Bratislava

We took a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It was an interesting mix of fancy old buildings and stark communist. This wonky bridge actually runs strait through old town, over the ruins of the Jewish quarter. We had fun playing tourist.

Part of town hall, I think.

This little guy was very random, but nifty.
This statue was wonderful, and apparently most people agree with me. His head is all aglow from all the admiration.
There is a local story (or so the tour guide says...) that he is so happy because he gets to watch the beautiful ladies go by. Hmmm, what do you think?
and I liked this little thing a lotThere used to be a wall around the city, but it was torn down so they could expand. This gate and its tower was deemed most beautiful, and therefore worth preserving. Though, the onion was added later. There were a lot of fun alleyways and windy streets. And the boys even made a silly spectacle to entertain us.

Pest

While the Buda side has the castle hill and all the rich people, Pest has the Parliament building. I have to admit, I am going to get a little carried away with pictures of this thing, because I thought it was so very cool.

This is the flat side of the river. Not so shockingly, it has been known to flood. The cathedral was built on the mound where a bunch of people took shelter from the rising Danube. This is the fancy hotel of the town. All the rest are 70s monstrosities. Funny thing is, when this building was built in the 1800s, it too was considered obnoxiously modern.
The CESRI group spent much of our time on this side of town. This is the inside of the impressively fancy Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
The audience hall was very somber and beautiful. The balcony used to be the only place women could be to observe the proceedings. But then, someone fell and they stopped that. Whether women were barred, or the balcony was, I don't know.
They took us to an opera one night. We got to see Don Carlos. Between the jet lag and the busy schedule, there were a lot of nodding heads, but all agreed that it was beautiful. Even the building itself was worth the trip. I got all excited when I realized I knew some of the songs. According to those that know, this opera house is supposed to be among the top 3 of Europe, so ...Another view of Parliament, from Buda this time. In one of the big city parks, there is this amazing castle. Turns out it is a replica of a Transylvanian castle that was built for some big event. Silly people like me like it so much, they have yet to take it down. I got the impression Hungarians think it is ridiculous though.

In that general vicinity, there is this really impressive monument. Now, I don't normally get excited about statues, like I said in my previous post, but for some reason, I really liked this one.
It had a lot of really neat historical information on the Magyars (the original Hungarians), and the horsemen were super cool.
More metro stuff. These are the old metro cars. Very cute.
On our last official night, we went on a cruise on the Danube for dinner. Here's Jay and Justin, looking snazzy.

The Parliament from the boat, convinced of its beauty yet?

Some of the CESRI crew: Danielle, Abigail, Alison, and Dan

Happy girls (looking forward to a full nights sleep, at last...)

And... at night.
One fun thing as we left town. At the train station, there were guys waiting to help you pass the time with a game of chess. This one tried really hard to get me to play, but I wouldn't (never really learned, strange huh?)

Jay took them up on it though, fun stuff.

Buda

Ok, so this is an admission that makes me seem like an ignorant American, but there you go. I never actually realized that Budapest was in reality 2 separate cities with the names of Buda and Pest (slightly sh the 's' if you want to sound cool and European). They are very distinct as well.
Pest is almost entirely flat. This is accentuated even more since all the buildings are 7ish stories tall and so the topography never varies.

Buda on the other hand, is situated on the hilly side of the river, with all sorts of fun caves and cliffs. It has the palace and the old town and all the rich people live there. There are quite a few bridges connecting the two towns, but one of the first (possibly the first, I don't remember) is the one guarded by these lions. It must have been quite a fete at the time, even here, the Danube is an amazing river.
As you climb up the hill, one of the most noticeable structures is this fairy tale like Fisherman's Bastion.

It is full of turrets and statues and was, as far as I understand it, created for the tourists of previous ages. Basically as a place for rich people to parade around.

Lovely though, no?

The main cathedral was a beautiful gothicky thing, though much of it was covered in scaffolding at the moment. I was most impressed by the roof and the beautiful ceramic tiles.

Those tiles showed up elsewhere as well, and really were stunning.

On a smaller scale, the whole old town/tourist town had these wonderful street lamps with geraniums.

But, of course, (and another thing I didn't really know so well, doh!) Budapest was pretty devastated by the last world war, and many buildings were destroyed. Most were repaired, and interesting architectural relics were uncovered. Others were left as a testament to the destructive power of war. ie the ministry of war building that used to be 2 or 3 stories tall and rather grand...

And others were rebuilt. This monstrosity was once called an architectural masterpiece or something. Believe it or not, it's a Hilton hotel. Brown glass and concrete with stone rubble scattered throughout for effect. hmmmm, 70s anyone?
One interesting thing was that all the bombing actually uncovered the ruins of the ancient castle that once stood on the hill.

