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A Miscalculation

A perfect storm of small miscalculations leads to a wonderful twenty-four hours in Geneva. Our layover, if you can call it that, is just long enough to be awkward, the weather is to include thunderstorms and heavy rain, and Geneva may be one of the most expensive cities in all of Europe. However, having said all that, luck is on our side. A friend of Gabe’s friend lives in Geneva and is willing to host us for the evening. She and her family live in a beautifully refurbished farm house just outside the city center. As Gabe and I are nearing the house, we are not clear as to where we are heading and especially when we leave what looks like the main residential areas of Geneva, but eventually we get to the driveway of a farm and just hope that we are in the right place. The exterior of the house, although clearly well kept still resembles the humble farm house from times past, but the interior of the house is fabulously modern, thoughtfully decorated, and very comfortable.

Near the farm house in Geneva

Immediately after arriving, we enjoy a nice dinner outside in the backyard. (Maybe the heavy rain forecast was incorrect.) We get to know the family better, taste some delicious swiss chocolate, and eventually hear what seems like a very powerful storm from the comforts of our beds. The next morning, we wake up to clear skies, an espresso, orange juice, and cereal. Gabe and I make sure to wake early in order to say goodbye and thank you one more time before our host leaves for work. After breakfast, we spend the rest of the morning walking around the farm and the nearby area. We find sports fields to complement the wheat fields, and fancy cars to complement the sheep. Thanks to Fiona, our wonderful host, our stay in Geneva will now be another highlight of our adventure around Europe.

Chess in the park

We leave the house a little before noon and walk into Geneva’s old town. Upon strolling through a park on the south side of the old town, we find almost life size chess boards and distract ourselves playing games for several hours. As it is Friday afternoon, we find many others, including business men in suits and mothers and fathers with their children enjoying an afternoon playing chess in the park. We eventually continue on through the old town and find Geneva’s symbolic and beautiful lake. Because we are not yet interested in purchasing a swiss watch or opening a new bank account, after finding the lake, we make our way back to the train station and then to the airport. Although short, Geneva is very memorable.

Geneva Lake

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Magyar Bor

French wines I knew a little about and Italian wines I knew a little about, but of Hungarian wines I knew nothing before arriving. This may be because their wine export levels are very low, but whatever the reason, Hungarian wines are very historied dating back as far as Roman times from when there are extensive records of vineyards. Today, the best known wine is Tokaji, the dessert wine. While touring the Budapest castle, Gabe and I spot a wine museum/tasting, and figure that it doesn’t hurt to explore further. We enter the museum, and maybe because the temperature was so nice in the cellar, maybe because they offered student prices, or maybe because we hadn’t enjoyed a degustation recently, we decided to tour the museum and try the wines. We sign up for the cheapest wine tasting including only three wines, but after making friends with our pourer, we received tastes of four great wines. And by tastes, we actually tried four full glasses of wine. As a result, we were more than ready for lunch upon leaving.

Budapest wine cellar

The whole event increased both our awareness and appreciation for Hungarian wines. I will attempt to provide at least a sense of the diversity and magnitude of these wines here. Within the country there are twenty two wine regions with Eger and Tokaj-Hegyalja probably being the most famous. Located in the northern part of the country, Eger produces the well known Egri Bikaver, or bulls blood of Eger along with some good whites (like the rest of the country). That said, Hungry’s most famous wine region is hands down that of Tokaj-Hegyalia located in the foothills of the Zemplen Mountains in the far north. The region provides the perfect conditions for noble rot to take place. Noble rot is caused by the friendly grey fungus called Botrytis cinerea. Under certain conditions, this “rot” can be quite harmful, but at other times, if picked correctly, grapes covered by this fungus can produce concentrated sweet wine. These botrytized, late-harvest grapes make the sweet wine that is so famous in this region. Know as Tokaji aszú, this wine was famously christened by Louis XIV of France.

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Szechenyi Baths

After walking around and site-seeing the day before, Gabe and I decide to spend our second day in Budapest at a famous bath house. We arrive relatively early around 10:30am to Szechenyi Baths, which is located in the middle of a beautiful city park. We get our locker and explore the many different bath options that surround us. The bath house has about ten to fifteen different baths, steam rooms, and saunas all at different temperatures. Some are indoors and some are outdoors. Some have forced water currents running through them and some have jacuzzi jets in them. Some have chess matches being played on their edges and some have fountains for people to stand under. As we walk around, we see only old Hungarian men enjoying the baths; however, after a couple hours, the average age goes down substantially and we fit in slightly better. We learn that we may have arrived a little too early.

