Wayward Rambling

Today started a little later than we would have hoped. The previous night wound up being a bit of a late one. We started with breakfast at Cafeteria Merulana. We had pastries and cappuccino for breakfast. After that, we took transit to the Vatican. On our way there we passed many street vendors as well as beggars that maimed themselves. We had the foresight to buy advanced tickets online for an extra four euro each. The line wasn’t as bad as the last time Linda was there. We walked around and looked at a lot of painted ceilings, statues and paintings. We tried to avoid tour groups because they got in the way. We stopped for cappuccino in the courtyard while we were there. It seems that the Catholic church is profiting off of a lot of Roman artwork there, which is a bit odd. After the Vatican, we went to get gelato at Della Palma. They had 150 flavors. I tried four and Linda had three, so we tried seven today. After that, we went to Caffe Sant Eustachio for coffee. Linda had tiramisu. I bought a kilo of whole beans to bring home, split between two bags for my mom and I. We walked over to the Trevi fountain, but it was being refurbished, so it was dry. They had a small pool there to throw coins instead. It took me two tries, but I made one in. I said I would go to little Italy in Chicago instead because tossing a coin into the Trevi Fountain is supposed to ensure a return trip to Rome, but I tossed a coin into a small pool instead. We made it to Fish Market for dinner, but we were too late to be seated (10:45 pm?) So we had to order through the window. We had two glasses of white wine and squid and octopus, then I went back to order fish and chips (fish and chips was a lot of food). While we were across the river, we went to Vin Allegro, a wine bar. Linda and I shared a bottle of red wine while we played a game of chess. We walked all the way home. We spent less time walking on cobblestone compared to yesterday, so it wasn’t as bad. We also saw Circo Massimo, where the chariot races used to happen. Andy went inside of Saint Peter’s Basilica, but unfortunately Linda’s shorts were mid-thigh, so they wouldn’t let her in. She had the foresight to bring a long-sleeve but didn’t think about the legs.

We got up at 3:50 am this morning to catch our flight from Budapest to Rome. Didn’t have any problems this time at the airport. However, when we arrived, we decided to take the bus which confused us a bit. The bus was full when we left the airport, but somehow we managed to keep picking up more passengers along the way. We also missed our stop. We planned to get off at the train station in Ciampino, but we missed the stop. We noticed it as we drove away from it so we ended up getting off at the subsequent stop. The bus driver told us we could just catch the metro to Rome. But we didn’t really understand what he meant at the time. We probably spent about a half hour there trying to figure it out, with little help from the train people since they didn’t speak much English. Andy actually figured it out. When we got off at Termini, we walked to the hostel but no one was there. We ended up asking the neighboring hostel (Savannah House) and they actually helped us out by calling the hostel. It’s actually just a group of independently owned guest houses. It’s decent, though we should expect some amount of independence since our host doesn’t speak a lot of English either. The first thing we ended up doing was walking down tot he Coliseum. After talking to a tour guide, we took their restaurant recommendation and decided to go back later for a tour. We had fried vegetable pizza and lasagna with meat at Pizzeria Lizzi. It was quite entertaining. The waitstaff accidentally sat two couples at a table awkwardly and spent the entire time confused and talking about it. Andy’s pizza came out first and it looked like vegetables just meant watercress. Then they brought out a pizza and lasagna to the table next to us even though we were seated and ordered before them. We eventually got my lasagna though. They also brought food to the wrong table and I ended up switching their food. Anyways, we went on a tour of the Coliseum afterwards. The tour guide could have been better. He kept talking about the same things repeatedly and was not very energetic. The next guide for the Roman Forum was David Battaglino. +39 345 3370484, email david-tours@live.com. He was great. He gave us some interesting history and tips. He talked about how it functions as their marketplace. Some of the tips he gave us included how water was free and safe from the fountains, bathrooms must be made available to public by law, where to go to eat, ect. He mentioned another tour he was giving later in the evening and we decided to do that as well. We grabbed a beer from the store and walked around drinking it in public. That’s allowed anywhere until 10 pm apparently. He took us to Colonna Traiana, past Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele 11, past Ara Coeli and Campidoglio, past the Teatro Marcello (looks like the miniature version of the Coliseum, to a church with a walk through the underground, past the Synagogue, by the elephant obelisk (with the trunk giving the middle finger and the trunk moving as to motion he would be pooping), by the Pantheon, and ending at the Piazza di Navona (one side curved because it was built on ruins and supporting the hill while one side was flat). We then walked over to Ciambella for pasta. We had a lamb with potatoes and risotto with buffalo milk (first course meal). It was small portions but it seemed okay. The food itself was good. We headed home after that. Oh, we also stopped at the cat sanctuary. That was fun.

