January 3rd, 2008
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The term silvester (alternately, but uncommonly sylvester or sylwester) is used in certain countries(such as Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Poland and Slovenia) for December 31st in the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve. Swedes don't generally refer to the day itself with this name, but traditionally celebrate Silvester on this day as one of its 365 name days, using that spelling as it's the most common spelling of the name in Sweden. The naming refers to Pope Sylvester I, who died on that date in 335.
The introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 moved the last day of the year from December 24th to December 31st which had been named Silvester since 813.
We(my girlfriend and I) left from Timisoara (Romania) to Arad (Romania) on the night of 27th December at 10:00PM (GMT +2). The train was more the horrible. It was very dirty and we got a little surprise, we didn't freeze, cause that's the usual. After 1 hour of traveling in a dirty, hot and noisy train we finally got to Arad. There we were welcomed by a man asking us if we needed a taxi. We ignored him for a while, but he continued to ask us if we needed a taxi. Before I almost freaked out he stopped. When I thought it was all over he started asking us if we want to exchange money cause he knew somebody who could exchange money. But we ignored him and went to the waiting room, 1st class cause we got international tickets. Didn't saw the 2nd class waiting room, I didn't want to, but I can imagine how it looked like.
We waited almost 1 hour to get the train to Vienna, during that time I hoped that nothing else unusual would happen. The train was coming from Bucharest(Romania), capital of this 3rd world country. I forgot to mention that it was a couchette wagon. The box where we were supposed to stay/sleep was clean, much cleaner then the other train. If I were a claustrofobic person, I would surely freak out in there. We managed to enter that little box, where we had to stay with other 3 complete strangers. I will never ever travel again with couchette wagon, that is for sure, only if they force me with a gun to my head. I forgot something to mention about the tickets. Do not panic if they take your ticket away, they will give it back to you when the train is near the destination. In our case it was 08:00AM (GMT +1), sleeping deep and waked up by an insensitive and noisy man who gave the tickets back and continued asking for the "sheets, sheets, sheets".
Finally we arrived to Vienna. I was more than happy to leave the train behind. In the train station we received a city map (for free). This was nice of them. Back home they sell the maps for money instead of giving them for free to the tourist. Well... different thinking. Then we asked for the address where we were supposed to stay. They were more then helpful, telling us exactly what transportation to take from where to where and how to find the searched street. We booked on the internet a double room at Pension Columbia(3 stars). We received a nice and big room, bathroom included. We didn't opt for breakfast.
It was good that almost everyone we went people knew some English. The German was not a problem since I knew a little (read/write/understand, harder to speak in sentences). Even a man working at sanitation service spoke English. Compared to Prague where few people spoke English, Vienna was much better.
Part 2 coming soon.
The term silvester (alternately, but uncommonly sylvester or sylwester) is used in certain countries(such as Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Poland and Slovenia) for December 31st in the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve. Swedes don't generally refer to the day itself with this name, but traditionally celebrate Silvester on this day as one of its 365 name days, using that spelling as it's the most common spelling of the name in Sweden. The naming refers to Pope Sylvester I, who died on that date in 335.
The introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 moved the last day of the year from December 24th to December 31st which had been named Silvester since 813.
We(my girlfriend and I) left from Timisoara (Romania) to Arad (Romania) on the night of 27th December at 10:00PM (GMT +2). The train was more the horrible. It was very dirty and we got a little surprise, we didn't freeze, cause that's the usual. After 1 hour of traveling in a dirty, hot and noisy train we finally got to Arad. There we were welcomed by a man asking us if we needed a taxi. We ignored him for a while, but he continued to ask us if we needed a taxi. Before I almost freaked out he stopped. When I thought it was all over he started asking us if we want to exchange money cause he knew somebody who could exchange money. But we ignored him and went to the waiting room, 1st class cause we got international tickets. Didn't saw the 2nd class waiting room, I didn't want to, but I can imagine how it looked like.
We waited almost 1 hour to get the train to Vienna, during that time I hoped that nothing else unusual would happen. The train was coming from Bucharest(Romania), capital of this 3rd world country. I forgot to mention that it was a couchette wagon. The box where we were supposed to stay/sleep was clean, much cleaner then the other train. If I were a claustrofobic person, I would surely freak out in there. We managed to enter that little box, where we had to stay with other 3 complete strangers. I will never ever travel again with couchette wagon, that is for sure, only if they force me with a gun to my head. I forgot something to mention about the tickets. Do not panic if they take your ticket away, they will give it back to you when the train is near the destination. In our case it was 08:00AM (GMT +1), sleeping deep and waked up by an insensitive and noisy man who gave the tickets back and continued asking for the "sheets, sheets, sheets".
Finally we arrived to Vienna. I was more than happy to leave the train behind. In the train station we received a city map (for free). This was nice of them. Back home they sell the maps for money instead of giving them for free to the tourist. Well... different thinking. Then we asked for the address where we were supposed to stay. They were more then helpful, telling us exactly what transportation to take from where to where and how to find the searched street. We booked on the internet a double room at Pension Columbia(3 stars). We received a nice and big room, bathroom included. We didn't opt for breakfast.
It was good that almost everyone we went people knew some English. The German was not a problem since I knew a little (read/write/understand, harder to speak in sentences). Even a man working at sanitation service spoke English. Compared to Prague where few people spoke English, Vienna was much better.
Part 2 coming soon.