22.

Happy Queens Day to all my Dutch friends!
This is a big year for the Netherlands as Queen Beatrix is stepping down and handing her leadership off to her eldest son, meaning a KING is taking her place. The last time the Netherlands had a King was in 1890. Can you believe it?! It would've been awesome to be in Amsterdam now for Queens Day!

Today I met up at Corvinus with Laurent and Amanda to work on a presentation due Thursday and then I ventured to Deak ter (popular square here in Budapest - shops, restaurants, touristy) to get Starbucks. Thought this was interesting.. Starbucks here sells Waffles!

And they always think my name is either Mari or Mary. I've decided if I get Starbucks again, I'll just say my name is Mary to make things easy. Venti iced green tea, please :)

After I got Starbucks on my hour of time to kill, I headed over to the Buda campus to go to my Resources of Viticulture class. Today we talked about the design and structure of a vineyard - a lot of issues are taken into account when a vineyard is being developed. Spacing between rows and vines, sunlight, angle of row, etc. Our teacher is taking us on a trip to Tokaj - a really famous vineyard here in Hungary - in two weeks! I have a final exam in my advertising class that day, but I can also take the advertising exam four days later on the 'make-up' day! So, I am definitely going to take the opportunity to tour the vineyard at Tokaj and taste some famous wine from that region! Tokaj is known for its dessert white wine - not a big sweet white wine person, but still down to try it!

Tomorrow is a holiday here in Hungary - May Day/Labor Day! It's said to be a celebration of spring, but also a national holiday for workers!

There are no classes tomorrow (I don't have class anyway), but I'm planning to get together with my group to work on our presentation due Thursday. Tomorrow night is the ESN Farewell Dinner! Looking forward to a fun evening!


xx

P.S. - the medicine worked last night! I only got up once and coughed for about 5 minutes and then was back asleep! Hallelujah!!

23.

I just want to say I'm so thankful for my followers. Without yall, I don't think I'd feel obligated to keep this going and then I wouldn't have any documented words to look back on in the future. I owe yall big time.

Today I had class from 8am - 2:30pm. After class, Marie and I shopped around the Great Market Hall right next to Corvinus University. I FOUND KALE. I repeat, I FOUND KALE! For those of you who don't know why I'm so happy, vegetarians lack nutrients that meat can provide, but kale is like the ultimate superfood for me. Per calorie, kale has more calcium than milk and more iron than beef. It also has protein and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. So all you meat-eaters, I am getting my protein and iron and thousands of other health benefits from leafy greens... my favorite: kale!

 
Marie brought strawberries to class and they looked so good, so I picked some up at the market, too!

I also bought 500 grams of asparagus for 0.72 cents. Normally I have to pay $6 for this stuff. yeeee

I had a doctors appointment tonight and this time I went to the 'doctors' it was an actual doctors office. The last time I went to what I thought was a doctors office was legitimately some mans house who used old school technology to treat me. Like, he wore that hat with a metal plate on it and a light shone onto his metal plate and into my mouth when he looked at my throat. This time, the doctors office was normal and up-to-date. I either have a sinus infection or bronchitis... hard to tell? I think its bronchitis. He prescribed me an antibiotic and a nasal spray. He also recommended an OTC cough medicine with codeine to really help my cough. yess! Let's see if it works tonight. If I sleep through the night without waking up to cough, it will be a miracle. The last two weeks I wake up and cough for about 2-3 hours straight until I can fall back asleep. After the doctors appointment, I walked across the street to a mall where there was a pharmacy on the basement floor. This is a picture of the ceiling of the mall (not quite sure why there are animals hanging upside down... but 'this is hungary!')

About to watch an episode of Criminal Minds and then head to bed. G'night!

Praying for sound sleep and cough-less nights

xx

24.

Still sick, so for exercise I decided to take a long walk (instead of running) around Budapest.

Picture of Elisabeth bridge and Gellert Hill behind it.

Castle across the Danube. 

Chain bridge linking Buda and Pest!

Parliament and yellow bridge that leads to Margaret Island. 

This is very interesting. It's a memorial concept honoring the Jews who were shot by Arrow Cross militiamen during World War 2. The Jews were forced to line up along the river and take off their shoes. The militiamen would shoot the Jews and their bodies would fall into the Danube and be carried away. This memorial represents the Jews' shoes that were left behind. You can see in the picture the shoes and also candles next to all the shoes - my guess is that people light candles to remember the Jews that were shot here.

Tomorrow starts the second to last week of classes and then after that a week of finals! Almost summer, which means almost CAMP!


xx

25.

Today was one of the greatest days I've had here. A group of us traveled one and a half hours to Lake Balaton and had so much fun! We were expecting sand and a beach, but we found grass to hang out on! Amanda was meeting us at the train station, but she ended up going to a different train station and just missed our train by a minute... :/ but she ended up taking the next train and met us there!

When we got to the lake we ended stopping at a grocery store to get food and then we headed over to the water to each lunch. After that we walked down the lake to find a beach, but really never found one. We ended up dropping all of our stuff on some grass and then went swimming. The water was FREEZING. I couldn't get myself to go under water. The rest of the day we played games - charades, three-legged races, steal the bacon, bang (shooting game), etc. We played a bunch of 'camp' games - it was so much fun! Laughed way too much!! Here are some pictures from the day!

