Vienna, Zauberhaft! November 9, 2009

After 3 hours trip on the train, we came in Vienna, I must say Vienna is not very different with other city in Germany, it’s clean, the public transportation is always on time, and everything is in Germany so I’m able to understand something .

The city itself is famous as the city where Mozart start his carreer as a professional musician.  So as we can axpectedI can find the trace of Mozart everywhere like the house of mozart, the mozart music box, the mozart postcard, or even mozart chocolate shop!

After we put our stuff on the trusted locker of Vienna central station we started to walk and our first destination is the information point (well, everybody always need a map to go around the city) then we go to Schonbrunn Palace, the summer palace of Austrian imperial, basicly it’s free to enter the garden, since we were lazy and don’t have much time to walk around it we took a motor train that took us around the garden, and then the journey begin with the Palm garden where we had our lunch there, it was the best lunch ever I mean I ate cheese and tuna sandwich while looking at the most beautiful green house, surrounded by flowers and sometimes I could see squirrels walking, heerlijk! the next stop is Gloriette the gift from Joseph II from Belgium to Maria Theresa when they got married, from here I could see the view of the city and the palace from the top. After walking down the garden to the palace and take enormous number of picture we decided to go to the city.

Vienna is one of the city in the world with the highest quality of life, so you would expect that they have integrated transportation system, numbers of park, lots of free event, and also nice costumer service (at least it’s better than Netherland). After we took the metro to city center we visit St.Borromeus (the name same like my hospital in Bandung) cathedral and TU Wien, then when we wanted to head to the city shopping line we started to lost for 1 hours, but we took that time to take a rest and pray in a quite park. We continued our walk to Heldenplatz, here we walk through the all famous building of Vienna start with the National Theater, the nature history Museum and other things (so many thing, and I couldn’t remember) and then we crossed the street to go to Museum Quartier, it’s a quarter with pack of museum, just like the name all the museums are art museum, from art history museum untill modern art museum it’s quite pricey when you wanted to enter the all the museums. By the time we got there it’s already started to close.

Then we took the u-bahn and headed to the city center, the center isone of the UNESCO World Heritage Site so it hasn’t developed since ages. There were street performances, many people offerabout theater or music show and lots of store especially about accessories. St. Stephen Cathedral is the main attraction of the city center. After had some dinner and shopping we headed to the station and took the bus to the airport where we spent almost sleepless night, I was so tired during the trip I even slept all the flight.

In literally blink of an eye (because I was sleeping) wearrived in Schiphol. Another sunny day in Amsterdam!

Budapest, ahoy.. November 8, 2009

I never thought I could go to Budapest, when I as a little I always though that Budapest is the communist part of Europe, so it never cross on my mind to visit the city.

To be hinest Budapest is the most east part of Europe that I ever visited, just the previous cities that I visited before I don’t understand any word on Budapest and my lips are getting curly if I wanted to say something Hungary. One thing for sure I always heard they say ‘Ahoy’ to say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’.

My firdt impression of Budapest is ‘dusty’ the public transpostation is covered by dust, the station seems to be really old, the air feels very heavy and the people seems to be more grumpy. But after few step around the city the I really awe the city, the city was really georgeous especiallya at night.

My friend booked me a nice hotel on the middle of city, the skin of the building is really (I should say it again) ‘dusty’ but it was a nice apartment they have like garden inside the apartment, the lift is little bit scary but it was a nice place the interior of the apartment remind me of the flat complex in Sarijadi. When we arrived in the city we were lost and spend like 1.5 hours to look for the hotel with carrying our heavy bag.

The journey start with the famous Szechnenyi chain bridge that connect the Buda part and Pest part, the west and east part of the city. I have to say that that suspension bridge is one of the most beautiful thing that I ever see in my life. The structure it self looks like the Manhattan Bridge in New York, but on a smaller scale.

We continue our journey to the Buda castle, to the top of the bill, and by the time we got there there were American student who will have their gala dinner, they were taking picture everywhere kind of annoying, but since it’s a public place I can’t argue anything about it. Since we were hungry we were heading downwards to the Parliament Building, took some shot over there, try to comment of the building, we agreed that it seems to look like London’s Westminster Palace but on the gothic style.

Then we went to the station and look for the train ticket to Vienna, the ticket price is suprisingly expensive!it’s 34.2 euro each for 3 hours trip, the central station doesn’t look very impressive either and furthermore the train looks so old and poor maintained. After long walk decide to return to the hotel and take some rest to continue our journey at night.

Night journey startwith the same track od the bridge, the castle and the church, and the parlement building, as a say before the view is really spectacular, as someone who came from a small city in Netherland look over those building on that ginarmous scale it makes me feel like I’m a small creature in the world.

Before we went home we went to Mc Donalds for a hot coffee and it was my mistake that we missed the last metro, I thought the last metro is in 12, but actually the station already close at 11.30, luckily there is a nice lady who helped us choosing the right bus and waiting on the right bus stop, she was a saviour!

Next day for sure, we packed our stuff and head on to the station, Vienna! here we come!

Note: Always bring the transportation ticket during the day and night on Budapest, even though the ticket seems very useless and also it was verified by hand. In every metro station there always be a controller who will check the ticket.