Episode 36 - Health Update, and a Look at Berlin, Prague, and Budapest

After a whirlwind journey through Eastern Europe, we found ourselves in an unexpected twist when Jim faced a serious health challenge in Latvia. Amidst these challenges, we hold onto our zest for travel, with hopeful plans for a springtime excursion to the UK and Ireland, cherishing the journeys yet to come.

A train ride from Berlin to Prague rekindled our love for these vibrant cities, despite past trips being clouded by illness. The marvels of Prague—its captivating architecture, historical richness, and unexpected dining adventures—captured our hearts, affirming its allure as one of the most stunning places we've explored. Our travels also took us to Budapest, where iconic landmarks like the Parliament Building and Fisherman's Bastion left their mark, even as reconstruction posed a few disappointments. Yet, the city's history and culture, from solemn memorials to lively festivals, enchanted us nonetheless.

Through our stories, shared on our blog and social channels, we aim to inspire you to embrace travel as a profound way to discover both the world and yourself. Engage with us through your questions and personal travel stories, as we continue to explore these mesmerizing destinations and beyond. Join us on this journey of exploration and discovery, and perhaps find your own inspiration to see the world anew.

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Transcript

Jim Santos 0:08

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife Rita. And welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increased our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Now that plan is in disarray as I develop pancreatitis in Latvia, necessitating a return to the US for further treatment and surgery. Join us now as we adjust our goals and try to salvage our travel plans. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm Jim Santos, along with my lovely wife Rita. Say hi, rita.

Jim Santos 1:00

Hi A quick update. Last episode I reported that Rita had COVID and I was about to go in for gallbladder surgery. Well, rather predictably, since we're living in a small hotel suite, I contracted COVID as well, Since I've had at least four vaccines and about a COVID. Last year I had a very mild case and jumped on Paxlovid right away, as did Rita, which cleared it up quickly. However, this meant postponing the surgery for a couple of more weeks, so we thought we'd take this episode to catch you up on our travels up until we hit our little snag, as we did see some beautiful places.

Jim Santos 1:34

But first of all, I want to thank the listeners who checked in to see how we were doing and to answer a few questions that came up. Well, first, several people were interested in what the hospital stay in Latvia cost. I reported that the bill was for €2,627, or just shy of $3,000. Now, this did include the ambulance to the hospital, a sonogram, two CT scans, an x-ray, nine nights in the hospital and all the food, medicines, etc. And that was the actual cost. It was not reduced by insurance, although of course I hope to be reimbursed by my insurance here in the States. Also, yes, we did have trip interruption cancellation insurance, which helped mitigate the cost of cancellations and the new flight back to the US.

Jim Santos 2:18

I've also been asked if we really had to return to the US. Well, technically no, we could have stayed in Riga and had the surgery there. However, the incident affected my type 2 diabetes as well, causing me to have to give up oral medication and start insulin injections, and that means changing my prescriptions in the US. The doctor also strongly recommended that, once I was stable, I return to the US so my doctors could confirm the diagnosis and continue treatment as needed. We decided to take his advice, especially since the doctor's order to return strengthened the case for our trip interruption claim. Finally, we do plan to continue traveling, but we've decided that at our age it's more prudent to have a home base to return to if needed. We hope to take off again in early spring, probably to the UK and Ireland if needed.

Rita Santos 3:05

We hope to take off again in early spring, probably to the UK and Ireland. There's something I'd like to add to that For people who don't know us both Jim and I have had surgeries in foreign countries. It has more to do with stabilizing ourselves and needing several months to do that that we decided to come back to the States, not being an Airbnb or a hotel, but to actually have our own home surroundings and make it a lot easier and easier for Jim to get back on track.

Jim Santos 3:35

Yeah, actually Rita had gallbladder surgery in Ecuador. Yes, All right, so on to our recent foray into Eastern Europe, starting with Berlin. Now, we were all set and looking forward to the trip, as we had won an auction to upgrade our transatlantic flight on North Air to first class. The things didn't quite work out that way, though, did they, rita?

