The Uniworld New Year’s Eve event in the Ethinographic Museum main hall achieved gala status though things fell apart shortly before Midnight. We are not big on big parties, so the screw ups made the night memorably epic.

During the course of the dinner, which began around 7:30 with unidentifiable hors d’ouvres and  sparkling wine only slightly sweeter than Coke, we were entertained by a chamber music quintet, opera and operetta singers, dancers, a rock band, and incredible sand drawing. The sand drawing was created by an artist before our eyes, spilling sand through his fingers to create complex images, which were then projected on a screen. This was an impressive, if unusual, display of artistry.

There was a discernible effort to expose the audience to the virtues of Hungarian opera. Now, if you are not into opera, you might not realize that there is Hungarian opera. And if you are an opera fanatic, you still would never have heard any of these pieces. The Italians have nothing to fear. 

Some people complained that the libretti were in Hungarian and they could not understand what was going on. Right, like they could understand Italian, German, or French operas. The music was pleasent and it was different–wasn’t that why were were in Hungary to begin with?

Later, during the main course, there was a brief interlude with songs from Sound of Music, and that seemed to appease the linguistically concerned among us.

The seeds of chaos began earlier in the evening with the mistaken shipboard announcement that busses ferrying guests home from the gala would leave at 11:15pm and 2am. So, when the clock struck 11:15 over half the guests rushed to grab their coats and leave, thinking they’d be stuck at the party for 2 1/2 hours more. This in the middle of a dancing Hungarian Opera (as far as I could tell, there are two types of Hungarian opera: one, where the singers stand tall and sing; and one where they sing and dance. That fact that no one has heard of Hungarian opera certainly is not due to lack of innovation on the part of the Hungarians. Dancing opera is a bit like an American musical in Hansel and Gretal dress.) So, everything ground to an embarrassing halt while the lemmings went on the lam.

Our table of 10, four Aussies and six Californians, remained to enjoy the festivities. And, our Aussie friends showed true class by inviting over a couple of other guests left abandoned at their table. 

But, the pace of the evening had been tripped up. The Hungarians now announced that the New Year’s festivities would commence, Hungarian style. Big musical numbers, plenty of excitement, grand fanale. And it all ended with confetti  at 11:45. That’s right, we celebrated the new year in silence. Finally, someone in the now-assembled rock band, thought to do a countdown, and we Happy New Yeared a few minutes after midnight. Then the band played Fifties and Sixites American rock and many of us danced the twist, and Lindy, (yours truly did no Marcia twirls), while the Aussies did their “infinity” dance (basically, you dance opposite, but not touching your partner, and move one of your arms in a figure 8 horizontally).

There is a memorial on the Pest shores of the Danube in Budapest that in its simplicity and elegance, says more, perhaps, than all the strum und drang of Dachau. During 1944 and 1945, the Nazis-sympathizing Arrow Cross Militia gathered Jews, lined them up on the shoreline above the river, told them to remove their shoes and shot them. Their bodies fell into the Danube and were carried away. 

The memorial to the victims is a row of bronze shoes facing the river. Most visitors come by to look; some place flowers or charms in rememberence of lost friends and relatives.


There is just one small plaque, no push-button blab box, no brochures, and no posters. Sometimes shame and horror are best expressed in silence.

Eight bridges cross the Danube from Buda to Pest. One, the Chain Bridge has stone towers like the Brooklyn Bridge. The others are less imposing, but strolling across the river on any bridge is an excellent way to get an overview of the city. To me, Budapest looks like what I was expecting in Vienna. Many of the buildings are ornate and graceful. During the day, they are lovely; lit at night the city is breathtaking. While the architecture might be 19th century, Budapest is a vibrant and upbeat place with an energetic New York vibe. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to sample the cuisine, but checking out the restaurant and cafe menus, Budapest looks like a good eating city

Both before and during our trip, people who have been to Vienna and Budapest raved about the former and were less enthusiastic about the latter. My expectations were based upon those reports, and so I was surprised by how I felt. 

The Vienna portrayed in “Amadeus” and other such movies no longer exists, if it ever did. Allied bombing in WWII accounted for some of the “renovation,” and years straddling the fence between Eastern Communisim and Western Democracy discouraged capital investment. As we sailed into town, this history, the 21-degree temperatures, snow, and sleet, made the city look as drab as Stalin’s tunic. 

