My semester abroad began with a whirlwind tour, many new experiences and great friendships. This blog post will account for my first full week in Europe, with lots of traveling!
Sunday January 18th, 2015 - Budapest, Hungary
My last blog post left off with Alison, Bettina, her parents and I meeting at the airport. We piled into their car and drove to their house, approximately 30 minutes. Upon arriving, we ate a delicious traditional Hungarian family meal – paprikάs csirke (chicken stew/curry with paprika with spätzle style pasta – recipe in cookbook) and mάkos guba (poppy seeds on dough) for dessert. Both Molli and Gergi joined us. The food was delicious, but what was most special was sitting with the family for lunch. The last time I saw Molly, she was a little chubby baby in America, and now she’s doing partner gymnastics and a very pretty young girl. Also, I never got to really know Gergi when they were in America. But now, he is in his last year in high school and will be looking to study video production/film in university. So, we had lots to talk about. Finally, her parents were incredibly welcoming and nice to us. I felt very at home even though I saw so far away.
After lunch, Bettina took Alison and me to Rudas bath to experience the authentic Turkish bath. When we walked in, there was a large bath in the middle, with four smaller baths on the side, each bath at a different temperature. There were also two saunas and a 12 degree Celsius bath. We tried each of the baths… multiple times, working our way up in temperature. The last one was 42 degrees Celsius! It was so hot I could barely stay in for a few minutes. Moving in the bath made it even warmer. We then tried the sauna, which was HOT. We didn’t know what was sweat and what was water left over from the bath… or we didn’t want to know! After getting out of the sauna there were buckets filled of very cold water. Alison and I stood underneath it and I pulled the rope! The water felt soo cold and shocking… but missed Alison entirely. So, she stood under it again as I pulled the rope and made sure to hit her straight on. We then tried the 12 degree Celsius bath, which we ran in and then ran straight out. We enjoyed all of the warm baths another time, followed by some delicious freshly squeezed orange juice. The entire afternoon was very relaxing and felt great after a long plane ride. Also, Alison and Bettina got along great! It was wonderful to have the two of them together. I was also so happy to how well Bettina and I got along. Although I had no doubts that we would be fine, it had still been around ten years since we had last seen each other, which is a lot of time for change, on both of our parts.
When we left the baths, it was already dark outside, which gave us a beautiful view of Budapest. We could see the chain bridge and the castle all lite up. We headed home, ate the lunch leftovers for dinner and got ready for bed… since we had a long trip ahead.
Monday, January 20th 2015 - Budapest, Hungary
The next morning, Bettina made Alison and I a delicious breakfast. We had sunny side up eggs that were cooked over fried onions and deli turkey, served with cucumbers, tomatoes and light yellow bell peppers. We cleaned up and made our way into Budapest for a big day of travels. We drove to the tram, where we went downtown and visited the Parliament. It was an incredible building on a grand square. Bettina then gave us a tour of her school. Bettina is studying tourism and catering, so hearing about what she is learning is very different from our computer engineering degree. She plans large dinners, learns geography and is taught how to make confectionaries.
We then took the underground subway to a bus, which drove us up the mountain to the Buda Castle. It was a beautiful drive up, since we winded up the mountain past the bottom entrance. Before going to the castle, we saw the outside of Matthias Church. There was a much smaller model of the church right infront of it, which made for a very cool comparison. We then went down to Fisherman’s Bastion, which is a wall and fortification which now looks over the Danube River and the Pest side of the city. We then walked through Buda Castle. On the way to Buda Castle, we walked through many beautiful streets (pretty enough to take pictures). At the castle, we saw an archeological dig along with some ruins that hadn’t yet been dug out. We saw lions guarding the castle, and many other animals with symbolic representations. We then tried our first taste of hot wine. This version (retrospectively my favorite of all of the hot wine we tasted on this trip… yes we had to try it in every city!) was spiced with cinnamon and other spices and had a delicious flavor. It warmed our freezing hands and was the perfect mid-morning (it was still morning) drink. | |
For lunch, we found a traditional place to get Hungarian food. We got goulash and pancakes with meat inside. Goulash in Hungary is very soup like with root vegetables and meat. Pancakes in Hungary are much more like crepes. They were both delicious and very filling. But… there is always room for dessert. Bettina took us to sugar world, a very famous confectionary, which was decorated with bright colors and had extravagant desserts. I had milk rice, which is almost like rice pudding but served like frozen yogurt because it had different flavors and toppings. I had vanilla milk rice with cinnamon apple topping – it was amazing! I actually really like just the vanilla milk rice. It was a little sweet, with a good texture and yummy vanilla flavor. Alison had a traditional Hungarian dessert called Somlόi. It was a rum soaked cake with raisins and whipped cream. Also good, but I liked the milk rice much better. From there, Alison and I grabbed our bags and headed to the East train station to catch our train to Salzburg. |
Just as we were drinking the hot wine we heard some drums coming from above us. We ran across the square up the steps just to catch the very end of the guard changing. The guards, fully dressed in their Hungarian winter attire, stood in front of the castle to protect it. From here we went into a souvenir shop, where the discussion of the week began.