Rita Santos 3:55

No, weather always has to take its flight.

Jim Santos 3:59

Yeah, we ended up having a big storm in the south and our flight plan was going from Knoxville to Charlotte and then from Charlotte to New York. I think it's LaGuardia that we were flying out of LaGuardia.

Jim Santos 4:11

However, there was a storm that canceled our flight to Charlotte, and then another big storm looked like it was going to cancel our flight to LaGuardia. However, they told us that we could get a different flight to JFK, which is just a short Uber ride then to LaGuardia, so we planned on doing that. Long story short is that we ended up spending the entire day at the airport watching the flights get pushed later and later, until we got to the point where there was no way we were going to make our flight out of LaGuardia.

Rita Santos 4:39

Right. So then we went down to the Hilton and spent the night in a Benedict R and drove to Atlanta.

Jim Santos 4:45

Yeah, the only flights that we could find the next day to Berlin were on Turkish airline, so we ended up going to Berlin by way of Atlanta and then Istanbul.

Rita Santos 4:53

Right. And we did love Istanbul and it is a huge airport and it was okay to do that. But wow, what a two day travel it ended up being to get to Berlin.

Jim Santos 5:05

Yeah, so it did shorten our stay in Berlin to just one full day. Originally we had planned on just the two days in Berlin and then at the end of our trip we'd be spending a little more time in Berlin because we'd be flying out from there as well. Once again, trip insurance really helped here, because we were able to recover the cost of the new flight.

Rita Santos 5:23

And actually that one day in Berlin we really hoofed it. We really saw Berlin. We got up early and we were out and about by eight o'clock.

Jim Santos 5:34

Yeah, we did see quite a few things walking through the Tiergarten Park, which was really beautiful the victory column there. We saw the Reichstag building.

Rita Santos 5:44

Right.

Jim Santos 5:44

The War Memorial had some selfies at the Brandenburg Gate, like everybody else, Right. One thing I think that we both found kind of chilling. You know this isn't a political podcast, I don't want to get off on too much of a rant here but there is a display of pieces of the Berlin Wall, and along the Berlin Wall they had pictures and descriptions of Hitler's rise to power in Germany and the rise of Nazism and fascism.

Rita Santos 6:10

Yeah, the entire thing of burning books, the media totally controlled by him, him bragging about crowd size, that was all in there. And it was in there so that people never forgot, so that it can never happen again in their country.

Jim Santos 6:27

Yeah, it was pretty chilling, especially seeing the thing about exaggerating crowd sizes and trying to bully and threaten the press into reporting that. It's just a little eerie.

Rita Santos 6:38

Yeah, it was very scary.

Jim Santos 6:41

I think the last thing we looked at while we were in Berlin it was near the Berlin Wall was Checkpoint Charlie.

Rita Santos 6:48

Right.

Jim Santos 6:49

Yeah, and it was kind of one of those surprising things. Like, yeah, in New Orleans you always hear about the Preservation Jazz Hall and you think, wow, this is going to be incredible, I'm going to go see the Preservation Jazz Hall and then, when you get there, it's just benches. It's like a 10 by 12 room with little wooden benches.

Jim Santos 7:04

Around the outside wall that you sit around and watch the people play Right. And Checkpoint Charlie was kind of like that. You thought it was going to be this big display and it's really just a couple of signs. And then the checkpoint was sitting right in the middle of a street that was still in use.

Rita Santos 7:19

And I thought it was supposed to be right at a bridge. Yeah, and I thought it was supposed to be right at a bridge. Yeah, I just expected something a little bit. Yeah, it was just a street.

Jim Santos 7:28

Yeah, it was just about the size of a kiosk in a mall. Yeah, just sitting there in the street. So that was interesting anyway.

Rita Santos 7:35

It was, but I think the most moving thing was there. Oh, they must have had a half acre park that explained how Hitler came to power, just how everything all started, and it's just so eerie it's to never happen again. They want that park to remind people.

