Day 3: Farewell Budapest, Aloha Vienna

by

Mick (Mrigank) Das

The beginning of Day 3 had a bit of a prelude in Day 2.  A visit to the Hungarian Parliament is not really something you decide on the spur of the moment… well you could, but unless you are a big cheese or you are very lucky it isn't gonna fly.  So the 'optional' excursions on a package tour can usually be booked on the spot at a 10% premium,  but a visit to the Parliament wasn't one of those things where you just took a few extra gold coins out of the pocket and went 'Open Sesame' - there were strict controls on the numbers of people that could pass through during certain intervals and the tour companies had to provide the names and nationalities of their groups.  Joel and I were the ones who had failed to read the fine print… the Hungarian parliament tour requires a 4-day advance notice for security checks.  Guess what?  On the morning of Day 3,  the optional excursion was to the Parliament,  The Great Market Hall and St. Stephen's Basilica …. And both me and Joel were very eager to get those last drops of nectar out of this beautiful city before we made our way to Vienna.  

So somewhere in the afternoon of Day 2,  Joel and me had pleaded our case to Dean as well as a professional attorney could plead that OJ Simpson's hand didn't fit the glove… and Dean was a real nice bloke.  He pulled some strings; it turns out that the Hungarian Parliament is not averse to a few extra shekels, if there were some last minute no-shows; the unfortunate few who had developed mystery ailments or eaten some bad sushi or had wilted under the extreme heat of the previous day.  Anyways, Dean brandished the magic lamp of Aladdin via his mobile phone and got a Genie in the Parliament to get us in!!

After the usual sumptuous breakfast buffet where I stuffed myself quickly we hastily gathered and checked out of our hotel rooms at the Radisson…. People put their luggage in the hotel bag check; I skipped the step and had Gabor put my single suitcase into the coach's cargo hold as we would set off for Vienna after the morning tour, and I didn't really want to mess with the bag check rigmarole.

Then we set off for the Parliament, a building we had seen illuminated in splendor on the night cruise. There was definitely a desire to see more of the inside…. We quickly filed inside under Erna and Dean's guidance, and went through the security check which was about the same as an airport security check.  The Parliament building has awesome interiors… the insides were gilded with 40 kilos of 24-karat gold.  We went through some really ornate archways and usually ended up in these massive high-ceilinged halls and everywhere you looked there were paintings, sculptures and the glitter of gold.. There is no way to describe this magnificence except pictorially. The only place where photography wasn't allowed was in the room with the Crown jewels… beautiful stuff, some pieces were studded with the emeralds and rubies … there was one piece that was a sign of Hungary… it looked like a gigantic crown, not meant for wearing but had inscriptions of the Hungarian kingdom. Apparently it was stolen by the Nazis, but the American soldiers recovered it from the Nazis and it was in the Smithsonian…. During John F Kennedy's tenure, US returned the crown back to Hungary. [The parliament building inside and out) 

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From the gilded grandeur of the Parliament we then made our way to a very different kind of attraction,  an indoor market of mind boggling proportions…listed by CNN as one of the top 5 food markets in the world;  it turns out it had way more than just food… with the rather self-aggrandizing name of 'Great Market Hall'.  It lived up to its reputation every bit!  the stalls were adorned by Pipli style hangings but instead of handicrafts these were edible: sausages of various meats like beef, pork, chicken, turkey of various shapes and sizes; never did catch all their names.  The shops were visually compelling though; some of them with the hanging sausages almost looked right out of some bazaar described in a Harry Potter novel; the vegetable stalls were equally spectacular in displaying their produce of red, green, yellow, brown, white and really every color. The whole market was enclosed in a huge historic building with the gargantuan circular clocks and a gently arched roof of massive size, giving the whole market the feel of energy and passion and human bonding…. Very cool.  The first floor was food, the second floor was occupied by stalls of souvenirs. [The Great Market Hall]

The final stop was St. Stephen's Basilica… to me just another church;  I was kinda done with churches in Budapest, but this one also had a lot of charm…and it happened to be Erna's childhood church. After all this, we briefly returned to the hotel to pick up the rest of the tour-mates' luggage, said our goodbyes to Erna (our local guide for Budapest) and a few tipped her too;  then we all trundled into the bus and around 1pm local time we were on our way through the Hungarian countryside towards the border with Austria. 

