Lake Balaton – the Hungarian Sea

Hungary doesn’t have a coast line, but is sure does have a beautiful sea! Lake Balaton is the largest freshwater lake in Europe outside of Scandinavia, which provides Hungarians with a very relaxing summer vacation spot and plenty of restaurants where they can enjoy their tasty summer favorites like cold strawberry soup.
We didn’t have much time for leisure though, as we were there to meet with our E. European partners who were hosting us for a recap/planning session. In between the work stuff we did find time to explore the small town of Balatonfured and the lakeside promenade and beaches. And on our last evening of the 2-day trip, we went to the most charming Tolgyfa Csarda winery for dinner and got a great sampling of the relatively unknown but truly fantastic Hungarian wines.
On the drive back we enjoyed the scenery of the countryside full of beautiful sunflower fields, the oil of which the Hungarians use in their cooking in lieu of olive trees. It's the fun facts that interest me most.....

The Sicilian Adventure

After 6 weeks of work travel, I was really looking forward to this trip. I had no idea what crazy adventures were awaiting...
I flew to Catania, on the east side of the island of Sicily, where I met up with my good friend Kopervos. I was expecting a cute beach town instead we found a big, dirty city. Needless to say I did not fall in love with Catania, but the views of Mt. Etna, the largest, active volcano in Europe were quite impressive, and, of course, the gelato was very tasty. We spent the first day exploring the city and the next we took a hike around the volcanic craters. Our guide, a big time Geology smarty-pants, and his girlfriend did a great job of showing us around. They took us into a house that was partially buried by lava, into a cave created by a lava lake, and to a place where a lava stream stopped just short of a Mary statue that had women selling all varieties of honey (or as I call them “honey pushers”) --- strawberry honey, almond honey, eucalyptus honey!
That evening I was introduced to what is now one of my favorite Italian dish…pasta alla norma. Go figure, eggplant could spice up regular spaghetti so much!
On the third day we took a bus to the cliff-side town of Taormina. This beautiful village was much more like what I had envisioned of Sicily. The only thing about cliff-side villages is that there are usually a lot of steep, winding roads leading down from the upper most point. We realized just how steep and windy when we foolishly set off on foot, with luggage in tow, from the bus station in search of our hotel. About 40 minutes, probably 2 miles, and half my body weight in sweat later, we learned that it was located pretty darn close to the top – great views though, as Kop assured me in her ever-positive way. With the look of utter desperation in our eyes, we finally stopped an older, local gentleman to ask how much further and he graciously offered us a ride the last half block to the Villa Ducale.
Well, Kopervos was right…the views were amazing from this place, at night we could actually see the lava streams running down Mt. Etna! And we had an incredibly warm welcome from Lucca, the hotel manager, to this utterly charming Villa hotel. Enjoying a crisp glass of wine on the outdoor terrace before dinner was just heavenly. The cherry on top of this lovely day (post-trek up the cliff side!) was a fantastic zucchini, risotto dinner and chocolate gelato dessert.
It was difficult leaving that wonderful place, but more adventures awaited so we were off to Vulcano, one of the Aeolian islands. It was quite the process getting there, involving 2 taxis, 2 trains, one incredibly late ferry, a hotel shuttle van, and finally, finally the most gorgeous hotel/spa I could have imagined complete with a pool boy (excuse me, pool man) named Carmelo. After settling into our luxurious room and drinking in the magnificent views of the Tyrrhenian Sea, we decided it was time to brave the nasty sulfur smell that permeated the entire island outside of our hotel, and try out the thermal mud baths the place was famous for.
How do I paint the picture of what it was like wading in a boiling mud puddle and scooping so-called therapeutic mud on to your body in the 100 degree weather? I can sum it up in just one word --- gross!
Thankfully there were normal, albeit black sand from the lava flow, beaches nearby where we could wash off and try to get rid of some of the horrible smell we voluntarily put on our bodies.
Our final stop on this whirlwind vacation was to the city of Palermo where we met our cooking instructor, Vincenzo, an American raised Sicilian who moved back from Baton Rouge to open Ristorante Cin Cin. Vince’s first lesson was to open our minds to local “delicacies” at the outdoor market where we picked up our ingredients for the day. It was a lot fun, but I didn’t really appreciate being made to eat a lung & spleen sandwich or a snack of hot, animal fat from a mystery basket on the street….yuck! The rest of our cooking experience was a big success, we learned to make pesto, sweet & sour pumpkin, breaded eggplant, and stuffed calamari (all me, by the way).
During our lesson, a New Jersey book writer came by to interview our teacher for a novel she’s writing about an American girl who up and moves to Italy. She really added to our experience and was nice enough that we asked her to come exploring with us for the rest of the afternoon.
After the cooking we went to the Cappuccino (yes, seriously) Catacombs, basically an external cemetery that has over 8,000 preserved skeletons still wearing their 1800s dress! It was solemn, amazingly historic, a little creepy, and very cool. After that intense experience we were in need of something lighter, so we went to a traditional marionette show. Although I couldn’t follow the story line since the whole show was in Italian, and Sicilian at that, the skills of the puppeteers, who worked several 20 lb dolls at one time, was unreal.
I wasn’t really expecting much from this trip, but in the end it turned out to be one of the most adventurous I have ever been on! Now it’s back to work where I can have a vacation from my vacation…..