Budapest bath house

In all, we probably spend between eight and nine hours at the bath house. This includes a couple hours out of the baths when we eat a little lunch and play cards. The day is wonderfully relaxing, and once we reach an advanced level of pruniness from being in water for so long, we are ready to return to our apartment.

Inside the bath house

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Blue Skies and Castles

Statue at Budapest Castle

Budapest starts with blue skies and just enough clouds to make for surreal photographs. Gabe and I arrive on the overnight train from drizzly Prague and are excited about our potential vitamin D production over the next couple days. After settling into the apartment, we pack a day bag, grab a couple delicious pastries from a nearby bakery, and set off to the famous castle across the river. This historical castle and palace of the Hungarian Kings of Budapest was originally built in the 14th century only to be destroyed and rebuilt many more times. We climb the hill to the castle, and enjoy the expansive views of the city to one side and the large castle on the other. The castle district, Várnegyed, however, offers much more than just a castle. There are many historic attractions, museums, charming crooked streets, cafes, restaurants and more. Walking around with camera in hand and the sun above makes for a very pleasant afternoon.

The Parliament Building in Budapest

From the Castle Distric

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Our Budapest Apartment

Our Budapest apartment, which again is found using airbnb.com (this time from someone named Barnabi), cannot be more centrally located, and that does not even give the apartment credit for its own charm. There is a small loft where the bed is located. The kitchen is small but complete and has a little bar separating it from the main room. There are wood floors and artsy paintings. There is a full bookshelf and and an iMac on an old desk. Just outside is a delicious bakery, a few steps farther is a market, and right around the corner is a public park, which apparently is the best place to spend evenings for locals who are between 20 and 30 years old. The youth of Budapest purchase a couple beers and make their way to this park to enjoy the cool evening air and each other’s company. Gabe and I befriend a couple of them one evening as we try to fit in to this fun local culture. In addition, only about a five minute walk from the apartment, we find a delicious dinner at a spot called Cafe Kor. For a very reasonable price, this apartment is the perfect location from which to start exploring Budapest.

Budapest apt

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Days of Many Steps

All over Europe, but in particular Prague, Gabe and I walk, walk, and walk some more. We also take our share of metros, trams, and buses, but walking is a great way to see any city. In Prague, we are staying about a three to four kilometer walk out of the Old Town, Stare Mesto, and from there, it is probably another kilometer to the famous Charles Bridge, which is a couple kilometers from the Prague Castle, Prazsky hrad. Although no single stage of our journey seems like a large commitment after walking to and from the castle, our feet are a little sore. And this does not include the walk to the USA Embassy to show our support on the 4th of July, the walk to the club and back the night before, the meander around the Jewish quarter, the stroll around town during the walking tour, and the train station adventure.

Near the Charles Bridge at night

We need to find the train station in order to purchase tickets for our overnight train to Budapest the following day. And to find the station, Gabe and I think that we are being smart by looking at a map, finding the largest collection of tracks, and heading in that direction. We find many railroad tracks just northeast of the city, and although the weather is drizzly, we put on our raincoats and start walking. We get near the tracks, start looking for signs or large train-station-looking buildings. We find nothing. Eventually, we again pull out the map, and find another slightly smaller although still large collection of railroad tracks. Luckily, we are able to see the comedy in the situation and laugh even as we continue to have to walk through the rain. When we near the second grouping of tracks, we again do not see many signs, but at least we see a building that could pass as a train station. We walk in and it is darker and gloomier than we had expected. We maze through the station until finding a ticket counter. There is one window open that reads “International Tickets” above it and we reserve two seats on a train. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with my credit card, the man behind the counter finally gets it to work, we get our tickets, and we ask from where the train will be leaving. He lets us know that the train will be leaving from a station about 100m down the road. We are a little confused and decide it is best to explore this other train station now rather than tomorrow night. We get to this other station, which again is not very well marked, we enter, and we are presented with something more like we had expected. There are convenient stores, more ticket counters, escalators, and a level of cleanliness much greater than that from our first station.