The Hungarian freeways are surprisingly good… a bit narrower and mostly two-lane, but the reinforced concrete looked in mint condition and the powerful sleek Gate1 coach was purring along the countryside smoothly and certainly very comfortable ride,  no different than riding in a high-end luxury sedan.  We did stop once before the border for a quick snack/lunch replacement. It was definitely much more happening and the clientele reflected an anti-diaspora;  which was rather stunning for what would be a truck-stop in the US.  The ice-cream is really good in Europe; so are the espressos and other coffees. I think I had both; didn't need lunch and I had grabbed a baguette in the Parliament run.

Dean is really a great tour guide…. The three and a half hour trip to Vienna (broken by a 30 minute recess at the colorful and vibrant truck-stop) was anything but boring. There was a microphone and a PA system on the coach, and Dean really put us in the mood of anticipation to visit Austria and made it so interesting by discussing the hot and burning political topics sweeping through Europe today, the chief among them being of course immigration. I wish I had his email…his tour company didn't allow him to hand it out. 

Dean explained that many of this countries had daily contingent of people coming in from the poorer Arab countries and the African nations for search of better living or escaping dangerous regimes or both.  However European nations, traditionally lenient to immigration from these areas were facing resistance from their citizens; who saw the immigrants as less educated, large families supported by the social welfare budgets of these countries and that was ballooning;  a question he posed was how does a country like Austria with nine million people absorb a million immigrants in less than two years without some serious undercurrents and social burden;  well meaning laws also come under pressure; schooling and university are free in Austria - so the Austrians have to shell out to pay for their schooling and other social services. He also talked about the new Austrian leader,  32-year old Sebastian Kurz, someone who is outspoken enough to put all these new issues out in the open… Austrians are ready to really evaluate what is going on with this and so they elected a  young dynamic Premier.  Borders between countries that were once open are now being closed… anyways, this really makes for a fascinating background. Austria is a rich nation and a financial capital for Central and Eastern Europe… plus a tourist spot; so Dean gave us the heads up that the prices of restaurant food might be even slightly higher than US.  He also spoke highly of the city:  one of the three UN capitals spread across the globe, headquarters of many global organizations etc. etc. very livable and also a very popular destination for conferences and conventions.

When we finally reached Vienna, I got as close to goosebumps as one can get… as an adult there are so many pressures on you from all sides that you miss that exuberance that you feel as a child when a dream comes true… a year and change ago, I was admiring pictures of this beautiful city through the shared posts of a friend; and now by some mercy of the Lord I had to pinch myself that the coach was actually driving into the same city.  I did recapture that childlike exuberance; I started taking pictures of street signs,  I stood up from my seat and craned my neck to take in almost anything…. Baroque buildings, canals, signs on shops and businesses, pretty much anything I could see under slightly overcast conditions…  The Danube wasn't visible…because of flooding issues in the past, Vienna has built a network of canals and pushed the main Danube flow outside on the other side of the city…. We did see it on our way out to Prague which will come in a later installment.

We finally landed up at the Hilton Stadpark which is a really nice location on the South side of the city next to a mall called as the Mondi mall, and also the city park or Stadpark.  It was of course a Hilton, so the quality was good… we had to sit in the lobby for a while around 4pm as the rooms weren't yet sorted out. One great thing about Dean is he always sorted out the rooms and checked us in…   I sat in the lobby of the Hilton and took in the view.  A little gallery of photos showed that international celebrities like Dalai Lama and Charlize Theron had been to this hotel.  The new-fangled melting pot that is Vienna was unfolding right before our eyes.  In the middle of the Hilton's lobby was a very suggestive sculpture of a man and woman intertwined into each other with less clothing than Adam and Eve did.  However around that sculpture many of the wooden tables with padded chairs were occupied by Muslim women in hijab and abayas; it was a contrasting interplay of the permissive and the puritanical that was evident in many different venues over the next three days - and also reflective of the changing composition of Vienna and Austria. [ the Mondi mall, my mainstay for food and shopping in Vienna on the right of the picture]

I finally got my room… on the fourth floor.  It was a corner room  - privacy and decent view. However, I was dead tired…. A lot of walking earlier in Budapest, hardly a nap as on the coach's journey across the border and the high level of excitement had finally gotten to me.  I decided to  have a little look around the lively neighboring streets,  then head to Mondi mall food court and hit a McDonalds, eat at the mall and do some relaxing people watching and then just come back and call it a night - with the intention of encountering Vienna with unbridled energy with all my batteries recharged and leave the fine dining and beer for the next day.  It was a good call