Punching claustrophobia in the balls (Budapest part 2)

The day was still grey and drizzly, but I head to Margaret island, just near to my hostel, strolled through the park decorated with different art insulations, and saturated violets. I was out looking for a light show fountain that Sziliv had recently told me about, but unfortunately it was not in operation. The island was a pretty place but, somewhat looses its charm when I comes with brushing my wet fringe from my eyes every thirty seconds. Setting out my plans I went to find the Lucas baths. I stopped in to a pub for a coffee and directions, and in that inevitable way what was going to be five minutes turned into a half our conversation about Budapest. By the time I had left, may map was full with new scaled additions of 'Go here →' and 'avoid here at night → Brooklyn'.

I found the baths shorty and let the warm water relax me, the themes thermal bath in coloured light, and bubbling with jets on different patters and swirling with the artificial whirl pool. Then in the sauna to sweet, then bathing in the cold water and back to the bath until all tension had been left from my body. Three hour later I left severely pruned and satisfied.


I when back into the bar for a drink and continue the conversation at the bar and with a local. Though I struggling to keep up; the pleasures of the baths only left me with one downside, my left ear had become jammed with water that refused to clear its self for a couple of hours. I was given a good tip when I was there to head down to find the event Random Trip, a improve music event at the A38 club on the Danube (On a boat). I also learned a dangerous word that night before I left 'Szeretlek' (I love you in Magyar) Two weeks and the first thing I think of each morning is Szilvi, I am starting to believe it is true.


The A38 was unreal I only had a few drinks as there were pretty expensive, but the band was excellent two of the best freestyles I've ever heard (sincerely) a singer and four peace band, just killing it. One song in particular stuck to me 'I got to love you, or eave you alone' perhaps it was what was on my mind. Thought they killed every other moment of the show too. I got back to my hostel, a little drunk but not to bad.


The headed down the road for caving. Then, when I arrived at the meeting point I bumped into someone completely unexpected, Kevin Blaine that I met at Alex's in Milan. It was great to catch up with a familiar face, swap a few stories of where we had been since then and, and share another activity. It was a large gathering, and when we arrived at the caves we split into two groups. The one Kevin and I were in was, nearly all Australians, with the only one American girl separating it from being total. Behind an ominous iron door was a tunnel, I had to stay crotched in to avoid hitting my head on the iron supports that held up the roof.


At the end of the passageway we started to make a steady decent into the caves below. Crawling on our bellies we clambered under tight passes, descending further and further by ladders until we came to an open chamber. Every one was young and fit, feeling we were moving fairly quickly, until the instructor came flying through a gap little wider than a man chess to join us as soon as if he had used a door. “that was the easy bit, we can choice the easy or hard way from here”. Being Australian and manly which did we choose? The going got progressively harder as we went on, we had descended to a depth of about 100 meters at this point when the path opened out to another chamber, the roof was lined with fossils of shells and marine animals. Instructed to turn our head lamps of the guide shone a torch at an unambiguous piece of rock, but on the wall behind stood out the profiled silhouette of a face. The same chamber also brought out an elephant in the room, a great big stone elephant coming out of the wall. As we started to rise back up through the honeycombs, we were given the option to take the easy way or the really hard way buck to the surface. The Australians had lost there gusto at this point for difficult options, I was secretly hoping for the that someone would speak up for the hard option, and it came to the shame of the Aussies form the American girl. The hard option was aptly named the sandwich, a fifteen meter long sideways shuffle along the tightest gap you could possibly fit a human through that tips you out on your head afterwards. We made it out alive bruised and in need of a well earned beer, and as Kevin so brilliantly put it with the feeling that we just punched claustrophobia in the balls.


When I got back to the hostel Szilvi and I started talking on facebook, so time went on and we flirted, and talked about our days. It was about 10 when we started talking and didn't stop until about 3 am. I was starting to really miss her at this Point...

What fun that day was.

Kevin

I cant believe I'm actually here! (Budapest Part 1)

I woke at six in the morning to see the bear black trees of Hungary, the ground still wet from the night before and the fog starting to rise. I sat and just watched the world go by, as we pasted through small towns and villages, steeped roofed houses often pasting by, and few in the streets walking their dogs in the still sleepy hours of the morning. Low hills and forests lining the background that, slowly disappeared as the got in closer to the capital. After departing from the train, at eight o'clock I headed for the main street to find my hostel. A man standing on the corner of two roads, approached me, with typical drug dealer type body language, "hey, do you want to buy some cigarettes?" 'No thanks' I replied and had a little chuckle to myself. Looks like tobacconists don't open on Sunday morning here? I did not recognise the street names, the direction I had written down were quite clear. So I stopped into a bar to have my morning coffee, and hopefully push my remaining 8% battery life on my computer to find directions. Alas it did not make it. Not to worry around the corner I found an internet cafe, and for the extreme price of 50 Forint (15c Euro) I was able to get new directions. Feeing lazy and frustrated, I caught a taxi that immediately started taking me in the wrong direction, after a moment when I realised that the driver didn't have a clue where he was going, I got him to pause the meter, look up the address once more and go in the right direction this time. My hostel, the groove, was reviewed very well on hostel world and in it's description there was a statement it was not a party hostel as I was in the same apartment building as permanent residents. This suited me fine, after Prague a decent detox was in order. I did my usual routine, of a few nights, extend, extend.