In other words, between walking all over town, walking to Prague nightlife, and walking to the wrong train station, we calculate that we probably covered about the distance of a marathon in 48 hours in Prague.

Prague's famous clock

From inside Prague Castle

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Famous Defenestrations

I am unsure how many famous defenestrations there have been in history, but I did learn about two that took place in Prague. As I remember from back in the days of SAT vocabulary, to defenestrate is to throw one out of a window. However, why a word exists that is so specific is unclear and makes me wonder if there is other similar vocabulary such as to debalconizate, to deroofate, or to destairate.  During our New Europe Free Tour of Prague, Gabe and I learn more about these defenestrations.

Defenestration Window
The site of the second defenestration.

Quick history lesson: The two defenestrations of Prague occurred in 1419 and 1618. The first involved an angry mob being frustrated that the town council members would not release their Hussite prisoners. As a result, the mob flooded the town hall and proceeded to throw the judge, the mayor, and 13 others out of the window and onto the street. This event sparked the Hussite wars, which lasted until 1436. The second defenestration is now marked as the starting point for the Thirty Years War between 1618 and 1648. This one began when Roman Catholic officials ordered that Protestant chapels stop being built on land which they thought belonged to them. A meeting occurred in the Prague Castle, where two imperial governors were tried for violating the Right of Freedom of Religion. They were found guilty, and afterwards, they were defenestrated from a 16-meter high window. Not even their secretary’s life was spared. Legend says that the governors landed on a large pile of manure and survived unharmed. They then left for Vienna to explain to the Emperor what had happened thus exciting only more conflict.

The moral of the story is when in Prague, don’t find yourself near a window during times of conflict.

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Friend or Foe

We are in Prague for about two minutes before Gabe notices someone across the bus (which takes us the long distance of about 100m from plane to airport terminal) that is wearing a Cal Bears sweatshirt. We are discussing which baggage carousel is ours when Gabe loudly enough declares that we need not worry because we are following a Cal Bear. That gets their attention, and we soon get to chatting as we wait patiently for our baggage. Unfortunately or fortunately, it does not take long for the conversation to devolve into me spouting some Big Game statistics. For example: Cal gave up more points to us last year (48) than they had in their five previous games that year at home in Memorial Stadium. In addition, the Bears were only a last minute, trick play away from matching the largest one-sided loss in this rivalry’s history dating back to 1930 when Stanford beat Cal 41-0. After getting Big Game talk out of our system, we again became more cordial and ask the usual questions of where each other is from, how long we are traveling for, etc. And before we know it, our baggage comes, we exchange contact information, and we part ways.

After Amsterdam and a day of travel, Gabe and I feel a little tired and decide that tonight is a good night to take it easy, get a couple beers at a corner store, change into comfortable cards, put on some grooveshark.com tunes, and play cards. We get to the stage of playing cards, when the computer rings with the modern equivalent tone to AOL’s “You’ve got mail.” We check, and it’s Tracy and Christina from the airport asking to see if we’re planning on going out tonight. We unabashedly admit to our current state of beers, pajamas and cards, but are also open to evening activity suggestions. They proceed to describe Karlovy Lazne, which is advertised as the largest club in central Europe. We research what comprises central Europe and several sources, including the very reputable Wikipedia, describe it as Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland. The biggest club of all these countries might be worth exploring, so Gabe and I rally, put our faces back on, and walk across Prague. Karlovy Lazne is five stories tall, and each story plays a different genre of music. We enjoy the oldies (which is now music from the 1990’s) and the pop music floors. The beers are inexpensive, the music fun, and the company good. It is easy to call our first night in Prague a success.

The timing then works perfectly that when we arrive back at our apartment, I call California where my extended family has gathered to celebrate my Grandma’s birthday! It is wonderful to hear everyone’s voices before I go to bed.

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Czech into Prague

We upgrade from living on a boat to an apartment in Prague near the Vinohrady neighborhood of Prague 2 for about the same price (if not less). Similar to Paris, we again use airbnb.com, and we again have a positive experience. Waiting for us just outside the apartment is someone with a key and helpful tips about the city. The apartment is in a nice part of town although a bit out of the center, and looks like it belongs in an IKEA catalog.

