Budapest

St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest


 Another weekend, another country. I've been to four countries in four weeks. How amazing is that? I have been in the Czech for a month now. Sometimes it feels like I have been here for longer than that and other times time seems to be going by fast. This weekend was Easter and we had Monday off because it is a national holiday. Thirteen of us went to Budapest, Hungary for the weekend. We left early on Saturday morning. It took about five hours to get there and we switched trains in Breclav. It was about noon when we arrived. Budapest is home to about 1.74 million people, but if you include the surrounding suburbs it is closer to 3 million. Budapest is famous for its geothermal springs. There are over eighty springs in the city. You cannot go to Budapest without visiting one of their spas. Budapest is also famous for the Chain Bridge, Fashion street, one of the largest Parliament buildings in the world, and many beautiful churches. The Danube river runs through the middle of the city. One side of the city is called Buda and the other Pesti, the two sides were joined and now the city is called Budapest.  Once we arrived, we bought our metro (subway) tickets. Hungary has their own currency, the Forint. Five thousand Forints is equivalent to twenty U.S. dollars. I've definitely improved my mental math skills by constantly converting currencies to U.S. dollars. We found the right metro line and found our hostel. Unfortunately, our hostel was located far from the city center so we had to take the metro anytime we wanted to go anywhere. The hostel was newer though and the rooms were nice. It was a cold and rainy day on Saturday, but my roommate, Hayley, and I went to the center of town anyway. Everyone else stayed at the hostel. The main square is called Deak Ter. We walked around the square and did some shopping. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the river, but ate inside because it was so chilly. We had a Hungarian beer called Soproni, it was very good. It was a light beer, similar to Heineken. After we ate, we went to a souvenir shop. It started pouring rain and we went to a cafe to escape the rain. We wanted to go on a dinner cruise on the Danube that evening, but it was sold out by the time we got there. So we decided to just go back to the hostel. When we got back, we got some drinks and spent the rest of the night playing card games.  

Sunday morning we got up and went to church. We went to mass at St. Stephen's Basilica. The basilica was very close to the main square. It was a beautiful church with several large domed roofs. The inside was richly decorated in marble pillars and gold trim. There were statues and paintings everywhere. The service was in Hungarian so we didn't really know what was going on. The church was also freezing, so we were shivering the whole time. It was nice though.

Outside thermal pool


 Afterwards we ate at a traditional restaurant. It was very good. We wanted to go to a spa that afternoon so we went to buy tickets. We bought our tickets for the spa and a boat cruise on the Danube for that evening.  We took the metro to the spa called Szechenyi. The spa was basically a huge circular building with saunas, massage places, changing rooms, and indoor pools. Then there were three huge outside pools in the middle courtyard of the building. There were 18 pools total at the spa. It was cold and windy that day, but the pools were like large hot tubs. Some pools were warmer than others and some of the indoor pools had different minerals in them. Some smelled like mint and others smelled terrible because of the sulfur-like smell that came from the natural springs. Two interesting things I observed that may or may not be worth mentioning: European men like to wear speedos, especially the older gentlemen. We could easily pick out American boys as they all wore long swimming trunks. Secondly, couples often engage in intimate activity in the very public pools. We got a kick out of watching some couples get a little "too close" in such a public place. European couples are much more open about their relationships though. It is quite normal to see two people making out on the street or a man grabbing a woman's butt. Americans find it weird to engage in public affection like that, but they do say Europeans are the best lovers... The spa was a great time and we enjoyed relaxing.

Night cruise on the Danube River

 Afterwards we had some time to kill before we needed to meet for the cruise so we went back to the hostel. The cruise began at ten o'clock. We walked as a group to the boat. When we boarded, we were given a glass of champagne. They provided a buffet of traditional food. It was all very good. They had salad, soups, meat, potatoes, dumplings, cheeses, and of course dessert. My favorite was the Hungarian goulash soup. It was a tomato based soup with potatoes, carrots, and chucks of stew meat. The dessert was little cups of mousse. The cruise was about an hour and a half. The city is gorgeous at night. We took a taxi to the hostel after the cruise. We got up early again to catch the first train home. We all wanted to get home so we could rest and get ready to leave again for our group trip to Vienna and Venice and then Spring Break. We leave Wednesday morning for a two day trip to Vienna, Austria and two days in Venice, Italy. We then have a week off for Spring Break.

