Going Somewhere: Hungary and Austria

"Yeah, but it's exciting to know that you're going somewhere, isn't it? You don't know where that somewhere is yet, but it's going to be great."
- Tawanna, co-worker and friend from Georgia

[taken from travel journal, May 15th, 2009]

What a beautiful day to be in Vienna. Am now on a three hour train ride to Vienna, Austria, the "big apple" of Europe, to the music capital of Mozart, Strauss, Chopin, and Beethoven. I am so glad that I'm on my way! Despite a stressful morning at Keleti Pályaudvar train station, trying my best to figure out my daytrip from Budapest, sans amigas, totally and completely on my own, I'd say I have managed quite well. How exciting and exhilarating at the same time to do this, to figure all of this out on my own, only on my second day in Hungary. 8,000 forints less on my credit card and in a land where I don't understand a single world of this language, I am itching to see the city that awaits me when I step off this train in two hours and fifty-two minutes.

And how wonderful a place I'm leaving for the day - BUDAPEST. A true fusion of East and West, a city divided by the Danube River making one side Buda, and the other side Pest. It's a city of different languages and cultures, great food consisting of goulash and rich pastries (always my favorite), but also of complicated history and political structures. What initially struck me about the city was that there are countless blocks of buildings literally divided into two different architectural styles and eras - one from the Soviet era (very linear, straight, and dull colors) and the other from a time long ago, before the Great World Wars, decorated beautifully with adornments and arches, painted in bright hues of yellow and green.

Yesterday I truly got a glimpse into the city's shockingly recent past when we toured the Dohány Street Synagogue, the second largest in the world (right behind New York's) and the largest in Europe. There was a museum filled with pictures of Budapest during the time of the Holocaust. I couldn't help but weep for all of these sad eyes of the Hungarian Jewish people. Children in work camps, frail mothers with sick babies, and the elderly - all in work camps, all being persecuting for their religion. And only sixty years ago did this happen. Nunca más.