Touring Austria and Hungary

Apparently there was some concern because I was out of contact. I assure you that I'm fine. Someone just had the brilliant idea of booking hotels without free internet.

Since I haven't commented at all on anything beyond Prague, I must start with Vienna. Highlights of seeing all of the places where Beethoven and Mozart lived, as well as eating a whole lot of Austrian food. We went to a beer garden type of restaurant and heard some accordion and guitar musicians play folk music. Naturally, there was a lot of walking and church-visiting.

Our second concert was not in Vienna, but rather Eisenstadt. The Esterházy palace we played in has fallen into some disrepair, except for the hall in which we played: Haydn Hall. The stage was obnoxiously small because of the ridiculous amount of area the choir had to take up. As a direct result the trumpets were behind me. I couldn't hear out of my right ear after rehearsal. Some cotton was useful.

After spending the day and night in that small town we headed toward Budapest, first stopping in Sopron. It was a nifty little Hungarian town important because it was the first place that border guards started turning the other way when eastern Europeans were trying to escape in the late 1980s. We wandered around and stumbled upon some interesting things, such as how buildings have changed over time. I quite enjoyed all of the different layers found on the building façades.

Another stop on that trip was another Esterházy palace, which was far more fantastic than the previous one. Then there was Budapest. We arrived late because it seems that most of the area is flooded by the massive amount of rain that plagued our trip.

We went on yet another tour. My problem with the tours is that there is next to no time to explore on one's own or enough time to see things at all. We spent a whole half an hour on the top of a hill on the Buda side. It was lame because you had to pay for everything (not that there was any time to see anything...), but the view was nice. That's just one example of how ridiculous bus tours are and why I am vehemently against them. Today was just ridiculous: we got up really early to see Parliament. Their fire alarm was being tested for an hour...we were there during all of it. Our Hungarian tour guide was extremely frustrated by it, too. The picture is of Parliament. I took it last night on our boat cruise of the Danube. After the morning's tour some people went to a museum describing the history of communism. I couldn't go. I've seen the concentration camps in person; I still get nightmares.

We have our last concert tonight. Tomorrow we return. There is much more of Prague and Budapest that I'd like to see, but I don't feel like we missed too much of Vienna, other than some museums. Most of Vienna was destroyed in WWII bombings, so a lot of history is gone.