Jim Santos 7:58

So, Rita, any final impressions of Berlin. Would you like to go back sometime?

Rita Santos 8:03

No, no, no. I will have to say it was very eerie and, having been to Germany in my 20s of course I was not in Berlin because I wasn't free to go there but it was so different. Now I have no desire to get back there.

Jim Santos 8:23

Yeah, we'd like to see more of Germany.

Rita Santos 8:25

Yes, someday, though yes.

Jim Santos 8:27

So the next day we were off to the Berlin train station to catch our train ride to Prague. We were really looking forward to Prague, as our last visit was confined to the hotel room, battling COVID and bacterial infections, so we stubbornly decided to stay at the same hotel, using some Amex points to enjoy a little luxury. Now the train itself. We had taken a train before, but again we were both extremely ill when we were on it trying to get to Prague, and we cheaped out. We took the $18 seats yeah, we did.

Jim Santos 8:59

This time we at least went in the first class section of the train, so there's a little more room. It was okay. Yeah, the train was very comfortable. It was nice that you could get a little meal. You could get up and walk around if you needed to.

Rita Santos 9:12

And you can see the countryside.

Jim Santos 9:14

Yeah, it was a lot less stressful than taking a plane. Oh yeah, and a lot cheaper.

Rita Santos 9:19

Because you don't have to be there two or three hours early. You don't have to worry about is it going to take off. Trains always go.

Jim Santos 9:26

Yeah, the only real problem we had was that we had to put our 50-pound bags up in an overhead storage thing over our seats, so it was a little difficult getting them up and even more difficult getting them back down.

Rita Santos 9:38

And we decided we will never, ever pack like that again, ever, because we were packed for all seasons.

Jim Santos 9:47

Yeah, but the ride through the countryside was very pleasant.

Rita Santos 9:50

Very nice.

Jim Santos 9:50

We did enjoy that. When we got to Prague you weren't as stressed or hassled as if you'd been trying to travel by plane. And actually I looked at the cost of the plane would have been more and actually it would have taken just as long, because it went to Vienna first, Right, so we would have had a layover in Vienna and then go back to Prague.

Rita Santos 10:10

And just the two hours that you have to be there ahead of time and it's an hour outside of the city, so you have to get an Uber or priority or something to take you out there. Yeah, it's just such a hassle.

Jim Santos 10:23

Yeah, our Uber from the train station to the hotel was embarrassingly short.

Rita Santos 10:28

It was embarrassing. And we should have remembered that, but we were too sick to remember that the last time.

Jim Santos 10:34

Yeah, so anyway, the Grand Prague Hotel, Grand Mark Prague. It was a very nice place. We managed to have breakfast with peacocks.

Rita Santos 10:41

Yeah, it was great A guy playing the piano.

Jim Santos 10:43

So it was a nice little break there and this time we actually got to enjoy it. The hotel is in a great location. We're right central to Old Town there. So Prague really did not disappoint. I think the very first day we walked out to the Prague Castle across the river and up to the Prague Castle.

Rita Santos 10:59

That was quite a walk. Castles are up on a hill.

Jim Santos 11:02

Right.

Rita Santos 11:03

Yeah.

Jim Santos 11:04

I think the thing about Prague that was really stunning was that you would see incredibly beautiful things no matter which way you looked.

Rita Santos 11:11

No matter where you were. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we totally walked that historical city and no matter where we were. It was stunning. It's absolutely the most beautiful city I've ever been in.

Jim Santos 11:24

Yeah, there were a couple of times we were taking pictures of something in front of us and happened to turn around and say, oh wow, look what we walked past without noticing Right. It reminded me of when we went to Venice, really.

Rita Santos 11:37

Yes.

Jim Santos 11:37

We took something like 200 pictures on the boat ride. The Prague Castle was very impressive. The St Vitus Cathedral that's within the castle also was particularly stunning.

