Travel Tornado

Hello!

In this blog I put a lot of photos, since over the past two weeks I made another 340 pictures... Guess my camera was the best present I have ever had!
From today on I am going to stay in Budapest until Christmas =) After Vienna, Lake Balaton, Bratislava, Pécs, Belgrado and the latest additions Krakow and Prague.. it will be nice to have some more settling down in 'my' lovely city. Besides, my body started protesting this weekend (eye and troath infection).. So, time to stop running around Middle- and Eastern European. Time to slow down and enjoy the last weeks (!) of Budapest.

Thursday, 3rd of November 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest
That was a lovely celebration of the end of this week. What happened?, you may wonder. Well, this week has been all about studying for me. Studying on monday. Studying on tuesday. Midterm on wednesday. Midterm, presentation and debate on thursday.. Of course, in between there were some drinks and dinners with Emma's friends from home, some zumba classes and some Voice of Holland-episodes, but the majority of the past four days was study-related. Most of the examinations went pretty well, except for the Economic Sociology midterm, since I had not counted on having to know names of writeres, dates of appearance and titles of essays of important concepts. Apparently, our professor considered that to be

more important than the actual understanding these concepts.. Pfff.

Anyway! Tonight we went to this Midieval Restaurant called

Sir Lancelot. Things that made this night memorable: the huge pile of delicious meat on the plate (I am not really a meat eater, but this was legendary), the random banana on top of it, the dark beer, the inappropriate cheering of adult men to a belly dancer and finally, me being extremely intimidated by a crazy firebreather.. And by crazy, I mean crazy. This weird, old man came way too close to me, made all kinds of inappropriate gestures and.. well, let's say my friends had the time of their lives laughing at me.. Hope I do not have nightmares of him tonight.

Sunday, 6th of October 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

On friday morning, I woke up at a quarter to six, in order to make it to the bus in time. This bus would take me on an Erasmus Student Network trip to Krakow! Not only me, but 90 other people! My enthusiasm however, was silenced pretty quick.. Since I had not been in a vehicle in the mountains since years, I forgot how terribly car sick it makes me. After an eight hour drive we finally arrived at our first destination: the salt mine of Wieliczka in the South of Poland. This mine has been operating for over 700 years, reaches a dept of 327 meters and is over 300 km long. The best part however: you could taste salt everywhere! On the walls, on the floors.. I am normally more a sugar-girl, but I can imagine some of my friends back home (I will not call names) booking a ticket to this place right when they hear about this mine.
After the tour, we moved on to our hostel and prepared for this thing called 'tram party'. It is precisely what it is: a party in a tram. Just put some music in it, dim the lights and drive around the city of Krakow! It was simply hilarious..

The next day was probably the most heavy day of my whole exchange. Hopefully, no other day will top this.. In the morning we went to the concentration camp Auschwitz. The feeling I got there is undescribable. Those of you who have visited it, you probably know what I mean. Those who have not, please go there. Seeing the enormous piles of shoes, all the photos and the gas and the burning chambers.. I cried multiple times just because it was too much to handle.

To ease our minds a little, there was a Krakow by Night tour organised later. It is a beautiful, cute city and it was a pity we did not have more time to actually spent there. After dinner we did some predrinking games in the hostel. Due to language barriers and misunderstandings, it was so confusing that it became funny. Afterwards, we went to this four-floor club called Kitsch. Around 1 o'clock Lena asked me if I wanted to go home with her and even though I was not tired or done with dancing at all, I decided to go to bed as well.
One and a half hour later, one of the organizers woke me up. He asked me for my name and told us the staircase of the club we were in had collapsed. We did not know how many of us were still in the club and if they were okay or not. I started calling the girls, but none of them answered their phones. Finally, I got a shocked Jorien on the phone who did not know where everyone was and who had seen everything happening. A few minutes later another girl came into the hostel, her legs covered in blood and her being totally in shock from being under concrete and having to walk over people laying on the stairs unconsciously. After almost three hours we finally knew everyone was okay and in the morning it turned out, miraculously, that only eleven people were hospitalized. It was one of the scariest night of my, and probably all of our lives.

