Enjoy!

Europe HDR - a set on Flickr.

A short answer to the question, what is HDR? High Dynamic Range is a photography method where you take three exposures instead of the normal one. An under-exposed, over-exposed, and normal shot. Each exposure ideally allows you to capture certain details that are otherwise discarded. Using software (I use Photomatix) to composite them, you end up with these stunning exposures with an amazing level of depth and contrast.

An example…the three exposures.

…and HDR-ized.

The Green Bridge was under renovation, closed completely except for pedestrians. Sidewalks around the hostel torn apart to lay new cables and piping. Some buildings demolished, some finally finished. Roads closed, intersections blocked. The new Metro line 4. Transformation.

Walking up the Pest side of the Danube, I stopped to take it all in. The rising hills of Buda across the river, topped by a citadel and other stately buildings filled with history. The flatlands of Pest, the centers of life. Beautiful architecture everywhere–not old enough to be stoic, not new enough to be pretentious. Perfect.

The cold, crisp air swirled past my face and numbed by exposed hands. Even the cold was perfect, not too humid, not too numbing. Walk to stay warm but cool enough not to sweat. Clouds overhead, but no rain for the meantime.

Even as I stood contemplating my third trip to Budapest, I subconsciously started planning my fourth.

This was how I choose to end my whirlwind trip through the Middle East and Europe, a visit to my favorite city to rest and relax. I had come from Amsterdam, where I had finished my ninth and final presentation the day before, and spared just enough time to visit my old college friend Anna.

When I went to Hong Kong and Seoul in September, I fell ill. I had a fever the day I arrived and then a massive headache that lasted more than three days. As I was collapsing on my bed one afternoon, having just endured the heat and humidity outside, I thought to myself–how great would it be to be in Budapest. Andrassy Ut, Voro Smarty Ter, wandering random streets, sitting at restaurants, sipping coffee in a cafe. No heat, no humidity, no crowds…

Going was a foregone conclusion. Buying tickets three weeks later was simply a formality. When I announced that I was going, Sarah W asked if she could come down from London and join me. Absolutely.

I know this is a little late in coming (I’ve been back for a few weeks now), but ahhhhh….I love Budapest! =)

More photos of Budapest

It’s all starting to blur together in my mind already. I woke up this morning in my own bed and found myself back in the office at my normal hour, dangerously close to my normal routine. That was a short jaunt…

I’m happy to pronounce the trip a complete success. We did what we set out to do and got where we wanted to go. We started in Vienna, went to Innsbruck, Munich, Budapest, and back to Vienna all according to the rough plan that we had left with. I came back with six bottles of wine, including three bottles of the prized Liszt Kekfrankos that I’d been craving since I left Budapest a year ago. Unfortunately, I came back with a bit of a cold and a voice that could sand down wooden planks (I blame the saunas in Budapest…going from a super-hot sauna stright into 16 degree celcius water is great for the skin, but horrible for the immune system).

It was really a mindtrip to be back in Budapest again, staying in my old hostel, wandering my favorite streets. As much as I wanted to, I never expected that I’d return to Budapest so soon. I didn’t get to see much more than I did last time though–most of my time was returning to my favorite spots and wandering around areas of the city to see what had changed. I really wanted to go Margaret Island, an island on the Danube sandwiched between the northern areas of Buda and Pest. I’d also love to do some day trips to some of the surrounding areas, including the beautiful Lake Balaton to the southwest that I had trained past at sunset a year ago on my first trip.

In other words, my trip was too short, but then again, aren’t they always? I could have spent another week in Budapest and after that, another two weeks exploring the countryside. Really, at the end of the day, the Earth is quite simply, big.

This was my first time traveling in a group and I was very pleased with how everything turned out. Lots of crazy and fun things happened that I never would have gotten traveling alone. Group dynamics and the effects of prolonged time exposure are always unknown quanities with any group and we all made it home alive without killing each other and on great terms. There’s definitely a few knobs to tweak if we do this again in terms of preferences and duration–I think in the future I’ll be sticking strictly with the smaller hostels (we did about a 50/50 split of big party vs. small cozy hostels) and trying to spend more time at any given place.

For now, it’s back to the grinding stone. I’ve got deadlines coming up fast. The pictures are pretty good and I’ll be triaging through them sometime this week to post them.

I’m baaack!

After a rather interesting night train experience where we were severely concerned about getting our stuff jacked (thankfully, no problems, though a lot of precautions), we arrived this morning into Budapest. Sadly, we were greeted by gray skies and 0 degree (celcius) weather.

Budapest still hasn’t lost it’s charm, though the city is definitely undergoing a makeover. It’s actually very interesting to me…I often speak about prioritizing destinations that I feel are likely to change heavily in the near future, leading me to concentrate my travels in the developing world. Budapest is the first city I’ve returned to since I started my travels and I discovered myself walking around shocked at the change I was finding. Former landmarks and shops had been replaced. Buildings were being gutted and rebuilt. New restaurants and cafes. Scaffolding and tarp covering the facades of beautiful buildings for remodeling work. It almost feels as if the city is undergoing a makeover in preparation for the bright and sunnier summer season.

