This is the delicious continuation of an earlier Istanbul post (found here) that got side-tracked by holidays and non-existent internet for way too long. Istanbul is a wonderful eating city. It seems as though the diverse influences of geography (connecting Europe and Asia, the Black and Aegean seas) and society (merging the food cultures of Istanbul's myriad ethnic groups) have encouraged a world of bold flavors for visitors to explore. Although we did dish out the Lira for a few sit-down meals, a lot of Nate and my daily eats derived from street foods. Carts and carts of melons, breads, kebabs and more were towed up alleys and lined along plazas. Check this video for an intro to the sights and tastes ... it's too bad I can't include all the spicy smells! Our trip to Vienna presented a whole new adventure. Nate + I were smart before the family arrived: we had a feeling that public transit would be packed with holidays-goers and therefore bought tickets weeks in advance. Our vendor at the time asserted that the cheap tickets would do perfectly - all we had to do is board the desired train and pick an empty seat, seemed fantastic given the €70 total surcharge that reserving seats would demand. So when the day of our departure from Hungary arrived we all wisely woke early & lugged our bags across two metros to the large Keleti train station in Pest. We briskly found an information board and located our train amidst the station's crowds. As we approached to haul our load on-board an attendant told me that the trains that day were sold out and our tickets did not have seats. I asked more questions but my Hungarian language deficiency did not make it clear if we could stay on board without seats or not - he did explain however that we could only stay in the food car for 40 minutes ... so what to do with ourselves during the other hour and forty-five? Nate & I bolted through the station to the international tickets counter (of course to find it similarly overloaded with on-edge-humans), grabbed a queue ticket and paced about hoping to be called to the information stall before the train departs. Our eyes seemed to twitch upwards, searching frantically every time the ticket counter flashed the next customer's number. By the time our number was called, we ran up and were told our options (board now!) we sprinted with our bouncing heavy loads back to Mom, Sam + Jane on the platform with two minutes to departure. We tottered on as legal standing-room patrons and spent a few hours finding funny ways to curl up in traincar-corners (without getting trampled preferred) ... surprisingly entertaining in the end. We were in this illustrious Austrian city for such a fast three days that I feel like I know so little - but we stayed in another beautiful apartment (and this one came with a scarily-smart-rent-a-cat!!!), we toured the Hapsburg's summer Schönbrunn Palace and sprawling it's hilly estate, the Imperial Apartments of the Sisi Museum revealing the troubled life of their cult-like Empress Elizabeth, climbed the 444 foot high tower of Saint Stephen's Cathedral, ducked into restaurants and Christmas markets (& jogged about as in video) to escape the cold winter winds and cooked a few meals at home for movie nights and kitty-fixes. Happy New Year! MERRY NEW YEAR CHRISTMAS IN BUDAPEST + VIENNAWe've been having some ongoing struggles to find reliable internet so I'm getting seriously behind on my posts - but the holiday stories must be shared! :) Hooray for family visits! As a wonderful Christmas gift, my mom and sisters were able to join Nate & me for the holidays. We found each other in Budapest, the radiant capitol of Hungary on my mom's birthday, celebrated her, then my sister Jane's birthday, then Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Years in a 2 week/2 country playful adventure - seeing many sights and eating much good food (beware delectable food close-ups to follow). We set up shop in a beautiful + large apartment in the small theater district of Budapest, District VI or Terézváros (Theresa Town). Nate & I bought a tiny tree from a plaza vendor, strung popcorn and cranberries, and harvested all sorts of evergreen branches and wild berries from city parks (trees already being trimmed!) to decorate the apartment with a little spirit. Budapest Christmas/Birthday timesWe had a little cooking adventure, attempting to bake a birthday cake for mom before she arrived. I had the brilliant idea of making a drunken cherry chocolate cake, with the sour cherries (called meggys) that fill many Hungarian dishes. However buying products written in Hungarian presents a baking challenge - turns out my cocoa powder was wax-filled melting chocolate - yielding a hardly edible syrupy bread-product. Nate saved the day with a late-night simple white cake, layered with the cherries and butter-cream icing I made earlier. When she arrived we all strolled up the famed Andrassy Boulevard to a sweet restaurant called Zeller. It's family owned, run and grown: selling wines and foods that are also produced by the family. They present a beautiful oft-changing menu of locally crafted Hungarian delicacies with a modern interpretation - a beautiful introduction to Hungarian's great cuisine. There are a lot of things to do around the capitol this time of year. Budapest has carved out a special Christmastime-splendor party for tourists and local alike (mostly tourists though). Nearly every walk to an exisiting attractions intercepts a vibrant & twinkling cluster of wooden market stalls filled with homemade craftwares, steaming cauldrons of fruity Glühwein (mulled wine) and wide dishes of stewed meats, soups, potatoes and breads for purchase. There are organized musical performances most nights, pop-up entertainers as they please and great people-watching around the clock. Wintery BathhousesBudapest's sub-terrain is fantastically flowing with hot mineral waters that are transformed by pipe-networks and glistening tiles to form myriad thermal baths and spas for the city to enjoy. We visited two baths while the family was here: the 1st was a unique bathhouse called Barlangfürdő in Miskolc that is carved into a hillside. There are two pools that glide within a network of caves, a large room of saunas is contrasted by icy plunge pools, as well as several more conventional hot thermal pools. On Christmas day we ventured to City Park to the famous 1920's bathhouse, Széchenyi Gyógyfürdő. This sprawling bathhouse is exquisitely designed with an expansive courtyard in yellow and white housing three large pools. Two wings of thermal pools in varying temperatures are available to the public for personal soaking and also for physical therapy sessions. JAne's birthday @ Sir Lancelot's medieval pubWe seem to get really crazy at medieval-themed banquets...can't resist a good costumed dinner. Check out some choppy clips of our loud and silly birthday celebration below. ;P |
AuthorAn Upstate New York-grown, art history + Italian major turned organic farm volunteer turned Home Health Aide turned Landscape Architecture Grad student currently adventuring about the globe and taking far too many photos for one travel blog to handle. Archives
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