The first night I met two young ladies, true romantics, which made the three of us in this conversation. All of us missing the people we wished we were with so we talked of why we weren’t. All of us happened to be reading smut novels at the time too, by the end of the night I had another blog project to add to my list and pseudonym name. I downloaded an audio book of Fifty shades of Grey as we were chatting away, and upon playing it we couldn't stop laughing. The voice actor managed to take some perfectly good filth and turn it to a story as wooden as a cupboard, I couldn't see anyone bearing listening though the whole thing, let alone be turned on, it would be like trying to let your imagination run wild while listing to the sound of nails on a chalk board. Szilvi and I talked that night after the girls went to bed, teasing each other, and missing her as she does me. After an hour of so my computer decided, this a is a suitably frustrating and inappropriate time to update. Bringing the end of the night for me to a close as abruptly as this paragraph.


I took my skateboard as the early evening set in the next day, the dreary drizzle of the morning had passed, and the streets were dry enough to skate on. The light was becoming notable shorter now and by four o'clock the light was beginning to fade. Following the Danube I rolled on. Sitting on the bridge next to a crown with a crooked cross I had one of those brilliant moments, where you say, 'fuck me, I cant believe I'm actually here! This is the Danube, I'm in Budapest, and I can't believe I am actually here!' The type of moment you feel so alive that you can remember the breeze on you face, and the rush of adrenalin. Across the water from the bridge, on either side stands the parliament building and to the castle, dead in front it the distance, stood the Liberty statue, awe-inspiring light up in the night. I followed the hill up to the castle and walked around the outside of this astonishing glorious building. Statues and interesting architecture are all around with the detail and endemicity that lets you know your in a capital of Europe, so much so I even took photos of the parking lot (Best parking lot I've ever seen though). A different bridge brought me back to the Pest side, I pasted but the Parliament, thought at this time the size and grandeur were appreciated best from afar; as the ground level was almost completely surrounded by construction work, that did mare the effect a little up close. I bought some supplies, and skated in the general direction of my hostel. Forty five-ish, maybe more minutes later I found my hostel once more. So I can tick Budapest of my (genuine) goal list of getting lost in every city I visit.

Pinching myself on this one.

Hungarian Parliament, look familiar?

Not bad for a car park

Getting about the bones (Kutna Hora)

Another day trip on the cards. A few of us from the hostel took to the train to, check out (or Czech out) the Sedlec Ossowary at Kutna Hora. Despite what you might think of the idea of the contents, it is straight up far from a creepy place. OK the elaborate assortment of the decorations are made up of the remains of somewhere between 40,000 to 70,000 persons, but hey in the imagination of the human race this is but, strange; and about a creepy as a skull tattoo. You can find yourself transfixed by the assemblies, and from the elaborate chandeliers that hang in every other castle and manor; none have got such a notable kick-ass appearance as here. At least one of each bone in the body, from the philangie (fingers) to the calcaneus (heel) are sewn together to form the chandelier, that hangs above four posts of layered skull and cross bones. Then of coarse you have the Schwarzenberg family coat of arms, that looks like it something you might find on the walls of a 'Gears of War' game. A brief walk through the history will explain how this came about.


This all started to come about in the seventeenth century, but the reason why become so over abundant in bones started over 600 years before, with Otakar II Reigning King of Bohemia. Sending the abbot of the Sedlec monastery to the Holy lands. When the Abbot returned he had bore with him a small amount of earth which he sprinkled across the cemetery. The earth the abbot brought back was from Golgotha, according to the gospel, the sight of Jesus' crucifixion. The Sedlec cemetery soon became on the most desirable paces in all of central Europe to be berried. In the 14th century, the cemetery was expanded. This expansion was due was from the sweeping black death; and again expand in the 15th century after war. In 1511 skeletons were exhumed, stacking bones in the chapel by a half-blind monk. This of cause was a bit untidy, so now we come to the interesting part; 1870, František Rint was employed by the Schwarzenberg family, to make sense of the mass of bones, the results of coarse outstanding.


It is no surprise that the Ossowary has been used in the Dungeon and Dragons movie, it is a space that lends its self to the fantasies of movies and novels. It is so far out of the ordinary that it is one of the places I have wanted to see for a Long time; that is, about as long as the time since I first saw it on the TV series the Long way Round. We all had a good look round, through our copper to the wishing stand and took our photos, we would of stayed longer, but it came to closing time of the day. As you walk out, bone lines the doorway, bone chalices flank your sides, F. Rint's signature is the last thing you notice on the wall, and of coarse, written in bone. Glad to be ticking it off my bucket list, we headed off to find somewhere warm.


