Budapest: But for you I'd leave it all

Arriving to Budapest from Vienna was interesting.

The bus we got was so old! It was like Soviet Union old.

There was also a guy on the bus who did not like the fact that there were no seatbelts. So he decides he'll sit right beside the bus driver.... this is were the second bus driver sits. So obviously theres a big conflict between the primary bus driver (who actually speaks no English and all he can say is "no"). So people on the bus are getting really frustrated, as we were running late already, now there's this asshole who doesn't like the fact that he can't sit up in the front with a seatbelt. So one American on the bus makes a valid argument to the guy: "if you wanted to be safe and with seat belts why take the cheapest bus! Take the train!" Good job American guy. So the seatbelt guy see's the error of his way and finally takes a seat elsewhere.

Den den and I then make friends with the bus driver as we were the only Russian speaking people on the bus, and turns out the driver could only speak Hungarian, and a bit of Russian.

After the bumpiest bus ride we finally made it to scolding hot Budapest!

After settling into our cozy hostel we ended up exploring the far end of Pest.
We went over to the city park, which happened to be way away form the center, where there was also a castle. We did this first to try and get explore all of Budapest in 3 days, our logic here was start at the edge and work out way across.

The Buda side

The Pest side

The several days that we spent in Budapest was extremely hot...

But even so, we ended up climbing tons of stairs to get nice views. We mostly explored Budapest with our "free walking tour" guide (again I really recommend doing these! The guides are so enthusiastic!) 

After the tour we thought it would be a good idea to climb a mountain...

This is the mountain we climbed, in the hot sun. Once you get to the top there isn't much shade (or if there was there'd be tons of people in that tiny area of relief), so we only spent about 5 minutes at the top. 

Trying to get the side of Buda at night

Actually succeeding. 

Unfortunately there isn't much else I can say about Budapest. On our last night there, I got some horrible family news and spent the rest of the evening in our hostel crying until my eyes ran dry. Just a reminder to everyone, do not leave trips to see your family so late in your life, you never know when would be the last time you see them. 

Unfortunately looking back on this post, it makes me so sad.... 12 years, and all I had was 9 days left until I was home. 

Krakow next. 

Vienna: Feel like a princess

Valid reasons why I was not able to write the next blog post:

• My computer crashed after downloading "Yo-seh-mee-tee" (aka Yo-seh-mite if you say it how I say it)
• Two days after my computer got fixed, I spilt coffee on it. Fried the keyboard. Lost computer for another 2 weeks. 

But all is good now, and I have my computer, with a lovely "new" keyboard from Hong-Kong that only cost me $20 dollars (versus the "$150" for an "authentic" Apple keyboard... psht who needs those anyways). 

Anyways, where did I leave off.... Oh right, incredibly hungover and travelling across Europe, from Prague to Vienna. 

Let me reiterate: best bus ride ever (other than the hungover thing, and the feeling of wanting to vomit on every bump in the road). They served tea and hot chocolate! 

Once getting to Vienna, we were greeted by my aupair friend, whom I met back in Paris, to take us to her beautiful.... castle. 

That's right, I said castle; moat, courtyard, and a labyrinth of rooms, bathrooms, and halls. 

It was so beautiful! The family, the accommodations, and the wonderful time spent in Vienna. 

When we got to our friends place, we spent about an hour just getting a tour of the house, and then we decided that we were too hungover, hot, and exhausted to go out into Vienna. Instead we lounged around by the pool, got to know the family, and went out for dinner at a local restaurant. 

Relaxing in a castle. 

The next day was our big Vienna day. Everyone knows my logic: things are much better demonstrated by pictures. 

I like taking pictures in front of big screens. *hint* take a look at the beautiful architecture in the background! 

A line to a clothing store.... At first glance we thought it was going to be a line to something cool. Some people are really serious about sales. 

Marie Antoinettes mother. 

This is us replicating the statue. I think we nailed it. 

We thought this was a cute picture. I wanted a picture like this with Denden too, but he said we had too much "cute-sy" pictures in Paris. 

Another castle we visited but did not stay at. 

I got to meet up with another friend in Vienna, have lots of amazing food, and enjoy a trip of a lifetime. It is so amazing to now know all of these wonderful people! 

Next up will be Budapest. I promise this time, I'll keep all liquids far away from my laptop. 

Prague: City of Beer

Did you know that the Czech’s are more punctual than the Germans? We took 2 buses in German both of which were late by a minimum of 20 minutes (45 minutes for one them!!). However, we got to our Berlin bus station 2 minutes late only to find out that our bus for Prague had already left…

So what do two travelers do that need to get to another country? They buy overly expensive, last-minute bus tickets that luckily only had 3 free seats left (apparently some people were missing this bus).

