What would be the odds…

All of my children are flying today, Richard from DFW to Rochester, NY, and Wes & Susan from Bucharest to Budapest.

Richard has been dealing with weather and delayed flights in Dallas, lots of rain and winds up to 70 mph. Flights all around his, before and after, were cancelled. His was delayed 39 minutes. The only trouble with that is that he has a connecting flight in Chicago. As of the time I’m writing this, the connecting time will be 19 minutes … in O’Hare!?! The good thing is that they bumped him up to first class. Can’t wait to hear his tale.

Wes and Susan dealt with a different matter… a plane with an engine that caught on fire! I’m glad I didn’t know about that until they were safely in Budapest. They were on the runway this morning about 6:20 am waiting to take off and Susan said she heard a noise like a tire blew. Then someone looked out the window and said the engine was on fire. They evacuated the plane and everyone was safe. They caught another flight 11 hours later and made it to Budapest safely. All of this on a local airline called Wizz Air! If you would like to read an article on it, go to the International Herald Tribune of Europe.

 

And the trip continues…. Sighisoara

On Friday, March 16, Wes, Susan, Bill and I were up early to catch a train to Sighisoara. The country side was beautiful even though a lot of the trees and plants weren’t in full bloom yet. We traveled through some quaint villages and the larger towns of Brasov and Sinaia and saw lots of snow on the ground in the Carpathian Mountains.

Train ride to Sighisoara

(click on picture to see complete slide show)

Sighişoara is a city and municipality on the Târnava River in Mureş County, Romania. Located in the historic region Transylvania, Sighişoara has a population of 32,287. It was very reminiscent of Medieval Times.

After leaving the train station, we hiked across town to climb the hill to the Citadel where we would be staying. Now I know why Wes and Susan said to travel lightly! The town was interesting but the Citadel area even more so.

Sighisoara

(click on picture to see complete slide show)

At the top, we entered under the Clock Tower through the original gateway to the protected area of the city. As we walked to our hotel, Casa Wagner, we passed the birthplace of Count Vlad Dracula. At the hotel, my idea of small European hotels was dispelled again. We both had very nice, large rooms.

We left the Citadel area and went to town, ate lunch and walked around. This area is so totally different from Bucharest… slow paced, not crowded and very quaint architecture. Back at the Citadel, we took a tour of the museum in the Clock Tower. Each level had different types of artifacts from Medieval days. At the top… what a view of the city! This was the place in days of old where citizens watched for the enemy.

We next went to the “church on the hill” that dated back many centuries. This area was even higher up the Citadel. We found a church (unfortunately it was closed), a cemetery and a school. We walked up the covered, MANY, steps that the children walk each day to attend school.

Citadel at Sighisoara

(click on picture to see complete slide show)

We ate a typical Romanian dinner at the restaurant in Hotel Sighisoara. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Our reservations were for 6pm and most Romanians don’t eat until 8 or so.

Our plans for Saturday were to leave early and take the train to Sinaia and spend the day looking at the old castles and Brasov to see Dracula’s castle. Bill was getting sick and we were all so worn out from the activities of the week that we just went straight back to Bucharest and called it an early night. Bill was to preach Sunday morning and needed to rest his voice. The train ride back was very relaxing. Bill and Susan spent most of the ride in the club car, I slept and Wes read before he joined Bill and Susan.

Stay tuned for the last part of the trip…. remaining days in Bucharest, the Ruth Center where Wes and Susan work, the Ruth School, and the Baptist seminary.

 

More Impressions…

Budapest and Vienna were so different from Bucharest. Budapest was just a little more Western European and Vienna was definitely Western European. These two cities has the architecture I thought of as European and not so much Communisitic. I felt the people in Vienna were more use to American tourists and American visitors.

All three cities were clean, probably a result of the requirements of the EU… Romania just joined January 1, 2007. Susan said she has seen a big difference since they arrived last September in the cleanup of the city.

 

And then there was… Vienna

Ah… Vienna, what can I say. A beautiful city, an historic city, enchanting. This is a place where I could definitely return. We crammed as much as we could into 28 hours.

Upon arrival at the train station, we debated whether to get a taxi or try public. With the help of the Information Desk, public won out. Hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans. We took the underground subway to the heart of town, now to find the hotel. We rounded the corner and there it stood. Hotel Regina was definitely more than I expected of a European hotel. All I have seen on TV was small, small, small. This was definitely not small. We had a king size bed with a rollaway, a large sitting area, wall to wall closet and a corner view. The bathroom was a decent size as well.

After leaving our luggage in the hospitality room (we were too early to get in our room), we headed out to find a quaint Viennese café for lunch. We found a Viennese pizza café near the hotel…not exactly what we thought but we didn’t want to waste time. The pizza was great… Susan ordered the best – good ole pepperoni. We went back to get settled in our room and then headed out to see the city.

