The Goose is Loose

This is the time of the year is the time for goose feasts in Bratislava. At villages outside of the city, people open up their homes and offer full private goose dinners. Small restaurants also do this. It's apparently a very popular thing to do. The guys at work told me many companies book these types of dinners this type of year.

Since much of the Europe team was here this past week along with our boss, a couple members of the team planned a goose dinner for everyone. The few locals with cars drove all 15 or so of us out to the village. It was a little tricky finding the place, but we eventually figured it out.

The inside of the place, which I couldn't figure out if it was full time restaurant or just a place open this time of year for this events, was decorated with hides and heads of various animals. It looked like a hunting lodge, or what I imagine a hunting lodge to look like since I've never been in one.

The first course was peppers and pickles. It looked like a plate put out when you sit down at a deli. Next came the foie gras, which was good. Everything was family style. For the whole group, we had three full geese. The goose came next, which was a crispy golden brown on the outside. There were big bowls of cabbage on the side, but I wasn't that interested in that. I wasn't the only one. The goose was really good though. It's rich, like duck, and extremely heavy. I enjoyed it. I can see why it's a once a year thing.

Bohemian Rhapsody

While Jenn and I worked, Mom and Pa spent a day in Bratislava and two days in Vienna. I was anxious for them to go into Vienna on their own, but after preparing them with explicit instructions and walking them to the train station, there was nothing left we could do. As with children, sometimes you just have to let them spread their wings and fly on their own. They did great though and really enjoyed their time there. They liked the cafés, the sweets, the Naschmarkt, the Hopfburg Palace, and all the shopping. It didn’t take them long to get comfortable there. We met them in the city on Wednesday night for dinner for Schnitzel at Figlmuller and dessert at Café Diglas, which was fun.

Though they probably could have spent more time in Bratislava or Vienna, we boarded the train for Prague on Thursday morning at the main station. We all decided it would be good to give ourselves plenty of time so no one would feel rushed to get everything done in a short time frame.

We arrived in Prague to outstanding weather. It was cold, in the 30’s, but the sun shining brightly with little wind. This weather continued for our entire trip. With the cold temperature, all Jenn and I could think about is that it’s only October. This is autumn. Winter is really going to be brutal for us. As we always say though, the weather makes a huge difference in the experience of visiting a city, and the weather was the MVP of our trip to Prague.

We checked in and dropped off our bags at the very modern Design Metropol Hotel after a quick lunch at Café Slavia along the Charles River. The location, on the periphery of the Old Town area, was perfect. The rooms were small and I guess were trying to push the envelope with bright red carpet, but overall, this seemed like a pretty good place for us. We spent the afternoon strolling around the Old Town and then heading up to Prague Castle. Prague came back to me quickly, even though it has now been almost 5 years since we came here last. It’s very easy to navigate. The city has done a great job of restoring and maintaining all the old buildings. After seeing it all now, it does seem like there is little reason why Bratislava can’t someday be a smaller version of Prague. It’ll take another 10 to 20 years of development and they’ll need to maybe apply a fresh coat of paint to many of the buildings of the city, but it can get there.

Throughout the trip, my parents took pictures holding the New Orleans Times Picayune newspaper travel section. From what they told us, readers can submit their travel photos of themselves holding the paper and then hopefully get selected to be featured. We took a ton of different shots of them. In fact, it's unfortunate, but there are now very few pictures of them on this trip where they are not holding the newspaper. I still say they should have taken a good one in Bratislava with the UFO bridge, but they didn't. This one below is the one that I think is the winner. I sure hope they make it in the paper. They definitely worked for it.

For dinner, we went to a place called Cowboys, which is a steak restaurant that is part of the Kampa Group, which owns several international style restaurants in town. It was pretty good. What made it cool was that it sits on the roof of a building up on the hill below the castle, so the views are terrific.

After a decent night of rest, we headed out early the next morning and took a tour of the Jewish Quarter with Premium Legacy Tours. Jenn and I had been on a similar tour when we came here years ago, but we didn’t remember that much about it. The whole thing came back quickly as we stepped inside the synagogues. We visited inside the four synagogues, the exterior of the Old New Synagogue, and the Jewish cemetery. We were very glad we did the tour on a Friday because there weren’t as many people visiting the Jewish Quarter that day. Prague can get extremely crowded with tourists, so it was nice to have Thursday and Friday where we could walk the streets without being suffocated by the surrounding people.

We ate lunch at Shelanu, a kosher “New York Style deli” which is in the Jewish area. My corned beef sandwich was good considering it’s the only time I’ve ever seen corned beef in Europe. We stopped for desserts and coffee for the parents at Praha Bakeshop, which is a really cute café with delicious sweets.

Mom and Pa wanted to shop a bit, so we spent the afternoon wandering around the Old Town. My 60 year old father loves trains and toy cars. He also really liked the wooden toys that many Prague stores sell. So, we spent a considerable amount of time walking through toy stores.