There are gorgeous exceptions in the city center.

The opera house is as grand a building as you would hope to see. It was bombed by mistake during WWII, destroying half the building. The remaining original 19th century architecture is as ornate as a Viennese pastry, while the post-war restortoration is “United Nations” style and quietly elegant. The two styles don’t so much work together as live-and-let-live.

The symphony hall is non-descript on the outside and breathtakingly ornate inside.

Picture sitting inside a golden jewelry box with the jewels on the ceiling and walls.

Then there is the Alberina Museum which is situated within one of the Happsburgs’ palaces. (Brief history here: the Happsburgs were the 19th and early 20th century version of the Kardashians–but with immense power. The Austro-Hungarian Empire encompassed half of Europe.) I guess by definition a palace is a place where royalty live. All of the palaces in Vienna are neither moated nor turreted. They look more like Fifth Avenue mansions. This was another surprise for me.

The museum has a nice collection of Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and Cubism, and is small enough so you can appreciate it in a couple of hours. 

Why would a city steeped in 18th-to-mid-19th century music, architecture, and culture sport such a museum? Because they also want to embrace and incorporate the modern to show their culture isn’t just an historic artifact. They have schools and expos dedicated to innovation and high tech. Even some of their most famous buildings like the Opera House sport very modern murals on outside blank walls. I like the concept, but I am not sure the execution works. The new stuff almost seems like graffiti against the old.

Speaking of graffiti, the Danube Canal, which runs through the city, and is really is the Danube River (the waterway called the “river” is actually a canal–don’t ask,  it it has to do with flood control), is littered with it. The liberal Viennese government thought that if they gave the kids a place to express themselves, the rest of the city would be spared. Didn’t work, as anyone who has ever walked a dog could have told them–every tree, rock, and wall is a potential target of opportunity.

So you have to figure that if you’re in Austria you’re going to waltz at some point in time. So having learned to waltz at Lois Pons dance studio when I was a teenager, plus taking the onboard refresher course in the ship’s lounge, I glided on to the River Beatrice’s dance floor with Marcia as a violin an viola squeezed out some Johan Strauss tunes. 

Being the creative type  I am, I added a Lindy twirl or two a dance designed for a ball gowns and tux. Well, the twirl turned into a tweak, an our next onshore tour was to the real St. Elsewhere of a Bratislava, Slovakia Hospital ER.

I’m right handed. My right arm was dangling by my side with a hard lump like it’s a bundle of spaghetti and golf balls. The pain was hovering around 10 on a 1 to 10 scale.

Now the details here are going to get a little sketchy because the Slovakian language even written out is absolutely incomprehensible and unpronounceable. But the Uniworld staff, which is composed of many people from the Eastern European countries, was great. Veronica from the Ukraine found a hospital that was open over New Year’s weekend. She accompanied us translating everything that transpired. 

The hospital itself whose name was as usual unpronounceable–not that you’d ever have heard of it anyway–was an old Soviet-style institution now owned by a private religious sect. My only requirement was that they weren’t Druids. 

The receptionist, between bites of an apple she was eating, needed my passport and my medical insurance. As they didn’t have a Blue Shield or Medicaid or credit card appliqués on the window, I assumed, and she verified in Slovakian, that she just needed this information for her forms. I had to pay first and she handed us a bill for 761 Euros. Seemed kind of steep until we realized it was only €7.61, roughly 9 dollars and change. 

We were given a number as long as my Social Security number and I thought I’d be waiting a long time. But, within 20 minutes or so, I was ushered into a doctors office. He looked a little like a cross between Ben Casey and Dr. Kildair after the two of them and I had a fight. But he spoke English and had been to Saratoga Springs in New York. He had friends, he said, who had been to San Diego–although the thing that seemed to impress them most was a bust of the comedian Bob Hope statue. Huh?

He inspected my arm like a butcher prepping chicken wings and gave me an order for an X-ray. That department was nearby and had its own non-Apple-eating receptionist. Again, I had to pay first. 

The X-ray machine looked like it dated from the Cuban missile crisis. The technician dangled a lead apron from my lower parts and zapped me twice with the machine. But, modern technology had entered the picture in that the images were digital, and I was given a CD ROM of my x-ray as we left the department. 

