Visa Free to the US

The citizens of seven countries, including Hungary, will no longer need visas to travel to the United States starting on November 17, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff said in Prague on Monday.

The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and South Korea will be joining the U.S. visa waiver programme which currently has 27 members, mainly in Western Europe, Chertoff said.

During the initial period, travellers will need to possess a biometric passport for visa-free travel to the U.S., Chertoff added.

Although good news for Hungarians, many have shared with me that they have concerns about their countrymen abusing their status and having the no Visa rule revoked. Time will tell.

Pin It Now!

Can You Make a Bomb from Fluff?

We were expecting two guests to arrive, a mother and daughter. They are Americans, but were arriving by train from Prague. I did not know it ahead of time, but the mother and I have a mutual friend. This was another of the e-mail notifications that was lost when the computer died, so we did not know their exact arrival time. At 2:30, I received an e-mail from Kelly the daughter stating she missed the train, to please tell her mother she would be on the next one. I thought this was strange. They were traveling together. There was no additional information to sort the puzzle. Later, Linda shows up at the door. Someone let her into the building. After introductions, she shares that she is a friend of my friend Bev. Then with confusion in her voice goes on to say, "My days have been filled with losses. Bev told me you love peanut butter and marshmallow fluff.|I brought you a jar, but that is the first thing they took away from me. Apparently, you can make a bomb out of marshmallow fluff. Then my luggage never arrived. I have been stuck with these clothes for the last three days. They are supposed to forward my luggage here." As it turned out, due to the lost luggage, Kelly made one more valiant attempt to return to the airport to try to recover it, but on her return, missed the train. In the meanwhile, Linda traveling on public transport, validated her ticket more than once and was caught by an inspector who found her overly validated ticket unreadable. She was fined $45.00 being too intimidated to fight back. Linda went off to puruse the city while waiting for Kelly to arrive. While she was gone, the phone rang and it was Malev Airlines stating they had the luggage for delivery and as soon as it cleared Customs, they would deliver it; however, they would call first. Minutes after I hung up the phone, the new guest in the other room asked if she could use the phone to reserve restaurants. No problem. After ten minutes of getting her business done, she returned the phone to the cradle. I was busy working on the computer, writing the Hungary chapter for the Frommer's Eastern Europe guide book. The phone rang! Expecting Malev again, I answered it. Rather I attempted futily to answer it. Successive attempts at pressing the answer button were disregarded by the phone forcing the call to go to voice mail. There was no message, just a hang up. Within a minute, the same thing repeated. A call came in, I could not get the phone to respond, voice mail and an hang-up. I knew it was Linda's luggage using a life line and calling a friend, only to be presumably ignored. Looking at Malev's website, I could only find two phone numbers. One for the Duna Club, the frequent flyer program and one for reservations. Using my cell phone since the now defunct regular phone would not access a dial tone, I called reservations in the hopes of getting a forwarding number to call for lost luggage. Voice mail in Hungarian was followed by a repeat in English. "To speak to someone in English, please press 2". I pressed 2 on the mobile, but the voice mail did not recognize it. I pressed again, but the initial message continued to repeat itself like a bad stuttering problem. I pressed 2, pressed 2, pressed 2, like a man possessed. What I eventually got was 22, which disconnected me from the system. Calling back again and start over had the same result. Two was just not making the tone that tittilated the system into action, but 22 was definite overstimulation. By the fifth attempt, I was able to claim a modicum of success and move on to the next level. This is where the youth outshine we older folk. Their thumb control is far advanced developed from video games, giving them superior powers. My nephews were always king of the universe while I was still trying to escape the dungeon when playing with them. They sadly left me to be eaten as they flew off to a level I could not even dream of. When I did navigate to the next branch of this phone tree, the message clearly stated for lost luggage press 1. Now we are getting somewhere. Press 1. Nothing. Press 1. Nothing. Press 1 harder like it will make a difference and the system will hear my added efforts of strengh in crushing down the key. The system was unimpressed. It would not budge beyond repeating my options with malicious joy that I was impotent to achieve any of them. My one last attempt scored an 11 and I was disconnected for the last time. Linda, I like you, but you will never see your luggage again. Go shopping. When Ron came home, he suggested I try his phone, a different model. He did not say, he would try his phone, but that I should. Like a miracle, it worked. I reached a living human being and to add miracle to miracle, she spoken English and gave me another number to call for the delivery service. Just when I thought I had grabbed the golden ring, I found I was on the wrong merry-go-round. I called the delivery service and tried explaining that the luggage had arrived, I had been called, they did verify the address, someone has been calling, but the phone was not working and I could not answer the phone. They must have thought no one was here, so they did not bother attempting the delivery. The lady on the other end said "Sorry, I no speak English well." Okay, one more time in monosyllables and s-l-o-w-l-y. That worked! She asked for the reference number. I turned to Linda and asked for the reference number. After a moment of silence, she whispered "Kelly has it with her. She took it to return to the airport." Without that number, my monolingual helper was helpless. The reference number are the keys to the kingdom. End of call. Hours later, Kelly arrived on the next train from Prague. I played the above game again, this time learning from my previous mistakes and scoring faster and reaching the upper echelons of levels with greater speed, but to no avail. I was told the luggage could be delivered at any time, but they could not understand they should call on my mobile and not the home phone. Grrr.... Good night everyone. Maybe the sandman and the luggage delivery man will show up hand in hand.

Pin It Now!

Spring Forward and Fall Back

This was the morning after our second night in Linz and it has only felt like we have been here a month already. How time does fly. Ron went off to church seeking a mass in a language he would not understand anyway, but it is the thought that counts, right God? I journeyed over to the train station for my breakfast and sat reading my book. When I glanced up at the clock it was strange that they had the wrong time; it was an hour earlier than it should be. Then the light went on, this is the weekend Europe changes the clocks and we had forgotten about it. The 10:00 mass Ron was headed for will be a possible 9:00 mass if there is one scheduled at all.

