Haus Erasmus - Where I live
This is the meat they use to make a kebab. Oh so good!
Well, It all started on a Saturday afternoon with the question, “What else are you going to do tonight?” Next thing I knew I found myself on a three-hour bus ride to Budapest. No plans and no place to stay meant this was a true adventure. It was Troy (Wisconsin), Christina (Minnesota), Helmut (Florida), Bahar (Oregon), and I. We arrived around 7 in the evening and caught the subway to downtown. After an hour of wandering we found ourselves a hostel. That out of the way, it was our hunger we sought to satisfy next. It took about another hour to find a decent place to eat, but our choice was perfect. Dinner was delicious. We spend the rest of the evening wondering and then called it a night.
The morning was used for sight seeing; we spent all morning and afternoon walking from one side of the city to the other, catching all the sights possible. We finished our day with a quick bite at burger king before catching the 3:00PM (Last Bus) for Vienna.
Budapest Pt. 2
Then next weekend was the Buddy Network trip to Budapest, which I had signed up for in the first week of being in Vienna. It was an 8AM buss from the School (WU). There were about 150 exchange students on this trip. So you can imagine it was quit the deal. Immediately upon arrival in Budapest we picked up a tour guide, who gave us a guided bus tour of the city. Slightly shorted by the fact it was a National Holiday in Hungary and some places were closed for demonstrations. This was followed by a few hours of free time, and then we met in the lobby for dinner. Dinner was on a boat on the Danube right next to downtown. The food was delicious. I have yet to have Hungarian food that is not good. That about did it for the night. I went back to the hotel and went to bed.
Saturday…. Saturday began with breakfast in the hotel and a trip to the Terror Museum (about the Nazi occupation and communism in Hungary). The rest of the day was free, so I used it to do some more exploring. In the evening we met as a group and left for dinner at a Mongolian bbq. Now this was no Changs but it was still great food, and a good end to the day.
Sunday… This was baths day. We met downstairs in the lobby and headed out for several hours at the Budapest City Baths. Great way to end the trip. Saunas, Hot Tubs, Pools, Steam Rooms, ect. We later all met back up at the hotel and got the bus back to Vienna, relaxed and tired.
Let me first start by saying that I am starting this blog with Italy and then moving back to the beginning of this Austrian adventure. I realize that it would probably have been a better idea to start this at the beginning of my trip, but… well, I didn’t.
Anyways, Off to Italy. Well, It all started Tuesday afternoon when Jenn (Vancouver BC), Sarah (OSU), Lena(OSU) and I boarded a bus for Bratislava Airport. Now, as we soon found out, Airport is a rather generous term for what we flew out of… More like bus terminal with a runway. I guess we really couldn’t complain. The flight was cheep. Well, after two hours on a bus and just over one hour on a pane we arrived in Bergamo, Italy. A quick city bus ride got us to the Bergamo train station where we bought train tickets for Venice, which left around 7 the next morning. We then proceeded to hop on the wrong bus and ended up back at the airport. So, after looping back to the train station we then got onto the right bus and rode it a whole two blocks to our hostel… needless to say we felt pretty stupid after that one.
Wednesday… 6:30 AM… A quick walk to the train station where we boarded our train for Venice. We arrived in Venice at 10, booked our tickets for Rome departing around 11:30 PM, and stored our luggage. We then met up with a friend of Jenn’s, Brian. Brian had a friend with him, Christabel. They are on a trip through Europe and it worked out that we met up in Venice. The six of us then set off on a 1-day sight seeing tour of Venice. Not much to say about this other then Venice is freaking crazy amazing. Also we splurged on a Gondola ride. Totally worth it. After an amazing day we made it back to train station, got our luggage, said goodbye to Brian and Christabel, and prepared to board the night train.
The Night Train… I am giving the night train its own section because it was such a huge MISTAKE. Words cannot describe how bad this train was. First, we were unable to get seats next to each other, normally not a problem, but on a night train through Italy. Not so good. Second, the train was over-crowded; people were sitting on the ground outside the compartments. Next, it was packed full of some of the most sketch people I have ever seen in my life. And we were stuck. For 8 hours in uncomfortable seats. Each of us crammed into a little room with 5 extremely sketch people who did not speak English. Longest 8 hours of my life. Needless to say, almost no sleep was gotten on this train. Luckily, none of us had anything stolen.
Thursday… Exhausted, we got off the train in Rome. It was early, we were tired, and we were hungry. So, the first thing we did was eat breakfast at McDonalds. Amazing. We then waked the 5-6 blocks to our hostel and checked in. We couldn’t get to our rooms until 3, but they stored our bags for us. All we wanted to do at this point was take a shower and sleep, we couldn’t. So we started to walk around Rome for an hour or two. At around 10 another friend of Jenn, David, arrived in Rome. So we met him at the train station. We helped him get checked into his Hostel, and then it was off to see some real sights. The Coliseum and the Palatino were the big ones for the first day. I could write a book on these two alone, but I will be short. It was Epoch. We called it an early night.
Friday… Waking around 7, we met up with David at the train station; where we caught the metro to Vatican City. We made a quick stop in St. Peter’s Square and then headed straight for the museum. A couple of hours were spent touring the museum and seeing all the sights. This was followed by a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica. Such a crazy church. We even got to climb to the top of the St. Peter’s, 551 steps, where we got a great view of Rome. After seeing all the sights of Vatican City we made are way through Rome. Hitting just about every major sight along the way. Castel Sant’ Angelo, Pantheon, Trevi, and Campidoglio just to name a few. It was a long day with a lot of walking. But well worth it. For dinner we got some pasta from a place near our Hostel. And then headed to the train station to catch our night train to Milan.
Night Train 2.0… Let me start by saying this ticket cost us double what the last night train cost. Let me also say it was the best purchase of my life. A warm bed with sheets, wake up service in the morning, a breakfast snack served to us. IT WAS AWSOME.
Saturday… We arrived in Milan around 7. Jenn and David were spending the night in Milan, so we went to their hostel to check them in. After getting that taken care of, we headed to the town square to see Duomo. We also climbed to the top of Duomo to get a good view of Milan. Next, we hoped on the metro and headed out to the Milan soccer stadium; home of AC Milan and Inter Milan. We took a tour, pretty cool stuff. We then headed back to the Town center and wandered around the fancy shops. There was a castle not too far away so we went and saw that too. That pretty much ate up the rest of the day. We said our goodbyes to Jenn and David; Sarah, Lena, and I hopped on a bus bound for Bergamo. In Bergamo, we checked into our hostel and went to sleep.
Sunday… Flight back to Bratislava left a 7AM. Caught that, and then caught the bus back to Vienna. We arrived in Vienna around 11:30 AM exhausted but extremely happy about our trip.