We definitely all want to go back next weekend because we had so much fun! We got back tonight around 9pm. On the train home I was coughing so hard and some old Hungarian lady came up to me and dropped three cough drops into the book I was reading. I didn't get it at first and then she pointed to her throat and smiled. She knew I needed something for my cough and she was so sweet to give me that - I couldn't thank her enough.

Great day. Wonderful people. Beautiful lake.


xx

26.

Today I did absolutely nothing but rest and watch online TV. I'm really trying to fight this cold that I have. I can barely sleep at night and no amount of medicine is seeming to help. I'm loading up on Vitamin C, so we'll see if that helps.

I got some fresh air on my tiny balcony today. Apart from going to the bathroom, that's the furthest I got from my room today. The first picture is when I look left from my balcony and the second is when I look right!

 

Tomorrow I am going to Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe! We are taking a train about 1.5 hours away, leaving at 9:30am. I can't wait to be at the lake relaxing in the sun and swimming in the lake! Sounds like a great day! And hopefully I'll be feeling better after my full day of rest today.

Also, we ended up not going to Poland this weekend because of how much money it was going to cost. The hostel was $25 for two nights, but we had to take the train instead of a bus because there was no bus running this weekend. The bus was going to be a lot cheaper but the train would cost a total of $100 and it was a night train so it would've taken 10-11 hours to get there. We all decided it was too expensive and not worth the train ride. We are still looking into possibly doing another weekend if there is a bus going to Krakow, Poland but I don't have many more weekends here. I have next weekend available and then the weekend before I come home. Wow... still can't believe how soon I'll be home. But, before that... Emily will be in Budapest in 14 days!!!

27.

Last night was Ana's birthday - theme: BLUE! Everyone was required to wear blue. We made a blue drink and a blue cake. GREAT flat party!

Here's a picture of some clean up from this morning: (we even had blue trash bags...)

And here's a collage I made from some pictures at the party. Laurent helped me take these close-ups of everyone!

28.

Beautiful weather calls for a nice row on the Danube with Nina, Marlies, and Anthony! Still really sick, but I wanted to get out of the flat to enjoy some sunshine.

And a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my flat mate, Ana! We are celebrating at the flat tonight with a huge group of people - the theme is BLUE. Blue cake, blue outfits, and blue drinks!

29.

Passed by a filming of something on my walk to the Great Market Hall to buy some groceries for the week. 

30.

Spring has sprung in Budapest! Walk home from class today. 

HAPPY EARTH DAY. Do something for the Earth today. Anything. 

Discovering My Bohemian/Czech Roots

Back on the train. Just got a good 4.5 hours of sleep on the beginning part of my train ride and I only have 2.5 hours left to go. That sleep definitely passed the time. Let’s go back to Friday night.

So after dinner Friday night we ended up going to a bar/club called ‘u sudu’ I think and there was an upstairs with a bunch of tables that people were hanging out at and then there was a downstairs where there were more bars and music playing. When we went downstairs I instantly started having a cough attack and couldn’t stop. I’ve had a stubborn cough lately that won’t go away and it usually will wake me up in the middle of the night for about an hour. But because there was so much smoke in the basement of this bar, I just couldn’t stop coughing. We only stayed down there for about ten minutes because I couldn’t handle it. As soon as we started walking the stairs back up, we could all tell a change in air quality. It was ridiculous how smoky it was in the basement. Our friends from Budapest, Nienke, Cecile, and Kay met up with us at that bar and then we all went to check out a club called Temple Club. It’s inside of what used to be a church and they turned it into a club. We walk in and there’s literally not one person in there except for a DJ. Hm, interesting. So then we take the elevator upstairs where we thought more people would be. No one. Not one person was in this club, but there was music, dancers, and lights ready for people to be there. It was a little embarrassing to say the least. We left quickly and then really had no idea where to go. Before stopping to get Mexican food at a 24 hour Mexican stand, we stopped by a bar called Books and Beer or something. It was a whole lot nicer than we expected. They brought us over bowls of bar food and then gave us menus. We looked at the prices for a drink and then everyone decided that they didn’t want to stay there, after we had nommed on the bar food. So they all ran out leaving me behind to explain to the waiter that the rest of the group didn’t want to stay and that we are really sorry for the inconvenience. I ran out of there and yelled at my friends for making a mad dash to the door without informing me. Haha

On Saturday, we woke up and had breakfast and then we headed out to see the Prague Castle and the area on the other side of the river. We had to walk up a pretty tall tree to see the castle, but once we were up there, we had a beautiful view of Prague. It was raining so everyone had umbrellas and ponchos. I thought I was done with the rain for a while, but turns out, I wasn’t. It was also a lot colder than we were expecting, too. We walked around the castle area for a while and also went into a church. We were taking pictures and then inside the church a  bachelor party comes up to us and the soon-to-be groom asks us all to sign his shirt. He was wearing a shirt that said he was about to get married and his friends were making him get 50 girls to sign it. He also had little slips of paper about different tasks that he had to complete over their time in Prague. One of them was to get six girls phone numbers, so why not – I gave him my USA number and he made a joke that he’d get rid of the numbers and never call us because it’s too expensive anyway. One of his slips was to collect something blue, something new, something old and something borrowed. We found a blue wristband to give to him and Sarah gave him an old sim card that she wasn’t going to use. I rummaged through my backpack but couldn’t find anything new or borrowed, so I couldn’t contribute to that task. It was funny because the guy getting married didn’t speak great English – he’s from Germany. So when we asked him if he was excited about getting married he didn’t really understand us and he said no. His friend tried to clarify for him, but he just said I’m not excited but I want to get married. Okay, bud, I think you need to learn the definition of excited and if you really aren’t excited then you probably shouldn’t be getting married. Haha

