Exhausing the Big Cities

Throughout my trip, there are going to be times known as “budget days,” and I believe they’ll usually come the day after a long night of drinking. One reason is because I probably spent too much money the night before on drinks & shots, and the other reason is because when I’m either hungover or sleep deprived (or both), I don’t really feel like spending money on museums, going into churches, or anything like that. Today was a budget day.

Today I spent under 10 Euros and it was only on food. On a budget day I usually just walk around aimlessly, or go to a park and read to kill a few hours. Today I did both of those things. And I took a tram (didn’t pay for it) to a famous cemetery where Beethoven’s tomb is. There’s also a monument of Mozart there, and some tombs of other dead famous musicians who I’ve never heard of.

By the way, if you’re playing along at home, and you had either “21 days” or “Vienna” as the answer to, “When will Ross first mutter something along the lines of ‘I swear if I have to look at one more F-ing church, government building or fountain, I’m gonna puke,‘” Congratulations to you. But it is my fault if that continues to happen since I can easily be doing other things besides just the major sightseeing activities.

In the last week I’ve done 2 days each in Prague, Budapest, and now Vienna (leaving tonight for my next destination). All amazing cities, but there are a ton of similarities as far as the sights go. I think I liked Prague the best. The castles are blending together, as are the churches and “Old Town” areas. Oh well, I’ll take a short break from the major cities & save up some of my sightseeing energy for the Romes & Paris’s.

I’ve figured out that the rest of the world must be really behind the U.S. when it comes to pop culture. Specifically with things like TV & music. The reason I think that about music is because over the last few nights, I’ve heard the Europeans get really excited about that song “I’m Blue” by Eiffel 65. I think that song was popular for 4 days about 6-7 years ago for us right?

And about TV… I’m not exaggerating when I say 8-10 people have now responded this exact same way when I introduce myself: “Oh Ross, like from Friends!” I asked this guy yesterday about that reference & he said it’s currently his favorite show. Currently? Wow. Anyway, that’s become annoying to me (and it must be all over the world, not just Europe, since a certain Indian friend/former co-worker of mine made that same reference about 8 months ago).

Some additional thoughts/observations from the last week of travel:

-I was doing well with converting Euros to US dollars for the 1st 14 days out here, and then all of the sudden I had to deal with Czech crowns & the Hungarian forint. Very different conversation rates than the Euro.

-In several cities, there is a company that does free walking tours. I highly recommend these. It’s a good way to see the bulk of the major sights over 3 hours while also getting some high level history on the town & those sights. In fact, I think it’s a great idea to do these tours on the 1st day in a city & then you can decide which sights to visit on your own in more depth later on in the trip. It’s worked well for me so far.

-My 2nd night in Prague led to another Pub Crawl. This time I convinced 2 18-year-old Australian guys from my hostel to come with me. They were ecstatic at the opportunity, but I imagine they didn’t feel that way the next morning. One of them got suckered into buying a round of drinks for a group of good-looking German girls who had no intention of talking to him (after he already told me he had no money), and the other was accosted outside the bar by some woman who grabbed his crotch and said “sex” and then proceeded to steal his phone without him knowing.

-Speaking of teenagers: it turns out that I don’t just hate American teenagers; I hate foreign teenagers too. There’s no story here, just that I was stuck on a train next to an obnoxious teenage German girl who was yelling into her cell phone for 90 straight minutes.

-I discovered that there is indeed a good reason to burn your mouth with hot food…sometimes it’s the only way you can remember whether you at a Bratwurst or not at 2AM after the bars.

-Not everything I’ve seen or done has been amazing. For instance, the Museum of Communism in Prague absolutely sucked. I think they literally took pages out of a generic history book, blew them up, and taped them to the walls. And that was literally it. The Terror Museum in Budapest was much better, especially since the basement smelled like people had recently been killed there. Not sure if that was on purpose or not.

-If you’re asking me to compare the Prague Castle with the castle in Budapest (which you are), then I’d say this: from a distance, the Prague castle is prettier & just better looking, but up close & actually walking through the castle areas, Budapest wins easily.

-As much as I’ve loved the train system in Europe, I am now an enemy since they ripped me off on my ride from Prague to Budapest. When I reserved my ticket, I had to pay a little extra because the train went through Slovakia, not a participating country on my rail pass. That was fine. But then when I got on the train and the person checked my ticket, he said it was the wrong one because the root we were taking through Slovakia was different than the one they sold to me. So I had to buy another ticket to get me through Slovakia. I was more than a little upset by this.

-On Sunday, I stumbled upon the Budapest Marathon. I decided it must be an awesome marathon to run since it passed by such cool sights & areas of the city. It also made me think about how I probably couldn’t run 1 ½ miles right now without stopping.

-I found the American Embassy in Budapest. I started taking some pictures of the flag & of the massive blockades in front of the building. I got yelled at by security and they threatened to take my camera away. Telling them I was a U.S. citizen hardly helped.

-It was weird getting to Vienna & actually being happy that they speak German. But I’ve built up a solid vocabulary from my time in Germany (5 words exactly) so I’m much more comfortable here.

-The Australians are really doing their best to keep my earlier comment true…they are seriously the loudest & travel in the biggest packs.

-My Brazilian roommate from night 1 in Vienna had never heard of Jaeger or Jaegerbombs. Me & 3 other guys changed that real quickly at the hostel bar (4 Jaegerbombs for 10 Euros is the special). After he tried Jaeger by itself on night 2, he decided he likes Jaegerbombs much better. Don’t we all…

-I thought seeing the U.S. flag would be the only thing to really make me feel at home out here, but then in the hostel bar in Vienna, they played these 3 songs in order: Bulls on Parade, Livin’ on a Prayer, the Baywatch Theme Song. Wait, they would never play the Baywatch Theme Song in a bar at home right? Nevermind.

-Last night (Monday) started innocently enough. Me, 3 Brazilian guys & an American dude from Florida had some happy hour drinks in the hostel bar. After we went to a bar recommended to us that actually wasn’t a bar at all, we decided to go to a different hostel bar and check it out. While I probably shouldn’t tell all the details of the next few hours, I can say this… the hostel bar was playing “name that tune” for free shots. It’s a good thing it was ending right when we got there because I’m too good at that game. And hypothetically speaking, if you decide to make up a fake name when you’re talking to some girls at a bar…let’s say you choose Henry but your name is actually Ross, and 3 hours later you’re still chatting with them in their hostel common room, and one of their friends comes down stairs to hang out… DO NOT introduce yourself to that new person as Ross in front of the girls you were lying to. Your night is likely to end real quickly if you were to do this. Just a warning.

And now to catch my next train….hopefully without being ripped off this time.

Ohhh I almost forgot. I found out today that watching some asshole ride around on a Segway like he's cool & abruptly hitting a curb and falling flat on his face is THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD! I'm convinced that the Red Sox could lose in the playoffs to the Yankees, and if I saw this happen the next morning, I would forget all about my depression.