Krakow and Aushwitz!

Hello Hello!
Yesterday I returned from our school's trip to Poland! Before going on this trip if someone had told me they were going to Poland for fun I would have thought "weird..pretty sure there's nothing fun in Poland". But I was wrong! Again, we left Budapest at a nice 7:15am and headed towards Poland. Apparently there's no freeway or highway that can take you to Poland, so after taking some awesome backroads in a huge tour bus we landed in Krakow after 8 hours of driving. We unloaded our stuff at the hotel and then went out to see some Krakow sights. We were very close to city center so we walked around the shops, ate some delicious Polish food (I had Borsch, chicken, and mashed potatoes), and then walked around some more. We went out to a bar where they serve two meter beer (don't worry mom, we split it with the whole group) and then we went to this club called "Legends" where they played really funny American music and people were dancing ball room style all over the floor. The next morning we woke up, ate our free hotel breakfast (a group favorite) and then headed out on our tour led by Marcel (the guy who is in charge of the USF program and who smiles ALL the time). We walked allllll over Krakow...literally like 7 hours of walking and saw the Castle, the house where Schindler lived, the bones of a reported dragon and tons more. After the tour we got some Mexican food (hahaha I know, weird to eat in Poland right?) and then shopped around where I got some cute little booties and some earrings that look like chairs! We went back to the hotel and had a nice early night. We woke up reallly early the next morning and got up the bus at 8:30 and headed to Aushwitz. I'll spare you the details, but it was a very intense trip. I am not sure if I can say I'm glad that I went there, but I think it's good that the Holocaust is not ignored as if it never happened. It was shaking to see how inhumane the Nazi's were and how much despair occurred, it gave me a lot to think about concerning humanity but it was very, very hard to hear and see the things that people had to endure. After the tour (which was 3 hours) we headed back home, but we watched the Pianist (a movie about a Pianist who is hiding during the Nazi occupation of Poland) on the way. I never thought that I would be driving through Poland, watching the Pianist, after just visiting Auschwitz, it was very intense. Overall it was another great trip and I am very glad I got the chance to see some of Poland!

Czech it out

Hello Hello Hello!
Again, so sorry for the blogging delay! I am finally prepared to blog about my trip to Prague (nice rhyme, right?) Anyway, the Prague trip was organized through my school so it was a really nice opportunity to spend time with my class mates. Friday morning, we all boarded the bus at 7 am and headed out to Czech. After a nice 8 hour bus ride, we rolled into Prague and unloaded into our cute little hotel. Myself and some other friends decided to wander around the city, since we had "free time" for the evening. We walked to the Jewish district, down the shopping street, and down to where the Astronomical Clock Tower is. This was my favorite part of Prague, albeit the most touristy. This part of the town looks just like a fairy tale, tons of tall colorful buildings, castles off in the distance, cobble stone, bridges, and a huge clock that marks the middle of the town, it was so adorable! We walked around a bit more, but thanks to the lovely 20 degree weather, 4 hours of wanderings had left us all frozen. We stopped at a "Mediterranean/ Czech" restaurant and ate some delicious food and ordered hot rum, which is rum, water, lemon and honey! It was a nice way to warm up. We headed back to our hotel and Lily and I (my roommate in Budapest and in the hotel) ended the day by watching some nice music videos that they play here on MTV and VH1 that have not been played in America since the 1980s, such as The Village People's "In the Navy", such a classic. The next morning we woke up early, and headed out with the group on a guided tour. We took the tram up to the Prague Castle. Again, it is more like a fairy tale than anything I have ever seen before. Castles, motes, guards, and beautiful views. We all took turns being photographed with the guards...which I'm sure they loved and walked back down from the castle, over the bridge, and down to the clock again. After our tour was over, our guide led us to a typical Czech restaurant, where I ordered some roasted pork and cabbage (when in Prague). After lunch we walked back to the clock town and ordered this donuts type things that are basically dough they wrap around metal columns and roast over hot coals and cover in toppings such as cinnamon/sugar or chocolate...they are so good! After I walked around with my friend's Emily and Leah and looked in all the touristy shops, bought a Prague Starbucks mug, got lost for an hour or so, and eventually made it back to our hotel. We took a little Disco nap (this I have discovered is a wonderful thing where you nap, for as long as you want, and then go out to disco! So great). After our disco nap, we headed out to a bar, but unfortunately it was closing as were all the bars around it so we got delicious Gyros, which are a staple for the late night crowd in all of Europe. We went home, passed out and boarded the bus early in the morning and headed home. It was a great trip, if anything I have a stronger desire to go back because of how short, but great, our trip was :)



The yummy doughnut things!

Pig Festival

Hello!
I apologize for my absence from the blogosphere. I haven't been doing much other than daily life until recently/ haven't been in the blogging mood. But all that has passed! So let's see...two weekends ago I went to this Pig Festival in Budapest. It is tradition for Hungarians to get together with their families and slaughter a pig. Luckily, I missed out on being born into a Hungarian family so I didn't have to watch this. Instead I went with my roommates and some other Erasmus (Erasmus is the study abroad with European students to other European countries)kids to this festival that basically celebrated the Hungarian Pig and eat a lot of it. I was going to get a traditional Hungarian sausage but the line was waaaayyy tooo long so instead I bought a hot dog (hahah yeay America!). Overall it was a very fun experience and a great way to experience some things I normally don't do at home.

