MERRY TWENTY THREE DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! The count down is officially real now with Thanksgiving in the past. I’m super bummed I’m missing almost all of ABC Family’s 25 days of Christmas, but I definitely looked and will be back with enough time to catch all three of The Santa Claus movies and also The Year Without A Santa Claus so all is okay in the world. I’ve also asked my mother to begin hoarding the Reese’s shaped like Christmas trees that stores start selling after Thanksgiving, just to be safe. While all of you were happily around your tables for Thanksgiving on Thursday, I was off in Budapest! My last weekend (weekend plus two days?) trip for the semester. Definitely bittersweet.
My flight to Budapest was late on Wednesday night and I was feeling extra anxious to fly the cheap Wizz Air instead of our usual cheap Ryan Air. The flight had cost about 20 euro, sketchy, and the airplane was bright fuchsia, also sketchy. However, I can confidently state that Wizz flights are much more enjoyable than Ryan Air, even if they don’t have a “90% accurate arrival time” statistic. All in all a good experience. We landed in Budapest a little after midnight and made our way straight to the hostel to pass out.
The next day we got up relatively early to explore the town of Budapest before our 11 AM walking tour. Technically Buda and Pest are two separate town in Hungary, separated by a river, so we focused our morning in Pest. Starbucks was a crucial part of the morning, mostly because I had my first but definitely not last gingerbread latte of the season. It cost 1060 Hungarian Forints, so I can now confirm that I’ve had the most expensive sounding, but actually cheapest, Starbucks drink ever. We took our drinks and walked around to the St. Stephen’s Basilica in the town. But this was no ordinary Basilica. After looking past the gold decoration, painted ceilings, and elaborate wall art, we saw something we’ve yet to see in any of the many Basilicas. The holy right hand. It’s exactly what it sounds like. The right hand of a saint that they keep in a box in the Basilica. I really don’t feel like I need to make any further commenting on this, just let it sit with you for a minute. It’s gross.
After the whole hand experience I was really in the need of a Christmas market, and luckily they were all open since Thanksgiving is nonexistent. We walked around looking at all the homemade items, from chess boards to wool socks. I had part of a cinnamon breaded log, which was amazingly wintery tasting, and cinnamon apple cider; both perfect for the super cold weather.
We met up with our tour guide, but only after Kristen and I had purchased matching ear warmers/hats, and started off our tour of Budapest. I won’t go into in depth detail, but highlights included: taking pictures with the random Ronald Regan statue on the sidewalk (Go America?), the view from the top of Castle Hill, and the amazing sunset over the river dividing the two towns (the sun sets in Budapest literally at like 3:45 in the afternoon). We were frozen head to toe, and made a last round around the Christmas market again before heading back to the hostel to warm up.
After a quick power nap and warming session we headed out for Thanksgiving dinner! Note the sarcasm. We stopped at a Hungarian style restaurant, which sounded fun until I looked at the menu and realized everything on the menu was some kind of scary meat, and everything that wasn’t a scary type of meat was drenched in grease. No thanks. Kristen, Neal and I dipped and got Thai food instead. The Thai food was both the best thing to happen to me because it was amazing and also the worst view into a future where I don’t get a job, own 11 cats, and have to order in cheap Thai food on holidays. Post Thanksgiving meal we went on a pub-crawl around Budapest, which was tons of fun. The bars all had very different feels and drinks were in the price ranger they should be for all college students in the world.
The next morning we made our way to the Christmas market round three, because walking around was just that enjoyable the day before. We then found our way to a huge indoor market that was literally two floors in what looked the size of a train station to get food for lunch and shop through for a few hours before grabbing our bags to check out of the hostel. I had tons of fruit, then to make up for being so healthy I got a piece of fried dough two times the size of my face that was drenched in Nutella and bananas. We had a lot of time still before our nine oclock train to Munich that night so we decided to hit up the Hungarian Baths. I will admit, I was very pessimistic about the whole ordeal at first. Nothing about a Hungarian Bath sounds remotely clean or healthy in my opinion, and I was convinced I wouldn’t do it. But of course I gave in to peer pressure and did once we were inside. The building was gorgeous and wrapped around like a palace with three huge baths that looked like massive pools in the middle. Each pool ranged in temperature, and once you had a bathing suit on you had to run outside into the 20 degree air to get into the hot baths, but it was amazingly worth it. Once we tried out all the outdoor pools, we went back into the building where there was a series of probably 14 more different baths of varying temperatures, purposes, and types. Everything from ice cold water to baths so hot you couldn’t be in for more than 15 minutes at a time, we tried them all. There were also many saunas in between the baths with different temperatures and additions as well, my favorite one being the one that was with mint.
