Euro trip 2011: Austria

The second country in our list was Austria, the country of Mozart. Our plan was to visit Vienna and see only the downtown. From Budapest we took a train which runs between Budapest and Vienna. It was only 3 hours travel to reach Vienna. We reached after 16:00 and got in the hostel by 17:00. It's a nice hostel - neat and clean, the staffs are friendly, we even got attached toilet and bathroom with our room. We freshened up, took a bit rest and then went out to roam around the downtown.

There are many attraction in Vienna downtown and interestingly they are quite close to each other. So if you take few hours walk you can see many attraction in Vienna city. The weather was nice. We saw many people roaming around, the whole town is in festival mode, music was going on in many places, plays, shows and so on. We saw museums, cathedrals, parliament building, opera house and several other old buildings which I don't remember fully. At the end we took a ring tram to have a round to the whole city. Unfortunately we got lost :P and it took a bit longer time to return to our hostel. It was almost 11 O'clock at night when we returned. Somehow we couldn't manage to taste the coffee in Vienna :(

We prepared our dinner in the shared kitchen, ate and went to bed early since we had to catch early train next morning to go to Prague :)

Facts I noticed:

1. Vienna is a very live city. Lot of things are going on here and there - sports, play, various show, dance, opera and so on. It was not any special day but looks like it's a festival in downtown.

2. People speak average English, not very fluent.

3. The downtown is very clean but not the whole city.

4. Tram and metro service is quite good.


Pictures:


Just got down in Vienna



Me as well



After reaching the hostel



A roadside restaurant in downtown



I guess it's the opera house :P



Trying to shoot something with my mobile camera :P



A bunch of people were singing loudly together



In the heart of downtown



A Mozart replica



Two guys dressed like Mozart in front of the opera house



That's Mozart cafe



International dance festival, the poster doesn't look like dancing though :P



The opera house



A nice square. The concrete balls is caught our eyes



Nice shade by the afternoon sunlight through the cloud



Don't remember what was that :-S



Vienna museum



Museum again



Having snacks in front of the museum



Asked somebody to take a picture of all three of us. Should have removed the Fanta can first :D



The parliament building (from tram)



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Euro trip 2011: Hungary

We started our trip on 16 July from Kirkkonummi, Finland. We took the train to go to Turku since our flight to Budapest is from Turku airport. It was a big surprise when we reached the airport. We had to go to terminal 2 since wizzair operates from there. Surprisingly there was no direction to go to terminal 2 from terminal 1. It's almost 700 meter far but we managed to find the way somehow. When we reached terminal 2 it looks like a small bus station, even the inside looks so horrible, doesn't look like an airport at all. Anyway, we got into the plane on time and reached Budapest on time also. The flight was OK.

It was already 2230 when we reached Budapest. We took airport taxi to go to our hostel. Somehow I felt like I am in Dhaka :) There are big roadside billboards, many banners, posters in different walls, roads are also broken in many places and the driver didn't even bother to slow down - so we felt continuous jerking inside. It took half an hour to reach the hostel. The place looked bizarre. It's an old building and too dark but when we entered into the building, unexpectedly, a beautiful young girl came downstairs to receive us. It took them almost an hour to give us a room because they made a mistake to handle our reservation. Finally it turned into better because they gave us a private room. Well, we didn't expect much from a hostel which costs only 7 Euros per night. Can you imagine with that amount of rent they also provide breakfast with egg? Anyway, we got a good room but I couldn't sleep very well since Gagan was snoring like jet engine may be because of his tiredness or inappropriate pillow.

We got up early in the morning, had breakfast and went out to roam around the city. Gagan was guiding us. We bought daily pass and hop on a tram. Budapest is divided into two parts called Buda and Pest by the river Danube. All the attractions of the city are on the bank of that river. We took a tram which runs in front of all the attractions. We could easily see those from the tram. Finally we went to the Buda castle and spent some time over there. The castle is on top of a hill and you can see a big part of Budapest from the top of it. It is a nice view.

We came back to the hostel in the afternoon, had shower and left to catch the train to go Vienna, Austria.

Facts I noticed:

1. Hungary is quite cheap compared to Finland, may be 1/3. A 30 cm subway like sandwich is 2.20 Euros.

2. People are friendly but they don't speak very good English in general.

3. Some of the roads are dirty.

4. There are many homeless people.

5. If you are not cautious there might be chance to be cheated. Somebody in the metro station tried to sell fake tickets to us :)

Pictures:



Staring from home



Gagan and Shanila



In front of Turku airport, terminal 2



In front of our hostel in Budapest



Typical European road



A homeless person sleeping in the street



Guess what is written there :P



I don't know what that structure is but it caught our eyes



Danube river



Another view



Were we arguing? Seems so :D



Looks like we made up :P



The lonely ranger :D



A building with a nice structure, on the way to castle



The chain bridge over Danube



Another view of the chain bridge



The building is nice but I forgot what it really is :P



Strange car



Entering the castle



This guy was playing nice music at the entrance of the castle



In the middle of the castle



One side of the castle



Nice view from the castle. Well, I am blocking a bit :P



The couple :)



