I'm currently on a train heading to Eger, a historical site in Hungary, and a great wine-tasting town. I'm excited to be using my Hungarian language skills outside of Budapest (and by Hungarian language skills, I mean my vast vocabulary of about eight words.) I'm writing this on my iPod, so I apologize for the spelling errors/poor grammar. Here we go!
Rome
At the beginning of the month my friends and I took a trip to Rome. I was lucky enough to have already been to Rome once - on a trip with my Latin class in high school - so I was familiar with the sites we visited. I will admit though, I was a little nostalgic for the first half of the trip: going to Italy and Greece with my friends was a huge bonding experience, and being back in the city without them felt strange, and really made me miss them. We visited the Coliseum, St. Peter’s Square, the Roman Forum, an Italian history museum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navona. I had actually already visited most of the sites on my high school trip, but this time I got to walk through the Roman Forum - which was gorgeous; ancient ruins that ran for miles, and a rooftop orange grove with an amazing view of the city. My other new visit was to the Italian history museum, which also offered an amazing view of the city, and even better, a sort of informative placard that told you what the buildings you were looking at were and when they were built. It was kind of mind-blowing to see a tower from Ancient Roman times standing next to a Renaissance-era church or a Medieval church next to an amphitheater.
We met my friend Kristin (from SLU) who's studying at the John Felice Rome Center (operated by Loyola Chicago) a couple times during the trip: at Piazza Navona (at night) and at Piazza Venezia later in the trip (where the history museum was located). She helped us navigate the city, but we didn’t want to drag her to all the boring tourist sites. That weekend there was a huge rugby match going on, and we kept seeing people wearing funny red-white-and-green hats on the metro (something you would never, ever see in Budapest).
The weather was warm and the people were friendly enough. Outside the Pantheon we were approached by Tik-Tak, an official party organizer for young foreigners. For ten euro we could ride a bus from the Coliseum to two different popular bars. They would pay for our first drink and if you got there early enough, you'd get a free t-shirt. We considered the offer but ultimately decided against it; we wanted to discover Rome on our own.
We also went to a flea market, where I bought a beautiful scarf for four euro (it was originally five... I'm an expert haggler.) One of the stall operators asked me if I was Spanish. He was the fourth person to do so, so I’m beginning to think that I look very Spanish.
This may seem surprising, but the first time I went to Italy, I didn't like the food. This time, it grew on me a little. We had a free, crummy breakfast every day at the hostel of cereal and rolls; but most of our meals were really thick pizza squares we bought from pizza/kebab shops on the street for around three euro. On our last night we had an actual, amazing Italian meal at a gorgeous restaurant in Piazza Navona. I was the only one to not get pasta; instead I had a pizza with salmon, white cheese and spinach, which was delicious and the size of an actual meal (the pasta portions were made for infants). It was kind of mindblowing to be eating in Piazza Navona.
We also had gelato at least once, if not twice each day. We went to this one amazing gelato place right by the Pantheon called Della Palma. It was three times the size of a regular gelato shop, and offered every type of gelato imaginable… just to name a few: orange chocolate, tiramisu, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, exotic fruit, raspberry, strawberry, pistachio, and even flavors in soy! I couldn't resist and first got a three-flavor medium (exotic fruit, mousse, and dark chocolate) and then went back and got a small two flavor (after-eight, which was mint, coffee, and chocolate chips, and Nutella).
We took the metro back from Piazza Navona to the hostel, then a train from the hostel to the airport. We landed in Budapest around midnight, and attempted to navigate the night bus system (to say this was difficult would be an understatement) and finally got back to our apartments around one a.m.
It was an amazing trip, but looking back, Italy is incredibly expensive and I had already been to Rome. Of course, I was really excited that I got to see Kristin, but I kind of wish we had met up in Venice (which I won't have the time or money to see now, and was one of the cities I reallllly wanted to see before leaving) any more.
So here's some advice for all of you studying abroad in the fall: budget your time and money well. Make sure you really want to go to the places you're visiting, because you'll soon realize that travelling every weekend, as romantic and adventurous as it sounds, is also stressful and expensive. Your time is limited, so make your choices carefully.
