London Calling

My London blog is finally here!

We traveled on this trip into the city with Sam and Paige, but Paige stayed at a different hostel from us. Sam stayed with us and so did our friends Margaret, Sebastian, and Tiffany, who we all know from here at the castle. We got to London in the late afternoon on Friday after a semi-delayed flight and a traffickey bus ride into the city. We got to our hostel (which was DISGUSTING by the way), checked in, dropped all our crap off, and headed out to find something to eat because we were starving.

We ended up heading into Camden Town, which is this young hip-ish area with lots of bars and pubs and stores and stuff like that. We wandered around for a bit in and out of stores, found a record shop that Sam had previously been to on some other trip to London, found a smallish diner for dinner, and continued wandering.



We wandered into the Stable Market, which is this really awesome leveled market with layers and layers of shops, many with Middle Eastern themes. There were a bunch of falafel places, a lot of hookah bars, and a lot of cute little stores that sold things like scarves and jewelry. I ended up getting a scarf for 1.79 pounds, which translates to about $2.97, so I HAD to get it. Stable Market is where a former horse hospital used to be, so it's gigantic and wooden and most of the original barn-like structures are still there. There are also now these massive horse heads sticking up from the ground (as shown in the picture above), which are very fun to mess around with.

We ended up wandering into this HUGE bar, fell in love with a bartender for being adorable (Sam ordered a drink but he misheard him and thought he'd ordered two, so when Sam corrected him he poured the first drink into the second and only charged him for one - aw), got hit on by some drunk Norwegian guys in the city for a soccer game, and called it a night around midnight.

The next day we decided to explore the city. We were mostly going to split up but we all wanted to check out Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross and since there was some major tube construction going on this weekend the line that we'd have to take to get there would be closed on Sunday so we went then.



It. Was. AWESOME. 'Nuff said.

(We were clearly the oldest people there who weren't parents with their kids, but we didn't care and we all posed.)



Next we split up. I headed into Leicester Square because I'd heard it was a really nifty place to hang around, and also that there's a road called Cecil Court somewhere near the tube stop that Diagon Alley was supposedly based off of. I could not find it, so I just wandered a bit more. I ended up in the nearby Trafalgar Square, which is also another really cool place, and I conveniently ended up running into Nicole. We realized that we both wanted to see Buckingham Palace so we just hooked up and walked in that direction.



It was like a 20 minute walk away but totally worth it. We had to walk down the gorgeous mall to get there which was all lined in multicolored leaves and with the palace looming in the background it was perfect. We sat around outside it for a bit taking pictures and peoplewatching. It wasn't nearly as grand or massive as I thought it would be, but still cool nonetheless.





Then we headed back to find something to eat. We passed this really neat castle-looking structure on our way too, and I just had to photograph it.

Walking back from Buckingham Palace was not fun, since we were starting to get a bit tired from all the walking and were absolutely starving. We just sort of wandered some more through some side-streets and squares until we came upon a main-ish looking one. We stopped in a Pret a Manger for some food and went back out on the street to look for someplace to eat. We found a fountain in the middle of the square so we decided to sit and eat. We were almost done eating when I started to look around and really notice everything around us. I realized that the place we were kind of looked familiar, but I wasn't sure why. I looked for a sign or something that might say where we were, and I finally spotted the tube station.



Turns out we'd been sitting in the middle of Piccadilly Circus eating for the past 20 minutes without even realizing it. Go us.

After we were done, Nicole and I decided to head towards Westminster. After a few tube transfers, we finally got there. We stepped out of the stop and started walking towards the Thames, not sure exactly where we were in relation to everything. After about a minute of walking in one direction Nicole tapped me on the shoulder and told me to turn around. Big Ben was literally 20 feet away from us and, again, I hadn't even noticed.



We started heading in the direction of Westminster Abbey because Nicole and I really wanted to see it. We got some great shots on the way. The weather was supposed to be gross and rainy all weekend but it was gorgeous for all of Saturday afternoon/night. We felt so lucky.



The Abbey!





