MY WEEKEND IN BUDAPEST...In a Hostel

So, this weekend in Budapest, I stayed in my fist ever hostel!  The hostel was called Loft Hostel, and on fist sight I was terrified to say the least!  We managed our way from the airport to the Hostel by bus and metro and then walked down a kind of sketchy street to an even sketchier door that led to our hostel.  It was in a run-down apartment building that had a terrifying elevator, which then lead to more winding stairs to the top floor, home sweet home.  When I first walked in, all I could do was laugh!  But then, once I realized that it was semi-clean and a learning experience haha, I learned to "love" it!  There were 12 of us from my program, all friends, who were in the hostel, so we pretty much took it over- which made it really fun!  This is the common area, where people slept for free... 

The first night we all (12 of us) went to dinner at a typical Hungarian food restaurants that was all you can eat and drink for like 16 dollars!  As you can imagine, we took great advantage of the drinks, and proceeded to have a great night at this club called Play.  It was about 5 stories with many more dance floors.  Each floor had a different feel in terms of design and music, so it was interesting!

Here is the market that we thought was a pretty building the first day so we took a picture and didn't go in.  Only later did we realize it was a cool market, but it was too late since it is closed on sundays...good work us!
The first day, we woke up and walked around the city!  Here is a picture for the Cave church which is built into the mountain.  It was really neat, also very small!
A few of us taking a picture with the panorama of the Budapest in the background! It was a beautiful city, very spread out in my opinion.  It was strange how some parts looked so old and then other parts looked really modern, didn't all really match!Here is a picture from the Castle area.  This was really pretty! There were castle and palaces all in one area and they looked way different close up, but from afar it looked like this!
On Friday we went to the Budapest baths! I can not even believe we did this!  It was snowing outside and we changed into bathingsuits, rented gross towels and changed in gross dressing rooms (I thought and still think I will have fungus on my feet).  We walked outside barefoot into the snow and hopped into these natural baths.  they were really hot and there were about 3 of them, one was a whirlpool!  It was like a huge pool with tons of people, so strange.  One of the coolest things I've ever done, but if I think about it, also one of the most digusting!

We went to the House of Terror which was once a communist headquarters and once a Nazi headquarter.  It was a really well done and cool museum!  There were so many exhibits of the Nazi regime, and (sad) there were the original torture chambers in the basement. 

Here is the Parliament building, a veryyyy cool building.  We went on a guided tour, so we got to see the inside of it! The entrance was really pretty and we also got to see the crown and then hall where they hold all the official parliament meetings. 

Our last night, a few of my friends from Prague and I met up with USC friends for dinner for Sean's birthday and then continued our night at Studio, the most amazing club I have ever seen!  If you think of the epitome of European club, this is it! There were about 6,000 people there, no exaggeration!  We got a table in the VIP area which made it less sketchy! There were girls swinging from the ceiling in angel outfits, men wearing next to nothing dancing on the walls, and a window looking thing covering the entire back wall with girls dancing also (all people who worked there obviously).  There was a huge dance floor and crazy  music and lights.  It was so insane, that even the Prime minister of Georgia was there- not sure he was supposed to be- but googled proved it was actually him!  Basically, I have never seem anything like this place!

Here is the Basilica that we saw our last day.  It is a beautiful building, and we were lucky enough to randomly get there as they were having their Sunday morning service.  They even let us in during the service.  It was so interesting to watch, and I felt like I was in the medieval times.  

That is all for my weekend in Budapest! It was really fun.  I left out the fact though that I lost my voice completely for the first time in my life.  It got to the point that I went to talk and nothing came out, so that was kind of frustrating.  But I mean I'm not treating my body so spectacular- then again I am living an amazing life.  So you can't have both I guess! Oh, and that when we landed in Prague I almost threw up because we basically crash landed and when we did land we were skidding across the runway (in a propeller plane).  I am not a nervous flyer, but boy was that the scariest thing ever!  But I'm alive woo! haha 

Miss all of you back home! xox

COPENHAGEN PICTURES

Our First night in Copenhagen (Seth, Grace, Amy, me, Sean)

First day walking along the River, the Opera House is in the distance

This is the Canal that we ate lunch along both days.  A Pretty Canal lined with even prettier people.  Danish people are actually so good looking and soooo tall!

The Entrance to Christiana, plus a typical building there, a house/hut there and how they get clothes (very interesting system)

Everyone at the Sushi dinner

Changing of the Guards at the Queen's quarters

The Chair Exhibition at the Museum

Valentines Day dinner

Rosenborg Castle

Crown 

WEEKEND IN COPENHAGEN

I spent this past weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark.  I traveled with two friends from here, Sasha and Kate.  My friend from school, Grace, and her friend from home, Amy met us there, and Amy's friend Streeter as well.  Seth and Sean, other friends from school are studying there, so they became our tour guides of the city!  We got there on Thursday night pretty late, after a slight mishap at the airport.  All if fine and found now, but Sasha lost her passport on the way there, so that was a minor disaster, and lesson to all of us about keeping track of our passports when we travel!  when we got there, we checked into out hotel.  We booked a room with two beds for three of us, but little did we know that the beds were smaller than twins pretty much.  So, we decided to push them together, and switch off sleeping in the crack.  