Bratislava

Hiking in Bratislava

 A quick update about my weekend. A small group of us took a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia on Saturday. We woke up very early, about six in the morning to catch our seven o'clock train. It only cost about twenty-five dollars for a round trip ticket to the capital city. We had to switch trains in Breclav and luckily we made it there in one try. Once we got there we had to take another train to go hiking. We were the only people who got off the train and it was the sketchiest "train stop" I've ever seen. Bratislava is home to the small Carpathian mountains, similar to the size of the Black Hills in South Dakota. There was a nice park and little food place at the bottom of the mountains. You can take half a day's hike to see ruins of a castle or a full day hike to go to the very top of the mountains. We did not do this. Us out of shape Americans were only able to explore a couple trails before we grew weary and wanted to find something to eat. It was a fun hike though. The forest was very pretty and it was a nice day for hiking.

Lake near the park where we hiked

 We caught the train back to the main station and walked to the main square. We found a nice place for lunch. I spent about fifteen dollars in food because I was so hungry. Slovakia uses euros as well. After we ate, we hit some souvenir shops and walked around their square. The square has several iron-looking statues that are one of their main tourist attractions. We found three out of the four. We also saw their castle, it was huge. I took some pictures, but we heard you couldn't go inside so we just saw it from a distance. It was chilly and windy at this point, so we found a little cafe to hang out in. The cafe had a downstairs area that was really cool. It was almost like a bunker with low ceilings and tunnel-like rooms. All the walls were brick as well. They had a boy playing piano, he was exceptional. We asked him how old he was and he was only fifteen years old! It makes me wish I would have stuck with piano longer.  We caught the train home and for some reason we stopped literally every two minutes, so we didn't get back to Olomouc until eleven that night. It was a very nice day trip. Now I can say I've been to three countries: Czech Republic, Germany, and now Slovakia!

Prague

Standing on Charles Bridge with Prague Castle in the background

I am finally getting time to blog again. I must fill you in on our first trip to Prague! We met early on Thursday morning at the train station. It was quite a long train ride to Prague, about three hours. When we arrived, we went straight to our hostel, I stayed in a room with three other girls. The toilets and showers each had their own rooms. There were only mirrors in the shower room, so it was hard for all us girls to get ready. We were also on the fourth floor and if you didn't run up the stairs you wouldn't make it! Shortly after arriving we met as a group to take a walking tour with our faculty sponsors, Martin and Jan. We walked through town to the main square, which was only a few blocks from our hostel. We saw the astronomical clock and of course, Charles Bridge! It was beautiful. While on the bridge,  I had the overwhelming feeling that I was standing where some of my ancestors had stood. I was standing where my mom and grandma had been. The view was amazing, especially the view of Prague Castle. We spent some time taking pictures and walking on the bridge. We then headed to the John Lennon wall which was right around the corner from the bridge. The wall was made after Lennon's death in the 1980s. It is a big mural of spray painted drawings and inscriptions of hope and love. It was really unique to see.  After the tour, we had the afternoon free. We walked around and checked out the souvenir shops. Later, we went to dinner in a little pub. We always eat at places away from the square, because it is so expensive to eat near the main tourist areas. 