Bucharest, Romania

My first impression of Romania was that this is a surprisingly westernized E. European country. The fact that Bucharest is the largest (2.1 million population) of the three cities I’ve visited on this tour could have much to do with that. My first stop was to the Banesa Shopping Center and what to my wondering eye did appear….Starbuck’s!!!
The second impression I had of this city is that there is a lot of beautiful parks, old architecture, amazing statues, and traffic & parking nightmares all around! I later learned that during communistic rule, it was extremely difficult for Romanians to have cars so now that the veil of oppression has been lifted, people have indulged as much as possible but the infrastructure of the city hasn’t kept up.
Our hotel was located quite far from the city center so there wasn’t much opportunity to explore the sites, but I did get to see some things driving to work commitments throughout the week. On the way back from the mall, we saw the Palace of Parliament, which is the 2nd largest building in the world (it has 7 floors below ground level) after the Pentagon. And on the way to my Romanian TV debut– that’s right I’m turning into quite the celebrity in E. Europe, and this week we were featured after some very cool Romanian pop stars!! – we saw the scene, marked with 10 stone crosses, of a revolutionary massacre in ’89. The ruler, Ceausescu, who they were protesting was executed by firing squad just 4 days later, on Christmas no less, and a new day dawned for the people of Romania.
Before I wrap up, there is one last fun fact about Bucharest I’d like to share --- it’s known as the city of stray dogs. There are an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 lonely pups roaming the streets, and they are everywhere! There were 2-3 hanging out at our show, in fact one of them even swiped a bottle of water from our group of local partners and proceeded to gnaw off the cap to get himself a drink! Those dogs might be homeless, but they sure do have street smarts.

Sofia, Bulgaria

Did you know that Bulgaria is well known for yogurt? There’s plain yogurt, yogurt dip, yogurt drink with black pepper…..
After our arrival, we went off to explore downtown. The hotel map would have been helpful except the streets were listed in English but all the street signs were in the Bulgarian cyrillic alphabet (similar to Greek writing). Luckily our travel guide helped us break the code and we managed to get ourselves around!
Bulgaria fun fact…the yes and no head motions are reversed here. If you ask for something and intuitively shake your head up and down for the response they will assume you don’t want it and take the item back!
On our way to Sofia’s iconic site, the Aleksander Nevski (a Swedish born, Russian warrior) church we stopped off for some pizza - there are tons of pizzerias everywhere - and people watching at an outdoor café. After we got to the impressive church and had our look around, we wandered through the souvenir stands, which were selling anything from handmade wooden bottles containing rose oil, (Bulgaria are the world-wide producers of), to Olympic medals and Nazi paraphernalia.
Later that night we met up with some colleagues for a traditional Bulgarian dinner at a restaurant called Pod Lipite, which roughly translates to Linden or Lime Tree. I try to be adventurous with food in new countries, but this menu was a bit beyond my limits. It included things like chicken hearts (a bit chewy and not too tasty), pig intestines, and cow tongue! At least there was a great ambience in the place, very rustic stone walls, plain wooden tables, and a people in traditional dress playing the gaïda, a type of bag pipe.
The next day we had a live TV appearance to promote our show. My nerves got going when they put me into makeup, and although was awkward having translator (male nontheless) just behind me talking over everything I said, it was a very unique experience for sure!
The rest of the week was rather non-eventual as I was working, but at least my office had this beautiful view of Mt. Vitosha.