This is great to see in many ways…economic development remains strong, Hungary remains an up and coming rising star in the world. I’m happy to see all this progress, but between remodeling and the weather, I also feel that the spirit of the city that I’m so fond of has diminished slightly. Perhaps when I return in a few years it will be back in force…or maybe I won’t recognize the city at all. It took me a fair bit of walking around to find my old hostel today.

I spent the day on my own, walking and wandering the streets of the city. It was a good moment of “solitude.” Met up with the group for dinner and gorged ourselves on amazingly delicious Hungarian food that continues to live up to it’s reputation. Ended the night by going to a local Milonga, something I’ve been looking forward to for the last two months. There’s some good dancers here, with most of them having about one year of experience. DJ could have been better though, all the music he played was the exact same tempo, +/- 5 bpm. It got pretty boring after awhile and everyone assured me that the dance to go to was in fact the Sunday night dance, where the music is far better. Unfortunately, by Sunday night I’ll be back in Vienna…*sigh* for short vacations…

Anyway, with that, I’m off to bed. It’s 1am here.

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written, but the pace of trip has upped significantly since my last posting. After spending four days longer than planned in the amazing city of Budapest, I’ve had to rush my time to make it through the cities of Prague and Berlin.

A little bit about the places I’ve been…

Those of you that get my mass-emails have already heard about my rave for Budapest. I arrived in Budapest after dark and the moment I stepped off the train I was just struck with a euphoric vibe emanating from the city. It’s tough to explain it beyond that, but there’s an energy from Budapest that cannot be quantified…it simply felt good to be there. Immediately, before even seeing a single bit of the city, I was already thinking about expending my stay.

Budapest is literally subdivided into sections of Buda and Pest by the river Danube. Most of the major tourist sights are located on the hilltops of Buda close to the Danube while the centers of city life are in Pest. I found I liked the flatter Pest better just for its style and people. The hilltops of Buda are filled with tourists and tourist buses while the streets of Pest are filled with locals mingling with a much smaller number of tourists. As is the trend for all of Eastern Europe I’ve visited so far, the locals are friendly and the younger crowd speaks good English. I met a couple of locals on the train in that have taken the hostel crowd and I around and told us about the best local restaurants. I’ll note here that Hungarian wine is both cheap and excellent. Definitely an up-n-coming in the wine realm. If any of you guys out there are planning a Europe trip, go out of your way to see Budapest. It’s overtaken Sarajevo as my favorite spot in Europe.

Went from Budapest directly to Prague (Praha). Stayed in the awesome Hostel ELF and went on a walking tour with Steve, a semi-permanent hostel guest. He’s stayed at the hostel for over a year just because he loves backpackers and telling them about Czech history. Steve was a history professor in Germany for 25 years and really, really knows his stuff. He also hates tourists with a passion, which can be really entertaining as he’s loudly making bad jokes about them on the tour. The tour was good, but I didn’t like Prague nearly as much as I liked Budapest. Prague has an amazing amount of history and sights to see, but I’m a little toasted on the sightseeing at this point in my trip and tourist buses are really out in force there. I did manage to get into Prague around the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War, where some mock battles and vintage military equipment were being displayed, complete with dressed-up soldiers. I wasn’t able to catch any of the mock battles, although I did get treated to an amazing fireworks show over the river there.

Went from Prague to the highly modern and historical city of Berlin. Was again toasted on sights, but managed to see the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, and the newly opened Holocaust Memorial (opened the day after I arrived). All of them were really cool but I was really impressed with modern German architecture in design. As Germany had so much rebuilding to do after the WWII, they’ve emerged at the forefront of the design style known as “modern.” This made for some beautiful buildings and interiors, including my hostel, which easily had the nicest decor of any hostel I’ve stayed in. You might be also amused to know that East Berlin is actually nicer than West Berlin these days as all development has been taking place on the east since the wall came down. There’s still a lot of construction going on in the area and I’m guaranteed to be surprised when I make it out there next time. Definitely a place I didn’t spend enough time–although not quite the same, there’s a similar energy and good vibe from Berlin.

Now I’m in the low countries and hanging out with my friend Anna, who used to live up the hall from me in the dorms back in my first year of college. She lives in the small city of Kampen, which is ten minutes out from Zwolle on a diesel train. Really charming little town. Anna’s place is practically under the bell tower, which is programmed to play cool melodies and even occasionally has a real musician playing, but doesn’t accurately keep time. Going to hang out here until Tuesday morning, when I head out to Paris for a night before flying south!

Chau!

New photos up:

• Budapest
• Prague