As it turns out, the Abbey is closed after 1:30pm on Saturdays. Needless to say, we were very disappointed. Nicole was meeting a friend who goes to Oxford there so they could hang out and catch up and get dinner, so I left her there and started wandering off on my own.



I headed back towards the Thames and the bridge and just sort of wandered (again), taking pictures, taking everything in. I literally cannot believe how much I loved being in London. It is hands down my favorite place we've been to so far. I loved everything about it and would love to live there someday, but the only problem there is that it is SO expensive. This weekend I only spent money on the hostel, food, a scarf, two souvenir pouches for friends (they were like 50 pence each), the tube, and postcards, and I easily spent around $175. It was ridiculous.

I wandered back to Leicester Square to see if I could find Cecil court again and I succeeded this time, because as I was going up the escalator in the metro I saw a sign on the wall advertising it! I walked down it, wandered into a few book shops, and just had fun walking around (I was in the theaterish district by now) and enjoying the people and the night, since it was dark by now. The street was mostly book shops, antique shops, antique book shops, and art galleries. I LOVE LONDON!

I headed back to the hostel then and ran into Sam, Sebastian, Tiffany, and Kendra there. Tiffany was going to see a show so she left soon after (as it turned out, the queen was at her performance! She said it was so exciting. They all had to rise and everything when she walked in too). I grabbed a quick dinner, Nicole got back around 9, and then we all headed out again, back into Camden to enjoy Halloween. Sebastian had a ticket for a special club thing so he was only going to stay with us until around 12:30 (which is when we ended up leaving anyway), so we just went to find a bar again.

We ended up going back to the same one as the night before. It was PACKED. Every single person there was dressed up too, which was great. Even all of the bartenders were dressed up. People go all-out in London. I saw more fake blood than I ever have in my life. We ended up talking to this guy named Nico from Maryland who's studying abroad this semester in London. He was so excited to meet other Americans, it was really cute. There was also one guy in a full-on skeleton costume who would periodically come around and hug us and pretend to kiss us. It was so much fun. Afterwards we found another bar that was sort of clubbish so we danced in there for a bit, but then the tube was closing and we wanted to get back so we headed out.

The next day we decided to check out the British Museum, since it was only a 15 minute walk from the hostel. It was totally free to get in and they were having a huge Dia De Los Muertos celebration, so there were little kids everywhere too. We saw an Easter Island head, MUMMIES(!!), so many ancient Greek artifacts and a few sculptures that I vaguely remember studying at some point, and even the Rosetta Stone, which was awesome.

Afterwards we wanted to find some lunch. It was rainy and sorta gross out so we tried not too wander too far and ended up finding this cute little pub. It was totally packed though so the woman working there offered to let us sit upstairs to eat, warning us that there weren't any real tables but there were couches. We went up to see what it was like and found that it was like an upstairs lounge, and we were the only ones there, so we had a nice, long, and cozy meal up there.



Here's what it looked like!

That's pretty much it for London. After that we headed back to the hostel one more time to retrieve all our things and made it to the airport in time for our flight. Sam, Paige, Sebastian, Margaret, and this other kid Gio who also goes to school there were all on our flight, and it was awesome being with a bunch of people who we knew.

Since then I've just been schooling my life away. Classes are getting tough. But this Wednesday (so...yesterday) the OSA had a massive Halloween celebration here! There supposedly is a ghost living in the castle named Sophie (hence why the lounge in my building is called Sophie's Lounge), so they dressed the castle up in a haunted house (even had a professional haunted house person come to help out!), recruited a whole slew of townsfolk to come here and dress up and try to scare us, and took us around it. It was SO MUCH FUN. It wasn't all that scary, just really funny mostly, and I absolutely loved it. Everyone got dressed up, they gave out some free drinks, and it was just nice to hang out with everyone.



Here's my friend Alex, Dojna (who works in the OSA - she was dressed up as Sophie's ghost), and me!



And here's Alex again, Johnny (who also works in the OSA...I don't know what he's supposed to be here though), and me again!

