At the Holiday Market in Old Town

Video from the Holiday Market in Old Town Bratislava on Saturday night. It was very cold.




http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=IBRATISL5&month=12&day=4&year=2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPaWIeULKk

Holiday Buzz

Saturday morning, blue skies, it's gonna be cold today.

Blowing snow last night and the last snow flakes from the system. That's our car, a Skoda Fabia. Diesel with a five speed manual transmission. Built on the Volkwagon Golf chassis. Sneh means snow.

Heading back from the Billa market with breakfast, it only got colder as the day went on. We spent Saturday afternoon at IKEA looking for a bathroom storage rack. It's really no different than any other shopping center, the bright lights and people mindlessly walking around in search of something to make themselves happy.

PwC building during much warmer days in May.

Monday morning, the south side of the building.

Look at the temperature, really a heat wave on Monday. Heading to Old Town for lunch at the Holiday Markets.

Look at all those onions, chicken and pork cutlets, sausages and bread grilling. Ciganska kuracie coming up. Those are green and red peppers on the left.

I found a holiday beer at Billa on Monday. Zlaty Bazant Bock, it looks and tastes like a Moose Drool.

Kyiv, Ukraine for the holiday

There was no Thanksgiving in Europe, but there were enough Americans around to celebrate with turkey and trimmings for dinner. There was a charity function, put on for The Children of Chernobyl, at the hotel we stayed at on Thursday night. We had dinner with some friends, Laura and Salus. Chernobyl is a little more than 100 miles north of Kyiv on the border with Belarus.





St. Michael's Golden Domed Monastery

In the square in front of the monastery.

Funicular

Looking toward the Pechersk Lavra/Kiev Monastery of the Caves.

Rememberence day for Holodomor, 27 November 2010. There is a Metro stop at this location that is the deepest in Europe. Arsenalna Station 105.5 meter down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenalna_(Kiev_Metro)

We rode the subway to Dnipro, the wrong direction, switched trains and went to Khreshchatyk station back toward our hotel.



Monument to Victims Holodomor, Kiev

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Orthodox church at Pechersk Lavra

Everybody likes a happy elf with a barrel of beer!

VW Touareg, chrome on black wheels on Khreshchatyk Avenue. This large central avenue is closed on Sundays for citizens to walk and shop.

Near European Square on Khreshchatyk Avenue.

Take your pick of exotic flavors of Lays chips: salami, crab, green onion, sour cream and onion and pepper I think.

Getting ready to board the plane back to Bratislava, SK we stopped and took a picture with Kris. Boryspil International Airport.

The Shipment Finally Arrives

Can you find anything that was at your home?

The more you ship, the more importance it gets, the sooner it will arrive. These boxes were packed up on the 2 August in San Jose before noon. I writing this entry at 4:30 PM on the 22 November. More than 8 weeks, more than 10 weeks later. The offical word was the smaller amount of space required for this shipment meant it sat around waiting to be loaded with other packed items for transit across the Atlantic via cargo ship. I think we might have been better off without what ever is in the boxes. The most important items like bicycles won't be enjoyed until the spring next year and we could have bought some extra blankets to get through the cold winter monthes.

Last weekend we spent Saturday riding on a bus from winery to winery in the Bratislava region. Great way to see some of the countryside and safely enjoy some local wines. There are many old wine cellars still in use today as well as two or three modern operations that have been constructed less than 10 year ago.

Fall pumpkin outside the wine cellar.

This is our haul from the day, 10 bottles, some red and white and two sweet wines.

Velvet Revolution

On 17 November 1989 the Velevet Revolution began in former Czechoslovakia with students demonstrating in Prague, this was the beginning of the end for the authoritarian government in the country. Being hear now, it's hard to imagine what it was like not so long ago in this country. The freedoms that I'm used to were not part of peoples lives.



Going to a shopping mall and seeing this type of poster didn't happen. Shopping malls didn't happen.

These goats wouldn't be in a park, they would be in a pen in the back yard and then maybe on the dinner table.

This is a shot from just outside of our apartment entrance. That is a sign for a sport wagering center, not the athletic appareal manufacturer. You can also see a satellite dish for home tv viewing.

Budapest Hungary

I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV. That being stated I'll say this, you can take me out of Montana but you can't take Montana out of me. I'm following Hungarian tradition of holding this horse's bullock in order to have good luck on my next exams for school. Given that I'm not in school currently, I'll take good luck and vitality. This statue is located on the Buda side of the city in the castle area.

Riding the train from Bratislava, SK to Budapest, HU. This was outside of Bratislava before the train started to follow the Danube River to Budapest.

On the train Saturday morning. We lucked out again with one day of really warm weather for November, lots of sun.

Along the Danube River, crossing into Hungary from Slovakia.

After 2 1/2 hours on the train with a few stops we're in Budapest! Behind Alexandra are the Buda Hills and Buda. We were standing in Pest along the river.

On the Chain Bridge looking back toward Pest and the Parliment building to the north.

Looking back across the Chain Bridge into Pest, we're standing right above the track for the funicular.



Night time!

On the way to the market place.

Green Bridge


White Bridge from our hotel room.

The South Train station on Monday night.

Budapest is a city divided by the Danube River and made up of three parts: Obuda, Buda and Pest. It has a population of 1.7 million pepople, hot springs, a language not like any in Eastern Europe and a great public tranportation system.

Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna Austria

We took a our car out for a weekend road trip to Vienna, Austria. Monday was a holiday in many of the European countries.

























No kangaroos in Austria, but there are tractors in the smaller towns outside of Vienna. We took a side trip off the main freeway to stop and do some shopping at an outlet shopping center and got behind this tractor. This was in Parndorf, Austria.








































Sunday morning view from the 12th floor of our hotel in Vienna.









Our plan on Sunday was to look around Schoenbrunn Palace, no trick or treating or Halloween parties to attend. We did spend some time in the garden maze.

















Please stay off the grass while walking around the palace grounds.
































The main entrance to Schoenbrunn Palace.
























Grotto Fountain in the gardens behind the palace.

Top of the hill, behind the palace, looking down toward palace.