Fun: Wien (Vienna) and Szeged

We got back yesterday from a wonderful Easter trip. The weather does make all the difference, and with perfect Spring temperatures, blue skies, and flowers everywhere, it's hard not to have a good time. After the Eger to Budapest train (always get to go through Budapest to get anywhere), we had about the same time to Vienna, about 2.5 hours.

Vienna was not crowded, and we had a very nice little room in a very nice little hotel (7 rooms), very close to the center of the city. As usual we walked everywhere, and spent much of our time in art museums (Leopold, Kunsthistorisches), and eating/drinking establishments (mostly outdoors--every place has sidewalk cafes). We went to Mass on Easter at the Jesuit Church--it was a High Mass with a full orchestra, pipe organ, and choir. Due to standing room only on a very cold hard floor, we didn't make the whole service, but it was a special experience.

We had a wonderful Easter Monday in the park (Vienna is ringed with beautifully designed green spaces). We rode the giant Reisenrad (ferris wheel) featured in the movie The Third Man (Orson Welles), and ate at the famous Schweizerhaus beer garden with 700 of our closest Austrian friends. The featured food, Hintere Schweinsstelze (roasted pork hock) was gargantuan. Waiters somehow carried four or five of these chunks of meat along with an equal number of steins of draught Budvar (the Czech Bud) overhead without incident.

Four days and nights ate up a lot of Euros, and filled up a lot of digital photo space on my computer. Here are a few of the photos.

Vienna

On the next part of the trip we shifted from being tourists to being academics, heading for a professional conference in Szeged, Hungary, in the southern central part of the country. We left Vienna on the train back to Budapest (of course) on Tuesday morning. In Budapest, we had to change train stations, and so decided to walk through a part of the city we hadn't seen. Somewhat scruffy, but interesting. The old Nyugati train station makes the Keleti look modern and clean! But the Intercity train we took to Szeged (named "Paprika") was fine. Another three hours and we were in the land of paprika and Pick Sausage fame.

We had a pleasant evening, staying at the old, rather grand Hotel Tisza. Szeged is a very pretty city, on the large Tisza River, with lots of Art Nouveau and Secessionist buildings, wide boulevards, squares with flower beds and many sculptures and fountains. Again, Spring added to the appeal.

The reason for being in Szeged was the NETWORKSHOP Conference--someone at EKF had the idea to invite me to participate and get on the program back in the Fall. The conference is a combination of computer networking technicians, academic library people in the technology area, and e-learning people from the various colleges and universities. My Eger colleagues arrived around noon on Wednesday. They came by mini-bus with Vice Rector Kis-Tóth driving--a very "high level driver" as one of my colleagues noted.

Right away, in the "Alice in Wonderland" fashion we've come to know and love, the conference organizers rounded everyone up (200+ people) and put them on buses for a long transport to who knows where for a slightly weird lunch consisting of an apple, noodle soup, and a schnitzel with spaghetti in a lunchroom. Everyone was wondering why we went so far for that! We were eventually herded back on the buses for the return trip and I think everyone was wary after that of any forced transport!

We did get back for presentations beginning at 2:00. Following Lajos, Gabor, Csaba, and Bert, I was the only 'international' presenter, and felt a bit strange presenting in English. Of course, I muffed the few Hungarian words I tried to say due to nervousness! People were, of course, nice and told me I did a good job. After an afternoon of listening to Hungarian presentations, I was a bit tired (I was told by a colleague to remain unnamed that I was lucky because I could imagine that the presentations were more interesting than they really were!). We got goodie bags for presenting, including a delicious Pick Salami--that's unique!

The opening reception was in the evening, and we all decided to troop back to the hotel to get rid of our conference bags, etc. I found it so interesting that this whole group of academics would leave the mini-van at the hotel, walk to the conference center on the University of Szeged campus (probably at least a mile), walk back to the hotel, walk back to the conference center, and then walk back to the hotel--all in one day. You never find American conference goers walking a block if they don't have to! That has to be why the Hungarians can get away with eating sweets, sausage and sour cream!

The reception was purely Hungarian, but like any other conference as well--just with more wine and much more and better food. A good time was had by all, and we didn't have any trouble walking one more time, one more mile, to the hotel.

Two of the EKF faculty had presentations on Thursday late morning, so Jack and I stayed around the hotel, walked along the Tisza River, went to a time-honored cukraszda (sweet shop) for coffee and pastries, and joined back up with the group around noon.

Lajos took us all to a famous restaurant on the river where the famous Szeged halászlé vegyes halbó (paprika-spiced fish soup) was served. The setting was just like any 'catfish house', with outdoor tables, a river view, and lots of excellent food. The soup was great--really spicy--and we just HAD TO have the traditional follow-up to the soup. Nothing like a full plate of homemade noodles with bacon fat cracklings and sour cream to top things off. Delicious but totally unneeded and overwhelming, even for the Hungarians! One of the slides in the slideshow below shows that the restaurant suffers from flooding sometimes--with a 2006 high water mark far up on the wall. The flooding in Valdosta is far more rare, but more recent.

A three hour mini-bus ride back to Eger, with a stop to drop Bert off at home. It was good to be 'home' and Spring had exploded even more while we'd been gone. Our back yard is now leafy and lush, and the shedding blossoms of fruit trees account for the 'snow' on the ground. Lots to do ahead, but no more out of country travel plans, I don't think.

I hope you enjoy the slide show of Vienna above, and of Szeged below!

Happy Easter and Spring to everyone!

Szeged