Thursday, August 29, 2013

Egészségedre!

Meaning "cheers!" In Hungarian. 

Our last night in Prague was a very rainy Sunday night. We decided to get one more meal of cheap, awesome czech food and rounded up some hostel friends. I had gnocchi to avoid beef, but they all got the beef goulash with bacon dumplings. Needless to say, Jeremy was very happy. 
We also had huge beer, of course. 
When in Prague, right??

We spent the rest of the night playing scrabble with some English travelers and packing up our stuff to travel on Monday. 

Monday morning we were sad to leave. It was the best hostel and we made some awesome friends there. But that's how backpacking goes! 

So on Monday we boarded the train to Budapest after grabbing some hostel breakfast and some easy Burger King for the ride. "Fast food" here is neither cheap nor fast, but you can't beat the convenience when it's in the train station. It is still tasty and bad for you :)

Our ride to Budapest was our most depressing, I would say. It was a 7 hour direct but it was delayed 25 minutes picking us up and 45 dropping us off. Most of the ride was slow. Plus it was pouring down rain or there was very dense fog for the entire ride. 

We finally got to Budapest around 7:30 pm. It was getting dark and we were hungry and tired. I had looked up how to get to our host's apartment ahead of time, but there was a ton of construction going on at the station so we got a little confused. After stopping twice for directions we were finally on track for the 30 minute walk. We were so hungry so we stopped for a slice of pizza- literally the worst pizza ever. Yes, worse than Dominos from a gas station somewhere on I-20 at midnight. Awful. 

We had one minor freak-out because I stupidly had forgotten to look up the Hungarian forints (money) conversion and when I got the bill for 500 HUF I was a little worried. An exchange shop window helped- we realized that was only about $2. Disaster averted. Lesson learned. 

(Font change because I switched to another app to write on the train)

So our travel day wasn't spectacular, but we made it. 

We finally got to the apartment and met our host. Ryan is 29 and grew up 4 minutes from me. He now works from home in Budapest, which is a pretty sweet deal. His apartment is very nice- big and spacious with a great location. He knows the owners of all of the local hostels and many of the local bartenders. 

So, of course, we went out. 

Ryan took us first to eat at a taco place owned by a Mexican woman. It was awesome. He then took us to a couple of ruin bars- Budapest's famous pubs. These bars are set up in abandoned buildings and lots. They usually have an open area, so people can smoke "inside". They are all themed differently, and the good ones are weird. One of the ones we visited has actually been named the 3rd- best bar in the world. I got a bad inside pic at night and a better outside pic the next day. 
You can't tell much but you can tell its crazy and pretty cool. 

We ended up at a bar that was having an open mic night and all of Ryan's friends were there. It was actually really cool because Ryan got up and did a song!
After that we did a horrible Hungarian shot and first heard the Hungarian word for cheers (sounds like egg-a-shay-ga-dre). We hung out for a bit and finally headed back to the apartment. It was our latest night out yet, but it was a blast. 

The next day we slept waaaay in until almost noon. We really only got about 8 hours of sleep so I guess it's not so bad. We missed the early tour- and normal people breakfast time- so we headed out around 1:00 to find some lunch and the 2:30 tour. We took Ryan's suggestion and got sandwiches right around the corner from him. Most of them were weird like tripe and some kind of brain, so we both got the Thai chicken. Delicious!

This was our sixth walking tour, so maybe we are just burnt out on them. Or maybe our guides recently just haven't been stellar. Either way, this walking tour was just as bad as Prague. It was boring, long, and in-concise. I would be fine with a 3.5 hour tour and 3.5 hours worth of info. But recently I have felt like I could have learned and seen it all in 2 or so and it's a waste of time. 

We will continue to do them because they are cheap and good for a first day, but we are both hoping they get better. Maybe we'll switch it up and do another bus tour or a bike tour somewhere. 

Anyway, there is some cool stuff I have to share. 

First of all, the briefest Hungarian history possible. Just like Prague, they have a long sad history. Constantly invaded and taken advantage of. Occupied by nazis and then communists and stayed communist until 1989. I guess that's most of Eastern Europe really. 

So we were staying in the Jewish quarter- historically the only place where Jewish people were allowed to live. WHY did everyone hate Jews?? I mean really it makes no sense to me. It is now a pretty cool area of bars, ruin bars, and little local restaurants. It also has the 3rd-largest synagogue in the world. It is HUGE!
It was built by a Christian in a Muslim style for Jewish worship. Kinda cool. 

Budapest (pronounced Budapesht) is actually a combination of 2 cities- Buda, the hilly, north western side and Pest, the flatter, southeastern side. The Danube river splits them. 

Buda as seen from Pest. More on the statue in a minute. 