We had decided to take the Hop-On Hop-Off tour. They offered three one-hour tours of different parts of Vienna. This was the best way to see everything in the short time we had. With a 24-hour ticket, we could see what we wanted when we wanted. Some of the highlights were
• St Stephen’s Cathedral
• Universitat Wien
• The Museum District
• Rathaus Parliament Building
• The Danube River
• City dwellings — mixed in with the quaint, decorative buildings were plain, no frills buildings that were quickly erected after Vienna had been bombed during WWII
• Riesenrad – the Giant Ferris Wheel
• The Millennium Tower• UN complex
• Danube Tower
• Schoenbrunn Palace
• Belvedere Palace
• And, of course, the shopping district
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We ate dinner at Market Rosenberger in the shopping district and then took the underground to an outlying area with the Giant Ferris Wheel built in 1897 and has been featured in several films.
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This was an interesting experience. We rode it after dark thinking we would get a good view of the city. We were a little too far out to really make anything out. The Ferris wheel is 200 ft tall with 15 wooden gondolas to ride in. The gondolas could hold about 40 people with a bench in the middle. Bill, Susan, and I were the only ones riding. Remember, the summer season hasn’t started yet. The wheel takes 10 minutes to make one complete revolution so it moves slowly. As we were ascending, we began hearing creaking sounds – not encouraging. The wind was strong and it started swaying – even less encouraging. Susan and I, for sure, were glad when we were back on the ground.
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The next morning, we had a great breakfast at the hotel. European breakfasts are not quite the same as American breakfasts in hotels. We had a variety of great European pastries, eggs, salsas, sliced meats, cereal, fruits and juices. All of this buffet style, all you can eat, and included in the prices of the hotel room.

After breakfast, we caught the underground to go to the Johann Strauss Museum located in a building he had lived in. This is one of Bill’s favorite musician/composers so he was thrilled to see this. When we arrived at the dwelling, they were closed and not scheduled to open on the day we were there – bummer. We walked around looking at sites and picked up the Hop-On Hop-Off bus to take us back to the hotel. Time to check out and get to the Vienna airport to catch what we thought was our 2:50 pm flight to Bucharest.

When we got to the airport, we found out that the carrier we were to fly did not operate out of Vienna! What now? After checking with the Information Desk about where are airlines was, they told us that we were scheduled for a shuttle from downtown Vienna to Bratislava, Slovakia, to catch the flight to Bucharest. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t have time to get back to town to catch it. They told us of bus service from the Vienna airport to Bratislava. We bought tickets and sat back to enjoy the ride. The country side was beautiful and we were glad we had made the trip this way.
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We thought we were going to be taken to the Bratislava airport but ended up at the bus station instead. Not speaking the language, we managed to find a taxi to take us to the airport. Wonder if we were overcharged?! At the airport we had time to eat dinner and relax before the flight. We landed in Bucharest about 9pm and taxied home. We were exhausted but no time for sleep, we were off to the Carpathian Mountains on an early train the next morning. Unpack, repack, and sleep a little.

What’s a great trip without a few “circumstances” to make it interesting?

Stay tuned for the next installment…. Sighisoara on the other side of the mountains….

 

The rest of Budapest…

If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from Budapest, please go to Shutterfly for my album. You will be able to see St Stephen’s Basilica, pictures of the streets of Budapest and more of the Danube River with Buda and Pest flanking it.

Vienna … stay tuned.

 

Part 2 … Budapest, Hungary

Up early, and I do mean early, and off to Budapest by way of Wizzair. We landed in Budapest at 6:20 am and caught a taxi to Ralph and Tammy’s house. Ralph and Tammy are Wes and Susan’s field coaches. They work with the Romany people in Budapest. See more about their ministry in Hungary and their blog, Stocks Report-Ministry Among the Roma.

Tammy prepared a hearty breakfast for us… she’s a great cook. After breakfast, we crashed for about an hour and then up and at ‘em again. Ralph took us to town and showed us The Citadella, the highest point in the city overlooking the Danube River and the city of Budapest. Budapest was originally two towns, Buda on the west side of the river and Pest on the east side of the river. It became one city in 1873.

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Before he left us on our own, Ralph took us to the train station and helped us purchase tickets from Budapest to Vienna for the next morning. He then dropped us off in the area of the walking street and we began our sightseeing in Budapest. We walked the length of the street and headed to the market.

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After shopping in the market and on the walking street, we crossed the Green Bridge to Gellert Hill and the Cave Church.

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When we finished at the Cave Church, we walked to the Danube Promenade to see if any of the sightseeing boats were running. Unfortunately they didn’t start until the first week in April. How great it would have been to cruise the Danube River.