Astronomical clock in Prague's main square

St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle


 The next day we got up early to go to Prague Castle. We took a subway, my first subway ride! I didn't like the dark and jerky movements of the subway train. We toured the castle and saw the cathedral, the monastery, and some rooms in the palace. The most interesting room contained the Window of Defenestration. Throughout Czech history, it has been a custom to throw unfavorable people or criminals out windows. So, it is a joke in the Czech to say if you make a Czech mad they will throw you out a window, we all found that funny but kept our distance from windows. Haha. The window is famous because usually when people were thrown out this window, there were guards with spears waiting below the window to kill you. It wasn't the fall that killed you, it was those nasty spears. The story of this window then: Several Protestant clergy decided to "get rid" of two disliked Catholic nobles. The clergy threw the nobles and a clerk out the window. However, there was no one with spears waiting below, so the nobles survived the fall. The nobles ran to a nearby house and hid from the other men. The clergy could not find the nobles so they gave up and went home. People saw this situation as God saving the Catholic nobles.The nobles were praised and they ended up punishing the Protestant clergy for trying to murder them. The situation is quite humorous. A good Czech story. We also got to see the changing of the guards at Prague Castle, it was very ceremonial. After the castle we walked by the US Embassy and saw another church. We broke for lunch and had the rest of the day for free time. We did a lot of shopping that day, so Prague's economy benefited from me that day. We were worn out from shopping so we just hung out at a pub that night.

Piece of Berlin Wall in museum in Dresden, Germany


Saturday morning we took a train to Dresden, Germany. Dresden is much newer than any city I have seen so far. Dresden was completely destroyed by American bombs at the end of World War II. We visited a newly opened German war history museum. It was a very well put together museum with 5 floors of history, artifacts, and interactive displays. It was a beautiful day out and we went straight to the main square after the museum. They were able to reconstruct several historic buildings including their Lutheran church. You could see the randomly placed dark stones that they were able to salvage. Martin Luther is a famous monk who broke away from the catholic church in the 1500s and started Lutheranism. Dresden's church in the square was Lutheran and there was a statue of Luther as well. I had a lovely lunch with some of the girls. We ate outside because it was such a gorgeous day. We had wine and I ordered my first plate of sausage and sauerkraut. I loved it. The sauerkraut was sweet and really flavorful. Not the sour taste like it is at home. Shortly after we had to catch a train back to Prague. Saturday night we went out to the five story club in Prague. They had different genres of music playing on every floor. I lost my voice from yelling over the music and caught a cold shortly after. The cold has been going around the group though, so I was bound to get it sometime. 

Entrance gate to the Jewish quarter

Sunday we visited the old Jewish quarters. The boys had to wear the Kippah, a Jewish hat that covers the top of the head. The Nazis deported and killed 80,000+ Jews from the Czech Republic. Only 20,000 survived. Inside the Jewish quarter is a building with all the names and dates of those who were killed in concentration camps. It was really unsettling when I found several Rosenbaums on the walls. Some were from Ostrava. Afterwards we saw the cemetery within the quarter. There were hundreds of head stones. Because they had so little room they had to build up the ground and bury people in layers. There were head stones completely covering the ground, many were leaning in all directions. For Jews, they place little slips of paper with prayers written on them on the headstones. They also place little rocks with well wishes for the dead on the tombstones as well. There was a large group of Jewish boys from New York who would stop and do a prayer chant where they would pray loudly and rock back and forth. I'm glad we got a chance to see the Jewish quarter. Prague is a wonderful place but you have to remember its negative history as well. We had a break for lunch and took a train back to Olomouc.  I was really looking forward to seeing Prague, especially after lots of people told me how great it was. My favorite parts of Prague were Charles Bridge and the Lennon wall. However, I didn't like Prague as much because it was so touristy. People were everywhere and you have to keep a good hold on your purse and camera so they don't get pick pocketed. We talked to one German lady who had her camera taken from her hands while trying to take a picture. She seemed pretty  shaken about it. I think all the souvenir shops and touristy things ruin the beauty of Prague. People are just trying to make money and almost exploit the city's sites. I bought my fair share of souvenirs though, so I shouldn't complain. At the end of the day, I missed my little safe home of Olomouc. All of us really love this town. It isn't touristy and the people are wholesome and kind. More updates soon!