The palace itself, that I gather was almost completely destroyed (and while restored to pretty on the outside is supposed to be basic white walls and fluorescent lights inside), had some really cool statues. I normally don't go much for pictures of statues, but I liked this one.

It is of a fairytale about a king who liked to go hunting in the woods and he got lost one night. He found a woodsman's hut and asked to stay. Amazingly (ha!), the woodsman had a beautiful daughter and the two fell madly in love. When the kingly boy left the next day he expressed all sorts of gushy stuff about seeing her again etc. One day she caught a ride into town with a farmer. As they entered the city they were stopped by the royal procession. When she looked up as they passed and realized her love was the king, she drowned herself in despair for the love that could not be. So, now she has a statue.

Honestly, the story was cool, gruesome and annoying, but cool. But I really liked the statues for the dogs.

One of the things I loved about this city was the public transportation. I never waited more than 60 seconds for a train/bus/metro, and it was normally more like 20. The escalators were a little scary though, incredibly steep.

Oh, and at night... they lit everything up and it was really quite stunning.

budapest

I made it to Budapest. I have all sorts of pictures and stories to tell you, but it will have to wait. Just want to let you know that I survived flying and am enjoying myself. Did run into a guy who asked our group why we weren't fat if we are americans. weeeeeee

Crazy days

So, I leave tomorrow for 2 month in eastern Europe. As you might imagine, I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off (I know this is an annoying cliche, but darn it, the chicken thing feels particularly apt recently - I am totally fried!). It is 100 degrees and I am slaving away in the sun in order to get my big experiment set up before I leave.

Consolations: 1. I work on a wetland plant. that means: water! While Stephanie is a mischievous little brat, I have to admit, the water sprayed on me whenever I forgot where she was sure felt good. and these tubs are like mini swimming pools, especially when you need to adjust something at the bottom.2. I have had amazing helpers! Stephanie in particular has worked her butt of right along beside me.

It has been a crazy 3 weeks of planting plants, moving them around multiple times, and lots of sunshine. We weighed one of the pots yesterday, out of curiosity. Semi wet, it weighed ~40 lbs. when I stop feeling exhausted, man am I going to be buff! And tan, don't forget tan.It doesn't look like much in this picture, but there are 18 of the white tubs you can see. Each has 12 varieties of my plant, from all over the Americas. I am subjecting them to 3 different levels of salinity, and 2 different levels of nutrients. This is just the beginning. Soon, those tubs will be full of plants, and the fun will begin. The plants off to the left are the ones I collected on my big trip last year, but wont be using in this particular experiment.

I now need to go home and pack, did I mention that I leave tomorrow? Yikes!

Mountain quickie

I made a quick trip up to see grandma last weekend. Since I am going to be gone for 2 months on this next adventure, my poor little Desmond needed a place to stay. Grandma was kind enough, so my darlin gets to spend the time in the mountains. Sadly, I had to take her up a week before I fly out. It is lonely at home without her!

While I was there, we took a quick trip up the pass to lake Alpine. As you can see, there was still lots of ice and snow.

It was beautiful.

And a little bit lower down, by grandma's house, the dogwoods were starting! I love dogwoods!

For the girls

It has been ages, but I finally have gossip, sort of. You know where to go.

Distressing evening

So, this is all based on circumstantial evidence and even a bit of racial profiling, so it is very possible that I am completely out of bounds on this one... but I am still a little freaked out about it. I came home last night and the group of guys, my polite druggy crew (a few more than normal), were hanging out at the neighbors like always. I noticed that they had a new dog that I hadn't seen before, so I went over to say hello. When I got there, I noticed the dog was covered in blood. I asked what happened and they discussed something in spanish really quickly, then told me he had run into a tree. Now, I've had dogs stick their silly heads into bushes before, and come out all scratched and battered, but even so this seemed a little excessive. I didn't think about it too much though, and went back to my place. Later, as I was putzing in my garden, I heard them talking, in spanish, about that dog and my neighbor's dog (both pitbuls, of course) fighting. And their carport had a rather large puddle of blood in the middle. Now, I don't know that they had a dog fight, but it sure looks suspicious. For one, Nathan, the neighbor's dog, is the sweetest, most submissive thing. He wouldn't get into a random fight, only if he was pushed into it. Secondly, they lied. Told me he ran into a tree. If the dogs got into an unplanned fight, they probably would have just said so. Finally, one of the guys, who I haven't seen there before... watched me the entire time I was out putzing in my garden. Not like, 'ooh baby, she's hot!' but more in the 'what is she going to do' sort of way. I must admit I am a little scared. All the other guys there are a lot of bluster and talk, but this guy, as unassuming as he was, he exuded power.
So, I don't know anything, but it sure looks like they had a little dog fight for kicks. Something I find wrong on many levels. But, I have no proof, and I must admit I am a little scared to report anything, because they would know it was me... and who knows what they would do.