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| Me, Paige, and Quincy at Oktoberfest with our waiter Sven. |
The program I am doing has a lot of travel time built into the semester. We have most weekends free, two full weeks and two extended weekends. For the first travel week my friends and I decided to take another bus trip through Alberto. The plan for the trip was to go to Munich, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. The bus left Paderno Friday at midnight for Germany. We got to Munich at about 6 AM and spent the day at Oktoberfest. It was much different than I expected. I didn't realize it was basically a huge festival and that people got so into it. We ended up having to wait in a line for 4 hours to get into one of the tents. It was pretty miserable as we were packed like sardines and yelled at by scary German police. Once we got in it was really fun and everyone was SO happy. Every 10 minutes people would stand on the tables and start singing. After a few hours in the tent we were pretty tired and decided to go back to the hotel and nap before going out again at night. We all ended up sleeping for 14 hours instead. We really needed it and it was probably the best sleep any of us had gotten in a while but it was kind of embarrassing to tell people why we didn't make it out that night. Who would have thought that we would have gotten 14 hours of sleep at Oktoberfest?
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| Tom Cruise in Prague. Photo by Michael Dodd |
The next morning we headed towards the train station to catch the bus to Prague. It was about a 5 hour ride. When we got there it was a struggle to find our hostel but luckily one of the guys on our trip knew where he was going and got all of us there. It was really convenient because half of the group was staying at one hostel and the other half was staying across the street at another one so it was fun to all be together. Our hostel was super nice, probably nicer than a lot of hotels I have stayed at. Also, Tom Cruise was filming Mission Impossible 4 like 2 blocks away. That night we grabbed some dinner and then went out to celebrate the 21st birthday of someone in our group.
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| Me and Paige in front of the Spanish Synagogue |
The next day we did a walking tour of Prague. We saw the Old Town Square where the astronomical clock is. We also saw the opera house and a bunch of other cool buildings. Prague is a really cool city and just walking around is fun. There are a lot of cute little cobblestone streets with neat shops. I didn't know that crystal was so big in Prague. We learned a lot on the tour. Afterwards we got some food and went shopping. I am literally addicted to H & M. Only my friends who live in places without it understand. I don't know what I am going to do without it when I go home... I might have to make a trip to Arizona or something. After walking around for a little longer we went back to the hostel to get ready and rest a little. After dinner we went out and it was a really fun night.
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| Megan, Me, Paige, Liz and Michael in front of the castle in Prague |
The next morning we toured the Jewish Quarter which I really like. We saw the Spanish synagogue and where golem is. I also really liked all the stuff they had about Kafka and the little Jewish market. It was really interesting that all the Jewish buildings were built lower than the rest because during the war they built other buildings higher due to flooding but didn't care about the Jewish ones. After exploring that area of Prague for a while we crossed to Charles Bridge and headed to the castle. The bridge was really cool and we all touched the statue and made wishes. When you touch it, it means you will come back to Prague some day. The castle was pretty cool too. It is the biggest in the world and is more like a fort than a castle. There are amazing views of Prague from the top of the castle. That night we just hung out at the restaurant/bar of our hostel and it ended up being pretty fun. The next day, Wednesday, was our last day in Prague. We slept in a little bit and spent the day souvenir shopping. We got some real Czech food which was really good. The day was a lot more relaxed because we had already seen everything and weren't rushing to make it everywhere.
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| Really funny picture of us sleeping in the common room of our hostel. |
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| In Budapest |
We were supposed to arrive in Budapest at around 8 or 9 but ended up getting there at 6. At this point we were all exhausted and in terrible moods and didn't even want to be in Budapest. We took a cab to the hostel because we couldn't even think about walking in the freezing cold. We got there and they didn't have a room ready for us but they told us to just crash in the common area which is what we did until 11 when our room was ready. It was actually really funny because people started waking up and staring at us. Our actual room ended up being in a different building a few blocks away. After getting settled in we got some really good Hungarian food for lunch. Afterwards we walked around for a few hours but ended up being pretty unproductive. That night we went out and ended up at this really weird bar where there was an open mic thing going on. One of my friends performed and was really really good. The whole place loved her and some of the guys even got a little emotional after she sang.
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| The castle in Budapest |
On Saturday we decided we needed to be more productive so we woke up early and went on a tour. The tour was really interesting and they talked a lot about communism. When communism fell all of the communist statues were removed and new ones were put up. The tour guide told us that there is still a lot of corruption and problems in their government but there is still hopes for the future. We saw a lot on both the Buda and Pest sides of the city and went up to where the castle is. The castle was actually the inspiration for Walt Disney. Also, a lot of the buildings have bullet holes and stuff in them so that the people remember how bad it was with communism but how much better their future is going to be. It was really cool to be in a place with such recent political problems. It was hard to believe that all of this went on in my lifetime. Overall Budapest was a really amazing city and I am so glad I got to go. When I decided to study abroad in Italy I never thought I would end up in Budapest.
This first travel week was so much fun and I learned so much about both the cities we were in and travel in general. When you travel with such a large group of people you really have to learn to compromise and be patient. We all come from different parts of America where we have different lifestyle patterns and traveling makes you change those patterns and learn to be flexible.
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