King  Gary 

I arrived home just in time to miss the ‘airline terrorist plot‘, which greatly delayed a lot of flights - especially to and from London and England, which was where my airplane was going to and leaving from (Heathrow airport in London.) Thank goodness for that, although for some of my friends that I met in Europe, it won’t be as easy, because some are leaving to go to home sometime today.

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The photos that I have uploaded so far are here.

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I just returned home about an hour ago.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

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Today at a glance:

Woke up at 6:30 am

• the Vienna subway tells the ETA for when the next subway will arrive; there is a TV screen to watch some local TV shows while you wait
• The hotel that I’m staying at is called the ‘Mercure’.
• I met a WTC survivor.
• it’s my father’s birthday, so I’d like to wish him a happy birthday!
• They have a market here that’s similar to St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto.
• Went to the House of Terror, honoring the deaths of thousands of Jews in Budapest.
• Went to the WestEnd Center Mall; it’s like any typical North American (yes) shopping mall.
• Went to the World’s Most Beautiful McDonald’s, where I have pictures in my photo album online.
• It’s easier to find North American foods like McDonald’s and lots of TGI Friday’s around here, than local foods.
• I was “randomly” (sure) checked for my subway ticket - twice.
• The city has 26 cows that are all over the place for tourists to find; I found about 10 or so. Toronto has a similar thing but with moose instead; in both cases, the models are shaped and decorated differently for each one.

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Today at a Glance:

Woke up at: 6:30 am

• The Hungarian F1 Grand Prix is taking place right now, here in Budapest. In fact, I bumped into crew members from two teams:
• Renault F1 (British)
• Porsche F1 (German)
• Ate crepes at Gundel. They melt and flambe the chocolate, then pour it on top.
• I listened to organ music in a church; it was very nice, and I also heard the Hungarian national anthem played on it, where everyone stood up for it.
• I visited the Hungarian Parliament Building. It was designed after the London Parliament Building, and so it looks somewhat like it.
• Hungarians look somewhat Mongolian, due to the fact that they have been ruled by many different rulers from different countries (7 ‘empires’ in all); the Mongols were one of them, and apparently left their mark in the citizens’ facial features. But originally, the first Hungarians were part of the tribes that went to Finnish, but split off and went in a more southerly direction.

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Today at a Glance:

• food service is known to be bad here (some people here had to wait 45 minutes between the time they requested for the check and the time they actually received it - although the restaurants that I’ve gone to haven’t had this problem - yet)
• I went looking around in the rain for a restaurant to eat at for dinner. I ended up eating at Central Kavehaz.
• The hotel I’m staying at is the Sofitel. I find it the most impressive of the 3 that I’ve stayed in during this trip.
• I went to the “World’s most beautiful McDonalds” and the first McDonalds in the Eastern Bloc.
• I got to see the Széchenyi Chain Bridge lit up at night.
• I am impressed by the quality of cars that they have here. They are very comparable to the ones found in Toronto, actually; I have seen many Peugeots, BMWs, and VWs, to name a few, and most of them appear to be new, or at least very clean.
• They are huge energy savers here. For instance, in all of the European hotels that I’ve stayed in, in order to turn on any lights, you need to insert your card into a card holder. This is to ensure that, when you leave and take your card with you, the power turns off to save energy. Also, some restaurants have lights that only turn on when the motion sensers sense someone moving nearby.

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Today at a Glance:

• The toilets have ashtrays! You can do your business in the bathroom stall while you smoke.
• Each hotel room has an umbrella; I’m guessing that it’s because it rains a lot here (and it did during my stay.)
• The transit system is based on an honor system, as a lot of them are in Europe. A person sometimes checks for your tickets; if you can’t reproduce one, then you are fined about 10 times the price of a ticket - plus you are then forced to buy one.
• Went to Schönbrunn Palace
• There is a lot of Chinese influence in the palace, and this is noticeable in the paintings, ceramics, and the wallpaper.
• There’s a big meeting of international members of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Prague, I believe; I see them wherever I go around here.

Places I went to:

• Austrian Parliament Building
• Vienna State Opera
• Stephansdom
• Graben, Vienna
• Hofburg Imperial Palace
• What European trip is complete without a trip to McDonald’s?

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Today at a Glance:

• Went to the Vienna State Opera
• Went to Stephansdom
• Ate some world-famous Sachertorte chocolate cake
• restaurant for dinner: Das Schreiberhaus
• big Austrian dinner
• manage to involve myself in drinking games of all sorts for the next few hours
• House of Music (haus der musik)
• threw a dice to compose music
• compose an orchestra on a projected screen using a wand as the conductor’s batton
• rode on a 100+ year old ferris wheel (it’s the oldest ferris wheel in the world, I believe)

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I just arrived here. I`ll be going out soon, so I`ll post back in a bit.

I`m also trying to work my way around a European keyboard (many characters are placed in different locations from the American keyboard), and all of the text and dialog boxes on this version of Windows XP is German.

UPDATE:

Today at a Glance:

• The escalators for the subway doesn´t move until you walk near them, so they conserve energy when not in use. I find this to be a very smart idea.
• The trams are designed by Porsche, and so they move very smoothly and practically glide across the streets.
• Buses have 3 exits instead of the 2 that Toronto buses have. Wouldn´t hurt to have an extra exit in a crowded bus!
• I drank some Schnapps; tastes okay.
• For dinner, I went to a most unusual restaurant. The place is heavily decorated (think Jack Astor´s but at least 3 times as much), and so is the bathroom. There´s hairspray in there, a television, and a lot of daily newspaper. And of course, there was dancing.
• If you danced, you received a certification that claimed that you knew how to dance to Austrian folk music, I believe.
• Beer is definitely than water here, almost anywhere you go.
• I saw a yellow Hummer (you rarely see big cars, like SUVs, in Europe because there is simply no space for them on most roads), but then I noticed that it had an Arizona license plate!
• They really like their Peugeots in Europe.
• I stayed in the Mercure hotel.
• The shower is in a separate room from the toilet, so when you’ve done your… business, you have to go to another room to wash your hands.

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Places I went to today were:

• Josefov
• Prague Castle (again)

And the other places that I went to today, were mostly where I went yesterday, but went to the places I didn’t go yesterday.

Bye for now!

UPDATE:

Today at a Glance:

• Climbed 300-step staircase to the top of a bell tower. It´s nothing compared to the CN Tower´s 1,776 steps, though.

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