Prague view

The first thing we do after arrival is find food. In general, the food here is good, heavy, and lacking of color. My favorites of the local cuisine include goulash and pork knuckle, both filling, and both tasty. Also, because the weather is overcast, rainy, and cool for most of our time in Prague, this heavy, warm food usually hits the spot perfectly. And no meal in Prague is complete without a cold glass of beer to wash it down. The beer, in fact, is cheaper than water at most restaurants, so I also feel that ordering beer is the more economical option.

Prague may be rainy, but with my second hand United Nations rain jacket I picked up at a second-hand store in Amsterdam, I am able to stay relatively dry, still appreciate the beauty of the city, and experience the history and architecture that surrounds me.

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Amsterdam’s Tolerant Culture

Amsterdam has a very tolerant culture.  During our walking tour of the city, Gabe and I learned more about the red light district and how a regulated and taxed sex industry can exist within a relatively clean and safe environment.  On a related topic, we also met tourists in Amsterdam who were concerned over a possible marijuana ban.  Although we are not included in this group, many travel to Amsterdam primarily (if not only) for its loose laws and drug availability.  As this seemed to be a pressing issue, I found a relevant article on BBC’s travel blog from a couple months back on April 8, 2011.

Travelwise: Marijuana tourism ban in Amsterdam?
By Suemedha Sood

This winter, the European Union gave Dutch authorities the power to ban coffee shops from selling cannabis to tourists. This decision by the European Court of Justice was prompted by a push from the right-leaning Dutch government. But the Netherlands have been threatening to make pot illegal for tourists for years. Could this ruling really change decades of policy?

Certainly not in Amsterdam, said Richard Cowan, an American and the CFO of the biotech company Cannabis Science Inc, who recently relocated there. “It will never work in Amsterdam. The police are opposed to it, because it would cause a big increase in poly-drug street dealing.”

In Amsterdam, the lord mayor, the city council, and (unsurprisingly) the tourist board all oppose the effort. In certain small border towns, Cowan says, it’s possible that authorities may enforce a ban, but only with local agreement.

Marijuana already lives in a legal grey area in the Netherlands. Although technically illegal, it has been “tolerated” for more than 30 years, allowing it to be taxed and sold in coffee shops all over the country. So, the question arises, how do you ban something that’s already illegal? And how do you ban it only for certain consumers?

Logistically, anti-cannabis activists would like to see a “weed passport” introduced that would prevent foreigners from visiting coffee shops that sell pot. But Mario Lap, a drug policy advisor and director of the Drugtext Foundation in the Netherlands, believes that even in border towns, banning marijuana sales to non-nationals would be “counterproductive”.

“What is crucial in this is that it cannot be forced upon towns that do not want it,” Lap explained. “The whole drug [and] coffee shop policy is based on decision-making by local government [entities] called triangle committees.”

From a legal perspective, Lap said this push by the federal government is more symbolic than it is substantive. “[I]t is intended to provide for a tough image in order to [convince] the ultra right wing party to tolerate the right wing minority government.”

With so many tourists visiting the Netherlands specifically for its culture of “tolerance”, cities like Amsterdam would stand to lose a lot from the enforcement of a selective ban. “Supposedly 10% of the tourism is exclusively for cannabis,” said Cowan. “Another 40% [of tourists] visit the coffee shops… [and] a lot of other places would be badly hurt. There are a lot of ‘souvenir’ shops that would go out of business…”

Allen St Pierre, director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in the US, said there’s no pretence to cannabis tourism, either. He talks about “hash ferries” which bring people in from England, for instance. He also said that Dutch tourism organizations are closely following the situation surrounding marijuana in the US. If pot is legalized in California, Pierre says, Dutch businesses could lose American tourists during winter months.

Pierre pointed out that threats about cracking down on cannabis tourism are nothing new. According to NORML’s archives, he said, “The first time a Dutch government started making noises about tourists buying cannabis was in 1987. So this has been going on for more than 20 years.”

His feeling is that powerful Dutch businessmen will see to it that the lucrative marijuana industry will continue to thrive. “These men are rigid and they are not inclined to back down at all,” he said.

Legally, selective bans could raise fairness issues as well, since they not only discriminate against tourists but also foreigners living in the Netherlands. Cowan says this legal issue will be addressed when the Dutch Counsel of State rules on the constitutionality of the EU’s decision. “That ruling is due any day now,” he said.