I was looking at earrings, talking about how I love shopping for them, but can’t wear them when Bettina heard that I didn’t have my ears pierced. She was very surprised, because it is incredibly common to get your ears pierced as a baby in Budapest. Alison, had the idea that getting my ears pierced in Budapest would be an amazing memory (which is true). I had been considering getting them pierced, but had no intention to do it while abroad. I promised to think about it, although Bettina and Alison’s excitement was contagious. The discussion continued all the way down the hill on the bus and until we go to Hero’s square. Hero’s square is a large open area with a monument that depicts the heroes of the original settlement of Hungarians.
I was looking at earrings, talking about how I love shopping for them, but can’t wear them when Bettina heard that I didn’t have my ears pierced. She was very surprised, because it is incredibly common to get your ears pierced as a baby in Budapest. Alison, had the idea that getting my ears pierced in Budapest would be an amazing memory (which is true). I had been considering getting them pierced, but had no intention to do it while abroad. I promised to think about it, although Bettina and Alison’s excitement was contagious. The discussion continued all the way down the hill on the bus and until we go to Hero’s square. Hero’s square is a large open area with a monument that depicts the heroes of the original settlement of Hungarians.
Tuesday, January 20th 2015 - Salzburg, Austria
Waking up in Salzburg, the first thing we had to do, of course was see the Mirabell Palace and Gardens and relive a bit of the sound of music. We wandered the gardens; although quite snowy and dead since it is the middle of January they were still a joy to see in their grandness. After staring at them multiple times without realizing, we found the Do Re Me steps from the Sound of Music. And then, while walking through the Palace (which didn’t really have much to see inside), we saw a door cracked open. The two curious girls we are, we opened the door and walked through the palace stairwell. It was covered in beautiful decorations and statues. Our curiosity made for a very pretty side adventure. We then had some tea and quiche for breakfast before starting our short hike.
We climbed a windy and steep road up the mountain to reach the Hohensalzburg Fortress. From the walls of the fortress, we could see beautiful views of Salzburg and the mountains behind it. Looking into the hills, I could see the wall of the city. I just wanted to start singing “the hills are alive, with the sound of music”. We made friends with a Belgian student who exchanged taking pictures with us. After looking off from every angle, we explored the fortress. We ran into a marionette museum in one of the rooms. As much as I tried, Alison said I was a terrible puppeteer. Can’t win all of them I guess haha. Alison was actually pretty good, knew exactly how to move the puppet. Anyways it was quite a cool exhibit with lots of marionettes. We had an audio guided tour where we learned all about the history of the fort and in what stages it was built, and we saw the states rooms and lots of outfits and weapons. |
After the fortress we walked back down to street level, where we took a stroll through the town and by the river. Salzburg was the first city where we saw a bridge with engraved locks on it. We learned that couples often take locks, engrave their names, lock them to the bridge and then throw the key into the water to symbolize their love. It makes for a very cool looking bridge, if you believe in the metaphor or not.
One of the highlights of the afternoon was playing chess in the square. They had a very large chess set in the middle of the square. The pieces were incredibly heavy to lift. Although neither of us are particularly good at chess, Alison and I played a game. Knocking over the pieces, as you killed an opponent’s piece, was quite exciting because they fell with such speed and heaviness. After a probably very embarrassing game for both of us, I finally won and it was time for dinner. We went to a restaurant to try cheese spatzle (which unfortunately I didn’t like so much, because it was far to oily). Afterwards we were exhausted and made our way (after actually getting lost a few times and struggling to read a map or get 4g to work) back to the hostel for the night.
