News from San Jose

Eastern European Vacation

Last year, I missed out on an exotic vacation. I went to Las Vegas with Jen and Luisa instead. I wasn't going to miss out again! This year, I joined Janet, Jenn, and Joe in Eastern Europe. We visited Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria for three weeks.

We started out at Oktoberfest in Munich, arriving on the first day. But instead of watching the parades or heading straight for the festival, we went to sleep. The next day, we did a brief walk-through of the festival, decided it was too crowded, and did a little sight seeing (royal palaces and whatnot). Then it rained, and it got cold. It wasn't so crowded at the festival any more! We did not have to fight any crowds to get Janet a T-shirt.

After Munich, we headed to the Czech Republic. We started at Cesky Krumlov, where we had a great time in a quaint little hostel with a really cool door and had a wonderful dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall (literally) traditional Czech restaurant. The castle was pretty cool, too. It was almost freezing outside.

Next was Prague, where it finally warmed up. We had to do a lot of walking, and missed some of the sights because of the recent floods (which will probably be historic), but we had a great time downtown, on Petrin Hill, on a short boat ride on the Vltava river, and at the opera. (All the opera places we went to looked very similar, but we liked the seats we got and the opera much better in Prague. Vienna's opera had cool subtitle machines on most seats, but that was all it had over Prague.)

We took an overnight train to Budapest, where we saw the Great Synagogue and other sights. Probably the best part was having a Thai massage at one of their famous spas. I was on my own for half a day in Budapest. That was kind of cool too, but only because I could figure out how to get around on my own there.

We took a boat to Vienna on standby. It was a very interesting trip because of the people we talked to on the boat. People rarely seem to talk on trains or planes, but the boat was something special. We saw the Hapsburg palaces, and the most interesting bit was the library, where they were showing a historical perspective on pornography. I think Vienna had the best apple strudel.

From Vienna, we went to Salzburg and took the Sound of Music tour. It was pretty cool. We also watched men playing a giant game of chess, and went to a restaurant where monks make the beer.

From Salzburg, we headed back to Munich, where we wrapped up our vacation with a cheerful trip to Dachou, the first concentration camp.

last updated May 11, 2001