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November 8, Tuesday:
The train ride from Garmish to Innsbruck was spectacular and we expected more of the same towards Vienna, but it wasn't quite as pretty. However, it was interesting seeing all the swimming pools at the homes of people around Vienna.

Laura's mother's house in Vac, Hungary.

After a long train ride, we reached Budapest and then looked for a place to eat. The first thought about Hungarian cuisine is that it is extra greasy. The meal was good tasting but almost everything was deep fried. While eating dinner, a Romanian walked up and started to ask us about our accomodations. We ended up going with him to a private home where we rented a room for the night. Budapest is not the travel bargain it used to be, as with other cities in the former Eastern Block. We paid the equivalent of about $30 dollars. It was a large room and there was a color television, but I wasn't real impressed. I would have preferred any Motel 6 room.

November 9, Wednesday:
The next day we had a choice between exploring Budapest or going to the neighboring town of Vac and look for Laura, a pen pal of my friend Tony. Our initial impressions of Budapest were not good so we decided to do the latter. On the train we reached an exit for Vac and were trying to figure out whether it was the right exit, when we were helped through sign language by a couple of nice people who were able to communicate to us it was the next stop that we should take. We got off at the stop and showed a taxi driver, Laura's address. It was a two story house with a garage and an iron fence all around it. There was even an intercom, but it wasn't working. There was nobody home. The taxi driver then started saying "mom". And we tried to tell him "Laura's mom". We weren't sure he understood and he probably didn't know if we understood either, but he took us to a flower shop.

Laura, Lyn, Laura's sister and mother at their flower shop.

We knew that Laura worked at a flower shop owned by her mother. Our hopes were high. Tony thought that we wouldn't be able to find her. He thought she was likely to be anywhere but Vac. We entered the flower shop and tried to ask for Laura and somehow one of the two women there communicated to us "15 minutes". Soon Laura showed up and spent the rest of the day with her. Lyn and I skated a little, trying to convince Laura to try it, without success. We walked long the Danube River and lunched at a very nice looking restaurant. Unfortunately the food wasn't so appetizing. Lyn had some fish soup and I had a fillet. Eventually, we found out that we had ordered Carp, an extremely bony fish. We spent most of the time trying to extricate the bone from the fish in a rather unrewarding meal. We got into disagreements with Laura over who should pay for the lunch and the taxi ride back to her house. Although we did not prevail in completely paying the bill, we were more successful than we were in Garmish. Laura's house was very nice, albeit somewhat noisy being very close to a hospital and the ambulances which accompany them. Laura said that she might come to California for a visit and we encouraged her to come stay with us.

The McDonald's in Krakow, Poland. We didn't eat here, but these restaurants make for a colorful photo.

November 10, Thursday (& evening of the 9th):
We returned to Budapest that evening and took the night train to Krakow. I tried to telephone a friend of mine, Stan, who lives in Krakow, before boarding the train, and several times after arriving in Krakow, but without success. I think Stan is a university professor and if he had some time, he could have been a wonderful tour guide. Also, he was contacting another friend of mine, Iwona, in Rzeszow, to see if we might be able to visit her. Without being able to contact Stan, things went very wrong for the next 24 hours. We did have one nice meal in Krakow; I had Polska Kielbasa with potatoes and vegetables. The site seeing and the shopping was rather disappointing. Again, I expected better bargains and more variety from the formerly communist country. I had so much better of a time last year when I stayed in Rzeszow. Rzeszow is a much cleaner town than Krakow and I felt more comfortable being away from the tourist scene.

Eventually we did leave Krakow on the night train to Berlin and my friend Gina. As usual for our trip, we had a cabin to ourselves. I went to sleep on one set of seats in the cabin and I asked Lyn to turn off the light before she went to sleep. There was a small opening in the curtain and I believe someone was able to look in and see both of us asleep and Lyn's purse right out in the open. It was taken and later on we woke up and started our frantic search. I tried to communicate to the conductor in English and broken German, but to no avail. I think she understood, but couldn't care less. I unsuccessfully searched up and down 4 or 5 railway cars for someone who spoke English. Eventually, I looked in one of the two bathrooms of the car (one at each end) and miraculously found the purse. It had been searched through and the contents scattered all around. I gathered it all up and took it back to our cabin. Unbelieveably, the only thing missing was $1950 in travellers checks. The most precious things were recovered: both of our passports and Lyn's reentry permit. We really dodged a bullet! Lyn now hates Poland and all Polish people.

This is the Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam. The more famous one is in Berlin.

November 11 - November 16, Friday - Wednesday:
We spent the next 6 days in Berlin staying with my friend Gina. Part of one day was spent trying to file a police report at a station where not much English is spoken. Our pocket language translator came in handy. The Pergamon Museum is a very special place; Athena's altar from the ancient Greek city (now in Turkey) was reconstructed in the museum. A frieze of maybe around a 100 yards in length, which depicted a tremendous battle between the gods and the giants, was unearthed and taken stone by stone from Turkey and reconstucted in the museum. Also, some of the ancient city of Babylon was reconstructed there, as well.

We walked through Tiergarten, a large park. In the center is the Victory Column, which Lyn says appears in a U2 rock group video. Or is it the the column in Paris? Or the one in London? I don't think she's quite sure. All the trees in this park were chopped down by the Berliners following World War II, but it is now very beautiful. We walked along the River Spree and listened to a Russian woman singing and playing the accordian. If we had time I would have liked have tried to talk with her and find out her story, but we had to go and we listened briefly, tossed a mark in her hat and rushed on. We walked through the Brandenburg Gate, both of them. We went up in the 1200 foot high Fernsehturm (spelling?). This television tower, commonly known as "Telly Asparagus", is East Berlin's version of a space needle, and where you can literally look straight down for a long ways.

Wonderful Gina, where are you now? She later succeded in her dream of moving to the states, but after a few years, we lost touch.

We spent a day skating around the historic town of Potsdam, which is about 40 minutes by subway from Berlin. Lyn and I navigated the streets there, several of them being cobblestone. And this is where we skated through the "other" Brandenburg Gate.

The only disappointment was that Gina would not go sight seeing with us. She hates Germans and Germany and can't wait to move to America. However, Gina was a wonderful host and she is a lot of fun to be with. Gina bought a new warsher/dryer (one unit) during our stay. Gina was having trouble getting her clothes dry though. One time I was drying some of Lyn's clothes and decided to extend the time from about 35 minutes to 60. I had no idea that apparently, that turned up the heat as well. I noticed the smell of burning clothes and ran over and pulled out singed articles. The clothes were okay, except for what used to fit a little loosely, now is extremely form fitting.

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