The next morning, when everyone had calmed down a bit, we departed back to Budapest. On the way, we stopped in this town called Zakopane, to walk through the mountains and to visit a 'cheese' market. Yes, 'cheese'. As a Dutch girl I am saying that something plastic that had 3 kg of salt in a 100 gr slice is not real cheese.. We also visited a cemetry, where all the graves were real artworks, and the first church of Poland. The rest of the ride back was way shorter than we thought it would be. Luckily, I was also not car sick! However, I was still really glad to be home.. since riding through the mountains without any street lights (!) is not my favourite thing either.

Tuesday, 8th of November 2011 - Corvinus Egyetem, Budapest
I cannot wait for my friends to come to Budapest!! After partying with Gerans friends, who were here for the whole weekend, last night in Morrisons I am so looking forward to Marianne and Suzanne to come to this wonderful city. It makes me proud that I will be able to show this all to them and it will be so much fun finally hanging out with them again. Laughing, talking, eating, drinking, acting stupid.. Only 15 nights of sleep left!

Monday, 14th of November 2011 - Liszt Ferenc Ter, Budapest

Another travel! After this one, I guess I am kind of done with travelling.. mostly budget wise. Also, after every trip I appreciate coming 'home' to Budapest so much! I want to spend more time in this amazing city. So, let me tell you about my last trip of this exchange (probably):
I went together with Mona from Hong Kong, Anais from France, Julia and Franzi from Germany, Yesenia from the United States and of course Geran =) On thursday night we took the nightbus, on which also Airi from Estonia accompanied us, since she was going to visit her friend who was doing Erasmus in Prague. I am terrible at sleeping while sitting up (it is a family thing), so after arriving in the hostel we took another 2 hours to get some sleep. At eleven o'clock we left to go to Old Town Square, where Geran took charge of directions and I took care of keeping the group safe and together. Daddy and mommy were cooperating pretty good there!
We decided to be extremely touristy, taking a lot of pictures everywhere. In between all the sight seeing we went inside for some warm food or drinks multiple times, since the temperature was 10 degrees lower than in Budapest.. brrr! At night we went to a really nice Serbian, no, Polish, no, Czech (all these countries keep messing me up.. and all the currencies especially!) restaurant, where the waiter was extremely friendly. He gave us, well he gave Geran since he had only eye for her, a lot of tips on where to go at night. After going the wrong direction, again, we finally ended up in one of his recommendations and we were really thankful for that! It was a fun night!

The next morning we got up pretty early to be present at the free guided tour. I can't say it enough times, when on any city trip.. do these free tours! Our guide was extremely good. He was hilarious, acting everything out, but had also a lot of really good stories. Afterwards, we went to see the St. Vitus Cathedral, Toy Museum with all its barbies, sunset at Karls Bridge and the Christmas Market on Old Town Square. Our evening was filled with pizza and wine in the hostel. Just talking about our lives and getting to know each other a lot better. Which is nice, because you see people mostly in class or at parties.. not the best place to have a good conversation. We talked about our future plans, our dreams, our fears and much more. Really nice! Afterwards, four of us went to a really cool club with five levels and had a great time there. Unfortunately, I had woken up that morning with a pretty bad eye infection and at night it had started to hurt so bad that it made no sense for me to come with them.. so annoying! Got some sleep though, which was nice. The next day us girls went shopping (I bought some warm winter clothes because apparently the cold is kicking in..), had lunch and then took the bus back to Budapest! So nice to be back!
I am looking forward to spending the coming weeks mostly in this city. With my best friends coming over, all the lovely sights, the delicious food, the fun activities and most importantly the amazing friends I have here. Countdown has started, so we are going to make the most out of it!!!

Love, xx