Play-by-Play Version
We (Cammy, Megan, Kyle and I) left Oxford on a bus at 1:00 Friday morning headed for Stansted airport. Our flight was at 6:35 that morning,
arriving in Budapest about 10:00 AM. After a motion-sickness inducing cab ride, we arrived at our hostel which was a funky new-age kind of place, complete with incense and a Buddhist mural in our room. We took a walk through the Pest part of Budapest, after fig
uring out their public transportation system, and then crossed the bridge to the Buda side, which, as we soon found, is really hilly. We went to the top of a hill called "Castle Hill" where we saw a church and the Fisherman's Bastion, which looks like something you'd see in a Disney movie. While up there, we also went into a marzipan museum where they had made sculptures of buildings, people, and even movie scenes out of marzipan (a sugar and almond paste mix). It reminded me of Ace of Cakes, for those of you who have seen that show...
After that we climbed Gellért Hill to the Citadella, a former fortress. From the top, you can see almost all of Budapest.
The view from the Citadella
After the Citadella, it was late and we were really hungry, in Hungary... Should've gone to Turkey... As we walked towards our hostel, we stopped in a few places that were open but they weren't serving food at that hour. Finally, we saw a pub that was opened and looked like it would still serve food. Ignoring the name, "Nevada Pub," we ventured through the door, ready for some authentic Hungarian cuisine. Instead we were greeted by a guy dressed as a cowboy. The whole place was decorated with American West posters, pictures, etc. Anyways, since we were starving and they were serving food, we ate there; but I didn't order the "Texas Steak" or anything else too American.
The next morning we woke up early to pack and head out to find the bus that would lead us to our caving guide. We finally found the bus to take us to him. After we dressed in our extremely attractive caving outfits, we headed to the entrance of the cave.
Me between a rock and a hard place
(which happened to be another rock)>
The caving was amazing!!! It was so much fun. I didn't get too claustrophobic, which is something I was really worried about before going in. It took us about 2-2.5 hours to do the tour through it. The caves were not wet, nor did they have stalagmites or stalactites because it was formed by thermal waters flowing through the hills. It goes under the residential part of Buda almost to the Danube River.
After our caving, we headed to the train station. We bought gyros to eat while we waited for our train... and then we missed the train. Fortunately, there was another one leaving in a couple of hours. So, we walked around the neighborhood surrounding the train station while waiting. We got into Vienna at about 8:00pm and rode to the hostel in a taxi. I disappointed that this hostel didn't have incense. We ate dinner ate a restaurant near the hostel; we got there just in time- they were about to close the kitchen. We went back to the hostel and, like the crazy kids we are, went to bed.
The next morning, we headed out the Schonbron Palace. It was the summer palace of the Hapsburg family. It was gorgeous inside! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside so, I have none to show you of the interior... I guess you can google it if you want to see pictures.
Next we found our way to St. Stephen's Cathedral. But, before we went in, we found a restaurant with wienerschniztel. It was kind of expensive so, my friend Kyle and I split one wienerschniztel and a hamburger, which was much cheaper. It was really good! I don't think you can really go wrong by taking meat (in this case veal), breading it and then frying it. By the way in a continuation of our American-themed restaurant tour, the restaurant was named Chattanooga Cafe, but it did have Viennese cuisine. Next, we went into St. Stephen's cathedral which is huge and beautiful. We did not see his hand in the box because we didn't want to pay money for that. Across the street is St. Peter's cathedral which is not as huge but it is beautiful.
<-St. Stephen's -exterior St. Peter's- ceiling>
We then made our way to the bus station which was difficult because we had people give us at least 5 different directions to the station. We caught the next bus to the Bratislava airport, which as I later found out, is in the tiny country of Slovakia. We were a couple of hours early so we just hung out in the airport's cafe drinking coffee. After the flight and bus ride from London to Oxford, we arrived at our house at 4:00 am Sunday. I was in bed by 4:20.
Reader's Digest Version (AKA for those of you that are not my grandparents or parents and don't care about every detail)
Thursday
-Budapest
-hostel had insence and Buddha mural.
-took us forever to figure out transport
-saw Pest
-saw Buda- climbed hills, saw buildings and views, went to marzipan museum
-ate at American West themed restaurant (it was the only one open)
Friday morning
- went caving. It was awesome- highlight of trip
Friday afternoon
-missed train
Friday later afternoon
- rode later train to Vienna
-got to hostel, no incense
Sat.
-Went to Shonbron Palace
-Ate Wienerschnitzel
-Went to St. Stephen's Cathedral
-Went to St. Peter's Cathedral
-Found bus to airport
-Hung out in airport
-Flew to London
Sunday Morning
-Arrived at house at 4:00am
-was asleep by 4:20
THE END
I'm leaving tomorrow night for my Spring Break trip to Italy and Malta- so keep a lookout for an entry on that trip.
On a different note, I found out this weekend that I for sure got the camp counselor job at ACU. So, I'll be in Abilene again for the summer.
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