The Wedding

So yes, I am crazy and I decided to go into London the day of the Royal wedding with a couple of friends. It was already super crowded when we got to London around 7:30. The three of us ended up standing on the Mall near the Admiralty Arch, which wasn't quite along the rout but we could see anyone coming down it as they turned near the Horse Guards Parade. We stayed to see the procession/motorcade thing in in the morning but then Kelly wanted to go to Trafalgar Square to watch the wedding itself on the big screens. Unfortunately, it was full and they wouldn't let us back along the route since they had closed off the area. We ended up walking to Hyde Park and watching the end half of the wedding itself on the huge screens there through to the balcony and the end of the coverage. We did get to see the jets fly over us which was cool. Although we didn't get to see much in person, it was still amazing just to experience being in London on that day and seeing the massive crowds all over.

The Mall

bus full of wedding guests?
the bride's car

on the way to Hyde Park

Look! the queen!

Hyde Park

Watching the wedding in Hyde Park



toasting the wedding, aka celebrating in true British style wit flags and alcohol




not quite the wedding, but I found this in the grocery store last week and was amused

Budapest: a walking tour and some anarchists

March 25th

We took a morning train to Budapest and arrived around one. Our hostel was nice but much more like what I had expected of a hostel. There were a few dorms and the whole place (Leanback Hostel) hard more of a slightly shabby and relaxed feel than the previous hostels. It was in a building up about three flights of twisting stairs and very very laid back, so laid back, the staff was hardly even there, but more on that later. The hostel did have free tea and coffee all day which we definitely took advantage of.

When we checked in, the guy at the desk told us we had just enough time t get settled in and then catch an afternoon free walking tour from outside St. Stephen's Basilica. Of course, as students we had to take advantage of anything free. Te tour was a really good way to start off our time in Budapest and the guide was great. Not only did we see he sights, get some Budapest history and a list of famous Hungarians we got recommendations on how not to get ripped off and on what we should eat and drink in Budapest. Here are some pics from the tour.

Our guide pointing out one of those
"couples put their names on locks and leave them there for lasting love" things. She claimed it could be the first. somehow I don't quite buy this.

St. Stephen's Basilica

Kelly with a policeman statue

statue of a bird at the royal palace. It looks like eagle or something to me but it's actually a mythic bird, the Turul, which dropped a sword here indicating that the Magyars, the original Hungarians, should settle here. This was back in 896.
L to R: Rose, Lily, Kelly near the Royal Palace with Pest and the chain bridge (oldest bridge in Budapest). about time for a group photo don't you think?

monument to the plague outside Matyas Church. Our guide said there are supposed to be plague victims buried underneath it.

Matyas Church.

About the church: The original (13h-15th century) church had been destroyed when the Turks turned it into their Great Mosque in 1541. Then, the building was almost entirely destroyed in 1686 when the Hapsburgs were recovering Budapest from the Turks. It was restored again after damage from WWII. But today, most of this is a neo-gothic reconstruction from the late 1800s. I think that this gives you a pretty good idea of what Budapest's history has been. The church also has those cool tiles on the roof, like the church in Vienna. Turns out, these tiles are made in, or originated in Budapest and were so popular that they spread to other areas around the Hapsburg lands. Also the church is really really pretty. Just saying. around the back is something called fisherman's Bastion although no now is quite sure why it is called this. It was built to provide a nice back for the church and looks kind of like a sandcastle.

This is a bad pic of part of Fisherman's Bastion and a statue of St. Stephen, Hungary's first Christian King (1001-1038)

the President's house

our tour ended in some kind of cave maze that you can wander around in

After our walking tour we went to grab a light dinner (Hungarians eat their largest meal for lunch) and then headed back to the hostel. At the hostel we met a pretty nice anarchist couple. Now, my flatmates ere at Sussex are a pretty interesting if messy group but hands-down, I'm fairly sure these anarchists are the most intriguing people I have met in Europe. He was Australian and she was American and it seemed to me like e was more into the anarchist ting. They had hitchhiked all trough Asia and up to Europe and were working at anarchist book fairs. They had spent most of the time couch-surfing wit other anarchists they had met. The entire time we were wit them I wanted to ask "so, what's wit this anarchist thing?" They were very casual about it although the guy was really excited about some protest that was going to happen in London wile we were in Budapest. Anyway so we meet the anarchists and the guy working at the hostel recommends we go out to this bar/club down the street which he called "the most amazing place" and so we went and had a drink with the anarchists It was ok. Anyway, this is the story of how I learned a ridiculous amount about the lives of two random anarchists in Budapest. They seemed really nice though.

Here are some fun facts about Budapest
-It was originally two cities: Buda and Pest which were unified in 1873. The first bridge linking the two was built in 1766. They had bot been around since the 2nd half of the twelfth century. without a bridge.
-Budget flights from England o Budapest are pretty cheap and so is the beer. So, a lot of Stag and Hen (bachelor parties) from the UK fly over to Budapest. Apparently the streets of Budapest at nigh are filled with drunk Brits. Just like East Slope (Its their first year at university, can you blame them?)
-The original Hungarians, the Magyars, were from around Mongolia and related to the Huns. Thus, Hungarian is unrelated to any other European language and really nearly impossible for people to learn.
-The Turkish ruled Budapest from 1541 to 1686 and left behind things like coffee, paprika (very common in Hungarian food) and Turkish baths.