Vienna
Our next out-of-the-country excursion was a day trip to Vienna, Austria. We took a three hour bus ride to Vienna, crossing through gorgeous countryside to the city center. I switched back and forth between looking at the rolling green, snow-capped hills of Austria, dotted with little towns of red-capped roofs, and watching Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in "It's Complicated" (in Hungarian, with English subtitles).
Some of the other American students had already been to Vienna. They warned us that the city was expensive and fancy; that everyone was really dressed up and was in a huge hurry. I wasn't there for as long as they were, but I definitely did not notice this at all. Yes, Vienna is very fancy: the buildings are almost all spotless; the graffiti is more artistic than Budapest's and less abundant and disrespectful; the architecture itself just seems more elegant. Our architecture professor Laszlo actually remarked on this, telling us to remember that Austria's architecture didn't suffer the 50 years of communism that Hungary's architecture did.
The night before we left, I stayed up until 2 AM researching the city - it wasn't incredibly thorough research, but I wanted to make sure I got my money's worth of the city. I made an initial list of about 20 places I wanted to go, then narrowed it down to nine. Considering we were only going to be there from 10am until 7pm, I didn't expect that we would be able to visit all the places on my list (and some of them were just dumb things like "the cafe that Freud liked to visit on Sunday afternoons") and I thought other people would want to go places too, but I was wrong. I was the only person who researched the city, which was good because it meant we went to the places that I wanted to go to, but was bad because I had to lead a group of 10 people around a city I had never been to before. Fortunately, Vienna is not at all difficult to navigate. The U-bahn (their metro system) is much more well-marked than Budapest’s, and actually provides maps.
We visited Schonnbrunn palace, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs (but didn't go inside), then went to Statue Park to try and find Strauss and Schubert's statues (we only found Strauss). Then we visited Saint Stephansdom Basilica, a gorgeous Gothic cathedral in the middle of Vienna. Not two blocks from the cathedral was the apartment Mozart lived in the longest while he was busy being famous (though I don't think it was where he died). We were about beat after Mozarthaus, so we decided to get dessert (the wiener schnitzel we had eaten earlier in the day wasn't my favorite) and then head back to the bus station.
We walked around Vienna at night, passing a demonstration by some sort of Arab population right next to the cathedral. It frustrated me that I couldn't understand their language and therefore had no idea what they were protesting. I bought some bratwurst at Wiener Wurstl (presumably Wiener World?) and stood at one of the convenient metal tables with a friend. The table was already occupied by a couple that looked like they were in their mid-30s. We began to chat;they were visiting form Barcelona, and we told them we were Americans studying in Budapest. They asked what, and I said politics. The man began talking about George Orwell (though his wife spoke better English) and all I could do was simply nod and say that I need to read more of him (all I’ve read is a couple essays, not any of his novels). While we were talking, I dropped part of my bratwurst on the ground. The man said “Eat it!” two which I replied “It’s been on the ground too long.” His wife said, “No, give it to the dog!” To which he replied, “Ha! Try that here! These Viennese, they’d say, ‘How dare you give that to my dog!’” I’ve decided that I like people from Barcelona.
Oh, I’d almost forgotten: food! At breakfast I had had apfelstrudel and hot chocolate; for lunch, wiener schnitzel, French fries and four-euro mineral water; for dinner, some sort of chocolate pastry and my friend's tiramisu. I also tried Siiri’s sacher-torte (a famous Viennese dessert: two layers of chocolate cake separated by a thin layer of apricot jam). It was delicious, but the tiramisu was the best.
Ultimately, Vienna was beautiful, clean, and very, very expensive. I want to go back to see an opera (I feel like since the city is only three hours away, I must) but apparently they don’t allow you in unless you’re wearing fur. I guess I’ve got some shopping to do!
Krakow
I had no expectations about Krkaow whatsoever. Actually, I was looking forward to our Poland trip the least of all our trips this semester, mostly because we were also going to visit Auschwitz. But Krakow turned out to be my favorite city so far!
It’s a nine hour bus ride from Budapest to Krakow, which sounds daunting, but it wasn’t too bad. We made a stop at a beautiful ski resort in Slovakia and had lunch, and we were actually in Krakow by three. In comparison to the other cities I’ve visited, Krakow can be described like this: almost as clean as Vienna, almost as offbeat as Budapest, and almost as friendly-ish as Rome. IE: amazing. It was actually sunny when we arrived, and seeing as the only time I’d seen in the sun in Europe was in Rome, this delighted me. Our hotel (that’s right, a hotel, not a hostel) was minutes away from the main touristy shopping street and arguably the most famous destination in Krakow: St. Mary’s Basilica (which has a really cool history that I’ll explain later.)