I never take naps, but I was beat, so went back to the hotel and passed out for a little over an hour. We then went to dinner at a little café called Dynamo that we looked up in a guidebook. It was very simple food, but done pretty well.

For our last full day of Prague, we didn’t have a set agenda, so we played it mostly be ear. We had breakfast at Bohemia Bagel, which is a big backpacker’s stop in Prague. The breakfast was solid and Jenn and I were really happy to have bagels. Again, it seems there is no reason why somewhere like this couldn’t be successful in Bratislava. Come on Bohemia Bagel. Think it over.

It was almost eleven in the morning, which meant the astronomical clock in the town hall was about to chime and do it’s little clock show that draws hundreds and hundreds of people every hour to stand there and stare, exponentially increasing the chance to get pick-pocketed. While the throngs of people watched, we took the opportunity to go to the top of the tower while there was no line. I wasn’t expecting much, but it actually was pretty cool. The views were spectacular of the square and the entire city. I know I’ve said it several times, but again, the weather was beautiful, so it made looking out on the city even better. After a few minutes though, it started to get really crowded up there and extremely uncomfortable. So, we headed back down. Though, I imagine Mom would have stayed all day looking out on the square if we hadn’t dragged her away.

We did some more shopping for a while and most importantly, Jenn and I found a nice spot to sit and wait on a bench directly in the sun while Mom shopped. It’s one thing I’ve learned over the years is when Mom gets going on her shopping, it’s important to find somewhere comfortable to sit and wait, because it could be a while.

Minutes turned to hours and then it was lunch time in the early afternoon. Because of the perfect weather, we went with Kampa Park. Kampa Park is a mainstay on lists of the best restaurants in Prague. It has embraced this popularity by continuing to offer a menu of selections that are relatively universal in their appeal at prices that are rather obscene. The views of the Charles River and the bridge are probably the best in the city and the food is good (even though it is ridiculously expensive). I had a steak sandwich that was surprisingly delicious. The presentation of the chocolate fondant and vanilla ravioli for dessert was beautiful and also tasted good.

We spent the afternoon exploring Lesser Town, which is below the castle. It’s a neighborhood of small windy streets, which Frommer’s compares to those of Paris. Not to sound snobby, but even on a good day, Prague is no Paris, and I don’t care how cute and windy the streets are. The highlight of this area was the John Lennon Peace Wall. Even after reading about, I still don’t fully understand how this wall came to be, but it’s a long wall filled with graffiti art inspired by the work of John Lennon. It was pretty neat and made for good pictures.

As I  said earlier, my father loves trains and that includes funiculars, which are normally single rail cars that are used for transporting passengers up and down hills. If one existed in a city, Papa wanted to ride. So, we took a ride on the funicular. It was already dark, so there was really nothing to be seen at the top of Petrin Hill and because of that, we just headed back down.

Dinner that evening was at Amori, which is a local neighborhood Italian place. It had great ambience and food to match. We really enjoyed our last meal together.

After another bagel this morning at Bohemia Bagel, we left Mom and Pa at Praha Bakeshop to sit and enjoy their coffee. We were really glad they came to visit both for them and for us. For the two of us, it makes us feel like friends and family isn’t far away. It also was nice to spend time with them since normally when we’re in New Orleans, the entire family is there, and the grandkids are (and should be) the main attraction. For my parents, we were happy to show them a part of the world they probably would never choose to see on their own, if they didn’t have children to visit there. They like to travel, but don’t do it too often. It was also a chance for them to get away from their everyday life of working and caring for my grandparents.

All in all, it was a great visit. We now are sitting on the train back to Bratislava chatting with two Mormon missionaries. This should pass the time. We’ll get back to our normal life tomorrow. My whole global audit team will be here for the week and then I’ll embark on a month of traveling for work.   

View the rest of the pictures from our trip here.

Meet The Parents

My parents arrived with me in Budapest on Friday evening. We cabbed it from the airport to the hotel, the Marriott Millennium Court Executive Apartments. We had a two bedroom suite for the weekend, which worked out well. The middle room felt like a wedding hospitality suite as my parents brought a ton of snacks with them and I had a bag full of goodies that our super cool friends Josh and Libby left for me at the hotel in Austin.

In an effort to get acclimated to the time zone, we walked around a good bit Friday evening. We strolled along the shore of the Danube and across the Chain bridge. We walked over to dinner at Fausto’s, which Frommer’s calls the best Italian restaurant in the city. We had a good meal. My dad and I both had wild mushroom lasagna. Jenn had pasta (can’t remember which kind), and Mom had salmon tortellini. Everything was very good.