I was in the hotel sitting area when he returned and he greeted me with "When did you realize it?" After 14 years, we have an abbreviated way of speaking to each other, not quite a cryptic as the Da Vinci Code, but our nevertheless. Now the conundrum was the shuttle we had booked to transport us from here to Cesky Krumlov. Would they come at the old or new time? Did the Czech Republic change clocks at the same time or at all? Why did we have an extra hour in a city we were not enjoying when we would have loved to have it banked for some fabulous city in the future?

After checking out of the hotel, we went to our designated meeting point for the shuttle, the train station parking lot. We waited for 10 minutes around the 'old' time and no one showed up, so we went to the bakery for one last sumptuous carbo loading experience.

At 12:30 on the dot in the new time zone, the shuttle pulled up and discharged those who had just left the Czech town. It was only Ron and I going back with the driver who only spoke 5 words of English. Once we left Linz, the scenery was spectacular. The trees were covered in garnet, amethyst, topaz, sapphire, and emeralds that were gliding to the ground, but before they did, created a mosaic of color. Exactly what I had hoped for; I miss seeing the colors change.

Our Pension Lobo shuttle took us to Pension Lobo where we were staying two nights. Clean, tasteful, and budget, it was exactly what we wanted. They do run the shuttle service for anyone, not just guests. The room was spacious and freshly painted in a bright yellow. We dropped our things and took off for the... Tourist Information Center. Now if you are a regular reader of this blog, you should have guessed that before it was even mentioned.

This village is larger than I anticipated, but the historic old center is still small enough to walk around it about 20 times in a day. As can be expected of any village, town, city, or burg that has made the big time as a travel destination, the place is riddled with hotels, albeit small ones not franchises, pensions and bed and breakfasts. In every nook and cranny they are not occupying you will find hostels. Then there are the range of stores hawking their wares to the tourists with the famous "Czech" glassware and marionettes that range from real quality to the schlock probably made in China variety. Ron kept me on a short lease this afternoon, so I had to do my best window shopping scanning, without stopping. Even so, I had the feeling I would not be dragging home treasures that we could not live without having. Nothing was calling my name as we passed by. Cesky Krumlov sits by the river Vltava in South Bohemia. The city has two main districts: Latran (around the Castle) and the district on the slope between two bends of the river Vltava. The castle placed it in the UNESCO register of monuments of world significance in 1992.

The village has a long complicated history, one that I read and then quickly dismissed as nothing I will ever be tested on and if I am, I will cheat at finding the answer. We were here to soak up the atmosphere and since the castle was never for any important royalty beyond three centuries of the Lords of Rozmberk. Though they were supposedly remarkably democratic royals for their time, citizens were obliged to give contributions when there was a wedding in the Lord’s family and Jews were forbidden to reside in the town. The Rozmberk coat of arms carried a red rose, and that symbol may still be seen everywhere. When they died out, the town when to a different branch of the family tree and so on.

Within the hours of our arrival at 2:00 until 5:00 pm, we basically covered the town from the looks of the map above. The only area we did not cover was the castle, but we had a full day the next day, so save something for then. The walks along the river were beyond picturesque, they were postcard quality non-reality beautiful. It is like looking at a postcard and saying that is so beautiful, but it cannot really be that pristine. Well, here it is.

One museum caught our attention since we just had a guest who spoke about the artist Egon Schiele and they had an exhibit of his work. Some incredible painting and drawings, a most prolific artist who died at the age of 28 with the Spanish flu. They also had a special exhibit just about to end called "Five Young Artists from New York City". There was no explanation as to why they were there working or creating, but it seems they only had 3-6 weeks to produce and leave. Some captivating pieces.

We stopped at a pub recommended by the young woman at the pension. It was typically old fashioned in an authentic way, not contrived. After a beer, we dropped off unnecessary things in the room and went to the Two Marys for dinner. Once you open the door, immediately facing you is a stairwell that has many stories to tell if it could speak. Looking to be hundreds of years old, the sign pointed us upward to the restaurant. At the top, behind another humongous wood door were four over sized heavy picnic type tables with benches. Although the custom would be to join others at their table, two of the tables were occupied with a family of four (speaking Hungarian) and another with a young cutesy couple, speaking North American English. We took the third rustic table. Our waitress recommended a sampler platter with choices of meat. Ron ordered the pheasant and I had chicken. The rest was shared potato cake, potato balls, cabbage salad, and other heavy on the carbs delights. It was delectable, but weighty.

When Ron was in the tourist office, he bought tickets to a performance for this evening. The young woman assured us that it would not be language dependent; it was music and movement. The performance was held on the stage itself, with the stadium seating behind us and left unused. We had the second row, but a bear of a man with a head the size of Goliath sat in front of me blocking 85% of my view. There were still five rows behind us and being seated on a flat surface, their visibility was that of flying through clouds on a foggy day. Most of the production took place on the floor with 90% of it being spoken in Czech of course. There was no way to follow the movement and the music was interesting, but minimal in aiding our understanding of what was happening. People were speaking, throwing themselves on the floor, and at times, they all had plain unclothed wooden puppets with similar faces, who were the 'actors' of the moment. All very confusing. At the end, we had the distinct impression that the audience was made up of friends and relatives of the ensemble and not idle theater attendees. They clapped enough to require 4 curtain calls and with each more and more of the audience was up hugging those in the performance. A cultural experience for sure and an exercise in trying to see past the mountain of a man.

Pin It Now!