Budapest @ MindSay

Hello again!

OK, I have a little time now to catch you up on my adventures… In my 11 days of travelling alone during the first week of March, I went to many cities. Some common themes of the places I went: synagogues, WWII, astronomical clocks. All-in-all, I had a really amazing time, and it was even a learning experience (in many different ways). But I was happy to return “home” to my bed and a familiar language in France!

Berlin (Feb 27-28)
I started my trip by flying to Berlin. I stayed at the “world famous hostel” (www.famoushostels.com) called The Circus. I instantly became friends with the 5 18-year old Scottish girls staying in my room, and I had a lot of fun my one night in Berlin. From then, I knew it was going to be a great trip and easy to meet people. I explored the city on my own the next day, staying only in the Mitte area, seeing Checkpoint Charlie (touristy replica of a guard house at an old crossing point between the east and the west), the Reichstag, and remnants of the wall. This was only the beginning though, and I went on to learn much more about WWII throughout the rest of my trip.

Prague (Feb 28-Mar 3) & Terezín (Mar 1)
In Praha, I stayed with one of my best friends Erik, who is studying abroad there this semester through AU. It was so great to hang out with a true friend! I had heard good things about Prague, but I found it to be too overrun by tourists, though it’s still a beautiful city full of cobblestone streets and old, impressive buildings. Erik was in class during the days I was there, so I explored mostly on my own. I walked everywhere from Wenceslas Square in Nové Město (New Town), to the astronomical clock and market in Staré Město (Old Town), to Starnonová (Old-New Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Europe) in Josefov, over the Charles Bridge to Malá Strana and the castle. I saw Frank Gehry’s Dancing Building, and Erik and I took the funicular up Petřín Hill at night. The highlight of my time in Prague: the Franz Kafka museum, which Adam recommended to me. It was a lot of fun too to use the Czech koruna, not the euro! For food, I had goulash soup with dumpling bread (kind of reminded me of the Ethiopian spongy bread) and delicious sausages from street vendors. I also tried hot mulled wine, which was ok but nothing compared to a glass of cool French wine.

While I was in the Czech Republic, I tagged along on one of Erik’s field trips to what used to be Czech’s largest concentration camp, Terezín. This was an amazing experience, though I’m not really sure how to describe it, so I’ll give you the facts. About 180,000 Jews were sent to Terezín in total, about 40,000 died there from bad living conditions (not extermination), and 90,000 people were deported to other camps (namely Auschwitz), of whom 86,000 died. Terezín was used as propaganda by the Nazis: At first it was promoted as a safe haven and resort for Jews, tricking many into coming here toward their death. The Red Cross even came to check on Terezín in 1944, but they made a good report as everything was staged for them. It was really a remarkable experience to have a guided tour around this place, and I learned so much from it.

Budapest (Mar 4-6)
The 7-hour bus ride from Prague to Budapest was actually quite comfortable, and it was fun to ride through the snowy Czech countryside and pass through Slovakia. Budapest was the one city I did not have a hostel booking for, but I found one easily and a great one at that, called Carpe Noctem. Budapest is actually 2 cities in one: Buda and Pest. Buda is the touristy side of the river with the castle perched on a hill, and Pest is the lively side with more things to do. The geography reminded me of Prague, and again it was nice to use a different currency: the Hungarian forint. I stayed mostly in Pest, but took a walking tour of Buda on my last day. Food was delicious: for dinner one night I had garlic creamy soup with a piece of fried bread covered in sour cream and shredded cheese, and some delicious meat and potatoes with more sour cream and shredded cheese. I went to St. Stephen’s Basilica (where I saw St. Stephen’s 10,000 year old mummified hand), saw the gothic Parliament, and walked along Andrassy Blvd to Heroes’ Square. Keeping with the theme of visiting record-breaking synagogues which I started in Prague, I took a tour of the 2nd largest synagogue in the world (after NYC), coincidentally with an AU alum and a couple from around Dallas. I also stuck with the theme of learning about WWII, and went to the House of Terror museum, in a building where prisoners used to be held and tortured. In the last few hours I had in Budapest, I went to the Turkish bath Széchenyi Fürdö. It was nice but our private pool and hot tub in Colleyville is nicer! Overall Budapest was really a ton of fun because I met so many people in the hostel, and they knew how to make their guests have a good time.

