A Rainy Day in Budapest

It's been another long day, and the rainy weather did not stop us from having a great time. We began the day at our hotel with some complimentary breakfast. I must say, it was the best hotel breakfast I have ever had. The bacon and sausage were delicious, as were the pastries. The variety was vast, and I can't wait to try more new things tomorrow.

After the huge breakfast, we met with a crowd of people at the main square near our hotel and began our "free" walking tour of Budapest. Taking 2.5 hours, we walked throughout the city, learning some Hungarian history, some basic Hungarian, and why Hungary is so important. We began in the Pest side of city in the east, and saw the chain bridge and St. Stephen's Basilica. I also learned some basic Hungarian. Apparently, people greet each other with a phrase pronounced "see ya," and say goodbye with a word pronounced "hello." Very confusing, but interesting nonetheless. I then learned about some Hungarian inventions. Without Hungary, we apparently wouldn't have refrigerators or computers.

Next, we crossed the famed Chain Bridge to the Buda side of the river, the west. This side is home to the famous Buda Castle Hill, so we took a short hike to the top. On our way, we stopped to learn about the history of Hungary from its foudning to today. Originally, Hungarians came as nomadic from the Ural Mountains in Central Russia, and Mongolia. They settled in the Carpathian region in Europe at around 1000 AD, and were then unified by St. Stephen as one Christian nation. Hungary prospered for many years, and eventually joined the Austro-Hungarian empire. This is where a majority of Hungary's architecture comes from. In the 20th century however, Hungary's history only went downhill. The empire lost in World War I, and also lost World War II when allied with Germany. After the war, Soviets occupied the country with totalitarian socialism, causing terror throughout the country. It was only in 1990 when Russians left the country and Hungary could start to recover from a century of "being a loser." Hungary did join the EU in 2004, but they still have some economic issues to solve before adopting the Euro.

After our history lesson, we took in the view from Castle Hill, and it was simply spectacular. We could see the entire Danube river, the chain bridge, and the beautiful parliament building (shown above in the picture). The view itself is actually a UNESCO World Heritage site. After this view, we walked around the Buda side of the city until concluding the tour at the Matthias church where the tour guides gave us a quick orientation about the city and let us go. Before leaving, we gave them a generous tip.

After our tour, we took a bus back to the Pest side of the city to the House of Terror, a museum devoted to showing life during the reign of the Soviets in Hungary. It was not a very happy museum, but I learned a lot about what it was like living in an oppressed communist state. Even though there wasn't too much English in the museum, I understood very well what was being shown, and from what I did understand, life was miserable and drove people mad. After checking out the jail cells at the museum, we returned to the hotel to rest for a little bit.

For late lunch/early dinner, we decided to follow the tour guide's advice and search for a local restaurant, away from touristy areas to avoid traps. We were very successful, and I had a delicious meal of fried pork and potatoes, while my father had some traditional beef goulash. The restaurant, if anyone ever visits Budapest, is called Ferenc Josef, and I highly recommend it. Before going to the hotel to rest again, we took a stroll down Andrassy Ut, Budapest's "Champs-Ulysess," to the City Park. On the way we saw the Hero's Square and the Castle in the Park.

At around 9PM, after spending an hour at the hotel pool and spa, we went out for one last time to check out the river view at night and were amazed with how spectacular the castle and chain bridge were lit. We crossed the Danube and came back to a quick Gyro meal before finally returning to the hotel.

Tomorrow, we'll be taking another tour, centered around communist history, as well as check out some more of the city's famous sights. Be sure to check back for more!

A Nightmare at the Airport

It's the end of what's been a very long day, and one that did not go at all according to plan, but we still made it to the hotel in Budapest, Hungary. Before I get to the story of today, I'll do a quick summary of what I've done since then. On Sunday, me, my father, grandmother, and uncle went to the villages where my grandmother grew up. Our first stop was Kozielsko, the village that my grandmother was forced to move to after Nazis invaded her home town of Niemczyn when she was only a young girl. There, we visited my great-grandmother's grave, who was murdered by Nazis at the time. Our next stop was a memorial in the woods to a group of people kidnapped and murdered by Nazis. One of them was my great-grandfather, and the other was one of my great-uncles. Lastly, we went to my mother's hometown of Niemczyn to visit the farm my mother was born in, and spend some time with her family.

