

Old Town in Poreč at night

We ended our day in picturesque Poreč.  I’m pretty sure that I have seen this façade in plenty of Hollywood movies.  Either that or it looks just like plenty of façades in Hollywood movies.  For example, it’s not the old town at the end of the first Bourne flick, but it could be a body-double for it.

The old town area, as you would expect, is full of people, stores, people shopping in the stores, people, restaurants, people eating in the restaurants, and more people.  And this is a Wednesday.  I shudder to think about it on a weekend.  Taking a clue from our surroundings, we bought a couple postcards, found a place to eat, and then returned, exhausted, to our pension.

You can find an agency to rent an apartment in most European cities.  Ours is a one-bedroom with a small deck and a little kitchenette.  The small bedroom has a king bed and a rollaway shoehorned in it.  There is a small bathroom with a shower.  As we are only sleeping and eating here, it is perfect!

*****

7/11

A 5:30 a.m. wake-up was our fate this morning, as we needed to be at the port early enough to clear customs for our 8:00 hydrofoil to Venice.  It seems Venice is in a different country (go figure), and we have to get passport stamps and the all-important security vetting.  I had never been vetted before I went to Europe, now it happens all the time!  Of course, in the US you have “background checks,” but those aren’t as fancy.  Long story short, all this means that you need to arrive an hour early to catch your flight – errr, boat.

On Rialto Bridge
in pretty Venice

Once checked in and seated, they take you through your preflight – err, sail – in four languages, Croatian (authoritarian voice), British English (dour), Italian (sounding as if he seriously couldn't give a shit about your safety or anything else) and Russian (sounding as if it was recorded from the top of a deep well).  The preflight – err , sail – is just like the ones on the airplane, except that your seat, strangely, cannot be used as a flotation device.  We then hit our cruising speed of 35 knots, about 40.2772807 miles per hour (but who’s counting), and in a little over two hours we were there.

Venice has been on my travel bucket list ever since I started realizing that you could actually go visit these places 20 years ago.  The actual line item reads “Go to San Marco and play Gabrieli in the chapel.”  We should all have dreams, but odds of getting to play there were surely to be unrealized this trip.  That said, I greatly looked forward to scouting it out for my next trip with 11 brass-playing friends.

We cleared Italian customs and took a brisk 50 minute walk with our Tour Dude to San Marco Square.  Venice, as it turns out, is a maze – one we had a lot of fun exploring later.  I’m OK with a map and probably could have made it, but it was nice, and probably faster, to have a green umbrella to follow.  Thanks Tour Dude!

The Piazza San Marco was everything I expected – with the possible exception of how really very small it is.  It turns out movie camera make things look a lot bigger, who knew?  My favorite movie view of the square is from the Bruce Willis flick “Hudson Hawk,” but I’m sure you have your own, there being a million of them.  Z and Vera left to “explore” (i.e. “shop for shoes”), and I joined the line to check out the basilica.

OK Uncle Dave, why is Saint Marks on you bucket list?

Crossing San Marco
off of the bucket list!

Well my friends, a long time ago, in an empire far, far away, there was a period of music referred to in Dr. Bob’s Music History Class (and everywhere else for that matter) as the Renaissance.  The three guys who brought this musical period to its crowning glory all worked here.  The space had a lot to do with how they did their jobs as composers, and I looked forward to being inspired. 

The three guys, you ask?  Andrei Gabrieli, who invented stereo, and after him, his nephew Giovanni, who invented dynamics (he was the first guy to write it into a piece of music), who was followed by Claudio Monteverdi, who also wrote a pretty tune. 

Stereo, in this case meaning “antiphonal,” is the practice of two groups playing call-and-response across distances.  Having played this music in some frightfully large concert halls, I was always curious how they did it “back in the day.”  It turns out it probably wasn’t so difficult, as the platforms the musicians played from were not as far apart as I thought they were and certainly not as far apart as the way we perform the stuff now.  They were, however, far enough apart to give the sound some separation (stereo-effect). 

And this is why you go see the stuff where it happened.  It gives you some insight into how the composer thinks and works, especially in this case.  It would be a thrill to see it in person.

Tour books will tell you that you will stand in line for hours to get into San Marco, but it only took me about 10 minutes on the Thursday morning.  Be prepared to check your bag at the door.  Your clothing will be inspected before you are allowed to enter, and looking too “touristy” will get you spiked.  Bare shoulders are out.  Shorts that are excessively short also get you the boot.  In short, you are entering a church, show some respect, huh?

Surprisingly, some folks (Americans mostly) have a hard time with this, the two young women in line in front of me for example.  Two older ladies, who had just finished their tour, walked by and, upon seeing the bare shoulders of the young women, made a gift to them of the cloth they had brought to cover themselves with.  All the way to the front of the line, they were making it clear that they would not be wearing this over their shoulders, it was too hot, not attractive, etc, etc.  As I passed the women at the entrance, they were still arguing with the door guard about how they were not going to wear the unattractive cloth, and he was making it clear they weren't getting in without it.

