Dangdut: February 2015

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a thing until they lost WW1. But Austria and Hungary still have a convenient train route that connects a city that offered affordable tickets to both myself and the Family Seymour, and that is how I plan my vacations these days. Also, I plan it around my birthday, which is one of the greatest things about working for Neverthirst. They respect the birthday travel plans. And truthfully, I didn’t plan it at all. Emily planned it because being a mother has turned her into a J even though she is still trying to be in denial about that—Emily, you finally grew up! Scott is still working on it though.

But once again, I do blame my parents for poor planning because no one should have to celebrate birthdays during the winter. I know that I should have been a summer baby. Still, this way I got to see the Family S in the last week that pregnant Emily was allowed to travel (but just in case, she followed TV actress protocol, traveling in loose flowing clothing with oversized hand-bags blocking her belly, casually standing behind a couch whenever possible). Also, traveling with 2 kids, aged 4 and 2 is not the easiest thing, and I think adding a small baby would have increased the complications a bit. Jack isn’t too worried about what or where he eats at this point and he stayed warm and cozy inside Mommy while the rest of us waded through snow and ice rain. Of course, he missed all the views, and I don’t think that you can count countries you visited in the womb on your List. (I have a List of places I’ve been. It’s a thing for travelers. We have to keep count so that we don’t accidentally visit the same country twice. Airport countries do NOT count.)

As usual I planned my travels with haphazard abandon, making the weeks before I left filled with unnecessary stress and frantic last minute phone calls. But also as usual—it all worked out in the end.

I won’t go into all the details of the trip, but I’ll post a few photos that turned out to be discernable objects with minimal thumb-lens exposure.

Here is a brief trip summary (Note-the formatting was beautiful in Word, but it didn't carry over, and I don't care enough to try to fix it. OCD people: try to look only at the numbers/numerals/letters and not spacing. Of course, you're OCD people, so it probably won't be possible for you to take my excellent advice):

I. Travel to Europe

A. Mundri to Juba

i. Bus trip

ii. Only broke down 3 times

B. Juba to Khartoum

i. Juba Airport is getting worse

ii. Kids traveling reserve the right to be bratty whenever they want to. This is a fact that crosses borders and culture and language and race.

C. Expedited exit visa process

i. Because we love Leif, but we don’t fully believe him that it is possible to transit through Khartoum.

ii. Made it out anyway with valid exit visa.

D. Khartoum to Doha

i. Why is it SO COLD in Doha Airport?

ii. Had to buy an over-priced pashmina scarf in a duty free shop to protect myself from Air Conditioner Frost Bite.

E. Doha to Budapest

II. Hungary (basically just Budapest)

A. Stayed with wonderful people

i. Thanks, Borders for being awesome and great cooks and wonderful hosts

ii. Thanks also for giving me your Russian books. I have learned how to read and now I’m building up my vocabulary. Starting to plan my Russia trip now. Who will host me? Somebody reading this blog in Russia come clean now and help me out because Русский очень хорошо.

B. Visit Budapest on February 19, the greatest day in the History of Awesome People’s Birthdays, aka My Birthday

i. Saw many things including the Danube River (yes, had the annoying song going through my head for the rest of the day until we heard that dude playing the digeridoo in the market and that sound will cleanse your brain), the parliament building (beautiful), the market (presents for sisters bought on my birthday—Check), ate lots of sausages

ii. Scott and Emily bought me grown up birthday presents: gummy turtles and sour gummy ropes. Because I’m a grown up and that’s what I really wanted. Ate them all in one day because why save candy when you don’t know if an asteroid will hit earth tomorrow before Elijah Woods and Ben Affleck can think of a plan to stop it. And then all that candy would have been wasted.

iii. Cile made me a wonderful birthday cake and lots of excellent food. AND THEY GAVE ME THEIR OLD RUSSIAN BOOKS!!! Are there better people than Glenn and Cile anywhere in the world? Probably not.

iv. Enjoyed hanging out with the Family Seymour again because they are super-fun always.

Budapest Parliament building. Cile had a way better photo
that she sent me that I wanted to use, but it only works on my phone.

Cute old people buying sausages.

Some young people and an old person eating
birthday sausages and hot *juice*.

The face of a 31 year old.
Bday presents are the best.
Gloves were another present from Cile.
They kept me alive this winter.

Unexpected Happy Cake! Cile is a kindred spirit who believes
in the magic of all things sugar. She said, "Yeah, I tried that thing
where you don't eat sugar for a while, but I didn't notice any difference."
I tried it too, but I did notice a small difference--I hated EVERYBODY.
Sugar--making the world a better place since Cavemen finally invented it
and gave up on that Paleo crap.

This is the universal language to ask
train conductors if this is the right train for us to board.

Once in a while, Adelaina agrees to fall asleep,
but she better be draped over Mommy or Daddy.

