Back in the fall of 2012, Lyle Archibald, the director of Odyssey Chorale invited anyone in the Sally Bytheway Chorale to join him on a choir trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest in the summer of 2013. Melissa and my mom had gone with him a few years earlier to on a similar choir trip to Italy and loved it! My mom, Melissa and Sarah all signed up immediately. I talked it over with Jeremy and although I really wanted to go, I decided that it would be better for us to spend our money in different ways that would benefit the whole family instead of just me. It was disappointing and every time they would talk about it I would feel bad that I wasn't going. Then for Christmas Jeremy surprised me by telling me that he had secretly signed me up to go and had been working with my mom and sisters to turn in all the necessary documents and start the payments. I was so excited! I was thrilled when my first email showed up with choir information. I was thoroughly disappointed though when the email said that due to some complications they were postponing the trip for a year. It seemed so far away. I began to wonder if we would actually go at all. But, finally, in February of this year we started rehearsals. We met on Thursdays and Sundays to learn and memorize the music and then finally the day came to leave.
We started our travels Friday, June 13 at 4:45am. I slept at my parents house since we had to get up and leave so early. Our flight left at 7:52am so we had to be at the airport at 6:00am to check in because it was an international flight. But, who cares when you are so excited to be going, right?
Linda, Sally, Sarah, mom, me and Melissa
We had four flights ahead of us
before we made it to
Budapest.
Our first flight to
Chicago was perfect.
It left on time and had no problems.
The next flight was from
Chicago
to
Washington DC.
It was delayed for about 30 minutes.
But, we were all enjoying each others company in the airport so it
wasn’t a big deal.
I sat next to Linda
Stewart on both flights and we gabbed the whole time so the flights went
quickly.
Because of the delay we all
raced through the airport to get to our gate.
The relief we felt at making it to our plane and getting settled turned
to a little bit of frustration as we ended up sitting on the tarmac for about 2
hours while we waited for a storm system to pass us by.
On this flight I wasn’t sitting by anyone I
knew so I read my book.
It was actually
nice to be able to sit and read for a while.
I was also able to get in a movie once our flight actually took
off.
I tried to sleep on the plane but
even my extreme tiredness from getting up so early the night before did not
make up for the awkwardness of trying to sleep on a plane and I only got about
2 hours of sleep.
It made for an
extremely long day on Saturday.
Our
final flight was a quick jump from
Frankfurt,
Germany to
Budapest,
Hungary—only an
hour and a half.
At the airport we met up with our guide for the
trip, Nicole Guber. She was absolutely great!
We got on the bus, had a quick bus tour of the city
and then headed to our hotel. Melissa had
done a lot of research before the trip to find restaurants before we came. We walked about a mile to a darling
restaurant called Clock Café. On the way, we passed by a really neat, colorful, mosaic wall and we had to stop to take pictures.
The Clock Café was amazing! The whole
place was filled with all kinds of different clocks. There was even a giant clock on the ceiling. It was such a fun atmosphere!
Barbara Beckstrom, mom, Melissa, Linda Stewart, Sarah
The food was good too! After eating we came back and went swimming
in the hotel pool and tried out the sauna.
It was a nice way to keep ourselves awake to combat the jetlag we were
all feeling.
Sunday morning, we had breakfast in the
hotel. It reminded me so much of the
hotel breakfasts we had when Jeremy and I were in Ireland--a big buffet with lots of options. We gathered up all that we would need for our concert later in the evening because once we left, we wouldn't be back and we headed out. We spent the morning with a local guide
visiting the city of Budapest.
The river Danube
flows right through the middle of the city dividing it into two sides. Originally each side was its own independent
town; Buda and Pest. Then they built the Chain Bridge and combined
them into one city—Budapest.
Buda is the more hilly side where there are
more villas. The Pest
side is more flat and commercial.
Several bridges span the river now.
Along with the Chain bridge, there was the Elizabeth
bridge and the Liberty
bridge. I didn't know what to expect from Budapest but I was quite blown away by how beautiful it was.
It reminded me a lot of my trip to Germany with Jeremy a few years ago. It was definitely very European, but with all the comforts of home!
We started the tour on the Buda
side going up to the Citadel. It was a
fortress built by the Austrians when they were in power to keep control of the
city. Now there is a restaurant
there. Above the Citadel was a monument
that was originally a communist monument.
They took off all the communist symbols and turned it into a monument
celebrating their freedom. The largest
statue which you can see from all over the city, they called their Statue of
Liberty.