My reasons for visiting St. Marks were primarily musical, so you can imagine how delighted, thrilled, overwhelmed and overcome I was to walk into the chapel to the sounds of a live choir singing Monteverdi.  I’m not sure where they were in the sanctuary, but they were very good – a few dropped notes in the chant between tunes being the only clue that it was not a recording.  Well, that and no obvious sound reinforcement equipment.  It was stunning.  It was beautiful.  The memory of it will haunt me for a long time.  Why aren't you out making these kinds of memories?

*****

After a tour of the beautiful cathedral and a visit to the gift shop to procure enough “educational material” to ensure my tax write-off of this trip, I made my way back outside to find Z and Vera.  Regrettably, they had gotten lost – easy to do in Venice.  There are signs painted on buildings all over everywhere.  The hard part is believing that this little passage between these two buildings is the correct path (and won’t lead you to the friendly neighborhood mugger).  You get better at finding your way around as the day progresses, and you finally get pretty good at it just about the time you leave.  With the help of some descriptions back and forth on the cell to each other and the map in my pack, 30 minutes later we were reunited.

We enjoyed lunch at a little café on a side street.  In Venice, you will pay an extra surcharge to sit down to eat.  Watch the menu fine print for this.  If you would like to save a buck, go to one of the many walk-up places that don’t charge the fee.

The whole crew - Z's the
one with the camera

On any given day in high season, Venice will have 100,000 tourists.  Between this, the flooding (remember kids, as our friends in congress will tell you, there is no such thing as global warming), and the extreme cost of everything, the locals are moving away in droves.  Our Tour Dude, who makes this trip all year around, told us that except for high season and Carnival, Venice is a ghost town/museum piece.  As hard as it is to get through the crowds, we could use a little of that today.

We had a beautiful day visiting a beautiful city.  I wish we had more time, but as Peter always tells me “if you see it all this trip, you have nothing to look forward to next trip.”  Although I get to cross Venice off my bucket list, I can hardly wait to return and see the many things I missed this trip.  But for us today, back to Poreč for people, dinner, shopping, and then to bed.

*****

7/12

Croatian Driving Rules:

Should you ever need to drive in Croatia here are the rules, and good luck to you:

1)      130 kph on the freeway unless otherwise marked – usually 110 kph

a.      This, of course, does not apply if you are from Zagreb, in which case you must drive as fast as you think you can control plus an extra 10 kph

2)      50 kph in town

a.      This of course does not apply if you are from Zagreb, in which case you are expected to nearly miss as many things as is humanly possible.  Records will be kept, and your license removed, for failure to do so.

3)      It really doesn't matter what is in front of you – go ahead and pass.  Blind corner, no biggie.  Big truck you can’t see around, who cares?  The other car from Zagreb barreling at you at 2000 kph will surely hit their breaks, right?  Likewise the car you are passing.  Especially when you are doing both at the same time.

4)      100 kph in tunnels, of which there are a lot in Croatia.

a.      Needless to say, Zagreb-ians traveling lass that 50,000 kph through a tunnel will be cited.

5)      If you have been on the road for an hour and have not faced death at least five times – not serious injury, the big sleep, you are not in Croatia, and certainly not in Zagreb.

I was getting excited when I heard in the original plans for this trip that I would get to drive in Italy.  Italian drivers have the reputation of being amongst the worst in the world and I was looking forward to seeing if my skills were ready for primetime.  As always, our trip followed “the Oregon Plan,” and hence our sea voyage rather than the drive.  All I can say for sure is that if Italian drivers are amongst the worst I really don’t need to see them anymore.  Their neighbors in Croatia are more than up for their title run.  Our one hour trek from Poreč to Opatija was full of moments that were a testament to my mad skills as a driver and the Opel’s great brakes – or blind luck as the case may be.  In any case, I’m good on the bad driver experience, and really don’t need to experience it again.

A special Darwin Award mention goes to the gentleman who passed us in a space with so little room that both the folks in the oncoming car and myself were forced to lock up the brakes to save his sorry rear end.  And then he did it again in the next “gap!”  Obviously life is cheap in Zagreb.

*****

The harbor in Opatija is a pretty place

Back in Opatija we allowed the nerves to calm with a swim in the Adriatic.  You can rent a beach chair with a ubiquitous orange, red and blue umbrella for 70 Kahunahs a day, about $13.00.  At this time of the year the Adriatic is like coldish bath water, but I am told it warms up.  We enjoyed a great swim until about 4:00 in the afternoon when Z stepped on a sea urchin.  She says they are painful, fyi.  After removing as many of the spines as we could, we called it a day and headed for home.