We started today by going to the post office to mail my mom a postcard. We bought a cocoa Kurtosh cake outside our hostel on the way there. After that, we went to the heroes square via the subway. It drizzled a bit early in the day, and everyone seemed to be carrying an umbrella. A lady tried selling us umbrellas, but we turned her down. There were also umbrellas hanging in our hostel, but we weren’t sure we should use them, so we didn’t. In hindsight, we probably should have gotten an umbrella, because we just got poured on on our way home tonight. After heroes square, we came back to our hostel, and went to Castro Bistro for goulash and also had an eggplant pita. The eggplant was actually hummus, which surprised us. Also, I finally figured out the custom for paying the bill. I asked for the bill, gave my server the cash I was paying him, and told him how much change I wanted. The bill was 2880 and I wanted to pay 3200 with tip, I paid with a 10,000. I asked for 6800, and the server ecstatically said thank you. We weren’t sure if that was because the tip was over 10%, or because he was surprised we finally figured out the tipping custom. Then, we went to the bath house. We paid for two admissions and one private cabin . We started with the large pools outside. I saw the locals playing chess, and tried to ask a few for a game, but I was turned down. There was a whirlpool, I think they called it the lazy river. It was a lot of fun being spun around by the jets in that pool, it went very fast. We went inside, and tried out just about every pool, as well as a few saunas. The medicinal pools felt different, we weren’t quite sure why. We went back outside, and I went into the large pool where they played chess while Linda walked around taking picture. I found a chess board without an opponent, so I hung around it for a while. A lady was in front, drinking beer and talking to a guy, both older. I motioned to the chess board to the guy, and he motioned to her, she agreed to play me. It was hard to focus on the game and think multiple moves ahead. I was up pieces for a while because she traded a rook for a knight. At one point, she said I moved twice after talking to a guy in the crowd that came to watch. I think he was wrong about that, and she put my knight where I didn’t move it, and said it was my turn. I wanted to avoid confrontation, so I played it out. At any rate, I got spanked in chess by a drunk old Hungarian woman. We went home for a shower, and planned on going out to a restaurant highly rated on yelp. We couldn’t get a table, but our backup plan was Sir Lancelot, a medieval themed restaurant. We had soup and duck with potatoes and cabbage. While we ate, there were people performing things like juggling, lifting things, balancing a wine glass on a dagger, and belly dancing. We left in hopes of stopping at the hammock ruin pub, or the labyrinth ruin pub, but they were closed. The whole walk/ride home it was pouring. We stopped to buy a bottle of wine on our way.

We started our day by visiting the same square we were at the night before to take photos of Buda Castle and Fisherman’s Bastion. We took the metro there and of course, the stop we spent probably an hour looking for was right on the square as we had suspected. We took the bus over and across the Chain Bridge and got off at the first stop since we weren’t sure which stop we needed. We walked up a ton of stairs to get to Buda Castle. When we finally got to the top, we realized that the Budapest Wine Festival was starting today and throughout the week (5 days total). We had originally planned to visit the bath houses but decided it would be worth it to come back later for the festival instead. We grabbed lunch at a restaurant next to Buda Castle and split a prosciutto sandwich and a greek salad. I’m not sure why we ordered a greek salad. Neither of us are big fans of black olives. The food was decent nonetheless. We walked over to Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church to look around. The architecture and views of the city are amazing here. We decided to go in to Matthias Church, which I happened to like the best so far from the churches we have visited. Afterwards, we walked over to the Labyrinth to check it out, but we were both exhausted from walking so we opted not to walk through it, though at least we had a chance to see a little bit of it at the entrance. We then walked back towards Fisherman’s Bastion to see the view from the bottom (even better of course). By the way, we realized the bus would have taken us all the way to the top of the hill so we never really needed to climb those stairs. We found the Metro to take us to the other side of the river (underground beneath the river) to go see the Parliament Building. It was impressive. We also saw the guards performing some ritual (a similar ritual also happened near Buda Castle). We then walked over to see the bronze shoes on the Danube River, which is really sad for what it represents. We took the tram back to the square to catch the metro back to our hostel. Andy wanted to ride all forms of public transit. We stopped at our hostel to reload. Eventually, we found ourselves back where we started our day, at Buda Castle for the wine tasting. The cost was a flat admission rate, and then you pay each vendor money for a taste. I think there were over 200 Hungarian wines there. We were overwhelmed, so we decided to try the award-winning wines listed in the information booklet. We even had a vendor toast us (or so I think) when we tried the wine known as the Taste of Hungary. Since we were already there, we decided to have dinner as well. There were food vendors everywhere but we found a food court similar to the setup as the food vendors at the square the night before. It must be a thing. Again, delicious food. We had goose leg with vegetables, and potatoes with a funny side of meat. I wonder if we should start eating goose back home. We sure have enough of them. The Wine Festival was a wonderful find we happened to stumble upon. I forget to mention, after trying one bad bottle of still water and one carbonated water, we finally found the right brand (NaturAgua with pink cap). Andy’s reaction to the best tasting water ever (in Hungary) was funny. We had also stopped at a food stand right outside our hostel for a cinnamon pastry type cake. Smelled and tasted great!