On Monday, we went to downtown Bydgoszcz to try their new water trams. They were ridiculously cheap, but there was no information or guide to the surrounding. The 75 minute ride was interesting nonetheless, and I got to pass through some locks for the first time in my life. Later in the day, we checked out Bydgoszcz's Little Venice, an island currently being renovated for tourists, and the progress from last year was impressive. On Tuesday, we didn't do much, but did go out at night and spend our last night at a busy restaurant on a part of the Brda river forming the island.

Today, we woke up at 7AM, and did not get to a good start. Within minutes, we discovered that our regional flight from Bydgoszcz to Warsaw was cancelled. We called the airline, LOT, and all they could do was give us a reservation for a later flight to Budapest in Warsaw (after proving him wrong that there wasn't an alternate flight). Getting to Warsaw was our responsibility however. We were able to take a train from Bydgoszcz to Warsaw at 9AM but it wouldn't arrive in time for the 12:30PM flight, so we had to settle for the 5PM flight, which didn't seem so bad at the time.

After a relatively nice four-hour train ride in first class, we took a taxi to the airport in Warsaw, arriving at around 1:30PM. The first thing we did was check in our bags for the flight to Budapest, and then we immediately went to the complaints desk for LOT airlines. All they gave us was a sheet to give to them and hopefully get a mail reply in a few weeks about compensation. According to the EU, LOT is legally obliged to compensate for our inconvenience. Our perils unfortunately did not end here. We then went to a LOT airline office in the airport to get more details about compensation, and to show them a news article from that morning that talked about LOT's unreliability. They couldn't do anything but give us a restaurant voucher (after we asked for one). After our airline provided dinner (which wasn't too bad), we used the internet hotspot for the few hours we had at the airport.

At around 4:40PM, we started walking to the gate because the flight was scheduled to board at 4:50PM. Suspiciously, the gate was full of people, but the actual info booths were empty. We called the airline at around 5:00PM to ask about the flight and lack of information, and they only told us that the flight might be delayed. We waited another half hour, and no one showed up. the flight was supposed to depart, but there was no information at all, and the flight monitors still said on time, despite crowds waiting for the flight. We decided to go to another gate and ask them about ours. They said that they called someone, and a few minutes later, the pilot showed up, abslutely clueless as to what was going on. A lady finally arrived at the gate at around 6:00PM, already 30 minutes after scheduled departure time. The weather at this point just to started to get bad, with some thunder (at and before the scheduled departure time, it was sunny outside). The lady immediately gave the announcement that the flight was delayed to weather. At this point, my father and a number of other people started to ask for answers, as it obviously wasn't the reason if the bad weather began AFTER the flight was supposed to be departed.

The lady then decided to give us info updates every thirty minutes, so we went back to the wi-fi hotspot. At 7:40PM, we finally boarded the plane, about 3 hours later than scheduled, and we departed at around 8:10PM. After our arrival in Budapest an hour later, we got our luggage very quickly, and took a bus to the metro station. We then took the metro downtown, to where our hotel was. I was very pleasantly surprised with the hotel, and it was nice to relax after a long and tough day. Before settling down, we quickly scouted the area around the hotel and found a 24 hour convenience store.

It's been a long day, and I've learned two things: Things may not always go as planned, so you have to get used to it, don't fly LOT airlines.

Castles and Dynamite Factories

The last few days have been pretty interesting, but the highlight was definitely the "Exploseum," an abandoned German explosives factory from when Bydgoszcz, Poland was occupied by the Germans during World War II. Before we get to that, I'll talk about what else we did in the past few days. I also have some pictures from the museum and the rest of the trip uploaded, so I'll post the links for those at the end of the entry.

After waking up in Nidzica on Thursday, we decided to visit the castle again, but for an actual tour. Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing in English, so I didn't get much out of it, but I got to see some of the architecture and tools used by the Teutonic Knights in their castles 600 years ago. After the hour-long tour, I returned to my grandfather's house for some lunch. After lunch, we had a 4-hour car-ride back to Bydgoszcz. On the way, we stopped at a castle ruin in Brodnica, where all that remains is a single tower and the ruins around it. Unfortunately, since it was after 5 o'clock, the tower was closed, but we still got to see the grounds with some original castle ruins. After arriving in Bydgoszcz, we did nothing but relax for the rest of the evening.

Friday wasn't too much of an eventful day either, but I drove through downtown Bydgoszcz and waited at the train station to drop off and say goodbye to my cousin and her daughter who were leaving to go to their hometown in another part of Poland. After that, I went to my uncle's new apartment to relax again for a while.