After the festivities were over everyone headed to the pub in town. It was so much fun. Everyone from the OSA was there, Huber the groundskeeper was there, my lit professor was there, all the haunted house helpers were there, and all of us were there! It was just a really fun and exciting night and I feel like we all really bonded.

Right now it is 1:15am here and I have to be up in 3.5 hours! We're leaving for Berlin tomorrow (all 85 of us!) for our second mandatory travel excursion. We have a jam-packed schedule all of tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (which - by the way - is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, which means the day should be AWESOME) and then from there begins our week-long travel break. Nicole, Kendra and I have all our tickets and hostels booked and we are going to be spending our week in Vienna and then Prague. I'm SO excited. Our Vienna hostel was rated the best hostel in the city and was cheap to boot, and our Prague hostel came recommended by this girl Emily we know who's here also and is literally two blocks away from the city's main square. I don't think I could be more stoked for the upcoming week (as long as all the running around doesn't kill me this weekend!).

I'll have so much to update on when I get back, so keep an eye out! :)

Paris!

My apologies for taking so long to update this thing! I didn't go anywhere the weekend after Budapest besides Arcen on Sunday afternoon, which is this cute little town about 20 minutes away from here. The other days of that weekend were mostly spent doing homework and catching up on sleep. We've also had midterms this week so I've been INSANELY busy. Every moment spent awake has been devoted to studying. But thankfully I am done now, and it is time to update!

Paris this past weekend was absolutely incredible. We left at about 8am on Friday morning and got to the city around 4pm.



It took us about 5 actual hours on the train to get into the city. We were all going a bit stir-crazy after the day of travel so we spent some time in the hotel (pictured above) hanging around recuperating and getting ready for the night.



We'd heard that the Louvre is free on Friday nights for anyone under the age of 26, so we went, and found out that it's true! We all got in for completely free and spent something between two and three hours wandering around the massive museum (when I say massive I mean MASSIVE, I was NOT expecting it to be that huge). It was surreal seeing a lot of things I've only read about or seen pictures of in textbooks. All of the artwork was incredible. Too many things to name. We even saw Louis the XIV's coronation crown!



I'm on the right!



Seeing Nike was amazing too. I totally wasn't expecting it either, she just sort of...appeared. I knew she was in the museum, but not in the place that we found her.



Mona Lisa was mind-blowing also. She's encased in glass with two guards standing around her at all times. We managed to get near enough to take a picture, thankfully. Nicole and I kept making Da Vinci Code jokes the whole time we were there. When we first walked into the massive Louvre entrance area with all the pyramids we started yelling, "SHE'S BURIED RIGHT HERE!" at each other.



Twins?



After the museum, we wandered down past Le Jardin de la Tuileries, which is the garden somewhat attached to the Louvre, to the Place du Concorde and the Obalisque. In the distance we could see the Arc Du Triomphe illuminated, and to the left of it the top of the Eiffel Tower. Paris is truly gorgeous at night. I liked it so much better then than during the daytime.

Everyone was getting tired and hungry at this point so we hopped on the metro back to the hotel. There were these three guys playing music in one of the cars we were in. They were amazing. I managed to grab a 20-second video in addition to a few pictures. We found a cafe for dinner literally right next to the hotel and decided to call it a night.

The next morning we got up earlyish and headed out to see the city. We stopped at a little patisserie/boulangerie on our way to the metro and grabbed a quick breakfast. All I got was a croissant but it was literally the best croissant I've ever had in my life. The place we went to didn't seem to be all that hole-in-the-wall-ish, but it was pretty small, sort off a cute little shopping street. And it was SO good. We stayed near the Republique area, which is a little square with a bunch of restaurants/bars/cafes, so there was lots near the hotel to do.



We made our way down the Champs-Elysses. It was truly a surreal experience, being able to actually walk down this street I've heard about/craved walking down for so long. Unfortunately it was pretty rainy and gross out so we were all hiding under our coats, but there's still something beautiful about the city when it rains. Everyone's running around with coats and umbrellas and all the tourists who need to see what they've planned to see are still out, so there's this really strange sense of camaraderie among everyone. We all understand how badly we want to enjoy the city and all appreciate how gross our situation is at the same time.



