Adding an extra 24 hours with no change of clothes and limited toiletries definitely makes you ‘creative’.
Regardless, this would have been a long haul trip but it isn’t over yet and I am just burnt at this point. I was able to shower yesterday but not changing clothes is the thing I am struggling with especially since I had to jam through some areas.
Irritatingly, I usually carry a change of clothes but I was trying to conserve space so I could buy a couple of things at duty free. I could kick myself because I needed it!
Plus, met a few people that had similar issues for travel and had lunch with a couple gentlemen from California and spent some late night time chatting with a young lady heading to Boston. They made the tome go by and so did trying to photograph the mice in the airport. Lol.
Since my gma has not been doing well, I want to use this space to share with her some of my trip and month so far. Even though we are so far away from each other and she is not doing well. She is with me on this journee.
I am very thankful that I was able to talk to her today though it makes me very emotional. She is not well and I am land masses away from her but this is not about me.
Hi Gma.
I just want to share this with you. So Journee, crazy right? I know I mentioned my divorce when I saw you. Dad/your son’s passing and now your own hospitalization. First off, I love you. Second, I got to feel you a little two weekends ago.
I just randomly competed in a competition at Hilton Hawaiian Village and I didn’t want to stay there with the Ililkai right next door. So I stayed at the Ilikai instead. My view actually overlooked beachside and was on pops side, that is where we scattered dad’s ashes.
Before I go farther, yes, I danced hula in a competition 🙂. Yes 😋, I started to take hula in the past year as all of this was happening. But in my defense, I was only divorced at the time and trying to find something for myself not for others. I was pretty adamant that I didn’t and wouldn’t perform since the kumu was known to not make people perform so she wouldn’t make us. Kumu invited me to, so I said yes. I tried on those old performance pair of jeans learned from theatre. They still fit but I did practice a lot and even did some of the smaller performances as part of my mental and physical warm-up and memory building. You know me.
Although I am glad I did it because I am obviously old to be starting up new hobbies and a little crazy. But you already knew that part. I did it again because, like I said, I wanted to do something for myself and performance was always for me when I started doing it in the beginning. A way for me to give something to others, with the hope that at least one person would feel something in that moment that will allow them to be somewhere else for themselves when they might need it. Or feel something that I contributed to, when I stopped doing it, it was mostly because I felt like I accomplished that outward goal.
I wonder now if I should think more of what that inner goal is for me.
I heard the news gma, I hope it means that a part of you is clearly at peace now and another part of you is okay that I bring a your presence with me on this journee.
But for the physical, a hui hou, gma. I love you and am glad you were able to finally rest. And join gpa, dad and those we recently said goodbye to also.
So I am leaving Prague today, we are taking a train! Next stop Vienna. I am going to take in a Mozart concert and a guided food tour. In addition, it is where Viktor Frankl is from and he is someone I like as the writer of Man’s Search for Meaning. I am going to go to his museum after the foodie tour.
Why do I like him? He endured and asked questions in a way that stayed with me. Instead of what is the meaning of life he flipped to, what is life asking of me?
I used to wonder why I was made, mostly because I didn’t believe there was a reason I existed which I even tested. But in hindsight it is because I wasn’t made to feel like I should exist. Something was wrong with me and I wasn’t good.
Someone I took a workshop from asked as one of our house rules that we put moralizing outside of the group’s time. What he meant was that we shouldn’t assume good or bad in what people were sharing. We should treat the information without that lens. It was freeing to me because I didn’t realize how that was the activity of judgment. Sorry, rabbit hole. Viktor Frankl and seeing something of his possibly even his gravesite. Definitely a must for me.
I also think what is life asking of me is a much harder question to answer.
Hi Gma,
In Vienna now, you passed the day before I got here. 🖤
I am doing this blog giving a day-to-day recap and then thinking about also doing a country by country takeaway. Not to mention a random things ….
So far, Vienna is my favorite, it feels like a place that I could be forever in wonder. I liked Prague for similar reasons but Vienna feels alive. I feel awake here. It could be the melange (viennese coffee). Not 💯 sure but I felt it before I drank any coffee here 😅.
I am sitting in a café right now and this is my view.
In the past couple of years of travel, this place makes me feel like moving. I sleep better here (super tired at the right time of the day) and I wake up and want to walk around and do something. Very not me.
I don’t know what it is but words I think of here are dazzling and inspired.
Hi Gma.