After that fun that happened inside a church, we headed over to Strahov brewery and had a late lunch, early dinner there. In eastern Europe, we’ve noticed that if anyone at the table orders an appetizer like soup, they’ll bring the appetizer and then even after the appetizer is finished, the entrees don’t come out for another 30 minutes or so, even if some people at the table didn’t get appetizers. Eastern Europeans, I guess, eat slower and take their time, but it’s frustrating because we don’t know if we are being rude by asking for the main course or if we should just wait until they want to bring it to us. Other tables that don’t get appetizers will get served their main meal, even if they come in after our appetizers are finished. It just doesn’t make much sense to me. So after having linner, we made our way back down a hill and on our way stopped to take pictures of Petrin Tower. It’s a lookout tower similar to the Eiffel tower, but it’s just smaller. I actually read that Petrin tower is smaller than the Eiffel Tower, but because Petrin is on top of a hill, the top of the tower is actually at a higher point than the Eiffel Tower – fun fact!

We headed back to the apartments we were staying at and stopped to pick up some food for later on the way. Anna-Lena and I worked on our presentation we have to present Monday morning at 8am, while everyone else took an hour or so nap. Around 7:30 we started to make some food and we needed to leave by 8:30 to be at a pub to start the pub crawl at 8:45. That didn’t happen. Let’s just say there was a big accident that occurred while trying to make dinner. So, when we stopped to get food, some people picked up frozen pizzas, but we forgot we didn’t have an oven. Connected to the stove by hinges, though, was this glass thing that covered the stove. We thought maybe it goes down over the burners and then acts as a big hot plate to cook maybe pancakes or something on. Sarah turns the stove on and then puts down the glass thing and the pizza on top, hoping it would cook like that. Since I bought some soup to make, I just decided that the soup would warm up on the glass thing, too so I put my pot on the stove and reached above the stove for a glass to fill with water so I could pour it into my pot. As I was heading over to the sink where Sarah was standing, all of a sudden there was a huge ‘pop’ noise and glass shattered everywhere. Two burners were still on so we quickly, trying to avoid the shattered glass all over the floor with bare feet, had to turn the burners off so it wouldn’t catch the pizza on fire. I was a little in shock that it actually happened and then once the burners were off we just stared at what happened and were just perplexed. Brody and Caroline came in and were really confused, but made sure we were ok. If I had been standing right next to the stove, I would have probably been badly injured because glass flew everywhere. We had to clean up all the glass and we made sure everyone wore shoes from that point on. It was a mess. Lesson learned – you can’t cook on glass. Even if there is a random black piece of glass connected too the stove that looks like it could be used for cooking purposes. Help me out, people, does anyone know what that glass thing could be used for? A cutting board. We still don’t really know. After we cleaned up all the glass, we decided to change our pub crawl time to the later one at 9:45pm so we had more time to get ready. Alex and Anna-Lena came into our room ready to go at 8:40 and they saw all of us not even close to being ready and we explained our little set back in time. Anyway, so we made our way to the meeting place of the pub crawl – a bar called Prague Pub Crawl and we were supposed to get unlimited drinks until 10:30. What was nice about doing the later time, was that it was just our group and another couple. We saw that it was so empty, so we were like wow this is going to be lame. But the guy at the door explained that there were 200 other people on the pub crawl who just came at the earlier times and said at 10:30 we would meet up with the rest of everyone. We decided to stay and do the deal. So we got unlimited drinks for 45 minutes and then a guy named Nelson who worked for the pub crawl company took us over to the next bar. We got a free ‘welcome shot’ there and then went and danced with the rest of the pub crawlers. I forgot to mention we got some pretty sweet t-shirts for doing the pub crawl, too! After we danced for a little while, we all were ushered out and walked to the next bar where we got another free ‘welcome shot.’ If you haven’t heard of a pub crawl before, you’re probably reading this and learning that it really is all about drinking a lot and experiencing new pubs/bars/clubs in a new city. So, at this bar we sat down at a little corner and then some guy came over and started doing card magic tricks with Brody and I. This guy was good, real good. There was one time when I had a card in my hand and after Brody had picked a card and did a whole magic trick with him, the card in my hand turned out to be the card that Brody had chosen during his magic trick. I never once felt him change the card in my hand. Weird weird weird! So that was entertaining and fun! I also met a guy who was buying tequila shots all around, so I couldn’t resist that offer. After being at that bar for some time, our next and final stop was the five story club that’s pretty famous in Prague. We got there and got free access and VIP entrance (skip the line) into the club. On the first floor, there was oldies music playing, on the second and third floor there was more dancing music, and then I don’t think we made it to the 4^th and 5^th floor. But there was also a basement so I think that counted as one of the floors. It was so big that it was hard to keep track of which floor you were on! We stayed there for about an 1.5 hours I think and left around 2pm. We were expecting this club to be AMAZING but we felt it was just an average club. Brody, Caroline, Sarah and I met outside and we were waiting for Anna-Lena and Alex but we couldn’t find them anywhere. I told the others to stay outside and I went back in to find Alex and Anna-Lena but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I also had to use the restroom so part of my reasoning to go back in was to do that, but that’s when I got to see the basement floor which was pretty cool! I went back outside and met up with the other three and explained I couldn’t find Anna-Lena and Alex, so we just headed back to the apartments. We went to be around 3:30 and I had to get up at 6:30 to be out of the door at 6:50 to walk to the train station. I barely got any sleep. Waking up at 6:30am was rough, but I was already pretty packed up so I just washed my face, brushed my teeth, changed clothes and headed out. It was a beautiful morning and I stopped to take some pictures of a clock tower with the sun shining on it. I love sunny mornings. I walked about 20 minutes to the train station and as soon as I got on the train, I passed out. My cough is getting worse so I woke up every hour or so from coughing but other than that, I got a lot more sleep on the train than I thought I would! I arrive back in Budapest around 2:30, which gives me plenty of time today to finish school work, catch up on laundry, buy groceries, and try to plan transportation to Poland next weekend!

