Budapest

What a gorgeous city (well, two cities) straddling the Danube (Buda on the east, Pest on the west side)!

Also, fantastically quirky. The Hungarians are Central European outliers, unique in the region for being descended from a Central Asian people called the Magyar, who immigrated to the area that is now Hungary a bit more than 1100 years ago and have spent most of the time since being invaded and occupied by the Turks, the Romans, the Austrians, the Germans, the Russians, etc. As a consequence of all this looting and destroying and rebuilding, the architecture in Budapest is unlike anything I've seen before in its...eclecticism. You can see it a bit in this (still picturesque) shot of St. Stephen's Basilica, the building on the left definitely not matching the building on the right in style, and neither of them looking like they should be on the same street as the church in the distance.

But then it's even funnier when you get into the open square and the very Baroque church is flanked by this totally blatant Communist Bloc-style beast.

And it seems to be like this everywhere in Budapest. I failed to get a pic, but there was one part of the "castle" (a huge palace on a hilltop on the Buda side that's never been used as a permanent royal residence but has been built and rebuilt and maintained as an absolutely gigantic palace and used for a wide variety of purposes over the centuries) where one wall of the exterior met another at a right angle, the architectural style of the building changing right there mid-stream. Awesome.

I also really appreciate the touching creativity of how Budapesters do their memorials. For example, a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish Hungarians murdered in WWII is on a section of the banks of the Danube where victims were driven through the city to the waterfront and then shot  so they would fall directly into the river. This was immediately following them being forced to remove their more valuable clothing, such as their shoes, so this memorial consists of bronze pairs of shoes standing vacant on the water's edge. Haunting and beautiful.

We also took a walking tour of the city by night, when it looked totally different than in the day, and even more stunning. All in all: I'm a fan.

Chicago to...Budapest!

When I wrote that last post, I was in the midst of planning a grand adventure for this fall, starting in Central Europe and making my way up through the Baltics and then across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. But a contract to spend the coming Southern Hemisphere summer at Palmer Station in Antarctica (the station I've been really wanting to get to for the past couple years) ended up working out for me and instead of getting chilly in Siberia, I'll be doing that on my fourth trip to the Ice. So stay tuned for that!

BUT, the timing still worked out for me to keep my plans to travel for 2.5 weeks around Central Europe with my mom. So on Sunday we made our way down to Chicago and started the fun in the O'Hare International Terminal...

...and flew overnight to Budapest, via Zurich.

We were pretty pooped when we arrived, so by the time we got checked in to our Airbnb and took a nap, our evening was made with the simple joys of a really yummy dinner across the street...

...and the reminders everywhere that WE ARE IN BUDAPEST!

More to come about something other than the area within one square block of our Airbnb. :)

Around Copenhagen

There were a few places around Zealand (the region of Denmark that includes Copenhagen) that I'd read about as nice day trips from the city. So I got a train pass and did some exploring.

There is a significant Viking history in Denmark, though they did not base themselves in the hopeless flats of Copenhagen, preferring the fjord area at the modern-day town of Roskilde. I headed there to get a gander at some reproductions of Viking ships and the actual fjord they sailed.

Hilariously, it's hard to even tell this is a fjord. We're definitely still in Denmark, rather than the dramatic landscapes of Norway...

From Roskilde, I went on to the medieval town of Køge, which was definitely a quaint place to wander for a couple of hours and have an ice cream.

I also stopped at a more stately town called Hillerød, where the long winding street through town was lined with nice shops and restaurants, all leading down to an impressive castle on a lake.

But my favorite jaunt was going up along the north coast of Zealand, which is one of the easy access points to Sweden, which I hadn't realized until this trip is so shockingly close to Denmark... like on the other side of this Baltic access way.

I didn't go up the coast for the glimpse of Sweden, though, but instead to visit the seaside beach town of Hornbœk, which was so so lovely. Maybe part of my enchantment was because I got there after the significant heat of that day, which had made strolling the other towns a little unpleasant, and the cool breeze that was blowing across the beach, and the magical light that sets in at this latitude on summer evenings. But it was very charming and a place I wish I could have stayed longer.

By the time this post goes live, I will be back in the States, so I'm saying so long for now. I expect to be back here with more blog posts by mid-September, hopefully beginning an epic adventure I won't go into now (there's a complicated visa I need to procure so I don't want to jinx it) except to say that my next missive should be from Budapest...and then we'll go from there. See you then!

Copenhagen!

It was a total joy to spend several days in Copenhagen, with its amiable people, amazing food, walkable city center, easy public transportation, and beautiful, charming streets. I took a couple of walking tours to learn more about the city and Danish culture, ate way too much, and just enjoyed wandering for miles and miles (and miles and miles...my feet hurt) in circles around the city, taking pictures and just enjoying the general goodness of this place. Here are some highlights....

 This is in the utterly unique, independent hippie community of Christiania.

 Nyhavn

 "The Little Mermaid" statue, considered by many to be among the most disappointing tourist attractions in Europe, but I thought it was wistfully sweet, and all the young girls waiting to have their picture taken with it seemed happy. And a nice reminder that Copenhagen is Hans Christian Andersen ground zero.

 Some of the oldest buildings in central Copenhagen, which aren't actually that old by European standards; most of the city has burned down multiple times over the centuries.

 Coffee soft serve. YUM.

 The Mute Swan is the national bird of Denmark. I definitely saw a bunch of them cruising the canals like they owned the place, which was really funny when kayakers and boatloads of tourists were trying unsuccessfully to pass.

Danish strawberries: YUMMER.

So long, Greenland

Real quickly, before I do a couple of posts about Denmark, I just have to share some photos that I took from the plane window, leaving Greenland. It was a BEAUTIFUL take-off and view of the southern part of the island before we rose up into the clouds and left it behind. Made me so want to return and explore some more...