As much as I travel, I still do not handle jet lag very well. It often takes me over a week to adjust. On Saturday morning, I awoke at 3:45 and was up for several hours before getting back to sleep. We ended up sleeping until 11. My parents were already up and ready to go, but didn’t wake us, since they were trying to let us get our rest.
We got going though and went over to the Central Market. It was a nice building and the market was fine, but not any better than anything we’d seen in other cities.

From there, we stopped at the Parliament Building to purchase tour tickets. Unfortunately, they were sold out for the day. A guy selling tours offered us tickets to a “private tour” if we were interested. We skeptically signed up, though we all feared getting ripped off. It ended up working out just fine, but I do wish we lived in a world where tourists didn’t have to worry about getting taken advantage of. It would really be nice if we all could try to help one another rather than trying to profit and capitalize on the vulnerability of others. Life really would be a whole lot easier.
The only place we could find for a quick lunch since we were trying to get back to Parliament for our tour was Subway. In case you are wondering, it does taste exactly the same as in the US.

We walked by the Holocaust memorial behind the Parliament building right next to the river. It is a row of shoes to signify the Jews who were lined up along the Danube, shot, and pushed into the river. It was simple, tastefully done, and extremely moving.

The tour of Parliament was really interesting, but the building itself is what is worth the price of admission. It’s like walking through a palace.

After a hike up to the top of St Stephen’s Basilica, we took a well deserved break at Café Gerbaud, which my parents really enjoyed. They had coffee and we had hot chocolate. We also shared a slice of apple cake, dobos torte, and cream cake. All were good, but I liked the cream cake the best.

Before dinner, Jenn worked, Mom walked around the shopping area on her own, and Papa and I took the funicular up to Buda Castle and walked around the castle district. It was as I remembered when Jenn and I were there a few years ago. The views were great, but besides that, there wasn’t much more to see.

Dinner was at M, which is a place about which we had heard and read a whole lot. The menu was limited, but everything we ate was pretty good. The restaurant is small, so we felt like we were a part of the birthday party going on in the room next to us. It turns out it was for a famous Hungarian singer. It reminded me of the rehearsal dinner in the movie with Anne Hathaway where she’s the screwed up singer because each person at the table sang a song for her. I can’t remember the name of that movie. The memorable part of dinner though was the chocolate fondant for dessert. It was the best dessert we’ve had since we arrived in Europe and dare I say, one of the best chocolate desserts we’ve ever had. Big words...

It was an exhausting day, but we had great weather and saw a good amount of the center part of the city. Budapest grows on me more with each visit there.

On Budapest day 2, we got our Jewish on with a walk through the old Jewish ghetto and a visit to the Dohany Street Synagogue. This was the same synagogue we attended for Yom Kippur services. It’s still beautiful.

After a lunch near the synagogue at the Carmel kosher restaurant, we hopped on a train and headed back to cold and rainy Bratislava. We got my parents settled in at the apartment, walked around a little in the old town, and had a nice dinner at Prasna Basta, which we all enjoyed.

It is fun playing host and tour guide, but also exhausting. It’s great to have Mom and Pa here.

Burgers, Tubular Tacos and Airplane Reviews

I was sent back to the US for a two week work trip. The days of sitting in meetings and training sessions were long, but productive. The evenings were filled with team dinners, running errands, and visiting with friends and family. I even took a trip home to New Orleans over the weekend in between my work weeks.

My report from the airplane rides back to Austin will be brief. I was upgraded to business class for the British Airways flight from Vienna to London. Besides a little bit nicer meal, seafood linguini (which was decent enough), there wasn’t much distinction between the business class and economy class sections. If I’m going to get upgraded, I want it to be better. I want it to be awesome, like Emirates Air Business class, which I had the opportunity to fly from Vienna to Hong Kong after being stuck there during the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Otherwise, just leave me in economy, because I’d rather maintain the ideal image in my mind I have of business and first class.

It was a 767, so there were no individual TV’s. The movie on the cabin television was Where the Wild Things Are. I had already fallen asleep trying to watch it on a previous flight, so I didn’t even attempt it on this one. I am all for the magic of Hollywood, but occasionally, I wish they’d let us keep our imaginations to ourselves. For example, Cat in the Hat has now been ruined for me now that Mike Meyers in that creepy makeup haunts my dreams. Sure, they get it right every once in a while, but for every Lord of the Rings (which I’ve never seen, but heard is good), there are five Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s (the Johnny Depp version). Create your own stories, Hollywood. Don’t mess with the treasures of our childhood.

For the first time in my life, I read a book from cover to cover in one sitting. A friend at work, Tomas, had recommended Life of Pi and then lent it to me. I literally had no clue what the book was about. I didn’t even know if it was fact or non-fiction. I really enjoyed it. I have a few nit-picky complaints, but overall, I thought it was great and would recommend it whether you’re on a 9 hour plane ride or not.