Amanda, Ben, Anthony, Henrik, and I are going to Krakow, Poland and then taking a one hour bus ride to Auschwitz concentration camp. There is a bus back to Budapest on Sunday afternoon, but there is only a Wednesday or Saturday bus to Krakow, so we are still trying to figure out transportation. We thought about renting a car, but it’s going to be way too expensive. I think there is a night train that brings us in Saturday morning at 6:30am, but we will be able to sleep on the train. It could be cool to experience a night train! And that way we wouldn’t have to pay for a hostel for Friday night. When I get back to Budapest, I’ll be at the train station that provides information on all the international train travel, so I will just talk to the ticket office there about cost and times for the train to Krakow!

I have only 1.5 hours left to go on this train ride. Gonna sit back and enjoy a new book I’m reading that Sarah gave me. It’s called ‘Gone Girl.’ It’s kind of a mystery book – a girl disappears and it’s a story about her husband trying to find her. I started it on the way to Prague and I like how it’s written. There are chapters from the girls point of view written over time about meeting her husband and the last 5 years they’ve been together. Then it will switch to the chapters written from the guys point of view and its about the day the girl disappeared. So reading it, I get the background history from the chapters that the girl writes and I get the current mystery story from the chapters that the guy writes. It’s pretty interesting.

Tomorrow starts my 30 day countdown. I’m still deciding what I want to do for it, but I think each day I’m going to take a picture and blog about it – I’m going to try something new in Budapest every day for the last 30 days I’m here. That way I’m making the most out of my time here and really trying to do all the things I still haven’t done or seen yet! Should be an exciting last 30 days! And I can’t believe that’s all the time I have left here. I keep saying it, but the time went by so quickly!!

Prague was amazing. One of my favorite cities so far that I’ve seen! I think tied with the Netherlands;  my Dutch and Czech roots wouldn’t allow me to like another city better! Haha

xx

Now that I'm home and posting what I wrote while I was on the train:

Turns out after shutting my laptop, the next stop of the train lasts 1.5 because of some delay. Everything over the speaker was in Hungarian, so I have no idea why we were delayed but the train just sat at the station for a good hour and a half. We were so close to Budapest! So instead of getting back at 2:30, I got back around 4:15. I got off the train at one point when it was stopped and started talking to a guy, and we were both confused as to what was going on because we couldn't understand Hungarian. Oh well... 

I also felt really bad for the Hungarian lady sitting next to me on the train... I coughed the entire time. She felt bad though.. she couldn't speak English but at one point she offered me a peppermint that actually stopped my coughing for a little while. I hate being sick... meh.

Budapest Sunshine / Prague Lovin'

Life couldn’t get any better than this. I’m sitting on a train to Prague, the sun is shining into the window that I have completely cracked open, and the weather is beautiful. I was really dreading this seven hour train ride, but it has been extremely peaceful and relaxing. I thought I was going to miss the train so sprinting to the train was a bit of a hassle, but once I sat down and the train started to move, the breeze and the sunshine just took me away. Right now I have four more hours to go, but when I post this I’ll already be in Prague. The rest of my friends are flying and will arrive around 4pm and then I will meet them around 9pm.

Last Sunday – the hike and roast was incredible! A group of about 20 of us hiked up to the top of one of the Buda Hills and found a beautiful place to start a fire. There was a fire pit with logs around it to sit on, and then beyond that was a bunch of green grass that we could all just hang out on. Everyone brought food and we just prepared it in the fire – some people brought huge pieces of meat (gross), others brought sausage, bread, vegetables, etc. Anything you could cook on a fire. Julia and I had sweet potatoes and they came out pretty darn good! We cut them up into a bunch of little pieces and then I had brought a red bell peppers so we split that and wrapped it all up in tin foil and stuck it in the fire! We had so much fun up there that a group of six of us stayed until 7pm. People slowly started to leave and we were the last ones there. We haven’t had sun in so long so we wanted to enjoy being outside as long as we could. This was probably one of my favorite days here – we all keep talking about it nonstop and how we need to do it again!

On Wednesday, Anna-Lena and I had to check out a hotel for an advertising project we were doing. It was a really neat artsy, boutique hotel; it’s basically one of our competitors for a new hotel that is opening in Budapest – we have to come up with an advertising plan for this new hotel so we wanted to see what our competition was like. The cool thing about this hotel was that it only had 11 bedrooms and they are very trustful of their guests, giving them sort of an individual experience and a sense of freedom, or home away from home. They have an “honesty bar” where guests can pour their own drinks, write down what they got, and then pay for the drinks at the end of their stay. I thought that was a very neat idea. The lady there was very informative and interested in our project, which helped a lot because we were afraid we wouldn’t be let in.