Rita Santos 11:48

Yes.

Jim Santos 11:49

And, by the way, you can see pictures of these on the website at jimsantosbookscom. We do have some pictures up of Prague and Budapest, which we'll get into in a minute here. Something else about Prague is that you did have a strong Jewish community there as well, so there were several synagogues that we went to see that were all very interesting, and also another kind of chilling thing was the Jewish cemetery, the old Jewish cemetery.

Rita Santos 12:15

Right, right, you know where graves. Every inch there's a cross or a marker, because they had to be stacked upon each other to be buried.

Jim Santos 12:26

Yeah, it was a pretty somber walk walking around through this little hilly area that was just covered with old stones and old markers. Yes, Now we did get into some of the newer parts of the town. We saw the famous rotating Kafka head.

Rita Santos 12:42

Right, and that was one of my favorite. You know, it's new, it's modern. It was one of my favorite sites that day, yeah.

Jim Santos 12:50

It's new, it's modern. It was one of my favorite sights that day. Yeah, and there is a video of some of that display that we took. That's up on our YouTube channel as well. We also saw the dancing house.

Jim Santos 12:59

Right right, which to me looked more like the drunken house. Yeah, but while we were on the way to the dancing house, we saw the Wenceslas Square Right and decided to walk back that way. By that time we were getting a little hungry and something happened that is like one of my highlights of whenever we travel when you pick a place at random to go into for a meal.

Rita Santos 13:20

And it totally takes you by surprise.

Jim Santos 13:22

Yes, you know, this time we saw a sign that said steak and beer on rails.

Rita Santos 13:27

Right.

Jim Santos 13:28

And we thought, well, that's probably a bad translation or something. It's probably like barbecue or something you know on a grill or something. But we get in there and there's like this huge model train set up.

Rita Santos 13:40

Enormous.

Jim Santos 13:41

Enormous, with metal stairs and bridges that you walk across so you don't interrupt the tracks. You're led to your seat, they give you the menu and your food is delivered by these little trains that come up and they stop for just one minute so you can get your stuff off. I think it was 30 seconds. Yeah 30 seconds to get your food and your beer off, and then they went on. But what was great is it wasn't just different for that, the burgers were just incredible. They were some of the best hamburgers I ever had.

Rita Santos 14:08

That ranks with a point of diversity in Uruguay. Yes, that hamburger was tremendous.

Jim Santos 14:21

You know these memorial hamburgers to somebody from the US you know that's all about life and we hit it at just the right time. We were a little early for lunch but we were able to get seats. It was only about half full but when we left it was completely full and it was on the second full. But when we left it was completely full and it was on the second floor. And as we walked down the stairs the line went all the way down the stairs.

Rita Santos 14:36

I know how did we luck out, and outside.

Jim Santos 14:38

So, yeah, just perfect timing on that. So we also enjoyed a very fine meal at the hotel.

Rita Santos 14:45

Oh yeah.

Jim Santos 14:47

With the peacock strolling by. Oh yeah, With the peacock scrolling by.

Rita Santos 14:50

Oh, yeah, yeah, the food at the hotel, and it was the year before when we were sick. Of course, we had room service for every meal, but it's an exceptional food. It really was Yep.

Jim Santos 15:02

So all in all, Prague so far is probably the most beautiful capital city that we've been in.

Rita Santos 15:10

I agree.

Jim Santos 15:10

Yeah.

Rita Santos 15:11

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I love Vienna, I love Venice, most beautiful capital city that we've, that we've been in. I agree, yeah, uh, yeah, absolutely. I mean I love vienna, I love venice, I mean, but there's no way to compare to the architecture of prague yeah, and just the sheer volume, yes, of it yeah, I mean yeah, rome and and athens, and yeah, it's all. It's all a, but there's something about Prague. I'm so glad we went back there and got to spend a week and enjoy it.