We did managed to check out some Bulgarian nightlife too at Club Candle. It seemed very loungy/laid back outside, but inside a “private party” raged on. Our persistence eventually paid off and we got to the dance floor where we finished up our night rocking it out to some Snoop Dogg and showing those Bulgarians how to move! All in all it was a fun trip to Bulgaria, I just wish I hadn't lost my stupidly expensive mobile phone in the taxi on the way to the airport, but you have to take the travel ups with the travel downs!

Back to the USA

First order of business --- diet coke! Surprisingly, it didn’t really feel all that strange to be back although I was very happy with the ease of communication.

The best part, besides being able to see my family, was hearing all about how much expansion our company is doing and knowing that I’m a part of it now. Our VPs put together a really nice video of our work with a photo collage that really made me realize just how eventful my time over here has been so far! And, of course, having our full team together was also very cool (in the team photo, from left is me, Charles, Jim Campbell, Gerry the boss, Rixt, Maria, Tom, Jim Moseley, and Steven).
The rest of the week was extremely busy with meetings, social functions, and a team building course that was a lot of fun. I once again challenged my fear of heights with an elevated contraption, which required careful balance and a very unflattering harness.
There wasn’t much rest for the weary this week, but the time I managed with my parents and Gram on the weekend was extremely nice and much needed! It was tough leaving them, but the show must go on. Now, it’s back to work in E. Europe ……

Bratislava, Slovakia

My first visit to Slovakia, a country known for folk traditions and beautiful women was to the capital city of Bratislava. You can see & feel that there is still much progress to be made to get this country completely out from under the dark cloud of communism, but this is a very old city with nice people, delicious food, medieval buildings, many unique statues, and extremely energetic kids who loved Winnie the Pooh!
There weren’t any direct flights from Amsterdam so I flew to Vienna, Austria and was driven the 1 ½ hours to Bratislava. Crossing over the Slovakian border there was an immediate change in the atmosphere, the lush green countryside and brilliant red, wild flowers were still there but the cute, colorful, cottages of the Austrian villages were replaced with drab gray, concrete, block buildings. My driver, Jozef a Slovakian around my age, explained that it was like living in a rabbit cage.
Shortly after arrival, I was off to the Incheba Expo Center for our opening night. All went very well with a nearly sold out audience of dancing and singing kids who just couldn’t get enough of their beloved Macko Puf. At the end it was like a kiddie mosh pit in front the stage!
After the show, a group of us went to the old centre for dinner. It was difficult finding a place still serving food at the late hour, but there were plenty of restaurants, cafes, and bars to choose from. After walking around for at least an hour and asking just about everyone and anyone we encountered for suggestions we settled for a pizzeria. The place had a very rustic ambience of cobblestoned walls and cave-like rooms.
The next morning I hit the hotel gym for a work-out, but was quickly disappointed to find that nearly all the equipment was no less than 10 years old. It didn’t seem to bother the Slovaks though, as there were at least 30 people crammed into a work out area that was only slightly bigger than my hotel room! I settled for the archaic stationary bike and people watching next to the pool. In the afternoon I escaped the heat of my non-air conditioned room and went for a walk around the old centre with some friends. We stopped for lunch at a traditional restaurant where I went for the “farmer’s lunch” of cabbage gnocchi with schnitzel.
My last night in town we tried going to the UFO restaurant over top the New Bridge, but were turned away because of a private function. Instead we hit a local Irish pub and drank some giant Hoegaarden beers.
My visit to Slovakia ended on Saturday when I returned to Amsterdam for a 12 hour stop over and luggage re-pack before leaving for annual company meetings in the US!

Dubai…Take 3

I’m not usually a fan of returning to the same place multiple times, for fear it will slowly lose it’s luster, but Dubai is one city that I find myself enjoying more and more! This time back, it was show time so I had plenty of people to go on new explorations with and exploring we did! The highlights included indoor skiing at Ski Dubai, fun in the sun at Wild Wadi Waterpark where water currents propel you up the slides so you barely have to do any work, a yacht cruise around the Palm Islands and the Burj Al Arab hotel, a house party with our local partners, mainly of Indian nationality, and the multiple brushes with adolescent royalty of the United Arab Emirates! I know this last one sounds extremely interesting, however the “royals” turned out to be pretty regular looking kids. The only difference was they arrived in custom made Mercedes, a fleet of nannies with them, and when they asked for to meet Mickey they got to meet Mickey.