Ok, time to catch up. I am sure everyone is dying to know how my trips to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest went, as well as my recent trip to Paris and Versailles. I have been so busy between classes, volunteering, and traveling, I feel like I haven’t had a minute to sit down and write what has been going on.
First off, I’ll fill everyone in on my wonderful Spanish family. While I was gone on my 10 day adventure to Prague/Vienna/Buda, my senora broke her hip. She was at her daughter’s house and she slipped and fell, and even though she is only 63 she suffered some serious damage. When I came home from my trip, I was greeted by her son and his wife and they told me she was in the hospital awaiting surgery. I went to visit her as soon as I could, and I’m happy to report her surgery went well and she is currently living at home again with me. Not gonna lie though, the Spanish hospital was a dump. Even her kids said it is the most “feo” (ugly) hospital they have ever seen. Literally we could walk in wherever we wanted, no security or anything, and doctors were wheeling patients past us basically mid-surgery. She had 7 of us as visitors and 4 other patients in the same compact room.
At least she’s home now, but she won’t be able to walk for at least 2 months, which is basically all the time that I have left in Spain now- time has flown by! Her kids are taking turns living with her, so I’ve had a lot of company over the past 2 weeks. I also just found out that over the next 2 months, she’s going to have 2 French students stay with us for a couple of days on at least 7 different occasions. I am actually excited about this, because no one will be invading my personal space too much but it will be fun to switch things up a bit and make some international friends.
I think that’s it though as far as my home life…
Now time to talk about my 10 day backpacking adventure! I traveled with 7 girls, including 2 of my sorority sisters Alexandra and Emily. Our first stop was Prague, Czech Republic from 2/11-2/14. One of the first days we went on a New Europe free walking tour, and we were so excited to see the city- however we were unprepared for the cold front from Russia that made our visit the coldest weekend in Prague since 1929. I’m not sure the exact temperature, because I don’t understand this whole converting Celsius to Fahrenheit business- but it was freezing. I am surprised my toes didn’t get frostbite through my horrible cheap Target boots that barely protected them from the snow and ice. Despite the weather, we braved the cold and actually learned some pretty interesting facts about Prague. For example- Prague has one of the most beautiful and well preserved Jewish districts in all of Europe, because Hitler didn’t destroy any of it in WWII. His reasoning for this was because he one day wished to make Prague his permanent residence and he wanted to keep all of the Jewish quarters intact as a living museum of the “extinct” race of people he destroyed. Some other interesting facts included that Hugo Boss was the man who made the Nazi uniforms, some information about kings and queens and the infamous astronomical clock tower, and some really interesting history about Wenceslas Square and revolutions against communism.
We saw beautiful views from the Charles Bridge, and the hipster graffiti on the John Lennon wall. Every other store in Prague either sold Garnet jewelry or crystal- I really wanted to get a Garnet ring or bracelet because it is my birth stone, but everything was ridiculously overpriced or of poor quality. But they are famous for these Bohemian mines where they harvest garnet, and Bohemian crystal is apparently famous as well.
The first day, we went out to a traditional Czech restaurant recommended to us by our hostel. Oh by the way our hostel was the best, Charles Bridge Economic Hostel- the people who worked at the desk were the sweetest and when we first arrived gave us hot spiced wine and always were friendly and helpful, even if they were a bit hipster with dreadlocks and piercings everywhere. But back to the restaurant- I decided to order goose leg so I could say I tried real Czech food. It was served with some type of cabbage and some weird potato bread thing. And it was actually okay. I don’t think I will ever eat that again, it was very fatty, but I’ll probably never be in Czech again so what the hell.
On the last day of our trip, we visited the Prague Castle as well, which is the largest Medieval Castle in Europe (pretty sure that’s the statistic...). The castle was less of a castle and more like a small town. It had a beautiful cathedral in the center, and it was surrounded by small homes, shops, army towers, and art galleries exhibiting famous art of that time.
Throughout the trip, we went out almost every night. Our first night in Prague we went out to Karlazy Lazne which is the biggest nightclub in Eastern Europe, with 5 different levels. Each level had a different theme, such as one only played oldies music, one was “hip hop”, and one I’m not sure what it was but all the shady Eastern European couples were making out in it. Another night we went out to Café Pub Atmosphere, where we tried potato “rum” shots and some very sweet dark beer along with hand shaved potato fries. After that we went to a pub called U Sudu, which was underground and had several different hidden rooms- some with foozball tables and one with a piano man and another that looked like it was in a cave. Here I had the best drink- rum with brown sugar and lime.
Overall Prague was very cool, and we had a blast exploring the city in spite of the below zero temperatures. It just gave us more of an excuse to drink that hot wine anyways. And although we would have loved to stay longer, our corny “Czech this out…” jokes were starting to get a little old, and it was time to move onto our next city.
So after our 3 days in Prague, we hopped on a bus to go to Vienna, Austria. Vienna has the best quality of living in the world (check it out- I don’t think the US is super high on the list), and you could definitely tell by the way the city operated and what the people were like. The city had the best public transport out of any that I have yet seen, and it was just a classy place to be. Our first day we went to St. Stephen’s Plaza, and climbed 343 stairs up to the top tower of the cathedral to get the best view of the city. You can all safely assume that I was the straggler on the stairs, struggling to breathe as I reached the top, but it was worth seeing the city from the very center. The first night we went out with a group of our guy friends who are studying abroad in Vienna for the semester. We went to U-4, which is kind of a rocker pub but was very fun to dance in- especially when our favorite Spanish song would come on the speakers and we were the only people in the pub who knew all the words.