Fortunately we made it onto this bus, and even got two seats next to each other (although we did ask a girl to move, and she kept on giving me a look the whole time on the bus ride… Which I don’t understand. She could have told me “no”, but then it’s either she sits next to me, a stranger, or another stranger… So I don’t see the problem. On a crowded bus I am happy to offer my seat to a couple/ friends as for me it doesn’t matter whom I sit next to).  

Anyways, we made it to Prague, 30 minutes after our original bus. At one point on the road we actually passed our bus on the road! Ughh… 120 euros down the drain.

This was our first city where we would be staying in a hostel. We had booked the Postal Hostel, which if you are going to Prague we really recommend you stay at. The people running the hostel were really helpful in suggesting good/ cheap restaurants and bars, and the hostel itself is clean and very comfortable. However, if you are lazy/ would prefer to be closer to the downtown and bars this isn’t exactly your hostel.

Our hostel room.

Just got so comfortable in the hostel that I almost left in my flippy floppies. Dennis wasn't impressed.

Through our hostel we found our first “Free Walking Tour”. As I understand it is a certain company that organizes several tours around different European cities, some of which are completely free (tips are appreciated though. Considering how awesome every tour guide is and how much walking they do on a daily basis while keeping a smile on their face (rain or shine), they really do deserve a generous tip).

Prague is beautiful in the way that it has it's modern buildings integrated into it's history.

Many people all over Europe like to rub statues. In this case apparently if you rubbed his feet you'd get good luck. As you can see the feet are gold meaning lots of people had rubbed those feet.

.... and people would run other places too.

But I am a rebel.

You would find many fun things on the streets of Prague. 

The prices in Prague were really low for us (we would convert to the dollar). Alcohol especially. So in other words, we ate a lot of food. Street desserts (some rolled up pastry with sugar) and I went around to restaurants trying different “gulash” (an eastern European dish).

Gulash. Which was delicious! 

A pig roast that was served at the market.Unfortunately very overprices for Prague price standards, but it was amazing! If possible and you are in Prague either just pay for the roast, or find a cheaper one that is outside of the city centre area.

Beer, everywhere really good beer.

Prague (like many European cities) is divided by a river, the Vltava. Of course we checked out both sides. The side away from the “city center”, or across the Charles Bridge has a huge castle. However, we didn’t explore much of the castle itself as it seemed like a tourist trap. It was a really expensive ticket here, and another here, for different accesses to the castle.

On the other side of the column was a chick all dressed up and with a guy taking photos of her. So I got on the other side to take my own "modelling" photos.

On our last night in Prague we decided to go hard (keep in mind we needed to wake up in the morning to catch a 8:30 bus to Vienna. Oh and this time we didn’t want to be late).

We decided to go for a pub crawl. It was only 20 euros per person, you hit up 5 bars (ending at the largest club in Prague, that is 5 stories high with different “themes” at each level. I’m looking at you country-lover… you are more than welcome to stay on that floor), and you get one hour of free shots – We took great advantage of that I must say… Free shots were of vodka, absinthe, or a cup of beer.

Right away we met an Irish couple that we really liked and so we stuck around with them drinking shots, trying to scream over the music to talk, and of course, drinking more shots.

Once last call was called it was a scramble to get the last couple of shots and off to the next bar. On our way there we met a second couple, this time travelling Australians. We hung out with this crowd for the rest of the night, drinking, talking, and dancing. Apparently they “lost” me in one of the bars (boyfriend wasn’t too happy about this), but when girl chats happen in the line for the bathroom what can you do! You must offer great drunken advice to young 18-year-olds and then happily hug and say how you will always stay best friends. It happens.

Cool crew of travellers!

On the way home I was miserable about having to get up in a couple of hours and knowing I'd be incredibly hung-over, and being extremely cold. Dennis is having the time of his life.. I am not impressed.

Charles bridge at night.

While walking home we happened to look overhead to find a flock of bats. Pretty creepy, but at the same time really cool to witness something like this.

The morning after wasn’t so fun… The fact that we had a really nice bus helped! But hung-over and car-sick me wasn’t having it. I pretty much passed out almost right away, or just had to keep my head looking forward… God knows what would happen if I moved my head slightly in either direction.

Most comfortable bus ever! Tv's, hot chocolate, tea, and snacks. Oh and the cheapest bus we took the whole trip!