The sign is technically pointing to the underground passageway that'll take you into the center of the roundabout, where the Arc actually is. I just think it's pretty funnily placed.



After that we visited La Tour Eiffel! There were a million people around its base but the lines moved quickly so we decided to head to the top. It was - I know I've said it once, but I've gotta say it again - truly surreal. We just kept looking at each other like "Guys...we're in the FREAKING EIFFEL TOWER RIGHT NOW!"



View from the top! Taylor has a picture of us at the very top I think, but he hasn't uploaded his pictures yet so I don't have it. It was just so insane being able to see the entire city, from all the way to the Arc, where we'd just been, to the Louvre and Place du Concorde to Notre Dame. Paris is so much more massive than I thought.



Every single shop we went into we found berets. We didn't think they'd actually sell them and we were quite surprised. They sell them in every color imaginable.



After grabbing some lunch (at the cafe with the red awning behind the car!) we came across...a car with a New York license plate? Needless to say, we were rather confused.



Next we headed to Notre Dame! Again - surreal. Notre Dame is incredible. It's free to go inside so we all definitely took advantage of that. There was even this creepy blind dude hanging around out front that looked like a hunch back (I know it's sort of mean to say that, but it sort of added to the ambiance...just go with it).



The inside of Notre Dame is magnificent. There are candles and statues everywhere and the most insane stained glass. Everything about the church is amazing. There's even a running confessional that people can go to if they want/need. Notre Dame is one of those places that makes you wish you were religious, just so that you could take part in it. We spent at least an hour in there, just admiring the beauty (also because we were sorta tired and appreciated having somewhere to sit).

After Notre Dame we headed back to the hotel to hang around, freshen up, and do work before the night. We all ended up passing out for two hours instead, but it was much needed, and we all woke up feeling very refreshed.

Afterwards, we headed into the Montmartre district, and...



The Moulin Rouge! It was SO COOL seeing it. We walked out of the metro stop and it was literally RIGHT there, with a million people everywhere and lights flashing in every direction imaginable. We stood outside it for a while just admiring, and then decided to try and find some place to eat.



Literally RIGHT down the street from the Moulin Rouge is Le Cafe des 2 Moulins, which is the cafe at which the movie Amelie was filmed! We hovered around the entrance for a while, debating whether or not we should go in, and decided against it. We did take a bunch of pictures though. Inside on the counter (for anyone who's seen the movie) is a gnome! There are also a few pictures of Amelie inside. It was so cute. I wanted to go in so bad, but we just didn't have time/money. Next time!



We found this incredible little restaurant called Les Dix Vins not too far from the Moulin Rouge. It was tiny and literally had 10 tables and this was the menu. There were only two people working there - one person in front and one person in back. And the food was. Beyond. Incredible. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. You got a three-course meal for a set price, and since Kendra's birthday was the day after her parents were nice enough to give us 50 euro to spend on dinner one night, to splurge a little (since Paris will undoubtedly have some of the best food we'll have on the whole trip). I had tomato and mozzarella for my appetizer, this duck in honey sauce with incredible vegetables and potatoes as my main course, and a fantastic creme brulee for dessert. The dinner lasted somewhere around two hours, it was about 10 by the time we got out, and we were ready to explore.



We wandered into this bar for a while down the street from the Moulin Rouge. The bouncers like...pulled us in, it was really funny. They called us "Miss Americas" too, which was sort of entertaining. After that we wandered around the area for a while longer, looking for other things to do. It was around 12:30 by now so we were considering heading back to the area around the hotel, since the metro closes in Paris at 2. We got back around 1 and I was getting sort of tired so I headed back to the hotel to do some reading, but Nicole, Kendra, and Taylor ended up finding this cute little karaoke bar not too far from the hotel and spent another hour-or-so there celebrating for Kendra's birthday.