Munich (Mar 7-9) & Neuschwanstein
I took an overnight train from Budapest, which was an experience in itself since I slept on the top bunk. Waiting for my room to become available at the world famous Euro Youth Hotel, I wandered the empty streets tired at 6am in the snow, then went on a walking tour (same company as I had in Buda). It was a good thing I had a guide, because apparently Munich has a lot of “silent” or hidden memorials around the city, which I heard the rest of Germany thinks is a cop-out. In Marienplatz I watched the Glockenspiel clock display, similar to Prague’s orloj but longer. After some rest, that night I went on a “Beer Challenge” – put on by the same company as the walking tour, and we visited Munich’s most popular beer halls, including the Hofbrauhaus. The next day I went with the 2 women who were staying in my room (PhD students in Netherlands) to the Neuschwanstein Castle, about 2 and a half hours away by train and bus. This castle was the inspiration for Disney's Cinderella castle. It worked out well to have a group of 3 of us since we could buy a group train ticket and save some money, but unfortunately I was pretty sick with a cold that day. I wasn’t incredibly impressed with the castle, probably because the paths which offer the greatest views were closed due to snow. It was beautiful though and great to be in the mountains.

Strasbourg (Mar 9)
I left Munich early in the morning and had about 8 hours to spend in Strasbourg, which turned out to be one of the greatest parts of my whole trip. It was such a relief to return to France! As much as I love traveling, I missed France for the culture, bread, and language that I had gotten so used to hearing every day. In Strasbourg, they spoke a mixture of German and French in the streets, but it was French enough for me! It was such a beautiful city too; I really hope to go back someday for longer than just a few hours. In my little time there, I went to the gothic cathedral and watched the astronomical clock at noon, mainly to get out of the cold rain. I knew I was back in France because even the astronomical clock was running late, and it actually stopped working in the middle of the show! My spring break trip ended with a bang, though, as I happened to be in Strasbourg on the first night of a European Parliament session. Somehow, I ended up watching the MPs live in session! It was like watching CSPAN, but a little more interesting because of all the different languages being spoken (there was a radio that I tuned into which had translations into many different languages). I left straight from Parliament to the airport to catch my flight back to Nice.

…And back to Juan-les-pins!
Once I got home, I only had one night of rest before a good friend of mine came to visit me in JLP! He took a trip to Europe during his spring break from AU, first stopping in Paris then staying with me in JLP for the week, and we went to Barcelona together that weekend (where we met up with Erik, so I got to see him twice!). It was certainly a long couple of weeks for me, but I finally was able to catch up on sleep and enjoy the increasingly-warm weather right here in Juan-les-pins last weekend. It’s getting closer and closer to the end of the semester, but I feel good about how much I have already done, and now my plan is to just stick around here and enjoy life at the beach, though it’s nothing like Misquamicut in Rhode Island with the family :)

Love and miss you all, more than you probably think,
Emily

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.fr/lh/sredir?uname=emily.groffman&target=ALBUM&id=5315255278661740769&authkey=Gv1sRgCNPUjueFxeC_rQE&feat=email

So therapy today was good. I think I'm liking my therapist, he makes me think, and he's pretty blunt with me, which is nice. I'm seeing him again next week. I really do think he has a crush on me though. Like, he told me I'm attractive and anytime I said something negative about Jeremy he would tell me he was exactly the opposite, and he kept mentioning that he's single... so yeah. I just play dumb though and keep talking. Another good thing about that place is my new crush, Mr. Security Guard. He is so cute!! Tall, and dark haired, nice smile, friendly (it would seem)... I couldn't muster up the courage to talk to him though. I didn't know what to say. Plus he probably thinks I'm crazy, like everyone else that goes there. Ugh, sucks. I NEED IDEAS!! PICK-UP LINES!! ANYTHING! When I left though I gave him my best I-think-you're-adorable-and-I-want-you smile, and he said "See ya" and I said "Bye..." in my most playful voice. So maybe I can build on that next time.. Maybe I'll pretend I need directions somewhere next time, and then go from there..? 

 

Anywho, other than that my day has been pretty typical. I got a lot of errands done though, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. More to do tomorrow, and all week probably. My sister comes back from Budapest on Wednesday! I'm excited.

So I’ve just come back from Budapest, Hungary, and it is a great city full of castles, churches, and the incredible Danube River. Surprisingly, Budapest is very similar to Prague in how it is set up. The river splits Budapest into Buda on the west bank and Pest on the east bank. In Buda, there is the castle and the former palace, as well as a great hill to climb that has an incredible view for miles. Pest is the more active side, where most of the locals seemed to live, and also had the opera house, the synagogue, churches, and Hero’s Square.

It seemed as if all Prague students headed to Hungary that weekend, as our train there had about 60 study abroad students on it. The trip is about 6 hours, but when you are crammed into a small cabin with 8 people, and nothing but time ahead of us, it wasn’t all that bad. We ended up commandeering an entire car, so had about 40 of our friends riding together. We finally got into Budapest just past midnight which didn’t make it easy to find the hostel. No one was around at the train station, but we eventually found an English speaking travel agent who helped sneak us onto the bus and just directed us toward the river, where our hostel was.

A good piece of advice is to bring a map of the city you are going to with you. It seems simple, but in the past we’ve been just grabbing them from tourist booths in the city when we arrive. Unfortunately, a midnight arrival isn’t good for that kind of planning.

