What a relief to get out of Brussels! I walked out my smelly hotel, past all the sex shops and the sanitation workers cleaning the streets of the previous night’s litter, and went to Hotel Mozart for the free breakfast I had been promised.
I had intended to get up at 7.10, but the nearby church thought I should get up at 7 to be on the safe side. I think its bell chimed 40 times. I expect it was to call people to early mass, but it worked very effectively as an alarm clock.
Budapest was nice enough but it’s good to be heading to somewhere with an easier language. Hungarian almost defeated me. However, on my final morning, waiting at the station for my train to Austria, I manage to order and pay for a coffee entirely in the Magyar tongue. Take that, Hungarian!
Today is mostly a Buda day. My hotel is in Pest, the station I arrived in is in Pest, and the boat trip went from that side too, but today I’m venturing across the river.
My new hotel has a light on the smoke alarm that flashes so brightly, I can see it through my eyelids, and people upstairs in the dentist’s (I think) decide it’s a good idea to move furniture around at 5am, but I have cunningly brought an eye mask and earplugs with me – essentials for travel.
First a quick film review of Before Sunrise. It’s a film in which not much happens. It’s basically a couple of self-involved people in their early 20s talking to each other for two hours. My advice would be to watch this when you are as young as possible, while their conversations still seem profound rather than inane. I expect I would have enjoyed this much more when I was a student but I haven’t the patience any more.
It is another beautiful day, so the shorts are making a second appearance. The weather is supposed to break tomorrow, so this is the perfect day for doing outdoor things, like walking “The Ring”, an approximately circular collection of boulevards that circles Vienna city centre and contains a staggering number of world-class buildings.
I’m ready early so I can use the last 15 minutes’ validity of yesterday’s 24-hour ticket to get to the station, which is handy since I only have tuppence ha’penny left in Czech currency.
I spent most of yesterday being too warm and carrying my jacket, so naturally today I went out in shorts and a sleeveless top, no jacket, and spent most of the day being too cold. It was lovely when I was in the sun, though, and I must have fairly stoked up my vitamin D.
K C Murdarasi 