Vacationing to Vienna

It seems that I have been playing a week and a half long game of charades. What used to be a fun party game, has now become a method of survival. My smiles, gestures and pointing account for much of my conversation. For instance, today I had a very complicated transaction in the crowded, Budapest post office. The place was packed, I had no idea what line to go to, and none of the workers seemed to understand English. Finally, a smiling lady helped me mail a bunch of postcards. We survived by pointing a lot and forming a quiet assembly line. She'd rip off the stamps, point to where they went on the cards, and I'd place them. Somehow, it took about 15 minutes just to put stamps on seven cards and add up my total on a hand calculator, rather than a cash machine. But, it worked. It's amusing to me how the mundane events at home are amazingly complex when one doesn't speak the language. Being abroad lends itself to patience.
And, pardon my tirade, but I just went to buy stomach meds (another story all together) and contact solution. Guess how much that cost? NINETEEN DOLLARS for one bottle of contact solution. My parents could have mailed me a $3 bottle from the states for that price. I should have remembered how expensive it was, because it was like this in Ireland as well. Goodness, and here, I was thinking that I live a reasonably modest lifestyle.
In other news, I went to Vienna this weekend with Mike. I found Vienna to be a very pleasant, beautiful city. We visited a gilded castle and walked around the gardens, which were stunning (see picture below).

We went without much plan of what to see, so it was a very relaxed trip. I like seeing the tourist sites, and Mike will go, but he strongly dislikes throngs of tourists, so we compromise. I would take him to a site, then he would take me to a pub and have a beer. It was a very balanced travel schedule :) Some of the things we did included: seeing another castle, eating the "world's best cake," according to his well-traveled boss (I disagree about it's title), saw a beautiful Catholic Cathedral, ate weinersnitchel, saw many beautiful fountains and went through the museum district (that's where I am in the picture below). We were only there for Saturday and part of Sunday, but that was a good amount of time. It only took us 3 hours to get there by train.
The downfall of the trip was that I my stomach got really upset on Saturday night, and has been still bothering me even today (Mike has been googling the symptoms of appendicitis, but while it has been causing me a lot of pain, I don't think it's that). We couldn't find a pharmacy that was open in Germany, so I just had to suffer. One of my frustrations with Europe is that you can't go buy medicine at any grocery store. Instead, you have to go to an actual pharmacy (no 24-hour Walgreens here, so you better hope you're not sick on Sundays or at night), and describe to the pharmacist your ailments, and then they find you something to take. There's nothing so comfortable as answering questions about your bowel movements to a complete stranger with a line of people behind you eavesdropping. At least people at the pharmacy spoke English. That is one game of charades in which I wouldn't have liked to participate.

Tomorrow, I am attending another Hungarian International Press Association conference (I am now a member of the group). An economist is speaking, so Mike is going to come too. Also, on Thursday, I have my first paid story assignment :) I am covering a press conference by the Chairperson of Vodafone for Business Hungary Magazine.