III. Austria

A. Traveled to Salzburg and stayed 2 nights

i. Salzburg is full of snow, Mozart balls, and places touched by the cast of the Sound of Music

ii. Emily and I went on the Sound of Music tour, while Scott pretended to want to watch the kids because he was afraid we would humiliate him by singing songs or dancing in public (we didn’t—we behaved decorously at all times).

iii. Scott and I went to hear a local quartet play Mozart and Dvorak in Mirabel Schloss. It was beautiful. Only we got there way early and wandered around a creepy palace alone at night. We were up on the top floor looking for the ticket place, surrounded by nefarious-looking cherub statues and dead silence, when suddenly we heard ear-splitting screams from down below. They stopped abruptly, and then--- we heard the disembodied voice of a man singing quietly. I don’t watch horror movies, but I was pretty sure we hit all of the warning signs and we rushed down from the top floor, keeping an eye on all the evil cherubs, until we finally found the ticket booth. Then we forgot about all the mass murder by the serial killing cherubs and just enjoyed a night of beautiful music.

iv. Also, we saw Mozart’s house. It was fun, and I bought some Mozart balls. They are chocolate balls with Mozart’s face on them. Though there is some debate about whose likeness actually adorns the balls. Austin is sure that it’s George Washington, but he doesn’t care that much as long as he gets to eat chocolate because he knows what is really important.

v. Emily remains sick and miserable for the entire trip, but manages to have moments of fun in between coughing fits.

View from our hotel. The snow was my first clue that it was going to be cold.

Hotel Hide and Seek

TCKs watch TV in any language.

Sound of Music Hop On Hop Off Bus tour.
Emily: I love you so much that I'll go on the Family Band Dakota Bus Tour
with you on our next vacation, but only if Scott comes along to sing all his favorite songs.

In front of the gazebo! It took us a while to find it, but
our Sound of Music radar kicked in at the end.

This important photo is for the true fans--the front of the Von Trapp House.

The back of the Von Trapp House and the ice pond.
Fun Fact: they are NOT the same house.
Good news: the movie was not filmed in winter or children would have died.

Von Trapp Family Lake House Obligatory Selfie

Below the Abbey. I'm so tall, I had to duck
so that you could see the Abbey behind me,
and that's how you missed the bottom of my face in this photo.

Mozart's House--somehow this is the only photo I took….
Emily has the rest.

A Mozart Chocolate Ball

Creepy-a$$ cherubs.

We eluded the crazed ax murderer with our evasive
maneuvers and went to listen to Mozart

The Twins Quartet playing Ein Kleine Nachtmusik
I think the violinists were twins, thus the name.
Marian: I had to work really hard not to call them the "Twans"

I am now a professional panorama photo taker.

Ach! An Austrian in native dress--they do exist!

Highlight of Salzburg for Adelaina--sitting under a pile of
pink stuffed animals in the toy store with
Aunt Amanda while Mommy is in the bathroom.

B. Halstatt

i. We took a bus to a train to a boat to the lakeside town of Halstatt, especially picturesque in the snow, but not friendly to tourists hoping to get just one room for one night to get out of the icy rain. Fortunately, we found a place, and managed to enjoy the beauty and quiet

ii. Left the kids with Scott and climbed up to the beautiful church on the hill.

iii. The kids loved the boat the most.

iv. Chinese tourists LOVE Austria. Note to world: during Chinese New Year, hotels everywhere will be filled with Chinese travelers because it’s their holiday and there are a LOT of them and they travel and they will visit all the countries, probably. I enjoyed eavesdropping on their conversations. I was ready to help translate, but never needed to. Each group traveled with at least one English speaker because they are prepared like that.

Just so you know, it is beautiful enough to be worth a trip.

Our boat.

Everyone loved it. Austin said, "I never thought we'd be on a bo-at!"
Joanna, make Benji read this blog because that really happened,
and he would never ever have stopped singing the song for the rest of the trip.
He is why you can't travel to exotic places.

Church climb with Emily while Scott and kids stayed hotel-side.

Snowy grave yard. Not a bad final resting place,
though I'd prefer to be buried at sea.

Crisp cream cheese strudel while waiting for the boat.
Not bad.

Another excellent pano shot on the sunny day in Halstatt.

One more because there are swans.

Adelaina loves cheese.

Everyone loves giant pretzels.