Overall Prague is a beautiful city, and spoiler alert: it was definitely my favourite cities we visited (After Paris and Moscow of course). The food was amazing, the sights were beautiful, and the people were very welcoming.  

Berlin: trying to escape paying for the bathrooms.

Yes that's right. You may not have had to pay for the bathrooms in France but starting in Germany you better have cash on you if you need to pee. However, if you are eating in the restaurant you shouldn't have to pay but they will still ask for money, sometimes really aggressively. So pee and then run before they catch you for your 50-75 cents.

Welcome to Berlin where the tour we took went something like this “please look over to your right, where now stands a new hotel we are building, now if you look over to your left you will see this other new building that we just finished building”. Now I understand Berlin went through some terrible destruction during WWII but I didn’t realize this until I actually went to Berlin and saw that there isn’t that much physical history left. However, the places that we did see were incredibly eye opening. Also I got to see and stay with the wonderful Karo, another au pair friend. She was totally understanding when we got into Berlin in the morning and just wanted to take a nap, gave us a tour of the main points of Berlin, and packed us lunch on a daily basis!

I hadn't noticed this until now but apparently I took a great photo of two strangers when trying to photograph the Reichstag building.

Escaping the wall. 

One of the days we explored Berlin all by ourselves. First we took a cruise on the Spree to see the shore-side buildings. Personally I wouldn’t recommend this cruise to people who are like me and want to see historical Berlin. This cruise was cool to see modern buildings that Berlin has. [If you think about why that is: attacking bridges to stop supply runs and population transport is a strategically method of thinking by the Allies, so with history it makes sense why we saw mostly modern buildings along the shore].

We then went to explore the German History Museum, and walked around Museum Island. We ran into a not-so-lovely lady at the cash who for some ridiculous reason did not understand that summer vacation is a thing, and a student card cannot be validated until September (you know when school actually starts and you use the student card).  So unfortunately we did not see any of the Museums on the island. However, if you are in Berlin for a long period of time definitely check them out.

One of the museums on the Island.

At one point we went to a market that is very popular in Berlin called Hackescher Markt which we really enjoyed! We stopped by a comedy show (that was in German but who cares, actions are universal], and listened to some great music.

                                               

A market is more fun with beer.

So while in Berlin we were suggested we try “CurryWurst”, a sausage with curry powder and fries. It sounds simple but remember this is a German sausage and it was delicious! We also wanted to try some schnitzel, but we weren’t looking to pay 30 euros for the real veal meat. Instead we looked up a place on Trip Advisor that was apparently the best. So we ended up taking the train 20 minutes out of central Berlin to end up in a pretty sketchy area (the reviews on Trip Advisor did warn us about this to be fair), and came to a small place under the bridge. The place was decorated with black writings on the wall in all different languages. We ordered two pieces of the regular schnitzel (which came out to about 12 euros for both), and were incredibly pleased with the portions and quality of the food. The place is called Scheers Schnitzel, if you are in Berlin definitely check it out, it is worth the hike out.

I don't know how to flip photos in blogger... But this was the schnitzel we got! comes with a side salad. Just looking at this photo makes me want to go back to the place.

On our last night in Berlin we went out with Karo and her friends for some Happy Hour drinks. Luckily for us the bartender was kind enough to extend the Happy Hour prices well past the hour. After enjoying some large drinks we made our way home to start packing for our bus ride to Prague the next day.

Berlin where the monuments that do stand are breathtaking but you can see what war has done to them. 

Dortmund: Travelling Like Hobbits

Dortmund was an unplanned stop on our eurotrip. It was more of a 12 hour layover, which was made much easier because I got to see a friend that I met at the beginning of my au pair year!

I am sure I would have enjoyed Dortmund much more if I wasn’t sleep deprived, it didn’t rain 50% of the time, and the bathrooms were free (even though I didn’t pay for them, but it was incredibly frustrating to be told I have to pay after eating at the restaurant).

If it wasn't for this park we visited in Dortmund and my friend coming by, I feel like Dennis and I would just have slept in a McDonalds. 

It was funny as most of these barrels had drifted to the little island across this pond. So it is virtually impossible to grab the barrels without swimming across. So we had to wait for the only barrel available that was [at this moment] occupied.

Let the hobbit adventure begin! 

Barreling is harder than it looks. It also feels like you might drown at any moment. Not suitable for small children, or people who cannot swim. 

Like I mentioned, this park was really cool. It had the barrel riding (pictured above), these swinging things, cinema, a nice walking path, and... 

Flamingos. 

Advice for future travellers do not take two over night buses back to back unless you are a smaller than average height, function when sleep deprived, or are a robot who can just shut off for a couple of hours.