Afterwards, we sat outside on a restaurant patio and enjoyed the sunshine! We ordered tequila sunrises and cheer’d to beautiful weather! Afterwards, I met up with Frederique and Anthony and we went up to Margaret Island to have a picnic/hangout. I brought some grapes up, and Frederique brought bread, cheese, and apples. She also brought a bottle of wine without a bottle opener, so Anthony and our friend Dany who met us up on the island a little after we got up there, walked around asking everybody if they had a bottle opener. It was hilarious to watch because there were a bunch of different groups of people just laying out in the sun and all the groups overheard Dany and Anthony asking people if they had a bottle opener so before they could even say anything, people were already shaking their head no. haha eventually Anthony went up to a group of people and a guy just pushed the corkscrew in with his thumb, so we didn’t get the corkscrew out, but we got it into the bottle so we could pour wine out. Success!

After hanging out on the island for a while, I had to get back to the school for a meeting with my project group and teacher. It was a short meeting discussing our upcoming project. After that I rushed home and tried to eat dinner as fast as I could – I had ten minutes before I had to meet back up with people to go to an ice hockey game!

We got to the hockey game and it turns out that six of the tickets were for the right date, and eight of the tickets were for a previous date. Anthony and Dany ordered the tickets all together, so we still aren’t sure how that happened. I got lucky with a ticket for the right date, but eight others were turned away at the door. The ones that got inside were able to get wristbands to go outside and then get back in. We went outside and talked to the others and tried to work out a plan. We weren’t going to go in because we felt bad that not everyone could join, but they reassured us that we shouldn’t feel bad and that we should enjoy the game. Five of the eight actually bought another ticket that was a bit more expensive because they really wanted to see the game; they ended up getting way better seats than we had anyway! The game was so much fun! I’ve been to an Atlanta Thrashers game before, but it was such a long time ago. It was exciting to see Hungary play Kazakhstan. There are six teams left in the world championship, so this was definitely an exciting game to see! Hungary won 2-1! Even though I had no idea what the crowd was chanting, we pretended we knew and went along with the cheers and hand-clapping! Anthony was super into the game – he was chanting and jumping with the rest of the crowd and celebrating with the Hungarians outside afterward. Coming from Canada, he was so excited to see an ice hockey game and he was teaching Miguel and I all the rules! Afterward, we all got on the metro bus and everyone on there was jumping up and down and continuing to sing all the Hungary chants! The metro bus was literally bouncing up and down; it was awesome! We went out afterward for a celebratory drink and then I went home after about an hour, but I’m sure the others stayed out pretty late. I needed to get up early to start packing for Prague because I hadn’t packed anything yet.

--

Now that I’ve been in Prague for a day… I LOVE IT! It’s like Budapest, but a whole lot nicer! Today we did a free walking tour and our tour guide was incredible. Best tour guide I’ve ever had. He never once bored me and his stories were factual, historical, but interesting all at the same time. I learned a lot about the Czech Republic and how it used to be Bohemia, etc. etc. I always knew that I was Czech/Bohemian but I never really knew what it meant. Now, I have a way better understanding of the Czech history. We saw Old Town Prague, New town Prague, and the Jewish Quarter of Prague. That tour lasted from 11am until 2:30pm with a 40min lunch in between. It really was a fantastic tour and I’m so glad we did it!

After the tour we walked across the river to see the John Lennon wall – a graffiti wall with Beatles lyrics and just other random graffiti. I saw a lot of things about Boston – like “Pray for Boston” and “Boston Remembered” because of the recent shootings there. Apparently the wall used to be a dedication by the Czechs to John Lennon, but now it has turned more touristy and the wall is constantly changing as new people add more artwork to it.

After we saw the wall, we walked across the famous bridge – the Charles bridge. There were a bunch of tourists and people selling things on the bridge. After that, we decided to hit up a grocery store to buy dinner and now we are hanging out in our hotel about to make dinner and get ready for the night. We are deciding what we want to do, but there is a pub crawl organized by some people that we could do and sounds pretty fun! There’s also a five story club – one of the biggest in central Europe that would be fun to check out.

Prague is beautiful. One of my favorite places I’ve visited so far! Tomorrow we will do a tour of the Prague Castle! Oh and beer in Czech is some of the greatest in the world – last night we went to a place that had 30 different Czech beers on tap and in their menu they had paragraph descriptions about each beer – very interesting!

We wish the weather here was warmer… in Budapest it’s supposed to be really sunny and warm, but in Prague it has been overcast. It was supposed to rain today, but thankfully it didn’t!

I’ll most likely write another post on my train ride back to Budapest on Sunday!

Happy weekend to all!

xx

Pollen.

It doesn't exist here. I'm sorry. Really, I know your pain.

Just Another Week in Budapest

It's finally spring! I've been doing my spring dance all week! First time I've gone outside without my big red winter coat. I'll never wear red again, for a long time, if ever. I got outside a lot this week - running, walking, hiking. Loving the weather! I tried to get a group to go rowing again but the day I wanted to go people were already busy. I'm not sure what is going on, but I may be part of a Budapest rowing competition on May 9th? Not exactly sure, but waiting to hear details. That could be really fun! Haven't raced since nationals the summer after my senior year of high school.

Recap/Highlights of the week:
Monday - Advertising presentation at 8am. Our teacher said we had a wonderful presentation and actually told the class to study our presentation because exam questions may be taken from our powerpoint! Whoo!