Jim Santos 15:38

So, if you get the opportunity, I strongly recommend visiting Prague. Alright, so after that it was time for another train, this time going to Budapest, hungary. I believe this was the one that the power went out on. We lost the air conditioning.

Rita Santos 15:53

Oh yeah.

Jim Santos 15:54

Yeah, so it wasn't quite as comfortable as the other one, and we still had the problem with the bags up top.

Rita Santos 16:00

Right.

Jim Santos 16:01

But still, all in all, it was a pretty comfortable way to travel and you know, one of the best parts of train travel is we left from the center of Prague, just a few blocks from our hotel, and we arrived in Budapest just about a mile, mile and a half from our bed and breakfast. So it just really makes it very, very convenient.

Rita Santos 16:21

Yeah, you're always in the center of town, no matter where. You take a train, which makes it so convenient to get around. You can get into wherever you're going by metro or bus. I think we took a cab just because it was simple.

Jim Santos 16:40

Your thoughts about Budapest, Rita.

Rita Santos 16:42

Everything is in flux there. Everything has scaffolding on it, except the parliament. It didn't.

Jim Santos 16:49

Yeah, we did see an awful lot of reconstruction going on, we did. Reconstruction and repair.

Budapest Travel Highlights and Disappointments

Rita Santos 16:54

It's a beautiful city as well.

Jim Santos 16:56

Yeah, we spent some time walking around on Margaret Island, which sits right in the middle of the venue.

Rita Santos 17:01

That was interesting.

Jim Santos 17:02

Yeah, that was a very nice area.

Rita Santos 17:04

It was almost entirely a park, something for everyone. There was a bathhouse there, a big hotel, street food you could have street food if you wanted.

Jim Santos 17:17

We also used the public transportation, the trams, there a couple of times.

Rita Santos 17:20

They were great.

Jim Santos 17:21

And yeah, they were great. It was very easy to use, they were very comfortable.

Rita Santos 17:25

Step on, step off.

Jim Santos 17:27

Yeah, you can purchase your ticket on an app that you scan as you get on and off the train. So, yeah, it was very easy to use. Yeah, you mentioned the Parliament Building. That was just a few blocks from us. We could walk over to the Danube and see that. We also took a very long walk up the hill to the Fisherman's Bastion.

Rita Santos 17:45

Right.

Jim Santos 17:45

Right in the Old Town area, Right, never really found out why they call that the Fisherman's Bastion, because it's up on top of a hill.

Rita Santos 17:51

That was gorgeous.

Jim Santos 17:54

I think the fishing is very good though, yeah, but it is a beautiful place and you've got a great view looking across from Buddha to the pest side.

Rita Santos 18:02

Right, but the castle itself was in flux. It was all being remodeled.

Jim Santos 18:09

Yeah, the Buddha Castle we didn't really get to enjoy much of because of the reconstruction going on there.

Rita Santos 18:14

Right, you couldn't enter it and the outside was even torn up, but it was very. It's going to be gorgeous someday, yeah.

Jim Santos 18:22

And also the story of our life. This year they were experiencing a heat wave while we were there.

Rita Santos 18:26

Oh, yeah, 96.

Jim Santos 18:27

So it was extremely hot while we were walking around at the Buddha Castle. Down at the river, though, the chain bridge was very impressive. Loved the stone lions at the head of that. Looking across the river was really a beautiful area, a beautiful sight. St Stephen's Square Also was very impressive. Yes, along the river, though, I should mention, there's another war memorial monument. That, again, was pretty chilling. It was a bunch of shoes.

Rita Santos 18:54

Oh yes.

Jim Santos 18:55

Yeah, they just had some shoes. I guess they were cemented in place, Women's, men's children's shoes. And it was there in honor of civilians that were lined up along the river and then shot with arrows.

Rita Santos 19:11

Yeah, and shot with bows and arrows and shoved into the river.

Jim Santos 19:14

So really a very simple memorial but very chilling One disappointment that we had in Budapest. As you know, if you listen to the show, a lot were market people. We love going to big open-air markets.