It was a sleepy grey afternoon, with no more than a handful of people walking the Sedlec streets excluding us. When we stopped at a cafe for afternoon coffee, there was only one other person with a cigarette at the bar; possibly a sign that the tourist season was coming to a close. Felling warmed up once more we retuned to the train station. James my room mate, who had introduced me to the group (and also looked as if he had been recently mauled by a nymphomaniac) split of the head down to Brno. James, James, Hanna and myself had walked round the castle in Prague on a previous evening; though I haven't made the inclusion in my blog, if I stay to my plan of editing this once more into a book, I shall make this addition and many more that were cut to the volume of content I gave for each stop.


Breakfast the next morning had it's acquaintance as usual, bumping into a couple of people up for more exploration of Prague. When we got to the clock the crowd was thick in the square, we supposed and the affirmed by checking the time that It was close to the hour. Waiting around till the hour struck and windows opening and the figures paraded around. I was trying to film it, though I don't know why I hardly had filmed anything up to this point. Doing my best to avoid experiencing wholly through the camera screen, the result was an unfortunate tipsy swinging shot, that filmed parts of the wall, and parts of of what I was actually tying to point it at. There's got to be a few morals in there, but I'll leave you to choose your own. When my friend and I said our goodbyes, I went to see what time at night the train left for Budapest. I was exited to find it would be midnight, there is something about travelling on train that greatly appeals to me, and I was chuffed the next leg would be on a sleeper.

The Chandelier

Schwarzenberg family coat of arms

František Rint 1870

The sign from the butcher we past on the way to the station,

not sus at all?

Looking out from our pale blue dot. (Prague part 2)

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.”
-Douglas Adams


Where do we come from? We get a certain feeling when we look up at the night sky, what are we doing on this rock in space? And though the older we get, we trend to ask these questions less frequently. Hopefully it is because we found some answers, and hopefully the instinct of curiosity has survived too; to question is the seed of inspiration. Of cause a lot of people can tell you there opinion of the answer. Research and resources to draw on are expansive; comparison and scepticism are our best guides here. I have seen a lot of marvellous buildings built in the name of something divine. One place that made me return to this thought and further develop my opinions was the Prague observatory, and is probably the closest I come to the feeling of when a religious person goes to church. This however is not about my opinions, I may gladly ramble on those another time. This is a ramble about the excitement of the scientific answers we know so far, and the crazy tangent thoughts that come from it. Ari, Barney and myself met again, in a place where three telescopes look out into the magic of space. What focused on the lens was beautiful, unforgeable, bending the mind on a scale of such enormity.


As the telescopes were refocused thought the night, they pointed toward the trillion star Andromeda (M31) galaxy, our closest neighbouring spiral galaxy. Approximately 2.5 million light years away and also incidentally going to collide with the milky way in 3.75 billion years years time. Part of my love for the cosmos is this bewilderment of gargantuan scale in the universe, it is an astonishing 10,00 light years just to the other side of our (400 billion stared) galaxy, and that's peanuts. The more you try to fathom all the more breath taking to realise we are are to the universe, as a drop of water is to all the oceans, a pale blue dot in this cosmic expanse. Our whole Earth could fit into the Sun a million times, and our sun isn't even big as stars go. VY Canis Majoris the largest known star is approximately between 6 to 9 billion times bigger. Back to what was on the lens when the telescope refocused was the lights of Pleiades, a close by star cluster, mesmerising, inspiring, intense with piercing brightness as the light seemed to dance around like electricity around white-blue dots in space. It is a comforting feeling after looking and gasping such astonishment and wonderment, that you're feeling just as blown away looking at it, as the ten year old boy that gasped in amazement just before you. As an adult with each fact that you learn it just seems to become all the more beautiful.


The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big – but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive…
-Neil De Grasse Tyson



After the observability Barney and Ari took me to a classic spot not to far away, one of the oldest bars in Prague. The entrance could be found near the top of a hill but the bar was dug three stories into the ground. What made it special was the theme. Furs, swords, (porcine) skull representation victories in battle lined the walls and the ales brought to the table by the terrifically large breasted bar wench; that made careful to lean forward down towards the table when ever we ordered another round. Knights roamed throughout the bar, head to toe in mail. The servers were gruff in a manner that suited the environment, with full commitment to make you feel as if you were in not just a themed but truly medieval bar, giving nick-name for the night like Farmer Frenzil to the patrons, in half old half modern syntax. We toasted and quenched our to the good life, pulling apart a braised pork knuckle for our dinner; it was a great end to a great night.

Prague is an extraordinary place

(M31) The Great Andromeda spiral galaxy

One of three telescopes (Ari in the foreground)

Decor of the medieval bar