Pest as seen from Buda. 

So the communists built a bunch of statues that all had some political meaning. After communism fell most were destroyed and removed. The first one that was put up after communism was a little princess by the river. 
And she means NOTHING. She's just cute!

I took a bunch of pictures around the city that I don't have stories for but they give you a taste of the city. 
Honestly it's more European than I was expecting. It's the furthest east we're going so I guess I expected more of a Russian or middle eastern flavor or something. I don't know- wasn't sure what to expect at all really. Seems silly now that I thought that. 

The National Science Academy building was pretty, and has produced 14 Nobel prize winners. We also learned that the Hungarians have invented a lot of stuff, including the Rubik's cube. :)

We crossed the chain bridge, which is very pretty from afar and up close, from Pest into Buda. 

We walked up to the castle district, where there is oddly no castle but there is a palace. We got the great pictures of Pest from there. It was a small hike up the hill but not too bad. Gorgeous view was totally worth it. 

The castle district is a quaint little town on top of the hill where some government stuff happens and tourists go. 

Their White House. President only works here, doesn't live here. 

Ruins from when there was a castle. 

Cute roads and shops. 

Mathias Church. Absolutely beautiful. The crow is from Mathias' family crest. He was a king who added the large white tower. 

Fisherman's Bastion, where the fish market used to be. 7 white towers symbolize the original 7 tribes that came together to create the city. It looks out onto the river and Pest. 

That was the end of the tour. 

We were of course starving so we got a snack- baguettes and these Hungarian candies that are basically cheese cake wrapped in chocolate. 
So good. 

We walked back to Ryan's and took a break. We showered and relaxed. When he was done with work he took us out to a traditional Hungarian restaurant for some local flavor. It was great. I got chicken and langos, traditional baked goods kinda like rolls crossed with pizza. So good. Jeremy and Ryan both got the gnocchi with duck. It looked really gross to me but they loved it! We also learned about traditional drinks. Beer, of course, but they also drink wine only it's mixed with carbonated water. It's actually great- it's light and refreshing while keeping you hydrated. :)

After dinner we went to just one bar. Had a nice long chat and played some fooseball. Actually that's a lie. Chatted and got our butts KICKED by Ryan. He is so good. Apparently you have to be good to live there. There's a table in every bar. 

We called it an early-ish night. Earlier than the previous, at least. 

The next morning my stomach wasn't feeling great. I think it was just all of the heavy food. I was up from like 7-9 not feeling well so I slept until almost 11. Really didn't want to get up and do stuff but a rain shower was clearing up and there was some stuff I really wanted to see. So we grabbed some bananas (YAYYYY FRUIT!)  for breakfast and headed out. 

The first thing we did was climb up this hill to the statue. 
This is their lady liberty, and I absolutely love her. 
She has an interesting history. She was built by communists, so they wanted to destroy her after the fall of communism on principle, but they also really liked her. So instead they covered her with a white sheet for 3 days and ten unveiled her as if she were brand new. So they made her their own. I'm glad too. She is so cool and very beautiful, up on the mountain holding a palm leaf with her dress flowing in the wind. Only 1 other statue remains in the city from the communists, and it commemorates the Soviets who died freeing Budapest from the nazis. 

So I was glad we got to see her up close. Quite a hike though- we were both dripping sweat at the top. It was humid as hell. 

The view was also worth it. 


Back down near the bottom of the hill is a statue of St. Stephen, their biggest hero. It has a beautiful waterfall. 


After that we walked back over the river and went to check out St. Stephen's basilica. Gorgeous on the outside...

Even prettier on the inside. 
Easily the most gorgeous church I've ever seen. I'm not very religious, but I really do love churches. So peaceful and ornate. 

They do have a weird thing here though- the alleged actual right hand of St. Stephen, mummified and preserved in a glass case. 
It's in there... you just can't see it unless you pay to turn the light on. No thanks. 

We got some easy lunch- a sandwich for him and a big salad for me. I was trying to go easy on my stomach. We walked a little further up to the parliament building to try to get a close look but there was a lot of construction. 
It's the third largest parliament in the world. Why all the third place stuff in Budapest? Really couldn't tell ya. 

We took a nice long rest at Ryan's after this. We were really quite tired after the 4 hours of walking. Jeremy took a short nap. I usually avoid naps because I wake up even grumpier. 

We left at 5 for a long walk to the other side of the city. We also wanted to see if we could get cheap train tickets to Vienna to save a pass day. 

We walked down the Main Street through the city, which was very pretty. 

We passed the opera house...


Heroes square...

And the prettiest McDonald's I have eer seen in my life. 
 
