Phone photos of continental #5, part I - Wien flughafen, Budapest and Stockholm

The first place I went to, right after I got off the plane, was the supermarket. Yes, the supermarket. I wandered around in a happy daze, smelling what I like to call the Europe smell, and saw this selection of cheese. Good times. 

Wurst, of course.

By this time I was on the Regiojet bus to Budapest, and as I do I took a picture of the navigation panel on it. Bratislava is still as boring as always. 

Finally back in Budapest, and of course I had to get some goulash soup because no Hungarian trip is complete without goulash soup. And of course the Chain Bridge and the Danube.

On wizzair now..

The Stockholm storybook.

Swedish meatballs. Sorry for the bad resolution. I think it's the bad lighting.

Jazz bar, first and last.

In a cathedral.

Lots of walking, more than anything.

The storybook continues..

Flight/ Wien flughafen

SPAR, how I've missed you!

This is an extract from the travel diary I kept with me.

Monday night, upon the CA flight.

Here I am again, like I always am. It's been two years since I was last seated on a long haul flight. Travel is apparently an activity for either the very young, or the old. Not sure which side of the spectrum I belong to. I'm not particularly young anymore, though a lot of people would have me think otherwise, and apparently I LOOK young. For the past four years or so I've been perpetually stuck at the age 21, apparently.

This is a direct flight, O joy - 12 hrs 25 mins, all told. No transfer - that's why I did this. No annoying layover at Hong Kong or Bangkok. Honestly, just the thought of transferring flights is enough to make me feel physically uncomfortable. I spent so much of my childhood in airport terminals and it wasn't exactly what you'd call fun.

Things I am looking forward to: seeing #1b again. Very much so. I think I will spend a lot of time with this journal during this trip. Probably should have brought the other journal, really, the one with more pages. Yawn. The plane's moving now. Time for airline magazines.

I arrived at Wien flughafen right on time at 6am. It was much colder than Taipei, but I've been in Vienna before, and I'd anticipated that. I stepped into the flughafen and looked around, and something deep within me settled with delight, and I felt as if I'd gone home. I spent the first twenty minutes walking slowly towards the Ausgang in a happy sort of daze. I felt as if I'd come home, as if I'd been reunited with a long-lost lover. I drank in my surroundings happily: the cold damp Austrian air, the shiny granite floor, the German, and the rain and dark clouds. It's always raining in Vienna but I like that. I loved everything. I looked around, al most overwhelmed by my emotions. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed Europe and all of this, till now. I wondered if I'd ever loved anyone like I loved Europe. I went into the toilet and - this might be a little disgusting, but still - I smelt the sharp, acidic smell of detergent and disinfect and was reminded overwhelmingly of England and university there. I think they used the same brand. This, I whispered to myself in absurd delight, this is the smell of Europe.

I wasn't going to stop at Vienna, but straight onwards to Budapest. I'd booked a regiojet that would go first to Bratislava, and then to the Hungarian capital - the pearl of the Danube, they call it. I found the bus station (bussterminal) and then went back into the airport SPAR where I wandered the aisles in a sort of ecstasy, drinking in Europe and the fact that I was here, and that this would be mine for the next weeks to come. I got a Starbucks, dug some EUR change out of my pocket, and sipped away, feeling happy as a clam. Then I got onto the regiojet, and made myself comfy, plugged in my phone to charge, and felt a great peace of mind settle over me that I hadn't experienced in a long long time. I thought of all the people I was going to meet and all the places I was going to visit, and above all, I savoured the sensation of being here again, of being out here again, of being on the road and footnote friends and filtering people and all that bass that sometimes gets old but is also sometimes worth it.

Vienna-Bratislava-Katowice

This whole post is pretty much dedicated to an entire day spent in transit, which, relatively speaking, would be somewhat boring, but intercity travel is such a big part of backpacking, and all these endless posts about tourist spots can get rather banal too, so might as well. Anyway. Got up fairly early to catch a bus from Vienna to Bratislava, which took little over an hour. Weather was dismal again, so I ended up staying in Bratislava's rather dreary main bus station.

Didn't get any further than this.

From Brat, it was a 6 hour PolskiBus ride to Katowice. The mountains on the Slovak/Polish border were surprisingly beautiful, and if you didn't fall asleep, there were quite a few ruinous castles on hills to be seen along the motorway.

And another one.

Halfway through our journey, when the driver stopped to let himself and the other passengers take a smoking break.

The highway, and you now get an idea of these Polish mountains.

And it's back on the highway. Weather's clearing up.

Arrived at the Katowice hostel, which was very conveniently located right next to the main train station. Katowice was a boring, small town about two hours from Krakow, the erstwhile capital of Poland. I went there because I wanted to visit Auschwitz, which was also about 2 hours away from Katowice. Katowice's one of those rather dreary Polish towns which was flattened during the second World War and rebuilt again during the communist era. I honestly don't know what else I can say about it other than the fact that it was really quite boring and sort of depressing. The main train station was built right next to a rather fancy mall, though, which I visited about three times during my stay.

The main town square...

The hostel itself was rather all right. Cheap (6 euros a night), as all Polish hostels are, right next to the PKP, and the showers were..interesting.

The one thing that made me very unhappy about the hostel was that they gave me the wrong information on transport to Auschwitz. Nothing wrong with the bus itself, apart from the fact that they forgot to mention the bus didn't run on Sundays, which happened to be the day I wanted to visit Auschwitz. I ended up doing a LOT of unecessary running between the PKP and the PKS, with my bag bumping uncomfortably behind my back, wasted a polskibus ticket, and wasted an entire morning. Not to mention the fact that I got up early for nothing!

Anyway, the food here was wonderful - in Katowice, I mean, not the hostel. I went to the city centre and ordered...this.

It was a Greek restaurant, but the Polish food they served seemed authentic enough. I enjoyed my meal enough to come here again the next day.

More to come soon. I am starving. Will take advantage of the 24 hour stores to go downstairs and get some food. Just not crazy about having to go past the security guards.

Vienna, part IV - the old city centre (ii)

St. Stephen's cathedral, continuing on where we left off. This was late afternoon, when the skies had finally cleared somewhat.

Blustery skies, just so you can see the difference.

Stephansplatz, and Vienna finally against a backdrop of blueee skies.

Met up with Thomas for a tincy tiny espresso-sized latte that cost 5 euro. To be honest, there wasn't actually enough of it for me to gauge whether it was good coffee or not.

Random beauties in the heart of Wien.

More Mozart chocolate, in their SPAR.

And THIS. Holy cow, I miss this. Vanilla milk. We don't have this in England or Asia, or any other European country that I've ever been to, for that matter. I loveloveloved this. YUM. It was the first thing I looked for when I arrived in Salzburg.

Fleeting glimpses, nothing more.