Vienna (2)

After coming back from Budapest, we spent another night in Vienna. The main highlight of this segment is Schonbrunn Palace.

The palace is located a bit on the side of the city. However, it is easily distinguishable by its massive size. In particular, it has a huge garden which may be comparable to the one at Versailles.

We took a guided tour of the palace, and it was good, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the palace. I think the interior is not much different than other palaces in Europe, filled with furnitures for luxurious living.

Around the garden there are mazes with walls of plants It took us a few minutes to find our way out, but it was fun. There's the kids section as well, splashing water, etc.

At the end of the garden there is a hill, which allows wide panoramic view of the palace. Thankfully, the weather was excellent then and we could get the most out of it, well, despite the summer heat.

Desert Chapter: Overcoming Complacency

There were two things which made me think about being complacent in my life. The first one was when a company asked me to do a Java test as a response to my application. I was quite confident with my skills in Java since I had a near-perfect score for Sun certification two years back. However, it did not turned out the way I expected. The test covered a wider range than Sun certification. Worse still, I messed up some fundamental questions which I would have answered well last time. So, I failed the test.

The second thing was an interview. As an opening question the interviewer was asking on what I was doing at the moment. To which I blurted out that I was looking for work. After the interview, I realised that I was effectively saying that I was doing nothing while looking for work. I did not get a second interview with that company.

All these made me realise that I was being complacent. I have replaced the desire to learn new things with past achievement I could put in my resume. And that is not a good thing for long term because of the dynamic nature of technology and also the technical atrophy that results from not using some technologies.

At this I decided to make use of the time to refresh my knowledge and learn new things so that at least my CV does not get outdated due to my rustiness. This realisation is another thing I find valuable from this desert experience.

Budapest (2)

On the second day we went to the Buda side of the city. There are several bridge going across the river. One of them ( in the picture) is for pedestrian to cross with some shops on the sides selling local souvenirs. Unlike the previous day, the weather was excellent on the second day which makes it pleasant to walk around.


We first headed to the Buda castle through a cable car. This allowed us to see the lower part of the city. The castle area is quite big. Instead of just structural defense, they also have shops, churches, restaurants and houses on top of the mountain. More like a small town there with buses connecting different parts.

The most impressive building on the castle area was the royal palace. However, it has been converted into a museum. I don't remember what museum it was because we did not go inside. Presumably some art museum. But the main building was well maintained and looks majestic.

To save time, we took a quick lunch with a local bread. It's spiral shape and pretty sweet with various topping. Not bad at all.

As we went down the hill from the other side, we saw more of the castle like structure with gates and lookout tower. I personally like these structures better but we just passed by and didn't stay there for long as we had our train in late afternoon and we wanted to have a proper meal before we went.

As we arrived at the river bank, we managed to get a snap of the Hungarian Parliament building. The building is unique with many domes and spires. We went into the building earlier in the day with a guided tour, but the picture looks better from the other side of the river as it captures the full building.

We continued to look for food. We had the address of a place from wikitravel, and it was pretty obscure. But it was a delight that the food was really cheap for european standard, the portion was generous and the taste was good as well. The dish is called Goulash, stewed meat with gravy speciality of that region.

As we finished our meal, we had some extra time at hand before our scheduled return train. We decided to make use of the time to visit a synagogue.

Synagogue is a Jewish place of worship. This is the first time I actually see a synagogue, and it was big, world's third largest or so. The look is similar to a European church, but there is no cross and the engraved words are in Hebrew.

We had to take a head cover before going in, which is mandatory for male. There was a bit of story of the synagogue as we sit and listen and we got to see some of the artifacts in the museum as well.

It was just the right time as we then took the train back to Vienna to continue our journey. Overall, although the language was indecipherable in Hungary, it was an enriching experience.

Budapest (1)

To balance my posts with some lighter things, here is the continuation of my travel (back) log.

Continuing from Bratislava, we went on to Budapest, Hungary. It's a mere 3-hours train journey from there.

First there is the cathedral. We went up the tower and look around from there. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cloudy, so it wasn't as good as it should have been. But the size of the cathedral looks really massive and impressive.

From there we went to a museum. The good part of the museum building is that it looks like a fairy tale castle, with river flowing, bridge and main gate.

I can't remember exactly what it was, maybe some farming museum or so, but we didn't find it interesting to go in and rather just walk around the building exterior.

We had a pretty late lunch, but it was good. There are dishes similar to the one in Bratislava, the potato noodle, but the place had substantially put in more meat in it. In that way, it is much more decent meal.

Finally, at night we went to see the river. It separates the upper part (buda-castle) of the city with the lower part (pest) and hence the name of the city.

The city lights were very pretty. We walked through the river bank with a backdrop of a bridge and the Buda castle.

Desert Chapter: Dealing with Pride

Getting deeper into the desert path, I believe God was revealing some issues I had in my heart. This was one of them. At one point when I was searching for work, I met with a friend who had been offered a good job. I felt small then. However, I still had these interviews lining up, so my hopes were still pretty high. When I did not get those jobs, the feeling then became more like pain.

The feeling was more like broken pride than envy. The reason was this. I often helped this friend I mentioned previously with coursework and thus I felt that I am better than him academically. I would have been okay, for example, if someone else with a higher capability gets the job. For me, that would be a fair deal.

The feeling lingered for a few days and it was making me uncomfortable. Somehow I knew that it had to do with pride and I had to deal with it properly. So, one night I put this in prayer. I confess what I felt and how prideful I was and asked God to forgive and work on my heart. Subsequently, I felt peace and relief, at least until this day.