In Budapest now. Trains for Travel, you would hate them, tbh, this place isn’t made for people that pack a lot of luggage or aren’t able to lug and lift their own luggage. Up into the train, out of the train in the luggage bins, you name it. I should have known this after Thailand. Oh man, that just hit me, you, dad, and my ex were all on that train I am thinking of. Divorce and Death took the people that I had in my more recent chapters of my life more than others, just in the past two years. Divorce was a choice but there were choices around all of them and loss that I still grieve. Yours being unbelievably recent.
But something I learned here thanks to the ladies, reserved tickets are a must. People who don’t have reserved can sit in any empties but if someone comes with a reservation on that seat you have to get off the seat.
But this view, I am thinking it is worth it.
Budapest was my FOMO place. I went to do laundry as soon as I got there. There was a place within walking distance. Right next to the Launderette was the Glass House Memorial Museum. This place was important and the operational base for Swiss diplomat, Carl Lutz. Saving tens of thousands of Jewish people from deportation during World War II. Such a random find and it made me actively look everywhere for random signs and plaques. And they were everywhere.
Laundry walk
Hi Gma.
Heading home … very slowly.
Thursday
Woke up at 4 a.m.
30 min drive to airport
3 hours at airport
30-40 min delay getting on flight
1 hr and 35 min flight
(1 hr 45 min layover)
MISSED FLIGHT!!
24 hour to next flight as rebook
Had to rebook my last leg to HI because this screwed me up.
11 hr 50 min flight
5 hr 20 min layover to get bag, go through customs from international, go back to terminal, check in for departure.
5 hrs 34 mins flight
Grand total: 52 hrs, 34 mins without deplaning and getting luggage 🥴
Got home and a week later feeling like a normal person again.
The Entry/Exit System is ridiculous at major Schengen airports. If you are traveling through a Schengen airport, reroute yourself and change your flight to a non-schengen airport until they really figure this system out. Otherwise, plan your connecting with 4-5 hours at least. You honestly could stand in that line if you are from the US or Canada (at this time) for at least 1hr and 30 mins, maybe longer. If you have any connections that are delayed prior on top of that? You won’t make your flight. Everyone in line was late for a flight. If not that day, the day before and now they know better.
But all this is me saying that I am stuck in Frankfurt for another night and I had to rebook my flight back home on top of this. So this really messed up my plans. I am honestly kicking myself because typically I keep a change of clothes in my carty on, just in case … i was top confident this time and I need to get over it.
But I feel like I have the airport all to myself. It seems like they have no fly outs from 11-5 in the morning so all the gates are basically closed. It is just me and the mice.
It is so quiet. I love it and I got to work on all my posts too.
Animals!Museum of Fine ArtsEpreskert, Random statuesWestside Mall next to Train Station Nyugati
So I like to collect sim cards from different countries. Also, I feel more confident when. I have a good connection and when I tap the countries phone carriers it gives me more options, especially in Europe because roaming days across countries works really well here.
It is so good that if you are only going to be here a little while on vacation i don’t see why you wouldn’t get it. I bought one the first day in Prague, I was able to use the Prague one in Vuenna, and it pooped out in Budaoest for some reason, but I could pick one up and thankfully, I did because I am using it even now and don’t have to worry about American plans daily charges. I got a 3 day pass and expect it to work through the rest of my time here in Frankfurt.
I got a fix of nature here. We went on a simple walking trail with Lazlo. And then I spent more time walking through the city looking for plaques and different architecture and notable structures.
And very randomly, I have become obsessed with walking the city area too, knowing I could find all these plaques on random buildings that I found meaningful or just plain interesting. So I continued walking around to take it all in as I walked to the Shoes of the Danube.
Batthyány Eternal FlameShoes at the Danube
John von Neumann’s childhood home (foundational to modern computer architecture)
The View from the balcony of O11.Ken Lum’s pi art installationNaschmarktFoodie tourFrankl’s Post-Concentration camp home
I call Viktor Frankl a philosopher due to his larger questions around the meaning and life.
With what he lived through and who he became after, as a person and true influencer is such a testament to courage and optimism in the face of the worst mankind can offer his fellow man. He is my favorite. It felt like a pilgrimage seeing where he lived that it is definitely something I will cherish as part of this journee, knowing and being able to see the home in which he wrote his published work.
Train travel, Mozart, oh … water closets!?! I get it now.