Buda

Laina Visits!

Wow! It's been a crazy week! Laina came in last Tuesday and sadly left today :(. It was really fun to have her here because we got to go around and do all of the touristy things that I haven't had the chance to do yet. Here's what we did:

Wednesday:
Laina came with me to school and got to see what my classes are like. We got Gyros for dinner, which are these stands that slice these huge hocks of meat into pita bread with hot sauce and veggies all for 600 huf! We went to an Erasmus party that was themed "Everything's better French," hahah, we were the first ones there and basically brought the party with us but it was really fun and the French kept bringing us food! I also found a cat pillow which I fell in love with! We then went to some Croatian girl's house for a party, but it was super small and smokey in the apartment so we left and came home and passed out.







Thursday
The next day we woke up early and headed over to Buda. We trekked around castle hill, looked through the museums, and explored. We went to one of the sites on Castle Hill and a huge tour bus of Korean's unloaded as we started to walk around the castle. This older lady started to pantomime something about her camera and we offered to take a picture for her but it turns out she wanted us to be in her picture! It was great, I always like making more Asian friends.








Friday
The next day we woke up and headed to this town called Szentendre. This is a little artsy town about 40 minutes away by train. On the way to the town these little boys we sitting by us speaking Hungarian and exchanging funny glances at us. Finally one of the boys said "do you speak English," to which I responded "Yes! Do you?" This warranted a very excited giggle from both boys at which they pulled out an English work book. For the next 10 minutes or so they proceeded to look up phrases in the book and giggle every time we responded, this is basically how our conversation went:
Boys: "Come here"
Us: "Come where?"
Boys: "hahahahahahahheheahahehehee. Pick up your pen"
Us: "I didn't drop a pen"
Boys: "ahahahahahhaehehehaheheehe. Don't look"
Us: "oh ok, we wont"
Boys: "hahahahahahaheheahahaheehehaheheehehahahahaheheha".

We walked around the town and visited a Marzipan museum with a huge statue of Michale Jackson made of Marzipan and white chocolate! It was epic! We then were looking for food and walked down this long dark stair case to a restaurant that the signs said was 100% Magyar (Hungarian). We went into the restaurant and there were people standing around talking but no one eating, it was really awkward because they were all looking at us quizzically. I asked for a table for 3 and one of the ladies said "ohhhhh we're not open" to which I replied, "Oh ok, when are you opening?" and the response was "March or April". We decided we wanted to eat a little bit earlier than that so we wandered around some more and found some food at another little place. We did a wine tasting in this cool old cellar, and also had some Hungarian fruit liquor called Palinka that is very good, but very strong (I think the guy told us like 55% alcohol). Overall, it was a great trip and a lot of fun to get out of the city and see some more of Hungary.









Saturday
We woke up real early on Saturday because I had heard that there was a cool farmer's market on the Buda side of the town. Snow was dumping like crazy but we decided to head out anyway despite the intense weather. We hiked all the way over to Buda, climbed up a giant hill only to find out that the market only really happens in the summer. We decided to get some baked goods at a little grocery store where we had been the day before and then caught the bus/metro back to Pest so we could go to Market Hall, this giant indoor farmer's market type thing. This was really cool, kind of a Hungarian Pike's Place with tons of sausage, pigs heads, cheese, and bread. We went downstairs to this grocery store that looked a little sketchy from the outside, but on the inside was heaven! This grocery store sold hoisen sauce, sriracha, tortillas, peanut butter! Everything! And the best thing is that it's by school! It was a great find. Laina and I decided that we wanted to go to this place called the "Sugar Shop" that some kids from school had gone to before. We looked up directions on Google and proceeded to take the metro all the way to the end of the line and walk around in the boonies looking for this candy shop. After sludging through the snow we decided to head back only to find out later we quit a looking about a block away from the store. hahahaha, it was sad but funny. We decided instead to go to a Cafe that's quite famous in Budapest called Gerberaud, which is a big touristy spot, but had delicious dessert and fancy decor.











Sunday
The next morning we slept in and decided to look up the Sugar Shop again. It turns out there is one about 4 or 5 blocks from my house. We headed out and found the shop this time, this place was truly Laina's heaven. We were literally kids in a candy shop, there was wall after wall of sweets followed by a dessert bar of beautiful hand made desserts. After we ate a life times worth of sugar, we headed out to city park, where we saw Hero's square, and then went to the Szechenyi baths. We were a little confused at first because all the Hungarians seemed to know what they were doing and Laina and I were walking around in our swim suits looking awkward and feeling lost. We finally found the baths and decided to join the speedo clad Hungarians and float around. The Baths were great, there's about 15 inside and 3 outside and tons of steam rooms. It was a great way to relax from our oh so stressful lives.













Monday
Our last full day together, I had class so Laina met me at this cafe called Al Tair, during my brak. This place was described in a guide book as having "suspended lofts". We went in, took our shoes of and walked into this room that looked like a big cat condo. It was really cool! There were little nooks you could crawl into and carpeted perches you could climb on top of and drink your tea. We then went to lunch at this cute Italian place that was attached to the Italian cultural center. Monday nights there is a pub by my house called Morrision's where every Monday they do the whole 3 beers 500 HUF's thing. We went there with the USF kids from school and danced, karaoked and drank beer and tequila! It was a good way to end our Hungarian experience together!