Wednesday, January 21st 2015 - Vienna, Austria
Our alarms went off at 5:45 AM, telling us it was time to wake up and get moving with the traveling. Yes, this is the crazy traveling life Alison and I decided to live for the next week. We got dressed, packed our bags, checked out and almost made it to the train when Alison thought she left her purse at the hostel. We ran back, and after a quick search it was nowhere to be found. We made it back to the train station and bought our breakfast, with still ten minutes to spare. (In the end it was packed in her suitcase, so we ended up with some extra exercise. No harm in getting the heart rate up before the sun rises). We arrived in Vienna at 9:30 and went directly to Schönbrunn Palace. Ok, in all honesty we got out of the subway station at the Schönbrunn exit, looked around and still didn’t know where to go. We asked someone and he pointed behind us and said see that huge yellow building… that’s it. Guess our brains hadn’t quite awoken from the train ride. We made our way to the Palace and were awed by the enormity. It was a very pretty building with a large courtyard in front. We took a grand tour, so we could learn about the people who lived in the palace and see the incredible rooms. I’ve never seen such magnificent walls decorations before. One of my favorite rooms had white walls with over 200 picture carvings coming out of the wall with blue moldings. It was aweing. There was also a gold room, where the walls were spectacular. I had never seen such a beautiful building. Every single room had these exquisite heaters as well. I loved it.
After the grand tour, Alison and I went to an Apple Strudel Show. We drank delicious hot chocolate, ate yummy apple strudel and watched the confectioner make apple strudel. Most of it looked doable, although the stretching of the dough looked incredibly intimidating. I would love to try…. But I have a feeling it will end up a mess. If you are up to the task of stretching dough out so think you can LITERALLY read through it (yes, I could read a newspaper through the dough he stretched), then I would love to try this challenge with you.
After checking into our next hostel, Alison and I went to the Vienna Opera House for a tour. The opera house was an enjoyable experience… but also a lot of looking at pretty rooms. The coolest part, was when we went into the theater we could watch the stage hands setting up for the show tonight. We learned that the stage is made of multiple platforms, and between acts they can be changed. We watched as the stages were brought up from the floor below and moved forward and backward. The back of the stage went at least three stage lengths back. It looked like the distance of a football field.
From here we headed back to Schönbrunn Palace for a concert. We enjoyed an orchestra concert accompanied by opera and ballet. It was a great way to get an exposure to the art that Vienna has to offer. We also felt very mature and proper after having a nice dinner and dressing up for a fancy concert in the palace. We made our way back to the hostel and met many Australians (and a few nationalities, but really mostly Australians) who were staying at the hostel as well. The first two we met, Adam and Joe, were very fun. Adam was wearing sweats, which he made known were meant for females although he is incredibly tall, because he claimed all of his clothes shrank. We relaxed and chatted a bit before finally calling it a night.
Thursday, January 22nd 2015 - Vienna, Austria
Alison and I had a big day ahead of us. We woke up, grabbed breakfast and headed on the metro to the Rathaus. It took us awhile to realize we were staring right at it (#travelingWithNoGuide). We then walked around front, which had amazing Architecture. We then wandered the area; seeing a University, looking at the streets. We even saw an ice rink in the middle of the city! It wasn’t just a normal ice rink though, it looked like it had many streets of ice winding around. I tried to capture it in a picture, but it was a useless effort. We then went to the Parliament, which was a beautiful building with way more gold on it then we would have ever expected. The building was stunning. We made our way to the museum quarter where we went to the mumok (the modern art museum). I went mostly for Alison, and was pretty bored, besides for one room where the artist made art around big data, pins and coding. The nerd came out as I wandered the room feeling a connection to the art. I really liked one piece that was called ‘Hard Coded’. The intricacies of the piece and tedious work made me really identify with what it is like to hardcode. After the mumok we made our way, on Bettina’s suggestion, to Hotel Sacher to eat the Sacher Torta. We ended up in a very fancy café where we were marveled by the deliciousness of the very well-known Sacher Torta, or chocolate cake. Alison was so blown away by it that (can you keep a secret?) she bought a cake as a gift to Bettina and her family for hosting her and showing her around Budapest.
We finished the afternoon at the Naschmarkt. We tried little bits of dried fruit and cheeses. We even went behind the stand of one. We ate a spinach and feta pastry for lunch, which was so huge that we could barely finish the one we split. I bought my first pair of earrings (very cheap ones but they were pretty) and promptly lost them because the shopkeeper wrapped them in a plastic bag. We picked some cheese and grapes to bring with us for the bus ride, and then said our goodbye to Vienna.