The next day after we checked out of the hotel we went to see the Sacre Coeur, which was one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen. We wanted to go up to the top, but there were like a million stairs to get there and we were exhausted, so we just hung around its base for the most part, snapping pictures and talking. We were conned into buying these little string bracelets by these guys standing around the base, which is a whole other ranty story that I don't want to get into, but I do sort of like my bracelet now, and there's a story that goes with it if anyone asks where I got it, so I do appreciate it.



After the Sacre Coeur we wandered down some side streets for a bit, found some lunch (Kendra wanted to get escargot at some point before we left the city and she did, so she was happy), and walked back to the train station, which wasn't too far from the area at all. Our train left in the early afternoon and after many delays we finally made it back to the castle at about 10pm.

So, to recap, things I've learned from my weekend in Paris:
- French people are nice. You hear so often from tourists and travelers that the French hate everyone, are mean and judgmental. We did not experience this AT ALL. It probably helped that Kendra speaks a bit of French and I remember a minute amount from taking it in junior high, but I literally don't think we could have met nicer people than we did. Everyone was so welcoming and sweet and I was never afraid of telling people where I'm from.
- Parisian croissants > any other croissant, ever.
- 2.5 days in Paris is not nearly enough. I want to go back for a month and I think that even if I did I wouldn't be able to see everything that there is to see.
- Even in the rain, the city can be beautiful. In the rain, the city shows a different side of its beauty.
- Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, no matter how packed, is totally worth it.
- Don't settle on the first, or the second, or even the third restaurant you see. Find the one that suits you. Wander. Don't be afraid to walk down streets that look empty. At Les Dix Vins, by the time we left, there were people waiting to be seated at the door, all holding glasses of wine and sipping and chatting with friends. That tiny little 10-tabled restaurant with one menu scribbled on a chalkboard that the single server carried with him from table to table was probably one of the best restaurants we could've found.
- Use the metro and buy a day ticket. So worth it.
- Rest before going to the Louvre and expect to spend half a day there if you truly want to see everything there is to see. Also don't be freaked out if you can't find the exit (because while you're looking for it, I guarantee you won't be able to find it, but any other time you don't need to leave you'll walk past it a million times).
- Walk from the Louvre to the Arc du Triomphe at night. We didn't, because members of our party were complainey and tired, but I wish we had. It would have been incredible.
- Paris at night is more spectacular than you can imagine, I guarantee.
- Prepare to fall in love.

Now I'm off to London this weekend! Another update will soon follow, I promise. :)

Hungry in Hungary

I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to do Budapest justice by talking about it here. I am going to attempt though.

Basically, this past weekend was incredible. We left for the airport at about 6am on Friday morning and arrived in the city around noon. As we were on the bus getting into the city center, my friend Taylor turned to me and said, "It has such a dilapidated beauty about it." He was completely correct. Budapest is absolutely gorgeous. There's no other way to describe it. But it's old gorgeous. It's not fancy and flowery and insane. It just is. And it's beautiful.

We managed to navigate the metro very well, if I do say so myself. Apparently the Budapest metro system is what the NYC subway system is based off of. It's insanely efficient. There are even little timers at each platform to tell you about when the next train will arrive. We got to our hostel, which was down this side street a few blocks away from the metro.



Our hostel...was amazing. Despite the fact that it was sort of hidden, the way it was set up was that there was a main hallway with a kitchen, bathrooms, and four bedrooms off of it. Each of the bedrooms were themed. We stayed in the 8-person dorm, which was the Africa room (pictured above). It had a loft with 4 beds and a bottom area with 4 and the entire room was decorated like crazy. There was also an India room for 6 people, a space room for 5 people, and a Japan room with a double bed. The best thing about this hostel? It was 13 euro a night. It's probably the cheapest hostel we'll stay at the whole trip. Not to mention the staff was SO nice, the showers were clean, it had breakfast, had free computer access/internet, and they made our beds/cleaned our room each morning.