Rita Santos 19:25

And buying our food and buying our food.

Jim Santos 19:27

We took a long walk from St Stephen's Square to the old market and when we got there, despite the fact that it was a weekday, wasn't it?

Rita Santos 19:36

Yeah.

Jim Santos 19:36

Yeah, and right in the middle of the day, just about everything was closed.

Rita Santos 19:41

And we were looking for fresh fruits and vegetables and we didn't see any.

Jim Santos 19:46

No, there was some deli meats, some cheeses, a lot of trinkets and the same little stuff that you can find at just about every market.

Rita Santos 19:54

Like little junk stores for souvenirs.

Jim Santos 19:58

Yeah, so that was a little disappointing. We'd hoped to find something a little more.

Rita Santos 20:01

I think that the city does have others. It was just after that one we thought well, we're not going to walk six miles to find something that is a junk store. So, we didn't try it again.

Jim Santos 20:14

Budapest did have one really nice surprise for us. We set out to find the Hero Square, which we did, and it also had scaffolding.

Rita Santos 20:22

Right, it did.

Jim Santos 20:24

And again, there's some pictures of this on the website jimsantosbookscom. But, as we walked there, the path that we took, I think we'd gone out to find out where our bus was leaving from.

Rita Santos 20:33

Right.

Jim Santos 20:34

Right, and then on the way back from the bus, we thought we'd cut through this park, and this turned out not just to be a very nice park, but in the middle of it there was this medieval festival going on and a huge castle, which was really interesting. We found out reading about the castle that it was originally built out of cardboard for people to just enjoy at the park, and it was so popular that they built it or redid it then in stone.

Rita Santos 20:57

And it was magnificent.

Jim Santos 20:58

Yeah, it was really beautiful. It was near a big lake which led to another bathhouse. There were little demonstrations going on. There were kids fighting each other with toy swords. There was dancing demonstrations and music. There were kids fighting each other with toy swords. There was dancing demonstrations and music. There was some really great food. Well, I had some great food. Rita had basically a salty piece of cardboard.

Rita Santos 21:16

It was all right. I think the thing I was most wanting to do in Budapest before we got there was to do one of the baths, but it was 96 degrees every day and the idea of going into the thermal baths just did not appeal to you Getting into a thermal bath to cool off?

Jim Santos 21:36

We'll have to go back there sometime in the winter, go back in the fall or winter, yeah yeah, and I did get to try the unfortunately named national liquor, Unicum, which tasted kind of like tequila with a little bit of licorice.

Rita Santos 21:50

Oh really, no, I didn't know that.

Jim Santos 21:52

Not too impressed with that. So, in general, your final thoughts on Budapest.

Rita Santos 21:57

I'm glad we went, and maybe five years down the road that scaffolding will all be gone and we could go back and enjoy a hot spring.

Jim Santos 22:07

Yeah, the scaffolding really did affect things. There's the big winged victory column or something that's up on top of a hill, and it was completely covered with scaffolding. Right, so you couldn't see it at all.

Rita Santos 22:17

Right. So I mean it's great that they're restoring everything back to its original or, as best they could at the can, back to its original.

Jim Santos 22:29

Yeah, so Prague and Budapest, if we find ourselves in the area again, certainly worth another visit.

Rita Santos 22:31

Oh yeah.

Exploring the World Through Travel

Jim Santos 22:33

Well, after Budapest, we switched from trains to buses, ready to try out Flixbus for the next leg of our trip as we journeyed into Poland. But that's going to have to wait for next week or possibly later, as my surgery may affect our publishing schedule. So we'll also be getting back to doing some interviews in the future, as soon as we're a little more sure of our whereabouts and our schedules. You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Jim Santos 23:08

If you'd like to read more about where we've been and see some photos of Berlin, prague and Budapest, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet, and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube, etc. In the show notes. We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover, or you just want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. So until next time. Remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.