We did end up getting tickets for 25 Euros, which is pretty cheap, so now we can do another day trip in Italy on our pass :)

After the walk we went out to dinner with Ryan again, this time to a great Chinese place near the river. The dumplings were great- almost as good as the views. 

Mathias church and the fishermans bastion from across the Danube

Chain bridge and palace at night. 

After that we were completely beat. This put us close to 8 hours of walking in a day. So we elected to stay in and Ryan went out. We took showers, packed up our things, and went to sleep. 

That FINALLY brings me to today! 

It's a travel day, so nothing tooooo exciting is goin on. We got up and left  around 11:15 am for the train station. We picked up some food on the way and used the rest of our money for Jeremy to stock up on cigarettes. They were cheap in Budapest and that way the money is used instead of paying to exchange it. So it worked out. 

Our train ride was 3 hours and we just got to the hostel. Need food soon....

Sorry this post is so late. I hope it's worth the wait. Now off to find food!!!

Miss you

<3


Many Apologies

I think this is the longest I have gone without posting anything. I am so sorry. It's because I haven't had much time here in Budapest and then I worked on it for an hour- pictures, stories, everything... And it got deleted. This was yesterday afternoon and honestly last night I just didn't feel like rewriting it. 

About to get on a 3-hour train so there will be a post tonight!

Thanks for reading and I'm so sorry!

<3

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Rainy Sunday

Last night we got back to the hostel and laid around for a while. I started looking at hostels in the next cities. And took a shower! And then we got some cheap Vietnamese food across the street for dinner. 

It was awesome. 

We got a group together from the hostel and we all went out to a bar. It was really fun! The beer is so cheap and massive, and we had some good talks. 
Alex, me, Simon from Switzerland, Sebastian from the Netherlands
Bunch of Englishmen celebrating their 18th- like our 21st

And then somehow we ended up at a casino... It was a good night. I was in bed by 2:30 so not bad. 

Today I left the hostel twice- once for more Vietnamese food for lunch and for dinner. I washed my clothes, I cleaned out my backpack, I booked hostels for Austria, I talked to my mom, and I just relaxed. It was rainy outside so it was the perfect day to take a day off. Plus I LOVE this hostel. I wish I could take it with me to every city. I have realized, and confirmed with friends, that the smaller cheaper hostels are more friendly. They still have to be clean though in my opinion. I'm not staying anywhere gross and dingy...

I felt a little sad because there were still 2 things I wanted to see in Prague- the castle and Charles Bridge. But that's ok. There's stuff we don't see in every city. I needed today. I wish I could have just stayed in bed watching Netflix but I had stuff to do. Still very relaxing though!

So tomorrow we are off to Budapest. This is a short entry but I still have WiFi so I'm trying to use it!

Tall to you soon

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Prague- the city of many countries

 Our train ride out of Berlin was the prettiest yet. And we were in a Hogwarts Express-style compartment :)

German houses on a river
Cliffs!

We got to Prague around 5:30 and walked to the hostel, only about 15 minutes. The first thing we noticed were the beautiful buildings. 

We got settled in the hostel and immediately loved the place- very artsy and homey. 
A wall in the kitchen

We took our usual first-night-in-a-new-city walk and got some easy Subway sandwiches before calling it an early night. I also had to try the local soda, Kofola, which is almost like Coke but more like birch beer. 

Jeremy says its not at all like birch beer but he cant think of a better way to describe it. 

And we have wifi!!! WOOOOO

On Friday morning we got up for- of course- the walking tour. Breakfast was the best we've had so far. Cocoa puffs, corn flakes, 3 kinds of bread with butter, jelly, or Nutella, hard-boiled eggs, coffee, tea. Yum. We met the tour guide  in the old town square which is only a 6 minute walk from our hostel. 

It was honestly the worst tour we've had so far but it was still ok. Our guide just wasn't very excited about anything, and really didn't have that much to say. We mostly looked at buildings, which gets really old after the first hour. We did get a bit of history, so I'll share that. 

Prague was settled by Celts, part of the Holy Roman Empire, and has since been part of many different countries depending on who is invading. In the last 100 years the Czechs here have been part of 9 different countries depending on the year... From Bohemia to Czechoslovakia to the Czech Republic and a bunch in between. They were occupied and bombed by Nazis (and the allies) and then invaded by the soviets and turned communist. So yea- Jeremy and I were thinking they just really need to drink less and form an army. They are the biggest drinkers of beer in the WORLD per capita. 

This is the church in the old town square. It's very old but the house in front of it is even older. 

This guy was a famous catholic priest who refused to sell indulgences (monetary forgiveness of sin) so he was burned at the stake as a heretic. 

This palace was really beautiful but I honestly don't remember anything else about it!