Today, we woke up and pretty much immediately went to the brand new "Exploseum", opened last week. The actual museum and tour gave only a glimpse of the 23 square kilometer complex, which could still have unexploded mines in the still-abandoned areas. The factory was one of the many factories for the DAG explosives corporation. The Bromberg (the name of Bydgoszcz under Germany) complex however was the largest and most productive, providing almost 80% of DAG's explosives.

To actually get to the complex, we took a bus to the outskirts of the city, and followed a road to the end where a small crowd of people were waiting. We weren't quite sure if we were in the right place, as there were no signs whatsoever about any museum or tour, and even the people waiting said that they "hoped" that somebody would pick them up for the museum/tour. Finally, an unmarked tour bus came to the area we were waiting, and people started to enter, asking no questions about the Exploseum. Everyone just assumed it was what we were looking for. Sure enough, the bus took us to the ticket office of the museum, where we signed a waiver and began our tour. The museum could definitely use some better marketing tactic here.

Unfortunately, there was no English guide, text, or brochure anywhere in the museum or on the tour, so my dad had to help interpret what I was looking at, but the tour was very interesting nonetheless. We began going through rooms that were once used to produce the ingredients for nitroglycerin, the main ingredient in TNT. The exhibits discussed Alfred Nobel's discovery of the substance, and then showed some of the many Polish Nobel prize winners, including Marie Curie. Next, we took some tunnels to the next building, where some of the history of the complex itself was discussed. The factory was one of the biggest suppliers for the Third Reich during World War II after it was built. To keep it hidden from aerial view, the Germans covered the tops of many of the buildings with dirt and vegetation. Because the complex was also quite deep into the woods, it was nearly undetectable from the air.

We then continued through some of the tunnels and entered some of the rooms where the nitroglycerin was created. Something interesting the tour guide pointed out was the emergency plan. The mixing rooms were designed so that one side of the room was exposed to the outside with glass, while all of the other sides were covered with concrete. On the side opposite from the concrete was an emergency evacuation tunnel. The idea of this was that if there was an explosion, it would have been directed outside while the workers would use the evacuation tunnels less affected by the explosions. The redirection of the blast would also prevent the explosion from destroying the rest of the facility Whether this would work in practice was fortunately, never put to the test.

One of the next areas we visited was completely converted to a museum about the history of war. The top floor began with some of the weapons of war used in medieval times, such as swords, catapults, and maces, among other things. There was also an interesting chart that began on the this top floor and went through all four floors of the building. It was about the number of deaths from many conflicts and wars in the past. Many notable wars, like the Spanish Civil War and American Civil War were listed and their death counts of about 600,000 barely made a mark on the graph. Some other conflicts, like World War I with 15 million deaths, went down an entire floor. World War II's bar however went down all four floors with a staggering 55 million deaths.

The next floor's exhibit was an evolution of the previous one. Now, weapons of war included muskets and cannons, and it showed how they slowly evolved into rifles, carbines, machine guns, and submachine guns. I actually got to hold a Thompson submachine gun. I never realized how heavy such a small-looking gun could be. Even without any ammunition, firing it packed a punch. The next floor showed airplanes used during World War II and nuclear weapons. I learned not only about the bombs dropped on Japan during World War II, but also about the projects done by countries around the world after the war to develop thermonuclear weapons. One of these, the Czar Bomb of the Soviet Union was so massive that the explosion would completely obliterate anything in a 100km radius, and even shatter windows over 1000km away. Just its actual fireball had a 4km radius.

The final floor's exhibit showed some of the most significant battles in history. Included were the Invasion of Normandy, Battle of Waterloo, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Battle of Verdun. Some famous quotes about war were also displayed around the room. The next building, which was where the nitroglycerin explosives were actually packaged, showed the life of the average employee at the factory, and factories like the one in Bromberg. The final building, where the nitroglycerin "dough" was rolled into packagable rolls, had a room dedicated to the Red Army, which completely stripped the factory of all of its equipment when they conquered Poland towards the end of World War II.

After the final room, we took the tour bus back, and a regular city bus back to my grandparents. When we arrived, four hours had passed, and I had learned a lot about Germany, explosives, and war in general. I was quite impressed with the museum, and with some improvement, I believe that it could become a major tourist attraction for people visiting from around the world. It's only been open for a week, so there is definitely room for improvement. For what it was, I thought it was incredibly interesting. I'm now going to spend the rest of the day with family, and tomorrow I'll be going to one of my family's farms, so I won't be reporting back for a few days.