This was the first time I have ever stayed in a hostel and it was an awesome experience. We found it off hostelworld.com and it turned out to be a really small, extremely clean place with about 25 beds and 3 bathrooms. As we walked through the door, we were welcomed with Hungarian shots and told to put our bags down and join the woman working at the hostel for some drinks. We were exhausted, but headed out anyway and found ourselves in awe of the city and its similarities to Prague.

Prague is routinely referred to as the city that was not damaged in World War II, so it has retained its beauty and history. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Budapest, but it just added to the history of the city. Many of the buildings were covered in inches of dirt and pollution, clearly ruined from the wars and many, even on main city drags, looked abandoned (at least on the upper levels) for at least a decade.

Saturday morning, we hit the tourist route and went to Hero’s Square which is a large, open space, serving as a memorial. So I should add here, before I get into everything I did and saw that I have made peace with the fact that I will not remember the names and historical meanings of almost 90% of the sites I will see across Europe. It isn’t that I’m not making the effort or don’t care, but we see and do so much, and I don’t write any of it down while I’m at the spots because we are moving so quickly and my goal is not to feel like a tourist all the time. But, I’m completely okay with this, but do apologize to all of you. From traveling in the past, I know that five years later I will remember what the place looked like and the people with whom I traveled, but not the name of this church or that square, or the significance of this statue or that park. So I’m sorry, but….

We then headed to some of the museums off of Hero’s Square. The main museum had an awesome Goya, Velazquez, and other Spanish painters exhibit. More impressive than the paintings was the museum itself. 50 foot ceilings, great tiling and mosaic floors and walls, huge Victorian staircases. We then headed to the Terror Museum, which although sounds like some kind of fun-house type museum, was an extremely modern and somber museum dedicated to the victims of the Nazi and Soviet regimes in central Europe. Housed in a building that was the former home to part of the Soviet elite that helped oppress and kill millions and helped spread Nazism into Hungary, the building is converted into 30 or so very unique rooms that take you from the early 1930s until the 60s or so.

In many ways, Budapest reminded me a lot of Paris. The huge open parks and long, straight, tree-lined streets that lead to the city center and main attractions were very similar. We had a great snowball fight in one of the parks and toured a castle (which we happened to just stumble upon, as it was not on the map and was not much of a tourist attraction, but an awesome castle from the 1500s).

I still hadn’t seen the main castle and palace across the river when it got dark out, but a friend and I walked across the Chain Bridge and headed into the castle district at night. We thought everything would be closed off, but we actually got great access to the grounds. Looking back, I’m glad we were able to climb up there at night because the views of Budapest in the dark where beautiful and almost no one was around, so it was as if we had the entire district and palace to ourselves.

Going out that night in Budapest was not as easy as Prague, as the nightlife is a little more relaxed and sparse (but much is compared to Prague). We met up with a lot of the other CIEE students visiting Prague at a club called Seven. It was great to meet some Hungarians and dance to an odd collection of America, British, and central European techno and 1970s American classics like “Grease Lightning” (for some reason, without fail, I have heard that nearly every night while I have been out in Europe).

The following day, we headed to the famous Hungarian synagogue, the largest in Europe and the second largest synagogue in the world. The building was beautiful, built in the mid-1880s. However, the most moving and impressive feature was the Holocaust memorial in the back of the synagogue. A small wall was constructed with the names of various Jews of the Hungarian ghetto who lost their lives and visitors placed a stone next to the names. There was also a huge metal tree, The Tree of Life, that on each leaf had the family names of Jews who once lived in Budapest.

A good trip to Budapest, we were told, always ends with a day at the baths. Budapest is near natural hot springs, so the city has various bath houses that might make for the most hilarious, uncomfortable, and unforgettable experience for any American tourist. Located in the middle of a city park is a huge building that looks like a castle. You enter and tell the cashier what service you would like (choosing from a list that includes: baths, mud massage, stone massage….seems glamorous, right? Just wait.). Then you pass through the gates into huge dressing rooms that look more like a mental institution than anything else. A quaky man opens your dressing room for you and in broken English says he will lock it up for you, so trust him (sounds safe). Before I describe the baths, a question is necessary….when you are at a hotel pool and you head over to the hot tub, if there are 8 or 9 older gentleman in Speedos sprawled out in a crowded 4 person hot tub, you usually decide to come back later, right? If not, the next description won’t be so odd….