Tuesday: Skipped my resources of viticulture class to go to the gym. I'm taking this class for fun and it will not be transferred back to USC, so I go when I feel like it. But, this week there was a wine tasting... and I missed it. Awesome. But, I emailed my professor an assignment that's due in a week and told him in the email that I would love another wine tasting! ha so we'll see if that happens. I guess I'll be going to class from now on in hopes of another wine tasting. Tuesday night was my Belgian friend, Marie's, birthday! We went over to her flat to celebrate for a little while with everyone! We tried to go to a bar afterward and usually girls get in for free but the bouncers at the front were really rude and wanted to charge us all $5. A lot of people didn't want to pay for an empty club (some of our friends were inside and called and told us it was pretty empty). So then the bouncers said we could all get in for a total of $45 so we spent about fifteen minutes trying to get all of the money together and then we went up to him and he said "Sorry, deal's over." What? After that I just went home because I wasn't going to put up with him.

Friday: Ana and I went thrift store/vintage shopping around Budapest. Didn't really find any quality clothes, so I didn't end up buying anything. But, it was a lot of fun walking around and scoping out different places. On our way home, we saw a few of our guy friends doing a free walking tour with a tour guide so we ran up and scared them. The tour guide ended up greeting us and talking to us for a little and we didn't mean to interrupt that much. We stood there for a little and then left a few minutes later. haha
Later Friday night as I'm watching a Fright Night Lights TV episode, all of a sudden the power goes out and a really loud alarm outside my window goes off. I kind of sat still for a second and looked around. And then me and my two other flat mates walk outside their room and we all are like really confused. And then I freaked out because I wasn't sure if there was an intruder, or if there was a gas leak, or if something happened and we needed to evacuate. We opened our window to try to see what was going on and we couldn't see anything. We looked out the other window that opens up to the rest of the flats in our building and noticed that everyone's power was out. First we called our landlord and he was like "What do you want me to do? I'm 200 km away. Call me on Monday and I can come fix it." haha excuse me what? I don't think he understood because we were just asking him what it meant, but even if our power was out just in our flat, we would have to wait until Monday. Gee thanks dude. Then we called an ESN guy to ask him what this meant because this never happened to any of us before. The power going out and a loud alarm? After about fifteen minutes of freaking out, Frederique and I went downstairs because we heard a lot of people down there sounding like they were trying to fix the problem. We went down to ask what was going on and they said the alarm of the shop next door is connected to the power in our building. So when our power went out, their alarm went off. Interesting. They said that the power should be back on in about 30 minutes. We went back up stairs, lit some candles, and had some quality flat mate bonding time in the living room. It was actually quite nice. Later, later that night I met my friend Sarah out at Szimpla, which is a famous ruin pub in Budapest. She had two friends visiting her, one of them who will be coming to Prague with us next weekend! So we had fun there - it was really crowded though. More crowded than I've ever seen it. They went out to a club afterward but I decided to head home. Today I have a lot of school work to get done before I leave on Thursday for Prague!!

Tomorrow we are doing a hike/roast. An ESN guy, Istvan, found a little place where we can start a fire and roast food, so we are going to do that for lunch but we first have to hike there. We've been trying to plan this for a while, but we were waiting for nice weather. It finally came!

On Wednesday, Anthony got me a ticket to a hockey game, so I guess I'll be going to that. Don't know much about it, but I'll let you know! That's all for now!
Can't believe I'll be coming home in 5.5 weeks. Time has flown by here.. literally flown.
Next weekend: Prague, Czech Republic
Weekend after that: Krakow, Poland and then a trip to Auschwitz concentration camp
Weekend after that: Enjoy Budapest
Weekend after that: EMILY COMES TO BUDAPEST!!
Weekend after that: Exams are over and I have one more week in Budapest. wow.



See you soon 'merica,
xx

I Miss the Sun

Finally the sun decided to show its face in Budapest. Literally, it's been forever. And I love it. It was 54 degrees today, and normally I'd think that is freezing, but I think it's our warmest day here since I've been here. It's even supposed to reach the sixties by Friday. Hallelujah. I'm so thankful to live somewhere with sunshine almost year round, where days that it rains are appreciated because it barely ever does. I just got back from a great run - sunny weather just gives me tons of energy! I'm so tired of cold, cloudy, and dreary weather. I'm ready for spring already... bring on the warmer weather, Budapest. We're all waiting.