Thursday, January 22nd 2015 - Prague, Czech Republic
Our bus arrived in Prague at 9:30pm. We made our way to the hostel and found our room. But after a long bus ride, we couldn’t waste the whole evening. So Alison, three people we met at a hostel and I went out looking for a bar. After stopping in one, which was quite cool and had some fun dancing, we decided that we wanted to wander more, especially because Alison wanted to see the Charles Bridge at midnight. We lost two of the people from the hostel because they were more interested in drinking. This left Alex, Alison and I. Alex, who had been to Prague for one whole day, became our instant tour guide. He first brought us to the Astronomical Clock, which was stunning! It was lite up and looked beautiful in the night. We then saw the Charles Bridge from the distance before heading onto it. As we were walking on the bridge, amazed by the castle in the distance, I look at the time: 11:59 pm. Alison got her wish! We were on the Charles Bridge at exactly midnight. The whole walk and evening was very peaceful. The streets were quiet, which made it so easy to appreciate the beauty. Looking back, I’m so thankful that we went on this walk with Alex. It wasn’t too cold, so we could enjoy it all, and everything looked way more beautiful at night. We ended the evening at a bar on the other side of the bridge. We were just walking by and noticed it. It didn’t look like anything special, but we were intrigued. When we went further in, there was a spiral staircase down to the basement, which is where the bar was. We made our way down and realized we had stepped into a very local’s bar, with very cool, basement like feel. We each enjoyed a beer (thank you Alex!) and chatted. We learned that Alex, who was originally from America, is a ski instructor in Germany. After such a long day, we tiredly went back to our hostel. We were incredibly pleasantly surprised that Alex was our only roommate in an eight person room. We finally had a great night’s sleep.
Friday, January 23rd 2015 - Prague, Czech Republic
For our first morning in Prague, we made our way to the Jewish quarter. Since Prague wasn’t bombed during WWII, and because of other reasons, it is one of the only cities in Europe to have an untouched Jewish Quarter. Alison and I did a tour of the Jewish quarter, starting with a Spanish synagogue. The Spanish synagogue was beautiful! It had a very high ceiling with beautiful work on the walls and very pretty decorations. We then went to the Pinkas Synagogue. The walls of this synagogue were entirely covered by names of Jews who died in the Holocaust from the area. It was sorted by town, then last name, then first name followed by dates of birth and death. The amount of area these names covered was remarkable. It made the huge number into relatable and individual parts. There was also a section with art from the Holocaust. One woman had the children in the camps and ghettos during the Holocaust create artwork. This artwork was saved and on display. Some pieces were very sad and disheartening while others were colorful, which made it even more heartbreaking. We visited a few more synagogues, including the Old New Synagogue, which was a very exciting experience because I hadn’t seen a synagogue that was so old and historical, which gives Judaism a lot more of a grounding in history than what I had experienced in the past. We also walked through the Jewish Cemetery. This was amazing because there were so many graves on it! According to Jewish law, once a person is buried, you can’t remove them or anything. When the Jews in Prague quickly filled the little piece of land they were given for a cemetery, and not given and more, the only choice they had was to build up. So they moved the tombstones up a level and filled in dirt. Now there are about 12 levels of graves on the one piece of land! There isn’t even room for more tombstones. | |
Since we had so much more to learn about the Old Town of Prague we went on a tour. Our tour guide Givi, who was half Georgian and half Czech, walked us around Prague, telling us stories and teaching about the history. We saw a clock in the Jewish Quarter with Hebrew letters on it. But the most interesting thing about it, is that the architect thought that since you read Hebrew right to left, the clock should also go in the opposite direction. So if you know that bet comes directly after aleph, you will be surprised by the fact that it is where the 11 should be and not the 1. We also learned about the communist history of the city. He told us a story from the Velvet Revolution in 1990 (which is a switching of power from a one-party communist system to a parliamentary republic) that the to become leader was giving a speech in the square and everyone was shaking their keys. They keys represented the unlocking of their freedom. But, the part of the story that stuck with me the most, was that he offhandedly said that he was sitting on his father’s shoulders at the rally. It caught me completely off guard. Of course 1990 isn’t that long ago, I was almost born. But, there are very few substantial things that have happened in American History on our own soil since I was born. It makes the history so much more real when you can talk to a person who lived it.
For dinner, we ordered goulash and roasted duck. When the goulash came to the table, we were surprised what we saw. In Hungary, goulash is a soup with beef and vegetables. In the Czech Republic, it is beef in a very very thick sauce served with bread dumplings (basically steamed bread rolls, except as a loaf and sliced). It was delicious! That night, we went on a pub crawl. At the first bar, we saw two girls sitting at a table and Alison decided to join them. I am so glad we did, because they were two very nice Australian girls who we really enjoyed talking with! We danced with them a bunch at the first and second bars before losing them in the crowd. We met a bunch of other people throughout the night, at each of the different stops. The crawl ended at a 5 story club, where each floor had a different style of music. At the top one, there was a dancer on a runway… who looked exactly like Alison! We were shocked, surprised and slightly horrified, but we made sure to get picture evidence. The best part was we went into an Ice Bar. Basically they give you these huge heavy warm ponchos and gloves, and ‘lock’ you in a room at -20 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. The drinks are served in ice cups, the furniture (tables and chairs) are made of ice. It was very cold, but also a really fun experience. I felt like a queen sitting on the ice thrown.