If you'd like to see pictures from the explosives factory, check out my gallery here: http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/DAGBrombergExploseum

I also have a gallery of the few pictures I took in Dublin here: http://picasaweb.google.com/GuitarGodAdamp/Dublin2011Visit1

I'll definitely try to take more pictures from now on, because I think they supplement the blog entries very well.

Travels in Poland

It's been a few days since I last posted, but I've been catching up with sleep, and meeting with family I haven't seen in a long time. Since first reuniting with family on Sunday, we did a few things.

On Monday, I woke up at around noon to catch up for most of my lost sleep. It was incredibly rainy all day, so there wasn't much to do. I basically slacked off the entire day, and even napped for a short while in the afternoon too. Later in the day, I was (almost) back to normal. In the evening, I went to my uncle's new apartment where we watched a motorbike race being broadcast from England, where a Polish team came out victorious.

On Tuesday, the weather was much nicer, so we walked to downtown Bydgoszcz. The walk was relatively nice, but there wasn't anything I've never seen before. We returned for a nice lunch of fried chicken and then proceeded to relax for the rest of the day. I went to my uncle's apartment again to meet with my cousin and her daughter, who just came for a visit from another part of Poland.

Today (July 13), we had some more exciting things planned. In the morning, we left Bydgoszcz for the city of Nidzica in the Warmia region. On the way, we passed through a lot of the construction that is improving the Polish road system. We also stopped at a castle town halfway called Golub-Dobrzyn. The castle was first built in the early 1300s by the Teutonic Knights, but was then added onto in the 1600s. The result is a unique mixture of medieval and Renaissance architecture (pictured above). Today, the castle is rented out often for large parties. During our guided tour today, it looked like the staff was preparing a feast for hundreds of people for an event later in the evening.

When we finally arrived in Nidzica, I met with grandfather on my mother's side, and had a nice late lunch. In the evening we visited another castle inside the city for a drink. This castle was a bit larger and had more renovations occurring, but it was interesting nonetheless. It's been a long three days here in Poland, and I still have seven to go. I'll report my activities again in a few days.

Dublin: Day 2

I've just arrived at my grandparents' home in Bydgoszcz, Poland, after a short

day in Dublin.

This morning, we had some nice continental breakfast at our hotel before going

on a walking tour of the main city. This time we were just on time and went on a

midday stroll through the city. The tour guide was born in the city, so he knew

it like the back of his hand. We started at the Spire on O'Connell St and

learned some of the town's history as we walked on some of the side streets.

Eventually, after passing through "Little Italy," we crossed the River Liffey,

the main river of Dublin. On our way, we passed an interesting Church that was

converted to a restaurant/bar.

After we crossed the Liffey, we took a walk on Temple Bar, which is actually a

street. The street is famous for its pubs and restaurants. Pictured above is one

of its many bars. On one of its side streets, we saw the wall of fame, which

included pictures of some of Ireland's most famous musicians. Some of the people

there were Bono from U2, and the singer Sinead O'Connor. While walking through

the city, we were pondering what we could do when we returned in two weeks. One

idea we had was to go on an excursion leaving the city. The guide was able to

recommend a bus tour to the Wicklow region south of Dublin, so we'll get to see

some great scenery and traditional Irish villages in a few weeks when we go on the tour.

To end the tour, we walked into the historic Trinity College, and exited to

Grafton St. After one final walk down Grafton St, we took the Luas tram back to

the hotel for the last time to pick up our bags and go to the airport. The

airport bus got so crowded that they stopped letting passengers step on.

Luckily, we were an early stop so we had a place to sit on the first bus.

We arrived at Dublin's airport 3 hours early, so we had time to waste. For

dinner, we had hamburgers at a very overpriced restaurant with an "outdoor"

terrace, but the terrace didn't have food, and it was in the middle of the

airport, with absolutely no view. The food was good nonetheless.

Our two-hour flight to Bydgoszcz was relatively smooth, but the landing was one

of the hardest I've had in a while. The Bydgoszcz airport was surprisingly busy

even though we landed at 9PM. Because three airplanes landed within a one-hour

period, the airport was at a peak in traffic. Typically, there are only four or

five flights a day.

I'm now sitting at my grandparents' home, and having a "family reunion" with my

uncle and grandparents. I am quite shocked though about the speed of the dial-up

connection at the apartment. I never remembered dial-up being so slow. Anyways,

I'll be spending some time with family, so you might not get any updates for a

few days, but in 10 days, I'll be going to Budapest, so you'll be hearing a lot

more.