Everyone also loves watching Cinderella
on Aunt Amanda's iPad

C. Vienna

i. Emily in extra misery. Scott, Austin, Adelaina and I brave the rain for the Rick Steve walking tour. Scott and I enjoyed it. Adelaina tolerated it. Austin hated the Unfairness of Life that forced him to have parents who make their kids experience Culture. Austin: I feel you, pal. It will be years before you realize that they are actually awesome. Years of more pain and unfairness and walking in the rain. But at least there will be hilarious half-naked statues because that amused him enough to smile. And also, chocolate cake and candy because if you travel with me there will be lots of chocolate cake and candy.

ii. Austria is for culture. I convinced Emily to come out at night to the opera with me. Not hard to do because she really wanted to see some of Vienna and had rested all day. We scalped some tickets for Andrea Chernier. We enjoyed watching an Italian opera set in France during the revolution, trying to guess what was happening, while I took illegal photos of the stage in spite of being told not to by the show announcer. Of course the Operahaus expects its cultured guests to follow the rules, but I had waited at cross-walks for lights for a whole week of wasted law-abiding minutes, and I am good at taking sneaky horrible photos. Also, I do enjoy opera, but I love laughing at things more than that and I was very thankful to see the tiny leading man paired with a tall plump leading lady. Their passionate embrace as they were led off to the guillotine left me with a pleasing sense that operatic capital punishment scenes CAN be comedic. And that proves that the world that we live in is not such a bad place after all. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for making me lead a cultured lifestyle so that I can appreciate the opera while still making fun of it.

The expressions sum up this day.
Scott + Amanda = Happy for Vienna Walking Tour/Famous Building Scavenger Hunt
Adelaina = yeah, whatevs. I'll chill in the stroller.
Austin = I HATE you all for making me do this and I refuse all photographs.
Emily = Coughing fit in the hotel under a pile of tissues (not pictured)

We hoped seeing this skeleton of a famous Austrian guy
in a church would cheer Austin up, but nope.

He was briefly amused by some naked statue butts, sorry 'booties.'

Adelaina was happy because Lunch + Daddy

OK, the Sacher Torte IS overrated, but it cheered everyone up.
Except for Scott who is afflicted by a strong dislike for chocolate.
Please pray for him. We're starting a support group.

Pano shot of the square in front of the Hapsburg Palace because I'm so good at panos now.

Pano shot of the square with the Operahaus and some other famous buildings.
Yes, that weird roof thing is really like that.
Yes, I forgot what most of those buildings are.
Yes, I took this photo really fast because it was raining
and this was the best way to get one fast photo.

Opera Star Walk of Fame. Too bad they didn't get Strauss's hand prints.

India friends: They have Cafe Coffee Day in Austria!
Are they franchising internationally?

Scalped opera tickets and a nice dinner make Emily happy!
And me too.

An quick "Yes, those tickets ARE real!" selfie

Operahaus

Illegal and terrible photo of the opera

Curtain call

IV. Travel Back Home (Note: in Point F, Home = Khartoum, Sudan)

A. Train to Budapest, bus to airport, last meal with Family S in airport, boarding planes and heading to separate countries and continents and doctor’s appointments for pregnant women with bronchitis

B. Doha airport is STILL miserably cold, but this time I came prepared.

C. Was able to move my ticket up 6 hours for only $30, reducing my time in the airport by 50%.

D. Translated for a nice Algerian man to the Pakistani ticket agent because most of the Arabic-speaking inhabitants of the Arab nation of Qatar don’t work menial jobs in airports, leaving the many Arabs traveling through this international hub at a loss for translators while still in their own regional-language area. Lucky for some of those guys, one or two Americans have made the effort to learn Arabic and can make some translations.

V. Travel from Airport in Khartoum to IAS Office

A. This shouldn’t be a big deal, but no one could come to pick me up because they were visiting a staff member in the hospital

B. So I took a taxi

C. The taxi driver told me I was very good and kind after I agreed to up the amount I was going to pay him AFTER I got him to agree to the price that I wanted initially because I would rather be generous by choice and not because I feel someone is cheating me. It’s semantics, but it’s how I play the game of Bargaining. He then asked for my hand in marriage, after which we had an odd conversation, where I first thought he was complimenting my figure (“You aren’t ‘full’ like most people like you. You don’t have a ‘body’. I like that.”) until he said, “I will pray that God will ‘fill you out’ so that you can get a ‘body’ and become ‘full’ like other women.” And I felt encouraged to know that the bags and bags of Haribo gummies, Mozart chocolate balls, Austrian pastries, ropes of sausages, plates of wiener schnitzel, wonderful homemade food in Budapest did not add anything to my gaunt waif-like figure. But of course, I can’t go against God, so for dinner I made sure to eat an entire can of Honey Mustard Pringles, several pieces of chocolate from Grandmom’s birthday chocolate (the only present I got to open on my birthday—thanks, Grandmom and Grandpop!), and half a bag of Haribo gummy cherries (got to have the fruit for health).

And anyway, I’m home in Sudan for a few weeks before I go home to South Sudan, and it turns out that writing about the trip in outline form did not make this post any shorter. Oh well. Scott and Emily and Austin and Adelaina—I miss you already. Glad we got to hang out because you guys are the best, even if you do bring me to snowy places on our vacations.