The first day we were there we kind of just relaxed, ambling down the main tourist drag. We changed our money to the Polish zloty and ate peirogis – dumplings, Poland’s traditional food. In the main square there was this open-air building filled with stalls where you could buy all sorts of touristy and non-touristy items: key chains, t-shirts, jewelry, furs, pipes, leather, glass – basically anything you could possibly want. The set up was much classier than Rome’s typical tourist shops (which are really just blankets laid on the ground showing knock-off Prada purses). And also better than Rome, the exchange rate is fantastic.
That night we ate dinner at this incredibly strange restaurant. It was in the basement of a building that was attached to some sort of government building, so it took us a while to find it. It was called Grandma’s something, and it was decorated with cribs, dolls, stuffed animals (mostly cats), and boxing memorabilia. I kid you not. The food was amazing – I had salmon and some of my friend’s sweet cheese peirogis, which were delicious. After dinner we roamed the city for a bit, and it was amazing how many different languages we could hear. At one point I really wanted to follow this group of British teenagers (one of them actually said, “I knew I should’ve worn my thermals!”) just to listen to their accents, but my friends stopped me. There were lots of French people, and we met some really nice Irish kids the second night (but only for a couple minutes). We ran into them outside a club where I witnessed my first fight: two guys came stumbling out the door, kind of just pushing eachother around, and then one took a hold of the other’s neck and sort of just placed him on the ground, strangling him and sitting on him. (One of the kids we were with said, “In Ireland, people would be out here watching this with hamburgers by now.” It was hilarious.) I think the reason there were so many young people must’ve been because of the exchange rate. If the dollar-zloty exchange rate was so good, I can only imagine what the euro-zloty exchange rate is like.
The second day was our city tour, led by one of our Hungarian professors who’d been to Krakow many times. Krakow, though not the capital of Poland, is its historical center. Apparently during World War II just about everything of historical value in Warsaw was bombed, while Krakow was saved. On the tour we saw around three synagogues (though Poland’s Jewish population is currently very small) and a couple Catholic churches. One particular synagogue was actually converted into a museum, and it had the most well-written English explanations I’d seen since I’ve been here, which made me very happy.
The final church we visited was inside the Krakow fortress, which is on a hill on top of the city. The church was probably the single most ornate church I’ve ever been in, surpassing even St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican (though it’s definitely not as big as the basilica). The church was actually guarded by people (teenagers, for whatever reason) dressed in monk’s robes, who didn’t allow you to go in certain parts, take pictures, or touch things. It contained the tombs of ancient Polish kings, multiple large crucifixes, and there was even a vault where Chopin’s grave was located. It was gorgeous, but almost overbearingly so. Nonetheless, it might be my favorite church.
Krakow has a great history involving a dragon, but I can’t do justice to the story here – you’ll just have to look it up, or better yet, visit Poland yourself. I will say that even though I love Budapest with all my heart, Poland is by far my favorite city we’ve visited this semester, and I definitely want to go back with my family some day. I think Krakow was my favorite city because, as strange as it sounds, it kind of reminded me of home: the city has lots of green spaces, isn’t terribly crowded, and is a medium-sized city of about 800,000 people. Obviously, it has the advantage of being at least 900 years older than Kansas City, so it is a bit cooler, but the way it was set up just made me feel more calm than I’ve felt in Budapest.
On our last day in Poland we took a three hour bus ride to Auschwitz. I don’t want to go into too many details here; it was an incredibly depressing experience. It’s difficult to read about something, to see numbers like “1,300,000 people were killed at Auschwitz” and to actually comprehend what that sentence means. We saw rooms filled with eyeglasses, suitcases, shoes, pots and pans, even a horrible room containing human hair. One room was basically just murals of starved women and children. The worst part for me was one hallway lined with pictures. Under each picture was the name of the person, their date of birth, their occupation, the day they entered Auschwitz, and they day they died. Seeing a picture of a strong man and reading a description like “Hebrew teacher. November 12 – November 15 1943” was the worst part for me.
Here are the pictures from Auschwitz.
The gate in front of Auschwitz I. "Work will set you free."
