Hello all! SO sorry for the huge delay! Life and laziness caught up to me :)
Here I present a quick synopsis of my travels to Paris, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, as going into detail about each country would just take too long!
February was a month of madness! I studied for finals, dealt with a psycho roommate, took my finals, and then left the next day on my two week adventure.
I spent the first week with my godmother Mel, and her husband Simon, and son, Harry, in Paris. It was a nice blend of site seeing and relaxing in their home. I arrived on the Thursday, and we headed to Versailles for the afternoon. It is such a beautiful building, and the rooms are all so ornate. After touring, we had afternoon tea and cakes at Angelina's. Delicious!
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| Versailles! |
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| Angelina's |
The next day Mel and I took the dogs (Sadie and Lucy) for a walk, and then headed into Paris on the metro. After a look around Notre Dame, we walked all the way to the Louvre, past Rue de Rivoli, and ended up at the department store Printamps, for afternoon tea (are you detecting a pattern with us?). The building was beautiful, with a huge stained glass dome.
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| Notre Dame |
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| Printemps |
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| Louvre |
On Saturday, Mel, Simon, and Harry took me into Paris again. We went up the top of the Arc de Triomphe, where we had views of all over Paris. It was stunning. After, we walked along the Champs-Élysées and ended up at the Eiffel Tower. It was dark at this point, so the whole structure was lit up. On the hour, the Tower sparkled and it was magical. After dinner we ate at a delicious Pakistani restaurant, where I had my favorite: Veggie Korma.
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| Arc de Triumphe |
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| Simon and Mel |
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| Mel and I |
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| Harry and I |
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| Eiffel Tower sparkling at night |
O The next day was spent visiting the street market, relaxing, watching movies, eating, and snow shoveling, as it was the first snow of the year!
On Tuesday Mel took me to the airport, and we said our goodbyes, before I headed off to Prague!
Thank-you so much to Mel, Simon, and Harry. I had such a wonderful time with you, like usual!
After spending yet another wonderful in Paris, I hopped on a plane and headed to Prague, Czech Republic! Who knew I would ever go there!
I spent the first few hours wandering around the Old Prague Square alone, and then was joined by my traveling pal, Marise (remember her from Amsterdam?). The city was beautiful, and like Paris, lightly covered in snow!
We spent two nights in the Prague Square Hostel, and although it was great location, a large [very noisy] group of french students made it difficult to sleep. Still, the city was beautiful! I recommend it!
We also managed to sample some typical Czech food and beer. I ate a sort of fried cheese and Pilsner beer! All over eastern europe, they seem to enjoy meat, goulash, friend cheese, and beer!
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| Old Prague Square |
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| Astronomical Clock Tower |
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| First bagel in 6 months... We were excited |
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| Franz Kafka |
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| So cold! |
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| Charles' Bridge |
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| Night out in Prague! |
Next up, we took a train to Vienna, Austria! The countryside was covered in snow, so whiteness was all you could see in the distance.
When we arrived in Vienna, the first thing we noticed: how unbelievably cold it was! The bitter cold and wind made it incredibly difficult to walk around in, along with the wetness that was seeping in through my boots. I was happy to be in such a beautiful city, but boy was I cold!
As I just said, Vienna is an architecturally beautiful city. We walked around most of the tourist parts of the city, such as Schönbrunn palace, Stephansplatz, Vienna, went inside of the Albertina museum, and walked around the museum quarter. Again, the architecture is just stunning! We also managed to make friends with two french guys who were also visiting the city.
In terms of viennese food, Marise and I both tried viennese egg noodles and apfelstrudel (hot apple strudel).
Overall we had a nice time in Vienna. We stayed at the Wombats Hostel at the Naschmarket (a stall food market, with a ton of asian? restaurants), and although we planned just to spend one night in the city, our mistake of looking at the train arrivals board, instead of departures, kept us in town for longer. At least we were entertained by two Austrian military guys, who were headed home for the weekend. Hearing the local take on the city was an interesting experience!
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| On the train to Vienna! |
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| Schönbrunn Palace |
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| Schönbrunn Palace |
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| Schönbrunn Palace |
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| Schönbrunn Palace |
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| Stephansplatz |
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| Stephansplatz Cathedral |
The next morning we woke up at 5 AM to catch the 6 AM train to Budapest, Hungary. Luckily we had purchased train tickets that allowed us to ride any train to Budapest. Unfortunately, we hoped on the reserved train, and sat like stowaways in between two train cars. Remember how cold I said it was in Vienna? Well now we were sat on the ground, in a cold train connector, trudging along through the snowy countryside. Luckily we made acquaintances with a young german guy (who apparently likes tag his name into train windows, and speaks no english), and he let us know (in a pointing/ grunting sort of way) that there were free seats available. Two hours later we arrived in the wonderful (yet cold) city of Budapest!
Again, a beautiful (but a little bit more grungy) city in eastern europe! As we had originally planned to do the two parts of the city, Buda and Pest (pronounced Pesht) in two days, we had to mush together our plans and take the city by storm. Somehow we managed to see all the main cultural and tourist parts of the city in less than a day, with enough time to spend three hours at the GORGEOUS Schenyi Baths. If you ever get a chance to go to Budapest, go to these baths (think giant hot spring pools)! We spent the early evening switching from the cold to hot to hotter indoor baths, and then switched to the outdoor hot baths as the night moved on. And when I say we switched to the outdoor baths, I mean we ran, barefoot, in bikinis, through the snow, into the steaming hot baths. It was fantastic!
The night continued to be fun, as we were taken by our eccentric hostel host, Olga, of The Bubble, to the coolest bar I've seen. It was part bar, part warehouse, part art gallery (of really really odd art), part pizza place, part seating areas. So cool!
While in Budapest, Marise and I were able to sample some hungarian food! I tried the hungarian cucumber salad (which I managed to recreate tonight!) and mushroom goulash with noodles! It was SO cheap at the restaurant Frici Papas. Go there if you are in Budapest! Out of all of the cities I visited on this trip, I would say that Budapest is the most eccentric. It seems like it has had a series of constant historical struggles, but has managed to deal with it in its own individual way.
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| Stowaways on the train |
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| Market |
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| Cave Church |
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| What's that you ask? A box with a mummified saint's hand. WEIRD. You can put in money, and then it lights up the box so you can get a better view............... |
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| Opera House |
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| The only picture I have of the baths, as we didn't want to get our cameras wet! |
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| They had carrots at the awesome bar! |
So! That sums up the very basics of my trip. As its been over a month since I got back from that two week adventure, the details are a little fuzzy and the personal touches are a bit lacking! But hey! at least I finally posted something about my crazy Paris and Eastern European adventure :) As always it was lovely to see the Tong's, and this trip reaffirmed how well Marise and I travel together.
On that note of traveling.....
I'm headed to Barcelona tomorrow to see my Santa Barbara friends, Priscilla, Amanda, and Jess! Friday I head to Milan to see my roommate from last semester, Selene. My good friend Nicole will be meeting me in Milan, and from there we will travel to Cinque Terre! Then we will train to Florence, where my travel buddy Marise will meet us! In Florence I'll see my friend Vicky (who came and visited me at the beginning of January), after which, Nicole, Marise, and I will travel to the eternal city of Rome!
Excited doesn't even begin to cover the emotions that I'm feeling right now. Stress is definitely in there, but I cannot wait for all the wonderful experiences that I am going to have in the next 13 days!
As always, wish me luck :)