Vienna: waltzes and klimt

March 24th

After breakfast at the hostel, we started our second arts-tastic day in Vienna by taking the metro into town and to the Viennese opera or Staatsoper, which originally open in 869 with Mozart's Don Giovanni. Unfortunately, we got there much too early as the building wasn't open and the English tour wasn't until that afternoon. So we were forced to reluctantly move on. I did see hat they were doing Elektra through.

Next, we were off to Stadtpark, which Kelly had heard contained a lot of composer statues. Stadtpark is the park with the largest number of monuments and sculptures in Vienna. On our way to the park however, we went by Karlskirche. This church was built after the plague epidemic of 713 during which Karl VI vowed that he would dedicate a church to St. Charles Borromeo (a patron Saint of the plague) if the city was delivered. I just really really like the columns. We also ran into Brahms.

Rose and I hangin' with Brahms

Finally we got to Stadtpark and wandered around looking at composers. Of course, we had to join the line of tourists running up and taking pictures with some of the monuments. It was a lovely day and we sat in the sun for a while being glad we weren't in England and trying to undo several months of pasty whiteness caused by the fore mentioned country.

lurking in the shadows by the Johann Strauss Monument

Franz Schubert Statue

We wandered for a while through the park and then to the river and had a lovely traditional Austrian lunch. In our continued wandering we ran into some kind of war monument by the Belvedere. Turns out this was the Heroes' Monument of the Red Army in Vienna which, was built to commemorate 17,000 Soviet soldiers who fell in the WWII Battle for Vienna. But today it is considered an unpopular reminder of the Soviet occupation in the weeks following the battle. We liked the fountain though.

Eventually we decided to go to the Belvedere. It seems like every city that we visited on the trip had some kind of Belvedere but this was the only one we went to. And man was it nice. This is the kind of palace I wanna live in. The Belvedere was built in the late 1600's as the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, a military commander who helped vanquish the Turks. It consists of two Baroque palaces and a huge formal garden between them, which is meant to convey a series of classical allusions. Not only is it lovely, the upper Belvedere also houses some of the collections of the Austrian Gallery. This includes The Kiss and a ton of other Klimt. A great collection in a beautiful place. So, we went from Opera to Klimt in our last day in Vienna.

Klimt's The Kiss

Vienna: home of the Hapsburgs

March 23rd

Our train got into Vienna around at 6 in the morning and headed to the hostel, where they told us we'd have to wait until 8 when the shift change came to check in. Since it was around 7 by that time we decided to stick around for an hour and promptly passed out on the couches in the hostel lobby. An hour later, the new people on duty told us we'd have to wait until later in the day to check in. At least we got to nap some. We left our stuff in storage, headed to a bakery for breakfast and then into town. First stop: Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral). It was lovely and the pulpit was pretty awesome. There has been a church on this site for over 80 years but all that's left of the original 13th century building are the front towers and doorway. I was excited about this church because in it are urns containing the entrails of some of the Hapsburgs. However, we couldn't see them since they are in a vault under the main alter. Still, famous entrails! Cane you tell I like old cathedrals? Stephansdom also has a really cool tiles roof, which I some how completely managed not to take a pic of (or maybe I deleted it while making room for Italy pics, or it is one of the photos my computer randomly decided not to download). Anyway, more about tile roofs when we get to Budapest.

this pics is from wikipedia. It's hard to take nice sneaky pics in dark churches ok :)
tile roof--found online

After the cathedral, we went to the Hofburg, the seat of the Holy Roman Emperors from 1438 to 1583 and from 1612 to 1806. From then until 1918, it was the seat f the Emperor of Austria and today is the official residence of the President of Austria. It is also the home of the Winter Ridding school and Lipizzaner horses, which we did not get to see despite my attempts to convince Rose that yes, that is a famous thing, albeit one that appeals to families with small children. But there was plenty to do at the Hofburg otherwise.

There were some cool Roman ruins being excavated a lower level than the sidewalk just outside the Hofburg

Kelly and Rose

First we audio toured out way thought the state apartments where we spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at an entire floor of silver and china before getting to the actual state rooms and a huge section on he life of Empress Elizabeth (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898). The exhibit certainly gave the impression that's she's pretty famous so I won't go much into her. But here are four cool things about Sissi (her nickname): 1) She had very very long hair. 2)She loved Hungary and spoke Hungarian fluently. This is very very difficult, as I learned in Budapest. 3) She was assassinated by an anarchist. 4) she had diamond stars that she wore in her hair. I find this cool because I swear they were in a book about tiara that I found in the library a number of years ago.

Empress Elizabeth with diamond stars in her hair by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Elizabeth by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Note the super long hair.

Next, we went by Augustinerkirche in the Hofburg complex. It is the former parish church of the Hapsburgs. and has a gorgeous 14th century Gothic interior. In one chapel is a series of silver urns containing the hearts of the Hapsburgs. I'm not quite sure why bits of Hapsburg are apparently scattered all over Vienna but it sure makes a fun tour. The church also contains the late 18th century tomb of Maria Christina the favorite daughter of Empress Maria Theresa ( Maria Theresa is cool because she was the sovereign in her own right rather than by marriage and the only female ruler of the Hapsburg domains. She also had 16 children including Marie Antoinette). The tomb was designed by Canova, whose own similar looking tomb we saw later in the trip.


Our final stop, after lunch, rounded out the Hapsburg-ful day. We went spent the afternoon at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which has a lot of great Flemish painting amount other things. The collections are based built up by the Hapsburgs over the centuries. Finally we headed back to the hostel to go to bed early after a night on the train and a full day of Hapsburgs. But this certainly wasn't the end of the Habsburgs who we ran into again in Budapest and Italy.

statue of Maria Theresa outside the museum