Praha

Prague has to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Even though the bus ride was about 7 hours, it was so worth it! The day we arrived in Prague, we walked around the area of the city that our hotel was in and then had dinner. We all made plans to go out that night, but Anabel and I took a nap beforehand and did not end up waking up until the next morning!

The second day, our entire group did a walking tour of the city. We went up to the Prague castle and then inside of the St. Vitus Cathedral. We then worked our way down the side of the castle towards the Vltava River and crossed the gorgeous Charles Bridge.
After crossing the bridge, Anabel and I realized that we could not find anyone from our group, so we began looking in the small souvenir shops. We eventually found ourselves in the beautiful, old town square of Prague, with the Tyn Church, a tall tower with a historically famous astronomical clock, and many restaurants and shops, including some old-fashioned wooden booths selling cool things in the middle of the square. Dissatisfied with the over-priced meals all of the restaurants were offering, we opted for $1 hot dogs (that were REALLY good!!) and then decided to give ourselves a Valentine's Day treat by going to a nice cafe and having some coffee and a delicious pastry.


View of the Charles Bridge and Prague from the top of the castle


Another gorgeous view of the city!


A group shot at the castle


St. Vitus Cathedral


In front of the cathedral with Anabel


Jump shot with Zsolt and Anabel!


On the Charles Bridge


View of the Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge


View of the square and Tyn Church


Astronomical clock! Each hour is assigned one of Jesus' twelve disciples, and so every hour, a statue of one of the disciples emerges from the clock! In addition, a boy goes to the top of the tower and plays the trumpet at every hour.


Valentine's Day treat

We eventually ran into others from our group, and then decided to go up to the top of the astronomical clock tower, so that we could see a view of the entire city. By this time, it was evening, and Prague looked gorgeous at night!
After coming down from the tower, we bargained at one of the wooden stands for fresh, hot kurtos kalacs (a type of Hungarian pastry).


Nighttime view


Another view of Prague at night!

After this, we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go out. We had been hearing about a famous dance club that many people had recommended we go to. Apparently, it is the "Biggest Dance Club in Eastern Europe", according to a very, very large sign on the side of its building. Dancing in Prague was a great end to an amazing weekend in one of my new favorite cities!

Wein Day 2

Our second day in Vienna was just as packed as our first. We started out by visiting a house designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian architect and artist. The building was extremely unique. We then went to the Museum a few blocks away, which was also designed in a very similar manner.




After this, we ate lunch and then went to the Sigmund Freud Museum. The location of the museum was in Freud's old home and where he used to practice, before he and his family fled to London during WWII. Some of Freud's personal items, or copies of personal items, were in the museum. The one thing I did not know about was the love story between him and his wife. They were apart for several years of their engagement, but wrote to each other consistently throughout those years. Another neat thing was that Salvador Dali had visited Freud as a patient and sketched him (2nd picture down).





After visiting the museum, we briefly visited a second-hand store and then headed back to the hostel. After picking our things up from the hostel, we went to the bus terminal, and were on our way back to Budapest!

Wien Day 1

We had been planning to go to Vienna sometime soon, and finally decided to go this last Thursday. Christine, Anabel, and I took a bus there (only a 2.5 hr bus ride!) and then met up with Lisa, Chelsea, and Chelsea's mom. Since we had arrived in Vienna around 9am, we had the whole day to explore the city. We first went and checked in to our hostel (Hostel Ruthensteiner). Apparently this hostel is abnormally nice and clean relative to other hostels. I completely recommend anyone to stay here if they are visiting Vienna!

Our first destination after the hostel was Schonbrunn, the Imperial Palace of the Habsburgs. Also, I found out in my Contemporary Culture class last week that the name of the dynasty is correctly spelled "Habsburg" and not "Hapsburg", which is how I have always been taught to spell it. My professor said he thinks it's really weird that Americans are taught to spell it that way, so I've decided to start spelling it the "right" way from now on. Anyway, the palace was gorgeous, but after finding out that the entrance for a tour was almost 10 Euros (approx. $14), we decided to just wander around the gift shop and public area of the palace instead. I love going to places that embody history and historical events (yes, I am a history geek), so I completely fell in love with this palace.





After visiting the palace we grabbed lunch at a local restaurant. I had liver dumpling soup (one of my FAVES) and we all had weinerschnitzel. We then went on to our next place of interest: Palace Belvedere. Not only is this a gorgeous palace, but it is today an art museum. AND the featured artist was Gustav Klimt. So, most of his amazing artwork was up, including the famous The Kiss painting. While the guards in the room weren't looking, I even took a sneaky (though imperfect) picture of it! I also love another of his pieces, called The Maiden . His artwork was amazing.





As we left, Chelsea's mom persuaded us to go to Opera. So we went to the opera and bought standing tickets for 3 Euros to watch Giuseppe Verdi's Otello, a play based on Shakespeare's Othello. After buying the tickets, Christine convinced us to go to Cafe Sacher and try their famous chocolate torte cakes. The cafe (which is part of a hotel) is right next to the opera, and it is gorgeous! After the desserts, we went back to the opera to watch the show. Although standing for over 2 hours turning out to not be very great, the show was completely amazing. This is the first opera I have seen in a long time, and I think I have come to appreciate it much more than I did in earlier years.






After the opera, we headed back to our hostel, and then Anabel, Christine, Chelsea, and I decided to go out to the nearest pub and meet some other traveling students. We definitely met some characters: an eccentric Irish guy, a guy who also worked at our hostel (Franz!), a few French students, a very sweet girl from Vietnam, and guy from New York studying abroad in Prague.

Debrecenbe kene menni....

Last weekend, David (my cousin) drove Zsofi (another cousin) and me to Debrecen. The last time we had all been there together was for a family reunion right outside of the city. This time, we were going mainly for a youth conference event, which we were really excited for. However, most of the conference was not organized very well, so we ended up mostly just hanging out all weekend. Andris (David's brother) and Theo (our second cousin) also came for Debrecen for a day. If you know this group of people, you also know that you are in good company and will never be bored.

We stayed at David's friends' house and went out with David and his friends from Debrecen both of the nights we were there. It was definitely fun to experience another Hungarian city.