Here's a blurry group picture taken on the stairs at the hostel. It was pretty much the entire second floor of an apartment building and we didn't have keys or anything, we just had to buzz up when we needed to be let in since there was always someone sitting at the desk to open the door for us. On the top are Andrew and Taylor, and bottom are Kendra and Nicole.



The street our hostel was on! Kendra, Andrew and I went exploring for a bit on Friday night because Taylor and Nicole wanted to do this caving expedition thing that we did not have any interest in. We walked around, found this awesome underground mall, got gelato, and then headed back to the hostel. Then? We got massages. Yup. The hostel has this deal with a masseuse where you can get an hour-long Sweedish massage for about $25. It was SO GOOD and SO RELAXING.

Afterwards, the woman working at the desk (Agnes, who was one of the co-owners) booked us dinner reservations at this crazy Hungarian restaurant a few blocks away. She kept raving about how incredible and cheap it was. It was about $18. For all you can eat. And drink. Needless to say, we took advantage of this.



Yes please.



Saturday morning we wandered into the center of the city to this gorgeous basilica because Taylor and Andrew wanted to try and get tickets for a show since they have to for their History of European Music class. This is the square it was in.

We decided to spend $20 on this bus tour that would take us all around the city. We thought it would be convenient because we could use it for a total of 24 hours and it would take us to a lot of hard-to-get-to places. We also got a coupon book with it, and I haggled the guy selling the ticket down to $20 from like $35, so it was definitely worth it.



Something else to note about Budapest is that they don't use the Euro, they use the Hungarian Forint. This is why most things we spent money on (with the exception of the meal and bus tour) were SUPER cheap. The exchange rate is wonderful. It looks really expensive though, which is sort of funny.





This is Heroes' Square, a stop on our bus tour. Kendra and Andrew took turns climbing on the statues while we all took pictures.





This is the grand synagogue in Budapest. (Photo credit to Nicole) It is apparently the second largest Jewish building in all of Europe (I don't know what the first is though). It was simply incredible. We couldn't go inside though, which was sad.



After seeing the synagogue, we took the bus all the way up to this citadel on literally the tallest cliff in Buda (the city is divided into Buda and Pest), which overlooks the entirety of Pest, and some of Buda. The view was phenomenal, and I'd be lying if I said we all didn't tear up just a little bit seeing it. Of course we had to pose to take many pictures.

Since we hadn't really spent any money on anything but the massages, bus, and hostel (we didn't even get lunch on Saturday), AND since the prices for dinner in the fancy part of town were really reasonable, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner. We went to this AMAZING restaurant called Fresco and sat outside at 9pm laughing and talking. We split two appetizers, and I ordered a drink along with my huge meal, and the total cost was $27. This meal would have cost probably about $40 for each of us if it had been in the states. And it was probably the best meal I'll have all trip.



Sunday morning we went to the House of Terror, which I thought was going to be a haunted house when I first heard its name, but in fact was this awesome museum all about the terror regimes of WWII. They had all these insanely cool Nazi and communist things displayed, and the museum itself was set up in this giant old house and was so modern and cool looking. It was definitely worth it.





After grabbing some lunch we headed towards the Danube to take advantage of a coupon we'd gotten with our tour for a free one-hour riverboat cruise. It was SO worth it. The weather was absolutely gorgeous (which didn't prevent us from freezing our asses off, but it was worth it in the end) and we saw so much of the city. From the river it is even more incredible, which I didn't think was possible. Seriously...these next two pictures don't even look real.





After we were done, we headed back to the hostel and got ready to head back to The Netherlands. We tried to go to bed early (if you consider 11 early), but I didn't end up falling asleep until around 1. We had to be up at 4:30 to catch a cab to take us to the main square to catch our bus to take us to the airport by 5, and we did with no problem. Our flight left just after 7 and we touched down back in Germany (since technically the airport is in Germany...even though it's 20 minutes away) at around 9. We got our (reserved!) cab and made it back to the castle by 9:25, ran to the dining hall to scarf down some breakfast before it closed at 9:30, and by 10am I was in my Art History class giving a presentation on the Pop Art Movement (which I totally aced, by the way).

It was a good weekend.