So train travel … does not work with tons of crap. You have to be able to lug it yourself and make the step up and off the train with it. When you get on the train, look for the baggage area and stick you big bag there, once you get on. Not much fits overhead and there wasn’t room at the seats. A table seat is nice. It gives you a little extra room. Get a reserved seat, pay the extra 3 euro for it. Although non-reserved seats allow you to sit anywhere, 1) it doesn’t allow you to have a seat (especially if it were packed) and 2) if someone reserved the seat you are in … you have to move.
So one of the things I did when I got in was look for an atm. I set up a schwab’s investment checking before I left because they don’t have foreign transaction fees and any extra fees that are listed when I take out foreign currency at a bank location gets reimbursed when they reconcile at the end of the month. I couldn’t beat the way that sounded at all.
Given that I had to find an atm bank and that put me in the middle of a mall walk in the first district and historic city center, Innere Stadt. I saw a crazy amount of people right next to the bank at Hiiich Teddy Cafe, which I guess was a Instagram/TikTok thing?!? It was fun to see the crowd, the musician and I totally bought a teddybear from it, just because.
And then to Wiener Mozart Concert for Vienna Mozart Concerts in Historical Costumes which was a greatest hits of Mozart with Opera singers, too.
And if you noticed above, I shared some pics of the hotel I was staying at, if you saw the photos you may have noticed something missing in them. 😁😉
The toilet.
I swear I was sitting in it in the middle of the night and then it hit me. Oh, wc, water closet. I get it now. In Prague and Vienna all the public toilets had signs that said WC. It all made sense now.
Morning and The Frieze, Train to Budapest, Laundry
I will try to break this down a little more.
This was amazing. It was one of my favorite experiences. I have been paying a lot of attention to trying to understand how each of these places feel to me because I think that it says a lot about what I feel like had meaning to me in my life at this time. This in particular had a story that felt very clear to my personal reflections about life and what I was seeing from all the places. It wrapped it all together nicely.
It was stunning. In a place that was just as impressive.
And then to Budapest.
I cannot even explain how different the two experiences were by train entry. The places felt immediately different.
But it was just different. I would t say unsafe but I mean, Vienna to the city in Budapest. They were different. At first I was worried because the ladies I were with talked about experiences that made me pause and want to be more guarded.
But as you walk the city, it is just that everyone is there, people live there, work there, and visit there in droves, but it is probably the place I met the most people actually from there not just travelers.
So many people walking their dogs! And the dogs were so friendly.
This is the best city to walk. Their are plaques and memorials everywhere that share the history of the place, who lived there and what happened there.
I did laundry and right next to it was the Glass museum. It was the base of operations for Carl Lutz and he saved 10s of thousands of Jewish people from the Arrow Cross during World War II. And this was next to the laundromat 👀
So there are a lot of Asian things here and Asian populations. It all has little idiosyncrasies that make me think, what?!? Like a Japanese Restaurant in the hotel I am staying at on the parking side -2 level.
The oddities are like, kimchi and no japanese whiskey on the menu but they do have inside out rolls, like the California roll. My stream of consciousness is probably just as confusing. Like Cafe Sofa the first full day I was here, matcha, poke bowl, a Fuji-like shaped white chocolate, matcha cake with strawberry compote, plus a Totoro pastry. 👀
Across the street is a Vietnamese restaurant, in general there is so much Matcha, and Korean beauty products at a level that rivals Hawai’i, primarily because I can get them in the regular essential product stores. One thing I have noticed after a few days, KFC seems more popular than McDonalds (also here) and the ladies mentioned Popeyes sitings. I haven’t seen a 7-11 anywhere. I did see a Five Guys, too, though. And of course, Starbucks.
They also have my favorite chocolate brand, Milka. I got excited and then sad. I am trying to control my random omiyage/makana spending, being only the first leg. Crossing my fingers I see them at the other locations also.
And then something that really makes me think of Hawai’i as connected through relevance, how culture and language are normalized here and an important part of identity.
I see it in the way art and the artist and politics are so closely woven and public. Art is everywhere here, generations and centuries of history are a part of every day life. You cannot go a 100 steps in the main areas I have been without seeing ornamentation, an installation, or something that has been intentionally made, so it has a story, and then the edifice retained.
I haven’t met many people from Czechnya. I honestly think, I only met one that self-identified.
Then there is the czech krown and the euro relationship.
General feeling for me, this is a place of perpetual wonder and web weaving.
So it seems like Budapest had a similar feel to me. I went into a Vietnamese restaurant and they had Thai, Chinese and Japanese food, too. It was very confusing to me. I also passed a Thai place and they were all Indian. That kind of made sense because I saw a lot of people from India in Thailand.