Back to the doctor, where he looked at the X-ray and told me it was what he thought, badly sprained tendons–something called a DG impingement syndrome–medical speak is about as incomprehensible as Slovakian. He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory that I’ve never heard of, and told me to keep my arm in mobile for two weeks – the remainder of our trip.  

Then we had to pay the rest of the bill. Marcia and I were hugely embarrassed as Americans, because the whole experience amounted to less than $35 American. And that sum didn’t just include all the hospital charges, the diagnosis, and the x-rays, but the prescription itself and two cab rides between the hospital and the ship.

Update two days later: the golf ball is now about the size of a marble, and my arm is less like spaghetti than elbow macaroni. We are enroute to Australia via Turkey and Abu Dhabi and shuttling around our luggage is a literal, but not excessive, pain. Marcia is doing most of the heavy lifting. Everyone looks at me like I’m a real shirker, and I smile and point to my arm, which looks perfectly normal. Then they look at me like I’m a complete idiot.

(NOTE: based on some emails, I received, some of you might not know that if you click on a photo it will enlarge to fill your screen)

The River Beatrice (the Germans pronounce it “bee-at-trice”) is 410 feet long, 37 1/2 feet wide, and about 40 feet high. It really looks less like a boat than a barge, and less like a barge than a floating mattress. Which, in a sense it is for about 140 guests. Chagalls, Tolouse-Lautrecs, and Picassos adorn the passageways leading me to believe that the boat might be worth more at auction than on-river. Or, more worrisome, in an insurance claim. Not that I feel the boat or we are in any danger from Teddy the Torch. So far, there seems to be more profit in tourism.

The staterooms occupy the two upper decks. We are on the lower of the two, about 10 feet off the water, but we don’t hear those above us. And, since the river is virtually flat, there is no chance of getting inundated. In fact, the boat is so well helmed and outfitted, it is impossible to tell when we are moving.  Even the bottled water in our stateroom doesn’t ripple. Our cruising speed is about 12 knots at the maximum. The Danube itself has a current of almost five knots at times. Words like serene and stately come to mind as one motors down the river.

The main lounge and restaurant occupy the front half of the boat, one on each upper deck. Most seating is for six, and there is no couples seating in the restaurant. So, we are getting used to chatting with other people instead of our cats. This leads us to the conclusion that we and the cats need to get out more.

We’ve met guests from Australia, Britain, South Africa, Mexico, and the USA. All are interested in travel, food, and politics, so the conversations are interesting and lively, and we all seem to have a lot in common.

As we have found in the past, the Aussies are particularly warm, funny, and easy-going. They seem to be like Americans used to be before we started taking life, and our role in the world, so seriously. 

Water is not blue and neither are rivers, including the Danube. But it is beautiful. We boarded our boat, the River Beatrice (the Germans pronounce it “bee-at-tress”) in the small town of Passau. Passau is so quaint it could be made from gingerbread. It is at the junction of the Danube and two other rivers. A couple of years ago, storms caused the Danube to flood at nearly 40 feet above high water and the area was devastated. While there is still some construction to be done, the town and area have been restored to their picturesque past, and it is easy to imagine why Strauss could be inspired by the sight to write perhaps his most famous waltz. 

It’s been two days and we have yet to hear the waltz, but I’d bet bucks to bratwurst, we will not get off the boat without hearing it at least twice. All anyone has been playing since we landed in Europe 10 days ago is Christmas music. And most of the music is American, especially Bing Crosby. Man, I’m beginning to feel like I’m in a “road” picture. But, with Christmas only an eve away, I can hear the violins and violas tuning up in 4/4 time.

Update: Didn’t figure on Boxing Day. This is a kind of second day of Christmas, and so the tuning I heard was for more “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Interestingly, the old guy is not popular in Austria, where we are now. Their Christmas vision is, as their are the first to admit, slightly weird. A roughly 10-year-old Christ goes from door to door delivering presents. The weird part is that Christ is always portrayed as a girl. Our Austrian guide had no explanation except for “tradition.”

Update II: Snow! It’s snowing hard enough to make me feel like I’m in an Euopean snow globe. Cold, wet, but pretty.