That first night we went out to a club/bar called Koola.  It was the epitome of grungy, sweaty European club.  But, it was super fun!  The music was a mix between techno, old school, and hip hop (everything is in English).  After ending our night pretty late, we woke up in time for lunch the next day.  All 8 of us walked along the river and saw the Opera House and then walked along the Canal, where there are a ton of shops and little Danish restaurants.  We picked a lunch place right on the Canal, and it was such a beautiful sight!  After a typical Danish lunch (bad food!), we went to this town called Christiana. Christiana is an old Army base which was turned into a hippie town.  The Hippie town is not considered a part of the EU, and therefore has its own government, school system, economy, etc.  Interestingly or not, a main part of their economy is a market that sells marijuana- casually barters it on the street.  The town was so strange; every building was painted a bright color, everyone was out walking around an drinking at the pubs which brew their own beer, and the lifestyle was just soooo different.  After spending the majority of the afternoon walking around there, we went back to the center of the city, which was right next to our hotel, and did some walking and shopping.  That night, we had a crazy night!  We went to dinner at this extremely delicious sushi place right near our hotel, and then proceeded to go to three different clubs.  The first place we went, Ruby, was an old apartment which was turned into a classy bar that is known for serving fancy drink concoctions that don't really taste like alcohol, they are just delicious!  It was somewhat of an older, business-y crowd, but it was a lot of fun.  Next we went to a place called Rust, which was only OK.  The music was only mediocre, and the people there were kind of boring.  So, we decided we needed a change of scenery. So, someone had the idea that we should go to one of the most exclusive clubs in Europe, Nasa.  once we finally talked our way into Nasa, it was like we were inside an Apple store.  It was ALL white.  It was really fun, but I'm not sure why it is so exclusive!  After a long night, by that point it was like 6AM, we headed back to our hotel. 

The following day, we woke up and went to lunch at a different Danish restaurant on the same Canal.  We then went to see the Queen's Quarters and the Changing of the guard there.  We also went to a Museum that was really strange. The exhibit was mostly of motorcycles and chairs.  After one room of chairs, you can imagine we were bored!  That day/night was Valentines Day!  And since we all love Valentines Day, we went to a delicious steak dinner to celebrate!  That night we went to a club that i don't remember the name, and it was really fun also!  

The last morning, Sunday, we woke up early, which was quite the novelty by this point.  The girls all went to the Rosenborg Castle to walk around and to see the Crowned Jewels, which were not extensive, but beautiful!  After walking through sort of quickly- the man at the front was so confused and asked us how we did it so fast-we went to lunch and relaxed until we had to say bye to our friends and head to the airport. 

Overall, our weekend was obviously really fun, and I did not think I would like Copenhagen this much!  Other than it being an extremely expensive and cold city, we had a great weekend!  My next post will be pictures!!

 

PHEW

So, typical me...I found a place to get a manicure today!  I have never been happier!  I finally feel "clean" again haha.  Oh, and don't worry they loved me there, thought it was hilarious that I just came in the middle of the day and also that I told them I will see them again.  For some reason, not surprising, I don't think people do many hygienic things on a regular basis here.   

Anyway, this week was my first week of real classes.  On Monday/Wednesday I have an art and architecture class and a history of Jews in Bohemia class.  Both of these classes have "out classes," where basically you meet at a museum or in different parts of the city and get a tour from your teacher.  Today in Art and Architecture, we went to the original PRague town hall, and saw the first layer of PRague which is far below what we actually walk on in Old Town Square today.  Other than the fact that my teacher spoke way too much, it was very cool!  It was blizzarding today which made getting there uncomfortable, but well worth the suffering :) 

On Tuesday/Thursday I have Czech language classes at 8:50 AM, horrible!! Then, I have a politics and economics of the EU class, which should be interesting.  The teacher was going through our names on Tuesday and called out my name, so I raised my hand.  He was searching the room, looked right past me and finally, I was like "I'm Taylor."  He looked at me with the most confused look and said "Taylor is not a girl's name."  He proceeded to talk for 5 minutes about how Taylor is not a girls name, he has never heard of that, and he was very confused.  My name is difficult for people here, who knew!