You may notice that there is only about 5% of a building here on the right. The rest of the town hall was destroyed in a fire. But the clock tower was kept. 

On the other side of the clock tower is one of the most famous things in Prague. This is an astronomical clock- the oldest functional one in the world. It has been telling the time for six hundred years! It's only useful though if you want to know Babylonian time... 

Still in the old town, we went and saw the oldest building of Charles University. This was pretty cool. Einstein taught here for a while- applied physics I think.
 
Directly across the alley from that was this concert hall. Music nerds get ready- this is where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni and this is the last place he conducted his own work. Pretty cool!!!

Statue commemorating the premiere in 1787

All of these buildings are in the same square, and were supposed to illustrate how diverse the architecture is here. Whatever. 

One weird thing they did was try to turn the cubist art style into a form of architecture. So they have some weird buildings like this. 

This is a statue for Franz Kafka, who grew up an lived in Prague. I didn't know that when he died he made his best friend promise to burn all of his works, but his friend just got them all published instead. He is now, of course, world famous. This statue is based on a dream he had where he was riding around on a man with no head or arms. Yea, he was kinda weird. But aren't we all?

Going back to WW2 (you can't avoid it over here, which is great for me)... So Hitler wanted to completely destroy the Jewish people, but he really liked Prague and he wanted to preserve the Jewish quarter here as a museum of Jewish life. Sick. Just so sick. 

But it's a good thing because this is pretty much the only Jewish quarter in a major European city that has been preserved. 

This is the oldest synagogue, and one of not that many remaining from before the war. It is right across the alley from the old Jewish town hall. 

And right around the corner is the Jewish cemetery. Remember the holocaust memorial in Berlin? With all the stone coffins of different heights? This is where the architect got his inspiration. 
The cemetery is not ground level- it's in a wall about 10 feet high. It is estimate that about 100,000 people are buried here as much as 12 people deep in some spots. This was the only tiny cemetery they had. The top is full of some 40,000 grave stones. We didn't go in but it was amazing to see. 

This house has been converted to a museum. 
All of the Jewish people that were taken from Prague and never returned have their names on the walls inside. And then there's a gallery of children's paintings. You may have heard this story of the woman who got kids to paint in concentration camps to calm them down. She was killed in a gas chamber. Only 200-some of the 10,000 children taken from Prague made it home. 

In the distance across the river is a huge metronome. It was placed where there used to be a huge 40-foot statue of Stalin. It is supposed the symbolize the time lost in Prague to communism. It actually moves all the time. It's a pretty cool statue. 

Our last stop was the Rudolfium concert hall. My favorite part was the Dvorak statue- he's one of my favorite composers. 
So that was the tour. I actually had more to share than I thought so that's good. 

We stopped for a quick lunch (our first burrito since Dublin) on the tour, so after we were just tired but not too hungry. We headed back to the hostel for a rest and we took showers. 

And then we met Alex! She is 24, from San Diego, and just graduated college with a degree in metal working. She makes jewelry art. How cool is that??? So cool. 

So the three of us went and got dinner at a traditional Czech place. We got sausages as an appetizer with spicy mustard. We each got a beer. Jeremy and Alex both got beef and dumplings. 
I didn't eat the beef but the sauce and the dumplings were amaaaazing. I got the fried cheese and spinach 
Which was basically a big mozzarella stick and was also soooo good. 

The whole meal for 3 was the equivalent of 30 euros. Like $40. That's cheap. 

By the time we were done eating and talking it was late and we were tired so we headed back for bed. We had decided already to have an early day today and leave Prague for the small town of Kutná Hora, famous for its bone church. 

So today we left the hostel at 9 (after many bowls of cocoa puffs) to catch a 10 am train to Kutná Hora. Alex came with us. I love having new friends around. 

We got to the tiny town at 11 and walked straight to the church- a good 20 minute walk. 

The bone church is a place where the owners asked a woodcarver in 1870 to decorate the church with bones to remind visitors of mortality. 

Here are some pictures to give you an idea. 
This is a chandelier that includes at least one of every bone in the human body. 

The outside was beautiful.

So then we were so hungry so we went to a tiny little cafe across the street and got some amazing risotto. And a Kofola, of course. 

It was actually really awesome. And again cheap- 4 euros. 

We spent another hour walking around the tiny town. It almost feels like Italy with the old stone walls and terra-cotta roofs. 

We were already pretty tired so we caught the train back to Prague. 

And that's where I am now! So you're all caught up. We are going back to rest for like a while. Maybe go out tonight and enjoy some Prague night life. I don't know yet but I definitely need a nap or something. Also need to start planning the next legs of the trip.

That's all for now- more tomorrow!

Miss you

<3