We stopped at a street cafe for coffee and tea on the walking street on our way to the Jewish Synagogue. How relaxing! I even think Bill dozed for a few minutes.

The Dohány Street Synagogue or Great Synagogue in Budapest is the second largest in the world, the first being in New York City. The memory park in the rear courtyard hold the Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs (600,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis). Unfortunately, the Synagogue was closed when we arrived so we weren’t able to go inside but we did walk around the outside the see the courtyards and the memorial.http://flash.picturetrail.com/pflicks/slab.swf

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After a full day in Budapest, we took a bus back to Ralph and Tammy’s. We enjoyed homemade Hungarian Goulash for dinner and a good visit before we headed to bed to get up early again the next morning.

Stay tuned … next stop – Vienna.

 

First Impressions

Riding in the taxi from the airport to Wes and Susan’s apartment gave me a good first look at Bucharest because the ride took about 45 min to an hour. My first thought was that it reminded me of Turkey. I lived in Turkey from 1957-1958 and haven’t been back since but this reminded me of what I remember Turkey to be like. The roads were crowded with cars, the buses were loaded with people and the sidewalks were filled with masses of people hurrying to their destinations. Of course, Bucharest is a city of 2.5 million. Every driver had a horn and wanted everyone to know he had one. The cars cut in and out in what seemed like chaotic mess to me. But they knew what they were doing and there were no wrecks..

The buildings were cold grey concrete… a carry over from Communism. A few trees had started blossoming and there were flower stands on many corners but mostly the vegetation was still drab from winter. Sprinkled among the Communist buildings, you could see the great architecture of older times. There were many buildings that were magnificent and ornate that had survived. I found this to be a very interesting city.

As far as the people go up to this point, they seemed just like big city people. They went about their business of getting where they were going with little to no ineraction with others except traveling companions. They weren’t rude… they weren’t overly friendly… they were just there.

Stay tuned… next is Budapest…

 

Part 1, Second Installment

After lunch, we walked on into the Lipscani Historic District. We saw shops and we shopped, saw ruins of the Old Princely Court built by Count Vlad III the Impaler in the 15th century, an Orthodox church, and listened to a gypsy violinist on the street.

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From here we walked back to the center of town and crossed the Dâmboviţa River, once the main source of water for Bucharest.

As we moved on we came to the oldest Orthodox Church in Bucharest, Biserica Curtea Veche.

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Time to eat again and I, for one, had walked up an appetite, not to mention I was ready to sit and rest for awhile. We went back to the street where we ate lunch to eat dinner at Caru cu Bere. (view interior pictures)

Home to bed… tomorrow is an early day. We have a 6am flight to Budapest and the taxi is picking us up at 4:30am…. We DID tell Susan we didn’t want to rest but to see and do, we can rest at home… little did I know.

 

Part 1 of 3 or 4 or maybe more….

On top of jet lag and 500 pictures to go through, I got sick and haven’t been able to get this started as I would have hoped… but here goes…

Our journey started with a 10am flight from Killeen on Saturday, March 10. To get the fare we wanted, we had to fly through DFW, Chicago ORD, and London Heathrow. Without realizing what I had done, I planned good layovers in all three airports. London was the most traumatic. We had a three hour layover to change terminals. It took us a harrowing two hours to change terminals and go through two security points… and to think we thought we were in a secure area the whole time. What a waya to begin the journey. And… to top it off, I looked at the return and we only had 1 hour and 15 minutes to do this in reverse.

We finally made it to Bucharest about 3pm on Sunday, March 11. As we were waiting for our luggage, the doors would open and close as others collected theirs and left the terminal. Outside was a mass of people waiting for arrivals and there they were…. two wonderful smiling faces we hadn’t seen in six months. Would our luggage ever hurry!

We took a taxi from the airport to Wes and Susan’s apartment. What an interesting city. It was clean but the buildings were huge and cold, grey concrete. The looks of Communism were still present.

We settled in and went across the street to the Bucaresti Mall where Wes and Susan shop mostly for groceries. There were many stores there as well but the prices were very high. From here we went to a Romanian restaurant, Decebal. We had great food.. schnitel de pui… chicken schnitzel… and peasant potatoes.

After a good night sleep we headed out on Monday to see the sights of Bucharest, a city of 2.5 million. At times, it seemed like all of them were on the streets at the same time.

Our first stop was the Parliament Palace. This is the second largest building in the world, second to the Pentagon in Washington, DC. It was built during the reign of the Communist Leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu, and is very grand to say the least. It is said to be as “tall” below ground as it is above ground.

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The inside was magnificent. I did not take pictures as we went through. If you would like to see the splendor, you can go to webshots.com and type in either Bucharest, Palace of the Parliament, OR Bucharest, House of the People. Someone else did the job for me. This is what we saw as we toured the Palace.