The next day we decided to walk around the city, where we explored the Hapsburg palace grounds, a plaza with beautiful outdoor ice-skating, the famous Vienna Opera House, and the pastry shop Demmel. During our stay, one of the most famous Opera Balls was going on, so although we were not able to go into the Opera House we saw them setting up a red carpet for the high society men and women that would be attending the ball that evening- my invitation was obviously lost in the mail. Demmel was probably my favorite part of Vienna, because I had a chocolate cake that was the best I have ever tasted (sorry Portillo's, this one even beats yours…). It had orange liquor, hazelnut, dark chocolate, milk chocolate cream, and was so beautiful- I am getting hungry just thinking about it right now!
Another place we went in Vienna was the Belvidere museum, which is the most interesting museum I have seen yet, even better than the Louvre. It was a little smaller, and used to be a palace so each room was architecturally stimulating even without the amazing artwork everywhere. It had a mix of more modern works as well as medieval works, and it specifically highlighted the work of the famous Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, who is known for his painting “The Kiss”.
In addition to all of this, we saw the area where Mozart once lived, Sigmund Freud’s house, 2 delicious Viennese restaurants, and some more clubs. Overall this was our party city, because we have several friends who are studying abroad there and it was fun to go out with a group of girls and guys. The best club by far was Praterdome, just because we were all together and just ready to dance the night away-all 7 of us American girls may have hopped onto the stage that night….oh well, “you only live once” became our new saying this trip!
The morning after Praterdome, we took a train to Budapest that had compartments resembling those in Harry Potter- which was fine by me because we definitely need some space to spread out and sleep after a long night at the discotecas. When we arrived in Budapest, Alexandra, Emily and I met up with our friend Libby who is studying there for the semester. Libby was the best hostess, she let us sleep in her dorm and helped us figure out the public transport in the city- don’t know what we would have done without her!
The first night we went to the outdoor baths, which were basically like hot tub swimming pools. They are naturally heated through hot springs in the earth, and after a day of travel they were heavenly. We went at dusk, and you could see the steam swirling in the cold winter air. Although the run from pool to pool was freezing and we had to avoid piles of snow, the minute you stepped into the water we were instantly relaxed. After the baths, everyone had a craving for some Mexican food, so we went to some random restaurant we found that had burritos and fajitas and everything else that was probably less Mexican and more American. I should probably also mention here that we visited good old McDonald’s several times throughout our entire 10 trip, and I have come to call this fast food place one of my new best friends. McDonald’s may be horrible, but no matter what country you go to, you can count on this place to always have 1 euro ice cream and free WiFi.
Anyways, the next day in Budapest we went to the marketplace which had literally everything you can imagine from fresh meat to touristy postcards. Here we ate langos, which were fried dough with anything on top- I chose chocolate, almonds and powdered sugar, so good! I am definitely going to become “large and in charge” aka obese from all this travel food. After this we went on a really insightful communist walking tour of the city. Budapest was just recently liberated from communism about 20 years ago, and the effects of this government are still very clearly visible in not only the architecture of the city but also their style of living. Our tour guide lived through communism as a child, and she had some very sad anecdotes about how hard life was then. Now in a post-communism democracy, Hungary has many problems including unemployment and homelessness, because during communism everyone had a job and a home.
So after the walking tour, we went over the Buda side of the city (Buda and Pest are separated by the Danube River) and we went to Castle Hill, which had beautiful views of the grand Parliament building in Pest as well as cute little restaurants and a beautiful church.
Overall though traveling was catching up to us. Between the few hours of sleep we were getting each night and our diet of Micky D’s and alcohol, we were starting to fall apart. Especially because living out of a backpack for 10 days was no easy task- I think I want to burn all of my clothes from this trip because they are so disgusting now. So unfortunately, we didn’t make it out to any crazy bars or nightclubs in Budapest. Libby, Alexandra, Emily, and I went out together for an hour or 2 to catch up and have a glass of wine, which was exactly all we needed for the last night of our trip.
The next morning we got up at 5 AM and started our second 17 hour trek back home. It takes so long simply because we need to take a 5 hour bus from Madrid Airport into Granada almost every time we travel. This trip we even had a transfer in Zurich, Switzerland, so I guess you can say I’ve been there as well! I had a blast though and I am so fortunate that I was able to see these amazing cities. I know I am probably leaving out a lot of random anecdotes from the trip, but all in all this was our experience. If I had to pick a favorite city, I would say Vienna. And my only regret of the trip is that we never made it out to Salzburg, Vienna, which is where the “Sound of Music” was filmed and is apparently very beautiful- but 4 cities would have been pushing it. Other than that I seriously think we did everything perfectly- we saw everything we wanted to see, learned some really interesting history, and partied in some of the most beautiful cities in the world…life couldn’t be better. And, believe it or not, we didn’t get lost once, and we were able to figure out every Metro system in every country- even though I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of the Metra in Chicago.
But right now my hands are cramping up, and I think my host family thinks I am insane for sitting on my computer writing for so long. So, I will write about Paris and Versailles another day. This weekend I am traveling again (ahh why did I schedule all these trips in a row!?) and I am going to Dublin, Ireland. A huge group of University of Illinois students are all going to Dublin together this weekend, so I cannot wait to pub crawl and see the Cliffs of Moher with all of my friends.
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