Reflection - End of Trip

     Sometimes at the end of a trip, I collect a few random thoughts that occur to me but don't necessarily fit into a chronological travel blog. Here are a few for this trip:

• The older people of those nations who lived for years under the Communists are a cautious group. They do not readily make eye-contact or nod as you go by on a bike and it doesn't matter whether it is a city or a small village. They are wary. 
• This is a meat and dairy-centric part of the world: pork, duck, venison and beef are the usual offerings. If you are a vegetarian, you can find things to eat but it is easier if you can eat eggs and cheese.  
• Potatoes are served at least 5 different ways and often two ways are included in the same meal. 
• The houses in the countryside are all beige stucco with a red-tiled roof and each village has at least 2 churches - generally both Catholic.
• Beer is cheaper than water.
  
• The architecture in the cities is amazing and when lit up at night it looks like Disneyland. For us, Budapest was the most beautiful.
• The countryside is still very agricultural with field after field of crops: corn, grapeseed, winter wheat, grapes, and poppies. 
• Each city has a river: Krakow = Vistula, Budapest and Vienna = Danube, Slovakia near Bratislava = Moldau, Prague = Vltava, 
• The streets in the old parts of the cities are all made of cobblestone. They are lovely but hard on waling and rolling suitcases.  My left ankle was very unhappy with the unevenness. 
• Castles sit on top of hills surrounded by walls to keep out the enemy. This makes for wonderful views from the top.
• Churches are amazing testimonies to the power of the Catholic church in history. And in this part of the world, it was very powerful, therefore there are many, many churches. 
• You can only sustain interest in viewing every church for so long. Then you look at the outside and leave it at that.
• WWII was not that long ago and for many, it has not been forgotten.
• Everyone under the age of 40 speaks English well.
• No one who is a tourist here speaks Czech, Hungarian or Polish because it is impossible. Everyone speaks English. It is the Lingua Franca of the day.
• It is astonishing how few Jews are left in Central Europe. The buildings, synagogues and ruins from concentration camps remain, but there aren't very many Jews.
• Music is on the streets and concerts are in the halls everywhere. People appreciate music and musicians. 
• Austria was never behind the Iron Curtain. It is very different from those countries that were. It is also much more expensive. 
• All the cities we went to in the Austro-Hungarian Empire claim the major composers as their own because the composers lived and worked in all these cities. 
• It is easy to travel from place to place and withing cities (trains, trams, underground, buses). It makes flying on a plane feel even more uncomfortable. 
• European cafes are all they are cracked up to be - wonderful places to take a break and drink something delicious and eat something amazing and people watch.
• There are some people we should have learned about in our study of European history. One of them is Empress Elizabeth known as Sisi married to one of the Franz Josephs. She was a health nut, an athlete, an intellectual and hated the demands of court. She was not born at the right time.
• After talking at length with one of the young women who worked at the pension we stayed at in Krakow, I understand why so many young people from around the world want to come to the U.S. to study at the university. Universities here are very rigid and theoretical. 
• If you are into history, you need to visit this part of the world. We barely touched what is here.