So, we had a crazy time getting to Budapest today. (Spoiler alert – we made it) We woke up at the British ass crack of dawn in Stansted to catch a bus to the airport. We had some issues deciding which side of the road the bus should arrive on, so we wound up taking a later bus to the airport. Once we got there, we waited to check our bags, only to find out that we were at the wrong bag check. We went tot he correct bag check, but our line barely moved. For the longest time, there was no excuse, but we moved lines, and a guy from our first line wound up holding our line up by stopping his line from moving. He intended to check a bag, but didn’t realize he had to pay both ways. It was painful to watch. At any rate, I dropped Linda in the race to the gate in an effort that at least one of us would catch the flight. We both made it, and broke a sweat, so I bought a couple drinks from a vending machine for 2 pounds each, which works out to be $7.50. One of the guys at our bus stop had already cautioned us that London is a money pit. So we slept as much as we could on our flight and caught transit to our hostel. It seems that a mom and her daughter run the hostel, and they were very friendly. We mentioned having to catch an early flight, and they said the train wouldn’t be running, but that they would drive us for 60 euro. Linda had quite the expression on her face, and they said no, 16 euro. We headed out to catch lunch at Koleves. We split some tapas and a duck curry meal. It was very good. They gave me seltzer water with my coffee. The restaurant was Yiddish. We are staying near the Jewish neighborhood Andrássy út. After that, we walked past the Synagogue and walked past the Hungarian (Jewish) Museum and Archives. We went to St. Steven’s Bascilica. Linda convinced me to walk up to the top of it, which only cost us $4 USD, whereas the Shandon Bells were $10 euro, which is about $13 USD. I freaked out on my way up there, but we stopped (a couple times) so that I would collect my cool, and proceed. Once we made it to the top, I waited while Linda walked around. After that, we moved on to a market at the Vörösmarty tér metro stop. We moved on to take some pictures of buildings, and walk across the chain bridge. We grabbed dinner at the market on our way back and listened to street music. We had too much trouble trying to find our metro stop, so I convinced Linda to walk home. We stopped at a 0-24 store to buy water and wine, some of which we drank before heading to ruin pubs. (We were mistaken that Buda Castle wasn’t Parliament and we didn’t know Parliament when we saw it) The first ruin pub was Mika Tivadar Mulató, which didn’t seem too different. The ruin pubs are places that were thrown together with junk to make up tables, seating and ambience. The second ruin pub was much truer to its name. We went to Szimpla Kert. We saw quite a mix of furniture there, from a hodge-podge of a mix of chairs, to a snowboard converted to a bench, to a bathtub converted to a bench. They had hookahs, which I wanted, but we decided against. On our way in, a guy was getting bounced.

Andy told me I should mention that on our countryside tour yesterday, the bus tour guide told us that the house next to the Cliffs of Moher cost 200,000 euro, and that’s just for a shell, half covered. Today, we started out our day by visiting the Shandon Church to ring the bells. Apparently that’s what visitors do to announce their arrival. They don’t want people to ring nonsensical melodies in excess, so they provide sheet music. The first song we played was Amazing Grace. It sounded really cool. We then toured the rest of the tower, seeing the mechanics behind the four faced liar (supposedly all four sides of the tower have a clock which is slightly different from one another) and behind the bells. When we got to the top, we had a fabulous view of the city of Cork. Andy was a bit scared, but he still seemed to enjoy the view too. On our way back down, we rang the bells again, this time we played Kumbaya. He wanted to play another song after that, The Wedding March, and record a video of us doing it. But we didn’t. We peeked inside the actual service area and it was quaint. Small but nice. We then walked to the other side of the city to see the cathedral called Saint Fin Barre’s. It looks like it is the largest one in Cork. It had amazing stained glass windows and mosaic flooring. Andy kept telling me there’s a church in Milwaukee that looks just as good as this. Afterwards, we stopped for a cup of coffee next to the River Lee. Andy was sad that they didn’t have regular coffee, but I enjoyed the double espresso shots. We walked over tot he English Market to see what the buzz was about. It reminded me of Seattle’s market. We decided to buy some smoked salmon from one of the merchants (cooked, not uncooked). It was delicious. We tried to stop over at a pipe store but unforunately it was closed on Mondays. So we headed over tot he Franciscan Well Brewery to try a couple of beers. Andy had their IPA and I tried the Porterhouse Stout. One of the last things we did in Ireland was to stop and get some doner kebab at Crazy Kebab. I miss doner kebab! Andy loved his first eve doner kebab. We grabbed our packs from the hostel and waited at a bar, The Poor Relation, near the bus station to catch our plane to London.

