My Central European three-city "Freezing My #$%#! Off" tour over New Year's, 1997/98

Vienna: Not much to say about Vienna. Freud's house is rather a letdown. Sig and family removed their furniture to London in '38, along with themselves. The only room that resembles the setup in the old days is the waiting room, and Herr Doktor won't be seeing you any time soon. Lots of black-and-white photos and Sig's Egyptian antique tchotchkes around, though, if that's your kind of thing, and a very dour museum staff who all act as if they'd rather be doing anything but interacting with tourists.

Brno, Czech Republic: This is the real Eastern Europe, only partially transformed. McDonald's and a modern multi-story department store coexist alongside a grim, antiquated post office and train station that look like living monuments to Communist bureaucracy, and don't count on everyone speaking English. Bottle rockets and assorted other New Year fireworks are sold from street stalls, alongside cheap padded jackets, jeans, and other knickknacks. You can tell you're in Eastern Europe if there's carpeting on the inside door of your hotel room to match the floor (extra points if both need replacing). Watched Dallas dubbed into Czech on the hotel TV, reflecting that this must be a rite of passage for all those American expats we've heard so much about. There's a modern brewpub, the Pivnice Pegas, where Americans reportedly congregate in high season. Two days before New Year's, however, the locals sit at long tables, smoke up a storm, and talk for hours. You can eat or drink like royalty for under six dollars. The Pegas serves the best palacinke (dessert crepes) I've ever had, and the beer is pretty good, too.

Prague: Freezing, freezing cold on New Year's Eve, the worst cold snap in central Europe in years, too cold to do much else besides pop in on various crowded restaurants and bars in the old city. Caught a "performance" of the Old Town Hall clock, videotaped by the usual knot of tourists. The Old Town has put on its tourist face along with fresh coats of paint; a real presence comes through the gloss, though. I walked up and down Charles Bridge with other freezing Czechs and visitors, hardly believing I was there, feasting my eyes on the gorgeous winter city with its elegant buildings on the river. At midnight I stood at the foot of the bridge, overlooking Prague Castle on the opposite bank, and watched as dozens of Czechs launched their BYORs (bring-your-own-rockets) until the area really did look like a war zone. I hailed a taxi and sped away toward the train station, back toward Vienna. An unforgettable experience.

Vienna again: Snow fell throughout New Year's Day; I was forever stamping my feet on rugs. Went to the Opera House to see Die Fledermaus -- the inevitable operetta, standing room -- with all the sitting patrons attired as if at their daughter's wedding. I estimated that about 40 percent of the crowd were Japanese. I wasn't in a tux, but was at least wearing a jacket, tie and good slacks with black shoes, knowing that one doesn't attend the Vienna Opera House dressed like Kurt Cobain. After the performance -- all that one might expect -- waiting for my turn at the coat check, I overheard one elderly frau remarking to her friend, in German, "Look at those Americans, the way they're dressed, they look like pigs! There's an American who dresses up - " (indicating me). I didn't know whether to be flattered, or insulted at being automatically taken for an American. One of the sloppier-dressed people she was referring to (a decent student type) was from South Korea, for what that's worth.

Kosher in Venice
Items on the menu at the Gam Gam kosher restaurant at the gates of Venice's Jewish ghetto:
'Assaggi' israelini
Lox con Baighelini
Blintzes del giorno
Zuppa con kneidlach
Gefilte Fish della casa
Cholent vegetariano
Latkes di patate

The Budapest shuttle: July 1998
I left Ljubljana like a thief in the night, at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, July 8, Budapest-bound. The regular bus had broken down, so we travelers were piled onto a much smaller transport that looked like an airport-to-Hyatt hotel shuttle. On the bus: Slovenes, Hungarians, Norwegians, a Brit and the odd American (that would be me). I scored a seat by a window; I knew I wouldn't get any sleep, so I might as well enjoy the view. The bus stopped a couple of times, in Celje and Maribor, to take on more passengers; there were no more seats, so six or eight of us ended up sprawled in the aisles like rag dolls, among their baggage. I felt sorry for what looked like nice middle-aged people with their kids, subjected to Third World transportation. (OK, it wasn't exactly; as a friend pointed out, nobody brought chickens or pigs with them.) Anyway, at 2:15 in the morning, drizzle falling on the Hungarian-Slovene border, there I was, in stocking feet, outside the bus, explaining to a Hungarian customs man exactly what was in my big purple bag ("That's a coffeemaker...").

And on we rumbled; eventually the sky lightened, revealing field after endless field of sunflowers on the plain. The highway widened as we neared the capital. I had left Slovenia behind...

I went to a mall in Hungary and saw the future: my past
Those Budapesters more fashionably dressed than normal (and normal is bad) rise in the escalator to the Duna Plaza mall and are ejected in front of Keravill City, Hungary's largest electronics/appliance store. Hang a left, and there's Marks and Spencer. Not too far away (up or down a glassed-in elevator) are the Original Levi's Store, Nike, the Virgin Megastore, the Plaza Internet Club, and, in the food court, the St. Louis Grill-Bar. You can also get freshly squeezed orange and/or grapefruit juice for under $1 (this is, after all, central Europe).

The place looks much like a middle-American shopping mall, which is, I suppose, the idea. (Only the signs are in Hungarian.) It is, what else, the place Hungarians go to escape Hungary and embrace everything American and shiny and new.

Done with Duna Plaza, descend the escalator and walk back towards the metro. Two public phones, with inverted-U hoods of white plastic, flank a central pillar, on either side of which are two long signs, dark letters on a white background. On the left:

KÖSZÖNJÜK A VÁSÁRLÁST!
VISZONTLÁTÁSRA!

And on the right:
THANK YOU FOR THE SHOPPING!
GOOD-BYE!

Outside the mall (and other places like it) Budapest shows serious signs of Americanization plopped down amidst the past decades' grime: not only McD's can be found, but, let's see, Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts (a/k/a 'Bob and Rob,' an 'American' place of sorts), KFC. As for, say, beer, I expected "American Bud" to be available (labeled so as to distinguish it from the way superior Czech Budweiser), but was astonished to see Rolling Rock available in grocery stores: the pride of Old Latrobe, PA, same as it ever was, only it's in Budapest. Rolling Rock! The real Hungary is still there (and the real Slovenia, Czech Republic...) but you've got to look for it. And carry a phrasebook.