Hopped on a Bus

Monday morning 5:20am wake up call to catch a bus at 6:30am to Bratislava, Slovakia. I had to walk to the metro, take the metro six stops (I lost count and took it seven stops, had to run to the other side, wait five minutes and take it one stop back), and got on my bus at 6:32am. The bus driver grabbed my ticket, shook his head, I took a seat, and he closed the doors and we were off. I was the last one on the bus. I really didn't think I was going to make it. My two friends were taking a train at 7:30am because the bus was sold out when they tried to buy tickets. So, I got to Bratislava around 8:55am and didn't really know if I was at the correct stop. The bus driver said we had a twenty minute break, but I was almost positive we were in Bratislava. I went into the bus station and asked the lady at the information center if I was at the Bratislava AS bus stop. Sure enough, I was. I went to find the restroom and of course I had to pay money for it (so common and so absurd here in Europe). I didn't have any euros on me, so I had to hold it. I walked about fifteen minutes to the hostel that I had booked and when I got there they said I couldn't check in until 1pm. They let me use the restroom which was all I really cared about. After grabbing a map and mapping out everything I wanted to see in the day, I went to meet Ana and Sarah where we planned to meet at 10:15. I was so lost and getting so frustrated because I could barely read the map on my phone, which didn't coordinate with the map in my hand or the street names. All of a sudden I look over and see a girl running with a tiny little backpack. It was Ana, thank God! And Sarah was trailing behind her. I yelled over to them and I was so relieved that I found them. Honestly, I didn't know if I was ever going to find them. We started off by climbing up a hill to see the Slavin Memorial. We had no idea where we were. At one point we were walking and Sarah goes "okay, so we're at the corner of Namestie Slobody and... Namestie Slobody... what?" Literally an intersection with the same street name. We didn't know how to get there but eventually we started looking up a hill for a giant monument and we finally found it and just worked our way up the hill. After seeing the monument and an incredible view from the top, we made our way down the hill and over to the Bratislava Castle. We walked up a set of stairs that were covered in ice and we thought it was the entrance to the castle, but it wasn't. We walked around some more and came to a dead end. So we went back down the stairs we came up and walked around some more until we found more stairs. We walked up those and still couldn't find the entrance. We literally did an entire 340 degrees around this castle until we came upon the entrance. If we had kept walking a little bit further straight instead of walking up the first set of stairs we climbed up, we would have been at the entrance. Shaking my head... but the walk around the entire castle was awesome because we got some really good views of the city and of the river (the Danube river that flows through Budapest also flows through Bratislava). Here's some pictures of what I saw so far:
Slavin Memorial:

Bratislava Castle:

From the top of the castle, we were able to look over the river and see the UFO Lookout Tower on the top of the bridge. We walked over to the lookout tower because we read that we could take a lift to the top and see wonderful views, but once we got over there it was going to cost about 5euro to go up to the top and we just thought it was too expensive just to look out over the city (a view we already got from the castle).

St. Martins Cathedral: We were allowed to go inside and I started taking pictures and some guy yelled at me in five different languages "no pictures!" oops, sorry!

St. Michael's Gate:

 Sarah and I with a little statue in the Old Town city area. We found a total of four around the city - not sure how many there are in total.

Once we were in Old Town, Sarah and I decided to grab lunch since it was around 1pm. Our two friends, Miguel and Miguel (both from Portugal), met up with us at St. Martin's Cathedral and Ana hung out with them while Sarah and I got lunch. We ate at some Italian restaurant - I just got tomato soup and a side of spinach. After lunch we met back up with Ana and the Miguels. We wanted to see the blue church so we walked over to see it. We couldn't get inside, but this is what it looks like on the outside:

St. Elizabeth's Blue Church - it's name says it all - bright blue pastel church on the outside!

After we saw this church, we headed back to the Miguels hostel and hung out there for about fifteen minutes. The bartender gave us free shots of gin, apparently because he felt bad about Miguels jacket getting stolen. Since the city was so small and easy to see in just a few short hours, Ana and Sarah decided to take a 6:30 train home instead of a 7:50. I was staying the night there, so that I could go to Vienna on Tuesday, but Frederique, Dianne, Helene, and Lukas were all arriving in Bratislava by bus around 6:15pm. So when the others went to the train station, I went to meet the new group at the bus station. It worked out quite perfectly! I met with the others and we finally went back to the hostel to check in. We stopped at a grocery store to buy breakfast for the morning, and then I walked them over to Old Town. We were trying to find a restaurant for dinner and we ended up eating at the same restaurant I had lunch at. It was good and the menu was huge, so I thought it would be good for everyone! I ended up getting a salad this time. After dinner, we walked around a little more but the city was dead. It's a small city, and it was also 'holiday' - day after Easter, so not much was open. We went back to the hostel and hung out for a little and then we all went to sleep. None of us really slept that well and we aren't sure why. I was afraid I was going to miss my bus, probably because I got so close to missing the bus to Bratislava. I tossed and turned all night and finally it was time for me to get up and get ready. I was the only one leaving early in the morning to head to Vienna; the others were heading to Prague later in the afternoon. I made it to the bus station with twenty minutes to spare, but I would rather be early than late! The bus ride to Vienna was quick - about an hour and twenty minutes! I had mapped where the bus was going to drop me off, so I kind of knew which direction I was going. I made a plan for everything I wanted to see and hoped I would get through it all in the one day I had there! I got off the bus and it started snowing. Brrr! I thought it was going to be snowing all day, but it only snowed for a short time and it was light snow. My first stop was to the Belvedere Palace. It was gorgeous and the gardens outside were beautiful! I didn't go inside because I didn't think I had enough time to do the inside tours of anything. Here are a few pictures:

 As I was walking to my next destination, I came upon this. Not really sure what it is, but thought it was cool.

Yes, I found a Forever 21 in Vienna! I thought I would never go in there, but later in the day when I had some time to shop, I decided to go in to see a pair of boots I saw from the window. I had been limping around all day because the boots I brought here are destroyed and give my feet really bad blisters when I wear them for too long. I was in need of a new pair of boots so when I saw the ones at F21, and they fit, and they were reasonably priced, I decided to get them! Glad I did because those other ones will probably be in the trash soon.

Finally I found St. Stephen's Church! The inside was gorgeous:

Then I followed my tripadvisor application on my phone to St. Peter's Church:

I signed the little guest book inside - my name will forever be in St. Peter's church! Thought that was pretty neat! 

After seeing those two churches, I headed over to see the Imperial Palace. Around the palace, there were a bunch of different museums - it was like a Museum square.

Around the palace, I found a starbucks and made my way there to use the bathroom, get some water and coffee, and map out my next move. I knew I had to get on the metro, so I needed to figure out which line to take and everything. 