Today we took a Paddywagon tour through the Irish countryside tot he Cliffs of Moher. On the way, we stopped at Burren, which was a rocky area along the ocean. We found something interesting out about the toilets there, which is that they take a while to refill after a flush. We slept on the bus ride, but also tried to listen to our tour guide as he talked about Ireland. He said that a lot of people emigrated during the famine, and a lot that tried died on ships, which were called coffin ships. We went up into a lookout tower at the Cliffs of Moher. The heights thing didn’t freak me out as much as I had thought it would . We wanted to see unpopular opinion puffin while we were at the Cliffs, but we suspect we may have been out of season for him. I mailed Nelly our first post card from Ireland. We bought it at the Cliffs and it cost 1 euro to mail. The bus driver had crazy skills driving on the narrow roads in the country. It is really something passing an on coming bus. When we came back, we stopped at a bar (Sin E) to listen to some locals play Irish music. There were more air instruments than there were last night, and the clientele was a bit older. So far my favorite beer has been Guiness, I think I’ve tried all the stouts I’ve seen here so far – 6 maybe? It seemed like the musicians were playing for drinks. I saw a store that sells seeds and vapes, we might stop there tomorrow just to see the inside. Next door is a kabob place that sells a kabob that Linda said tastes lik a Gyro, but every time she said that I thought she was saying Euro. It’s interesting seeing how different the cars are here. Some have the same name but they look a little or very different. Not many SUVs which I expected. We had fish and chips for dinner as well as chicken pita, which seemed a bit like a burger. The fish and chips was good but I asked for vinegar, whih Linda didn’t like. It came with spicey mashed peas which were good too. We’re going to go out to a beer bar with a lot of international bottles tonight still. We bought a ouple Lycamobile sims yesterday, I’m still trying to get our cell phones to work. We also saw Bunratty Castle on our way back from the Cliffs, but we didn’t go inside.

So, we went out to a couple more bars before calling it a night. First, we went to a beer bar called The Bierhaus. They had better taps than anywhere else, but only 6-10 that were different than other places. We had a couple stouts, one was XXXX, one that was a chocolate milk stout, and I think one was a black stout. We also had a Scottish Independence Ale, which was from an Irish brewery. The barkeep said we’d have to go to larger pubs in the city center if we wanted to keep drinking, so we walked down there. Linda didn’t let me go to a club because I was too scrubby, but we went next door to one. There was quite a different crowd there. We saw a guy and girl who are definitely going to bang tonight. We had an alcoholic ginger beer from England as well as a red that was on tap. We stopped at an Irish restaurant on our way home called Mac-Donald’s for a large fries. They didn’t give us much ketchup and we should have asked for salt.

We’ve officially started on our honeymoon vacation. It was a long day of travel, driving to Milwaukee, flying to Detroit, catching a transfer in Amsterdam, to our final destination, Cork, Ireland. We slept on and off during all the flights, so by the time we arrive in Cork around 11:30 am, we were ready to start our adventure, and didn’t face many issues with jet lag. The first thing we decided to do was get back on the bus to travel to Blarney (about 5 miles from Cork). We stopped to have lunch at an Irish Pub. (We also stopped at an Irish Pub at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam so that Andy could have a Heinekin while in Amsterdam, but in an Irish Pub.) I think it was called Muskerry’s Irish Pub, which seemed to have traditional Irish meals. After lunch, we started our climb to get to the Blarney Stone. Andy was a little apprehensive on the way up, but after realizing it was too crowded to urn around, he made it through like a trooper I pretended to kiss the Blarney Stone so I don’t think that means I’ll have the gift of eloquence. After Andy’s story about drunk locals peeing on the Blarney Stone, I didn’t want to get too close.

Andy, however, decided not to sit down and lay down by the Blarney Stone. Afterwards, we walked around for a couple of hours, looking at the gardens, the waterfalls, the nature hikes, the caves, the lake and the Blarney House. It was beautiful with all that greenery. By the time we arrived back in Cork, it was time for dinner. We took a suggestion from the Kinlay House where we are staying and went to the Bodega for some more traditional Irish food. It was a classy joint, and we were a little under dressed, but it was a nice place to eat for dinner. We found out that the brewery across the street had opened up two months prior (July 2014) so we just had to check out the Rising Sons Brewery (only microbrewery in Cork). They surprisingly had a decent quality product. We ended the night by stopping for a drink at An Spailpin Fanach (the migrant worker) for a couple drinks of Guiness and traditional Irish music. We arrived just before they started, and it was crowded by the time we left. It was exactly the type of pub (atmosphere) that we were hoping for and looking for.