Saturday, January 24th 2015 - Prague, Czech Republic
We spent this morning wandering the Old Town, experiencing the street music and (of course) shopping. We went jewelry shopping to look for things with the Czech Garnet. Alison bought a very nice ring and I purchased my first real set of earrings (in preparation of course for my ears to be pierced). We then made our way over to the Lennon Wall, which was a beautiful walk across the Charles Bridge. Unlike when we were there at midnight, the Charles Bridge was full of tourists, vendors and people enjoying the nice (and very cold) day. When we made it there, we were overwhelmed by the colors and message of the wall. You could feel the excitement and liberation of the citizens of the country. The atmosphere was added by a local playing guitar and singing. We added our own writing. I wrote ‘You can dance if you want to’ (yes, ridiculous but that was what I was feeling), Alison drew a peace sign, and we signed our names together.
We made it back to the Old Town Square just in time to grab a hot dog before our Prague Castle tour. Our tour guide was once again Givi. The castle was beautiful, the switching of the guards was humorous as always, and the cathedral was magnificent. Givi pointed out one of the six glass panels which was hand painted, versus the other six which were stained glass. I always love seeing stained glass, I think it is beautiful. But the stained glass in this cathedral couldn’t even compare to the beauty of the painted glass. After his first tour, we knew Givi was one to make jokes (not generally child appropriate) and use curse words during his tour (related to the history). This made it even funnier that we had a family on this tour. Givi told stories of the current president making a fool of himself, one of which where he uses the c word many times on the radio. We visited a statue that was meant to celebrate the youth. The statue was of a naked boy. Givi told us this story about it: the queen was so appalled by the statue, that she had the artist take off the inappropriate part. The public had an outrage. There couldn’t be a statue that had a ‘manjina’. Eventually the queen changed her mind. She went to the artist, asked if he still had the piece that had been cut off (of course he still did), and to have it placed back on. It became good luck to rub this part of the statue, which is why it is the only part of the dark statue that is polished and bronze. Givi instructed us not to lick to get good luck because our tongue might stick. A French tourist asked one of the people on our tour to take a picture of her as she, with clearly great expertise, increased her luck. Anyways, we didn’t see the family for much longer after that story.
After the tour, Givi took us and some of the member of the tour to get hot wine to warm us up after the freezing walk. I put oranges and lemons in mine which were so yummy to eat afterwards. We then went to a very traditional place for dinner with two girls and two guys from the tour… and Givi! Actually he was the one that brought us to this restaurant. It was such a great time to talk more and learn from him as well as socialize and hang out with other American college-aged tourists. I had a traditional dish of beef in a root-vegetable sauce that was topped with cranberry, cream and lemon. The flavors were very unique, especially with the lemon, but it was delicious. It even came with bread dumplings to scoop up the sauce.
We spent the rest of the night with the four people we had dinner with (yes Givi did then leave). We went to the Prague Beer Museum, where I had a delicious chocolate beer. It was shockingly really good and had a very chocolate smell. We then packed up our stuff and headed to the train station to return to Budapest. I slept almost every single minute of the 8 hour train ride. This was the end of Alison and my first trip. It was filled to the brim with activities and sight-seeing, but we had a great time and experienced so many new cultures, people and levels of exhaustion. I was so glad that I could start my semester abroad with such great places, fun things, delicious foods and an amazing friend. I hope I can say similar things about the rest of my trips throughout the semester.
We spent the rest of the night with the four people we had dinner with (yes Givi did then leave). We went to the Prague Beer Museum, where I had a delicious chocolate beer. It was shockingly really good and had a very chocolate smell. We then packed up our stuff and headed to the train station to return to Budapest. I slept almost every single minute of the 8 hour train ride. This was the end of Alison and my first trip. It was filled to the brim with activities and sight-seeing, but we had a great time and experienced so many new cultures, people and levels of exhaustion. I was so glad that I could start my semester abroad with such great places, fun things, delicious foods and an amazing friend. I hope I can say similar things about the rest of my trips throughout the semester.