My next stop was Schonbrunn Palace - it was a little bit out of the way, but I had read it was well worth seeing. I found the metro stop once leaving Starbucks and tried to figure out the ticket thing. My credit card wouldn't work in the machine and I was getting frustrated, so I told the guy behind me to go. I don't think he understood because he just wanted to help me get my ticket. He kept showing me and explaining to me what all the buttons meant. He spoke broken English so it was hard to understand. Eventually I got a ticket and then he pointed me to where I had to validate it, and as he walked away I pretended to validate. There were no guards around and I was obviously a tourist with my backpack and camera, so if someone were to stop me I would have just said I didn't know where to validate. That way, I could use the ticket to travel by metro until someone stopped me without having to pay for a ticket each time. Luckily, I never got stopped! So I made it to Schonbrunn after much wandering around, and this is what I first saw! It was huge and beautiful! I walked up to the front and looked at the map. It showed that there were gardens around back, so I made my way to the back.

Little did I know that I would see this in the back:

I decided to climb that hill in the distance, up to that monument and I am so glad I did! This is the view of the palace from the top of the hill:

And this is the monument at the top of the hill.

On the side of the palace were gardens, but I had to pay for a ticket to get in. There really wasn't much to see on the inside so I just took a picture of what I could get from the outside.

Okay, this is really embarrassing and I can't believe I'm writing this on here, but when I was at the top of this hill I had to go to the bathroom SO BAD. I knew that there were bathrooms back at the front, but it was about a 20 minute walk back to the front. Also, the way I was headed wasn't toward the front but to the side of the palace to catch a metro train over that way. So, as I was walking out of the palace area, I was walking through paths that had all these woods around them. There were some occasional runners, but I thought that if I could hide myself well enough in the woods, no one could see me. Camp taught me well. I grabbed a tree and took a squat. No one could see me. And no one passed by either. Hope that wasn't TMI. I decided to take a picture of the woods, so yall would have some sort of understanding:

 After that little adventure, I took a train over to this market that sold a bunch of fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and spices. A lot of the stands sold spices- here's a picture:

 I bought a few dates from this guy who was selling them because I wanted a small snack - I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was already 4 in the afternoon. After buying some dates, the guy said "telephone number?" And I was really confused so I said "what? you want my telephone number?" And he said yeahh... I laughed, looked at him, and said no! (in a "are you crazy?" voice). That was interesting and left me a little perplexed. Like did he really think I would give him my number? It was some old man who I will never see again in my entire life. Weird. After the market, I walked back to the shopping area near St. Stephen's church - I stopped at another Starbucks to check my bus time to make sure I was still planned to leave at 7:30. After starbucks, I walked around the shopping area - it was snowing a little again, but not too bad. This is when I stopped in F21 and bought those boots. After that purchase, I went to a thai place that I read about on trip advisor for dinner. It was delicious! I got tofu and vegetables in a curry sauce! Delicious! Best thai food I've ever had... but I haven't had much. haha! After dinner, I got on the metro and took it to where my bus was picking me up. I thought I was going to a bus station, but turns out it was just one bus parked on a side street! Once I got on the bus, it started pouring! So glad the rain held out until I left! The bus ride back went by pretty fast. It was about 3 hours and twenty minutes, but I slept for most of it. I was exhausted!

It was raining in Budapest, too but thanks to Meghan I had an umbrella to use to get back to my flat! This week has been rather relaxing after traveling Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I met with some group members to work on a presentation due on Monday. Thursday I had class all day and Thursday night I came home and all I wanted to do was just relax and watch online tv. I found a website that I can watch Criminal Minds episodes - I used to have a website where I would watch Criminal Minds but it stopped showing the episodes. I had made it to the beginning of season six (they are on season eight right now) and then I could not watch it for about a year now. I like to watch them in order because I know the background story. So, now I've just been catching up on season six watching episode after episode. I'm addicted. This morning, I made my way over to the Great Market Hall and did some grocery shopping. I decided to walk back to my flat with two huge grocery bags... not such a comfortable walk but glad I did it. I try to walk as much as I can here instead of taking the train. This afternoon/night I have been working on school papers and scholarship applications that are coming up. I've also been putting together my schedule for the fall at USC because I register for classes on Monday. I cannot believe I am registering for my LAST YEAR at USC. The time has flown by! The schedule I have planned now leaves a lot of room for me to work at the events office! Just what I wanted! I'm doing night classes on Monday and Wednesday, so that I can get more hours in the day at work. I can't wait - did I mention I love my job?!

This weekend I don't have much planned. Most Sundays there is a group of us that goes hiking, but I always miss it since I'm traveling, so I'll definitely go this Sunday to the hike, although the forecast is showing rain. Boo! Tomorrow is supposed to rain again, too. What is this Budapest?! I'm ready for hot sunny weather! I don't think I'll ever get it.

I only have two more travels planned and those will probably be my last. I am running out of money and can't afford another trip. I have a weekend in Prague planned mid April and then the weekend after I am going with four others to Krakow, Poland and then over to the Auschwitz concentration camp. I've heard great things about Prague, so I am so excited to travel there! Seeing Auschwitz will be an emotional experience, but I've heard it's definitely something worth seeing. After that, Emily comes in May!! And then I head home at the end of May! The time here has flown by. I can't even believe I only have seven more weeks here. I have no idea where the time went!

...Back to watching a Criminal Minds episode before bed. ;) I think I'll be caught up to season eight by the time I leave here.


xx