So when we entered the baths, we found 12 different pool size hot tubs, each able to hold 15 people comfortably, but instead, each was crammed with upwards of 40, even 65 or 75 people, off all ages, sexes, bathing suits. The baths start at about 90 degrees Fahrenheit and progress to 120 degrees, and you are supposed to slowly move from bath to bath until you feel most comfortable. Except, feeling comfortable begins with being all right with a stranger rubbing against you in a hot pool already overcrowded and people continuing to enter. After an hour or so, we got over the laughing and really enjoyed it. All this was indoors, but there was also an outdoor pool, about the size of 6 Olympic swimming pools. It was about 3 degrees out, but the water was well over 100, so it was great. People were playing chess in the pool, relaxing, just enjoying the day.

We headed home on a midnight train that was unfortunately delayed for a while due to a bomb threat, but that is an entire new story in itself. Eventually, we got home around 7 a.m., got a few hours to sleep and headed to class at 10 a.m.

Have to run and explore central Europe. Have fun and enjoy.

So today begins the first day of actual classes. It is nice to start to have a regular routine here and a little structure to the days (but I assume I’ll regret writing that in a week). My excited to take four distinct classes that all have an intertwining theme: Prague and the Czech Republic. At home, last semester I studied international trade and we never left the seats of the auditorium. This time, in Prague, I’m learning about Czech economics and the EU development in Prague. The buildings and places are steps from the classrooms. I’m must excited for an anthropology class entitled Alternative Czech Culture. It combines a lot of field research with seminar and the professor is awesome. When communism fell in 1989, and before as well, there was a big underground culture in Prague. From music, to literature, to graffiti art, and nightclubs, many twentysomethings of the CR made a big impact of the city and its push for democracy. A lot of the clubs and music still exist and it will be great traveling around the city and learning.

This past Friday, as a conclusion to our Intensive Czech classes, we did a scavenger hunt around the city that took us to Petrin, a hill just east of the city center with some of the greatest views. For whatever reason (no guided tours until it is warmer out), the city of Prague has a replica of the Eiffel Tower that they use for some great views. Also up on the hill is an observatory and park that we will definitely return to when it isn’t 20 degrees out.

That night, the entire program went to an opera. The State Opera House was beautiful and the orchestra rocked, but I don’t have a single clue as to what the show was about. Something with a water world meeting the real world, The Little Mermaid type opera. Before the show, about 25 of us meet for dinner at a restaurant in my apartment building. It has been a blast meeting everyone and seeing people from different schools all around the country gel with one another. It was a little break from all the Czech cuisine and the pivo was traded for some Czech wine.

A buddy and I are both into seeing as many shows as possible while we are here, whether they be Czech bands or huge orchestras at the many theaters in town, so the opera was a good start and we are looking to see a show this week too. For students, tickets to major orchestras, operas, and plays are as little at $4 here, about $12 for a last minute decent seat.

On Saturday, I went with 4 friends to Plzen which is a town 90 miles west of Prague. It was nice to see another city and part of the country. We took a bus there that we got on last minute at 9 a.m. for $3 (love this city) and it was interesting to see the former communist housing blocks that still exist just 10 miles from the city center. Plzen was a very cool city, although since it depends mainly on tourism, and 90% of that between April and September, it was a little slow. It was great for us though, as it was nice to have a more authentic feel when we toured around as opposed to the summer tourist season. The city surrounds a main square with the largest church in the CR and we climbed to the top for some awesome views. There was also a synagogue and theater there that we were very cool, ancient buildings. We spent the morning walking around and had an authentic Czech lunch in town. There is awesome dish in CR that is basically a nice size grilled chicken breast fully wrapped in a potato latke. It is unreal and huge. They usually serve it with a small plate of sauerkraut, so they have combined 3 of my favorite foods. Plzen is hands down most famous for being the home of Pilsner beer and we took the tour in the afternoon. It is a half mile walk outside the city center and you walk through old gates from when the factory opened 200 years ago. They show you around the old brewery and the new one and the miles and miles of underground storage they used before good refrigeration.

We took a train home that took 2 hours, but had a big cabin to ourselves. Although more comfortable than the bus, I definitely suggest avoiding the train because of the wasted half an hour.

Sunday, or rather Monday, was the Superbowl as it started here at 1 a.m. I made it until the third quarter, and headed home at about 4 a.m. The sports bar was packed with the many expats living in Prague and Americans passing through the CR for the weekend. And the commercials? We didn’t see any of them as the game was shown live in Prague by the an English network. Big disappointment.

I just had Czech class and now I am waiting for my Czech Alternative Culture class to start. I don't have internet at my apt. so it is nice to have it at school now instead of bringing my laptop to an internet cafe.

For the past week we have been without hot water, which has been miserable to say the least. It was lukewarm and cold until yesterday when it felt like ice was pouring out. They swear to fix it tomorrow, but we will see. We have to tell the school and then the school has to contact the landlord, so it takes a while.

So besides all that, we are headed to Budapest, Hungary on Friday for our first trip. It should be a blast, but I’ve got to study up on the place first, as I admit I know nothing about the city.

Have to fun to class. Have fun, enjoy.