Other side of the castle



Another view of the castle



That's the slope car to go to the castle if you don't wanna walk, of course you have to pay :)



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Came back to Finland

I came back to Finland after my 13 days' long trip yesterday. I traveled 8 countries (Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, France and Germany) in this 13 days. Italy was not in our list previously but due to the unavailability of train we had to drop by Italy. I was extremely exhausted after my trip. Since yesterday I have been sleeping quite a lot but I think I still need few more days' rest to regain my energy, another vacation would be even better :P Unfortunately I have to start working from Monday :( Anyway, I enjoyed the trip, it was an experience of lifetime. I decided to write single post in my blog for each country. I don't know when I will start. Hopefully very soon :)

I wanted to share one song which is linked to this trip. I listened to it at the very beginning of the trip and continued during the whole trip even though it is about the capital of Hungary, Budapest. Here is the song:






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Crazy trip starts today

Our crazy trip is going to start today. We will take the 17:30 train from Kirkkonummi to Turku. Our flight to Budapest is from Turku at 22:25. Gagan and Shanila came to my home last night. We arranged everything until 3 O'clock in the morning and then went to sleep. Lot of things to prepare because it's a 12 days trip and 7 countries in total. Finally the day came and it is beginning now. I feel excited. This is special for several reasons:

i. First ever summer vacation in Finland
ii. First summer in Finland when I am not mentally stressed out
iii. First ever Euro trip (crazy one as they said)
iv. First flight with Gagan and Shanila
v. First train journey with Gagan and Shanila.

I hope we can make best use of everything. Friends!!! wish me luck :)


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Euro Trip 2011

Today I have bought the Interrail global pass for 10 travel days. These travel days can be any 10 days within the period of 22 days. Yes I have decided to explore some of the places in Europe and wanted to do it by train since this is the last year I can get the youth discount. We are three persons going together - me, Gagan and Shanila. Our trip will start on 16 July.

Last couple of weeks we have been spending hours almost every day to plan about it. We came up the itinerary and then reserved the flight ticket to Budapest to get out of Finland. FYI, Interrail ticket is not valid within the country of residence. Our train journey will start from Budapest. I also bought the return flight from Bremen to Tampere. Finally I bought the Interrail pass this morning and reserved the possible train seats for our journeys. Now it's finalized, we are really going for this trip :D Jibber jabber aside, I want to share my trip itinerary with a lovely animation. Thanks to tripline for providing this service, and Gagan for introducing me with this :)

(Play in full screen to watch it better)






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Gadget month :)

I have been getting myself quite many gadgets in last month. Every time I bought a new one it made me happier :) The first one I bought is the Logitech sound speaker. I bought it from verkkokauppa. It made me feel how the hell I lived without it for several years. I used to watch movies with the crappy sound of my laptop. I have an acer laptop, so I had to use all my brain's processing power to hear the sound. It's insane for a movie freak like me. I should have bought the speaker years ago.

The next gadgets I got a 1 TB external hard drive, wireless keyboard and mouse. I ordered all of those from amazon. The hard drive came within a week but it took 2 weeks for the keyboard and mouse to arrive. These days I can lean on my couch and use my pc :) The next thing is bluetooth headset. Well it was provided by my office. I wanted to buy one, but just took a chance and sent a mail to our secretary if I can get one. She replied me with a huge list of sony-ericsson's bluetooth headset and asked me to choose one so that she can order that particular model for me. I happily choose one. Nowadays sometimes I talk to my friend even while I am running :D The biggest device I have bought just yesterday. It's a Sony Bravia 32 inch LCD television. The model is KDL-32D2810. Right now my laptop is connected to it and I am writing this post on the television screen :)

Apart from these I also bought a vacuum cleaner and deep fryer. The vacuum cleaner is a small cute one with cyclone technology which doesn't need any dust bag. Oh yea, my room is clean now :D but I am worried about the deep fryer. I am eating french fry almost every night as my late night snacks. I hope I wont have a big belly within few months. Anyway, looks like I am enjoying buying gadgets these days, also enjoying seeing how they pay off :)


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Tampere trip

I visited Tampere last last weekend. I guess it is after couple of months. It was Rajit vi's and Mou vabi's daughter, Suha's first birthday anniversary. They invited me to attend the celebration. I went on Friday afternoon. The celebration was on Sunday. So on Friday and Saturday I met my old friends and spent time with them. On Sunday morning I went to the amusement park Sarkanniemi with three of my friends, Tareq vi, Saad and Rubel. It was a nice bright day. We didn't go for any ride; just did roam around inside the arena and watched the dolphin show. Let's look at some pictures of that day :)





Just after the entrance





A ride on water





My company, from left to right, Saad, Tareq vi, Rubel.





Now I am there :)





This ride looks nice.





Amazing tap :P





Inside the dolphin hall





The show just begun





Wow... what a jump





On top of the tower





View from the tower





Another side from tower





Yet another side





Lake view from tower





Another lake view, I could hardly believe it's a lake :-S





Yet another view





Now we are just beside the lake :)





Lovely sweet breeze over the lake



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