We were served pasta and pizza on the flight to Dallas. The pasta (I think it was ravioli, but I honestly can’t remember) was fine, and the pizza was much better cooked than the last time I flew. They must have ready my review and made some improvements. As a side note, I think they over feed passengers on flights. I understand they’re trying to keep everyone on schedule, but I always feel fairly ill when I arrive. In the future, maybe I shouldn’t eat everything they serve, but the flight attendants seem so damn convincing when they come by with their carts and those trays of temptation.

I filled up on Austin food. I hit Chuy’s twice, Hula Hut, Rudy’s, Mighty Fine, Taco Deli, and many others. It was great meeting up with friends and family. When visiting with friends with kids, it makes it seem like such a longer time we’ve been away as the children change so much in just months. Part of me wants to think that life stands still while we’re away, but that isn’t the case. Lives end and also begin. We’ve come to terms with this and knew and know it’s something we’d have to be okay with if we were going to be away for a period of time.

The biggest reality of being home for two weeks is that I still love Austin. I always have and I always will. I’ve seen so many different places in the world, and there really aren’t many places better than Austin, Texas. Maybe everyone says this about their home towns, but believe me, you’re kidding yourselves. I really do feel in my heart I’m being objective. I’m conflicted because I hate when all these publications list Austin as one of the top places to live because I don’t want more people to move there and ruin it with further overpopulation. At the same time though, I want everyone to recognize how great it is. I look forward to finding my way back eventually.

The flight home was different in that my parents were on my flight. We met up in Dallas. They were on their way to visit us for 10 days. We were to fly into Budapest where Jenn would meet us and we would spend the weekend.

Betty and Harry made a smart decision and ate in the DFW airport during their layover. I did not have much of a layover, so I bought a few snacks and waited until the flight meal for my dinner. The chicken and rice was pretty gross. I ate a few bites, gave up, and then ate the surprisingly good caramel chocolate brownie on my tray. My mom also brought chocolate doberge squares from Maurice’s Bakery in Metairie. So, I ate the one out of three she brought that didn’t get smushed in the box. It hit the spot.

The flight movie was Letters to Juliet with Amanda Seyfreid. Maybe she’s charming or whatever, but if you’ve ever seen her on late night talk shows, you’d realize was a complete dolt she is. I read a little of my book, Traders, Guns, and Money (which is about derivatives traders on Wall Street and is unfortunately just as boring as it sounds), did some work, and slept much more than I usually do on a plane. It’s been an exhausting two weeks.

To Tell The Truth

In reading over the blog so far, all the posts are about our travels around Europe. It reads very much like the fabulous life of Jenn and Joey. Not to say we are not enjoying ourselves and we like sharing our experiences, but when we're not out being fabulous, we live our everyday lives.

I wake up each day and walk 2km to work. I listen to a podcast on the way to work, usually The BS Report from ESPN, the ESPN Fantasy Football Focus podcast (which seems to be doing me no good in improving my fantasy football team), or NPR's Planet Money. I have the trip home too, so I usually can get one or two knocked out on a given day. While I get going, Jenn gets out of bed and makes her way into the living room, sits on the couch, starts up her laptop, and gets to work.

I take the elevator up to the 9th floor. There are no cubes or offices. We just sit at long shared desks, with small dividers. There is little privacy. I face the big windows facing out to the city. It's a nice view. In Round Rock, my cube would isolate me from the world and I was nowhere close to a window. I wouldn't know if there was a meteor shower outside or if a UFO landed in the parking lot. When I don't have a bowl of cereal at the apartment, I go down to the 8th floor bistro and get a croissant or go downstairs to the canteen (the cafeteria) and get a banana.

In Austin, I bring my lunch almost every day, but I've mainly been eating in the canteen here. This is partly because I haven't gotten that comfortable with the grocery store here and what is available, but also because the food is pretty good and not very expensive in the canteen. The lunches are much heavier than what I prefer to eat, but when in Rome...

Twice a week, I rush home from work for our Slovak lessons. The lessons are an hour and a half with Jan, a graduate student who speaks Slovak, French, and English. He's very patient with us. We're really enjoying working with him. Slovak is extremely difficult to learn, but we're coming along okay. We won't be fluent anytime soon.

For dinner, we generally have been going out to eat. As I stated above, we haven't gotten the hang of the grocery yet and haven't been cooking as much as we when in Austin. There isn't a wide variety of restaurants as it's pretty much Slovak/Eastern European or Italian. We haven't found a place we're overly enthused about just yet, but we need to explore the city a little more beyond the city center where we live.

We're still getting used to Bratislava and while we're settled in to some extent, we haven't necessarily gotten into a regular routine. We also haven't spent nearly enough time exploring the city. This will all come as we're determined to give living here our best effort.

It's been 3 months since I arrived (2 for Jenn), so 9 more to go. Winter is almost upon us. Stay tuned.