On Monday night, my friends and I cooked pasta, made our own pasta sauce, and added sausage (which I guess I sort of like now).  We made hot wine, which is all the rave here, and then had a relaxing night at an apartment.  Last night, we went to dinner at a place called Buddah Bar in Old Town Square, which was delicious, and I ate good sushi finally!  After that we went to a club that we go to a lot called Chapeau Rouge.  It is a grungy 2 story club (known for their "illegal" marijuana distribution), of which I do not partake ;).  On that note, nothing is completely illegal here.  The law about drugs is that you are not allowed to have "more than a little," very vague... After Chapeau, we went to this place called the Beer Factory, in New Town.  We ran into a million America abroad students there, which was really fun!  

A new observation:

Even the homeless people have dogs...

I'm going to Copenhagen tomorrow after school, so I will post some pictures and stories when I get back!

PICTURES AND OBSERVATIONS!

Once again, they download in reverse order of occurrence, but here goes:

From the National Museum, just for you mom!

Entry way of the National Museum

Our "fishbowl" at Nebe

Sasha and I at our steak dinner

At the Lennon Wall

Our addition to the wall

Marionette on the Charles Bridge 

At our Czech dinner "Na Zdravi" 

State Opera

Grace and I before the Opera

Thursday night dinner at Red, Hot & Blues

Crashed Ice:

It is a huge event that is right near my apartment that went on this weekend.  Basically, for the past 3 weeks they have been building this makeshift ice/snow ramp, and people from all over the world come and ski down it as a competition, and it is very dangerous and very popular! We didn't watch it because we forgot to buy tickets, but it is a strange concept!

Kate and I at the trunk show bar

MORE CZECH OBSERVATIONS:

- They smoke so many cigarettes a day it is disgusting..I am turning into a walking cloud of smoke with puffy eyes

-They follow rules like I have never seen before, my friends and I all have posted rules at our apartments from our Czech buddies.  The biggest rule in this country is not to wear shoes in the apartment (It's so annoying!)

- People are very unfriendly at high end stores, we walked in and they sneer at us and don't even say hello

THIS WEEK AND GRACE'S VISIT

So, I am obviously really bad at keeping up with this blog, so here is a summary of my past week in Praha!  This week was our second and last week of intensive Czech language courses, and we had our final on Friday..I still can barely say three words!  On Tuesday night, we went to this bar in Praha 4 (kind of far away) to go to a trunk show for a store called Bohemian Retro. We are attempting to do some local things, and that was definitely local!  The owner of the store is an expat and most of the people there were expats also, but it was a very cool bar and her merchandise was very vintage.  I bought a brown shoulder bag that was stamped with an old Czech logo, for only $15.  Everything is extremelyyyyy cheap here!  

Grace got here on Thursday night and we went out that night to dinner at a Jazz place and then to a club called Radost!  It was a really fun night, but waking up for my final the next morning was brutal.  After my final, I met up with Grace and some other friends at the Charles Bridge to walk around and do some touristy things.  We had to end our day semi-early because we went to the State Opera (Opera Tosca) that night with my program.  We had the absolute worst seats in the theater and could barely see...but the building was beautiful.  We were kind of bored and I won't lie, I fell asleep halfway through, woops!  We then left there and went to this restaurant that is known as a traditional Czech cuisine restaurant.  So, we drank dark beer, took shots of Bekarovka, and ate Goulash.  Grace got quite the taste of this country.  After that, we just headed home since we were so tired from the night before.  It was a great decision to go home!  On Saturday we woke up and went for brunch in the square and then headed to the John Lennon wall (my second time there).  It is a great place for pictures and you have to walk across the bridge to get there so we were being extreme tourists!  After the wall, we went to the bake shop and ate some pastries (My life here is as a pastry..not good...but great!)  After that, Grace and I did some shopping and walking around so she could see more of the city.  Last night we went to dinner at a great steak place, and I finally had a good steak for the first time since I have been here!  We went out to a club called Nebe last night after dinner!  They are known for their fishbowl drink, which is basically a tub of a mixed drink with a ton of straws sticking out...and we promptly finished it (there were about 5 of us working on it).  Last night ended very late, but we made ourselves wake up early-ish this morning to do some more touring before Grace had to leave.

This morning we went to this place called Club Cafe for breakfast, except it took an hour to make our omelets.  After that, Grace and I went to the National Museum which is huge and has everything you can imagine in there.  We definitely missed some rooms because it was so massive!  We also didn't really know what was going on since we didn't have a tour guide, but at the same time we were able to go at out own pace.  

So, Grace just left and I am just catching up on posting pictures on facebook (so if you want to see all of them, that's where they are), although I will put a few on here.  Tonight I am going to take it easy and catch up on e-mails and planning and laundry.  Miss you all xox!

WEEKEND PICTURES

Some skeleton Church decorations

Wall niche of skeletons

Inside of a church we saw

The man making coins by hand

Courtyard in Kunta Hora

The girls in the freezing snow

he three Californians!  We were so excited that it was just barely snowing (unfortunately you can't see snowflakes in the picture)