After enough time in the baths that even my eyeballs were probably pruning, it was time to catch our overnight train to Munich. As I said in my last post, a trip is never a trip unless something goes wrong. My ticket for the train that was supposed to be mailed to me a week and a half ago never showed up at the hotel before I left, so I had no choice but to print out the ticket purchase confirmation and pray they let me on the train. After being told by two different station works that I would have to buy a new ticket or risk paying a fine on the train for boarding without a valid ticket, I decided the best thing to do would be to work the magic of sympathy and got on the train anyways. Five minutes into the ride a woman came through to check tickets. Bingo. I crossed my fingers that she was a mom. She approached my seat and as I handed over my confirmation I quickly explained that I never received my ticket in the mail despite ordering weeks in advance. She told me the ticket was invalid. This triggered the switch in my brain, and I was able to produce sympathetic tears straight from a movie in a matter of seconds. They were perfect; the only thing that would have made it better is if I had had a hair bow with me. After enough muttering about “not knowing what to do”, the woman went straight into mother mode as I expected, patted me on the back, and ensured me “oh honey, it’s okay”. As she brought the second ticket checker around to confirm my non-ticket, I also nonchalantly overwhelmed them with information, offering them: Certification of address from the hotel that says I live there, two forms of identification, ticket confirmation, ticket confirmation on my phone to show I had access to the email account, and credit card used for purchase. Needless to say, I stayed on the train without a fine and didn’t have to purchase another ticket.
We arrived in Munich bright and early on Saturday and got right to the touring, going to the Christmas market right in the center square. We were privledged enough to witness a round of the Glockenspiel Clock (number two most overrated tourist attraction in Europe) and browsed through kiosk after kiosk. We went on the best walking tour ever in the history of study abroad, and our tour guide was funny enough to keep me entertained through the numbness of the cold outside. I actually learned more about Munich than I ever thought I would in a day, most importantly about how the town was completely reconstructed after being almost entirely destroyed in World War 2 to look identical to how it was before the war, and that almost every major event that has ever taken place in Munich involved beer. One of the past kings of Germany actually at one point gave free beer to homeless people. Another king used kegs of beer unsuccessfully to put out a raging fire in the opera house in Munich once. The list goes on.
We made a trip to the second of three outdoor markets in Munich, and even though this one wasn’t Christmas themed it was still fun to walk around and get soft pretzels. We went to three popular pubs in Munich; Paulaner (where I had my favorite dark beer of the trip), Augustiner (where we had Edolstoff, which is the favorite beer of Pope Benedict the 16th), and Hofbräuhaus (which had the best atmosphere and where we drank huge liter beers from mugs that weighed more than me). It was definitely a ton of fun. After that we went to the final market, which was absolutely huge on the grounds where they have Oktoberfest. We met up with Allie and Shannon there and it was the best thing ever to be reunited with the quad, walking around and eating more desserts.
Sunday was our last day of adventuring in Munich! We had done so much in the main center the day before, so we decided it would be important for us to make our way out to Dachau for the morning, where the first Nazi concentration camp was. Even though I knew it would be overwhelming and sad, I wanted to make sure I went before leaving Germany and Europe as a whole. No matter how powerful you think something like that will be, it will always be surprisingly harder. When we turned the corner down the road and saw the gate with the phrase “Arbeit macht frei” (meaning “Work will make you free”) in cold metal, I actually froze. It was a solid ten minutes before I could actually push my way through the gate to the eeriness of the concentration camp. It was both eye opening and heartbreaking at the same time.
In the afternoon we got a quick lunch at the train station before making our way home to Rome! I had sushi for the first time in ages and it was heaven on earth in every way. The first train ride was six hours to Verona, and the most fun ever. Four of us had a train compartment meant for six to ourselves, and we spent the time playing extreme charades and euchre until we reached the stop. Verona was absolutely beautiful, and I was thankful we had a few hours to spend there before out next train left a little before midnight. We walked around to see the opera house and main piazzas, as well as the Christmas market that was still set up. It was a great way to stretch our legs and make the most of our time before the final six-hour ride to Rome.
So as of 6:00 this morning I’m back in Rome! It was great to finish off the weekend traveling with a bang. I actually can’t believe I’m only here for 18 more days at this point; there is still so much pasta and gelato to be consumed. It’s been so much fun over in Europe but I think in a few weeks I’ll be very content with heading back to America to see everyone; the land of the free and home of the brave, freedom clearly referring to the free water and free bread and free access to public bathrooms. BYE!
I'm still I'm still Haley from the Bend 