Jet-Lagged in Dublin

It's been a very long day, and I've barely slept in the last 24 hours. It all started when we took the commuter rail from Providence to Boston, connecting us to the airport through the Silver Line. Before getting on the Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, I had a quick Chinese meal at the airport.

The actual flight was one of the most comfortable transatlantic flights I've been on. The plane was brand new, the seats were comfortable, the meal wasn't completely awful, the movie/TV selection was large, and the flight was a mere 5 hours long. We landed in Dublin at 7AM local time, and after a visit to the airport's tourism office, we were on our way to our hotel. For transportation, Dublin only has a bus system and a two-line tram system known as the Luas. Our Hilton hotel conveniently has a Luas station right next to it. On the combined bus and Luas ride to the hotel, we saw a glimpse of what Dublin had to offer; the famous O'Connell Street and Grafton Street. After finally arriving at our hotel, we found out that the rooms weren't ready, so we decided to drop off our bags and go out into Dublin for a while.

We first decided to have breakfast at a cafe on Grafton St. I had a delicious bacon and cream cheese bagel, as well as a Coke to keep me awake. After this, we wanted to go on a walking tour of the city, but we weren't sure of its start location, other than "59 Upper O'Connell St." We started walking on a side of Upper O'Connell Street, and watched as the numbers went up, but suddenly at around number 30, Upper O'Connell Street suddenly stopped. We were unfortunately 5 minutes late to the tour by then. Still clueless about what happened, we went back down the street to see where we needed to go. Apparently, 59 Upper O'Connell St was on the other side of that road as 20 Upper O'Connell, completely contrary to a typical address system where it alternated. By the time we figured this out, the walking tour was long departed. We plan on trying it again tomorrow before our flight.

Since we missed out on the tour, we decided to instead visit the Kilmainham Gaol, a historical jail where the British held Irish prisoners. We got an interesting guided tour of the complex, and saw some of the jail cells and locations where Irish revolutionaries of the early 20th century were held and executed. The history was fascinating, and I learned quite a bit about the split from Britain, and the formation of the Republic of Ireland. The picture above is from the prison complex's main hall.

By the time we were done with the jail tour, I was ready to collapse since I hadn't slept for 24 hours. We returned to the hotel where I took a 2-hour nap and a shower before returning to the streets of Dublin. As we walked down Grafton St, we saw many street performers performing both Irish folk music and mainstream rock. Some of them were quite good. We walked down a side street and had an early dinner/late lunch at an unfortunately mediocre Italian restaurant called "Little Caesar's," not to be confused with the American chain restaurant. After that, we decided to ride the Luas tram to the hotel where we'll be staying at in two weeks, The Gibson. This modern building is located in the Docklands of Dublin, where there are a lot of new, modern developments. This is also where the O2 arena is located. Right next to it is the Dublin Ferris Wheel, where we rode for 20 minutes with an amazing panorama of Dublin's skyline.

Following this, we returned to the hotel for another rest. Our last adventure in Dublin was looking for a late night snack. We eventually decided on a Kebab place on O'Connell street, called ABRAKEBABRA. In the end, it was a bad decision as the food wasn't too good at all. As I finish this entry at 10:30PM, the sun is just setting, since Ireland is in such a high latitude.

Tonight, we'll catch up with lost sleep and then make up the walking tour we missed. By the time we're done, we'll have to get to the Dublin airport for a flight to Poland. This is the end of one extremely long day. Stay tuned for more of our trip.

A New and Exciting Trip

It's hard to believe that the summer is already here, and that I'm going on yet another trip. This year, I'll be spending over three weeks in Europe. Today, with my father, we'll be departing from Boston and taking a 6-hour flight to Dublin, Ireland. After spending 2 days there, we'll fly to Bydgoszcz, Poland, and spend 10 days in Poland reuniting with family and friends. Eventually, we'll depart from Bydgoszcz, and spend 10 days travelling to cities along the Danube river. We'll start with Budapest, Hungary, and then we'll take a train to Vienna, Austria, and see some of the famous sights there. We'll conclude our adventure on the Danube with a boat ride to Bratislava in Slovakia. From Bratislava, we'll take a flight back to Dublin and spend another 3 days there before finally returning to the United States in August.

I hope that this will end up being a wonderful trip, and I can't wait to share my experiences along the way.