It was wonderful to see all the sights and even better to have a local guide who could explain all the things we were seeing. The view of the city from the Citadel was amazing!
After the Citadel we climbed back on the bus and had a tour through the city. As we drove through the city we saw all kinds of
beautiful, European buildings. We saw
the house that Franz Liszt lived in and gave piano lessons from. We saw the House of Terror which was the head
quarters for the secret police during the time of communism. It is now a memorial for those who lost there
lives there and a museum for that time period.
We saw the old palace and the Parliament building patterned after the
Parliament building in London.
The opera house
The zoo
The famous Hungarian Baths
I love the architecture! Such beautiful, ornate buildings. I found it hard to take it all in as we were driving down the streets of Budapest. These are just some random buildings I took pictures of from out the bus window.
My favorite place to see was Matthias’ church
and the fisherman’s bastion.
Matthias’
church was originally covered with ornamentation like saints and angels but they were removed during
the period of communism. At that time
the church was also closed down. They
didn’t take anything out or destroy anything, they just locked it up and left
it. In the 19th century it
was opened and renovated again and covered with a brightly colored ceramic tile
roof. It was beautiful!
Mom and Barbara
Linda, Sarah and me
Fisherman’s bastion was so named, because it
was a portion of the city wall that the fishermen guild protected.
Sarah, mom, Katie, Linda, Sally and Erika
Mom, Shari and Barbara
It was beautiful with turrets and stairs and
looked out over the rest of the city.
We stopped to take lots of pictures of the city there.
Ada Anderson, mom, Sarah, Linda Stewart, Melissa and Sally Brinton (with Frank in the background)
Showing off our cute sandals and pedicures that we got for the trip.
It again reminded me so much of Heidelberg, Germany when we
climbed up to the castle and were able to see out across the whole city.
It was Father's Day so we got all the men together for a picture.
The whole group - Odyssey plus guests
Throughout the city there were vendors selling
gelato. We all stopped and tried it
out. So yummy! Members of the choir stopped so many time for
gelato that Nicole, our tour guide even teased everyone about it, saying she
would not share anymore stories about wine, “it would be gelato, gelato,
gelato.” She assured us that there were
many gelato places in Vienna
as well.
After our
tour, we had free time on our own to be able to go and check out whatever we
wanted. Our group decided to check out
the Jewish Synagogue.
It is the second
largest synagogue in Europe. We thought about going in, until we realized
that we had to pay to get in. We decided
to go do some shopping instead.
D for Delightful, Dazzling Daltons!
Mom and her elephants!
We
wandered around and finally found ourselves in a wonderful shopping, pedestrian
area. It seemed like they were having
some kind of book fair, with vendors set up all over selling books. I wondered if many of the vendors were
actually authors. We found a little
souvenir shop and I was happy to find a bag that said Budapest on the outside.
At 3:00 we
met up again with the choir and we went to a late lunch/early dinner. The restaurant was in the basement of a
building and used to be a garrison. The
ceilings were all brick and arched. Our
dinner consisted of creamed pea soup, which was actually quite good, chicken
cordon bleu (they didn’t call it that), mashed potatoes, and salad. For dessert we had pancakes which actually reminded
me more of a crepe than a pancake, filled with apples and covered with a
vanilla cream sauce. It was very
tradition Hungarian dessert and it was quite good.
After
dinner we drove to St. Michael’s church to prepare for our evening
concert.
We rehearsed for a little to
get a feel for the sound in the church and then we all changed into our concert
attire.
Right before the concert we
stepped out onto the street outside the church and sang two songs as a way to
let people know that there was going to be a concert and to invite them to
come.
I really liked singing in the
street.
Our concert was well attended
and I think it sounded really good.
Sarah, Melissa and I all did well on our solos.
It is so much fun to all have solos in the
same concert.
No one else really knows
that we are all sisters because we all have different last names but I wonder
if we look or sound alike enough to make people wonder.
During the concert I felt myself getting a
little teary as I realized that we were here.
We were singing in Budapest! After waiting for so long, there were times
when I didn’t think we would actually get here.
It was during the concert that it really hit me how blessed I am to be
able to be singing and sharing my love of the Savior and of music in Europe.
Before the concert
we were warned that the people here don't give standing ovations and not to
expect one, but that didn't mean that they didn't like the concert. So,
we were prepared. However, at the end of the concert as we were leaving
they all started clapping in unison. Apparently, that means that they
really liked the concert. Several Hungarians stopped us after the concert
and let us know how much they enjoyed it. It was a really great
experience!
Odyssey Chorale
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