With yet another easy schedule for last week, I was able to travel again! This seems to be a recurring theme for this trip...
Anyway, me and a few of my American pals decide to embark on a little adventure to some of the lesser known/lesser travels countries in Europe. Seeing as I've already been to some of the biggest cities here like London, Paris and Florence, I thought it would be cool to check out some of the smaller cities. Austria sits right in the middle of Europe so this made it pretty easy for me to accomplish that. In fact, I didn't even have to travel very far at all.
On a dreary Sunday morning, Jacob, Adam, Spencer and I headed out on our next journey. First stop: Budapest, Hungary. The train took only about 4 hours or so and we were all pretty tired, so the ride went by in a flash. This took us right to the heart of Budapest (a pretty sweet train station too, I might add) to an equally dreary day. The weather didn't bring us down though, as we are American travelers on a mission to have some fun! We ventured on to the tram system to find our hostel. It was a bit tough finding our way because even though Hungarian uses the same alphabet, it is a COMPLETELY different language. We found our way though, and checked into our hostel, a nice little place called Good Morning Budapest. This actually turned out to be one of the nicer hostels I'd stayed in up to this point. After checking in, we ventured out to poke around a bit. We hadn't eaten all day and we were running on the beer from the night before still, so we were all a bit delirious and we NEEDED food. We found a nice restaurant and got a nice big dinner to settle our stomachs. After walking around a bit more, we decided to call it a night because we were all beyond exhausted.
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| My first view of Budapest |
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| IT MAKES NO SENSE |
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| A beautiful synagogue |
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| Some of the typical architecture |
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| Chillin by the Danube |
After catching a good nights sleep, we woke up the next day well rested and eager to check out Budapest. The wonderful thing about a lot of the cities in Europe is that a lot of them have free city tours, which are perfect for students and travelers with lower budgets (us, in this case). So we decided it would be interesting to check out the Communist tour, seeing as Hungary has a rich history of it. Our tour guide was extremely friendly, spoke English very well and of course was very well versed in Hungarian history. I found that all the buildings here had a very unique style, unlike any I had seen yet. The buildings were taller and darker and certainly felt more imposing. The tour lasted about 2 and a half hours and we were able to see a lot of the sights of Hungary and learn loads of stuff. Afterwards, we hung out at a cool pub for a bit before grabbing some food. Then we did a little bar hopping (to get a taste of the local culture, of course) before turning in for the night.
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| One of the largest and oldest churches in Budapest |
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| Our tour guide, by a Communist landmark |
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| Standing next to the man who freed Hungary |
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| Budapest at night |
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| Shenanigans, of course |
The next day we had another chance to check out one of the free tours. The tour took us around most of the city (it's not too big) and we got a good taste of the culture and history. For whatever reason, whether it was the nice weather, small home-town feel of Bratislava or I was just having a generally good day, Bratislava just made me happy. I was in a great mood and the "vibes" I got from the city were amazing. I really enjoyed walking around and despite some the negative reviews I'd heard, I loved Bratislava. The old town area was simply beautiful and the bigger city area had plenty to offer as well. After the tour, we checked out some of the local shops and got some nice Slovakia schwag ( for those who don't know, schwag= souvenirs, apparel, etc). We dropped by our hostel to drop off our goodies and then we headed out for another night on the town (and what a night it was). We grabbed a few drinks at a nearby bar and then headed back to the same restaurant as the night before (it was that good). After drinking far too much beer and eating an absurd amount of food, it was time for.... bar hopping! It really is the best way to assimilate into a new city, I swear. The night took many unexpected turns, including some new bartender friends, absurdly full stomachs, broken/stolen bottles, being harrassed in the streets by prostitutes (don't worry, we managed to resist their charm), kebap from the smallest building in Europe, among other things that need not be mentioned in a public forum.
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| Eating kebab from the smallest building in Europe |
Following our routine, the next day was a traveling day. We grabbed a little pick me up in the form of sushi (my first in Europe. It wasn't too bad) and we were on our way. The trip from Bratislava to Vienna is extremely short, so we figured we'd end our excursion back in Austria. While I had already been to Vienna, I had really liked it the first time around and was more than willing to make another trip. Another short train and another short tram ride later and we were yet again checked into a nice hostel. Because the Austrians are such versed drinkers, both the hostels we stayed in here were equipped with bars. Simply wonderful. The night of arrival, we were in the mood for some good Italian food (forgivable eating Italian food while traveling in Austria, considering we live here.) Good Italian food is what we got. We devoured a full course meal and checked out some of the stores on the main street. Vienna is one of the bigger, more modern cities around so there are plenty of good stores. We all ended up buying sweet new jackets and headed in for the night after another slow but successful evening.
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| Plenty of these in Vienna-never gets old... |
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| Gotta love Vienna |
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| St. Stephens |
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| 1.5 Liters each (a great idea, I know) |
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| Last image of the night... fitting. |
Friday was our last full day, so we tried to make the most of it. We wandered around the city more and saw some of the big sites. The buildings have a bit more of a modern feel, though true to European style, all contain years of history. There are countless (literally) towering cathedrals, plenty of nice parks and tons of historic sites and buildings. We did our best to see as many as possible, but honestly, walking around with good friends on a great day in beautiful city in Europe is more than enough for me. Shortly later, we met up with some friends of Spencer's who had been living in the city. They showed us a few of the little coffee shops and we ducked into one of them to grab a coffee and of course, some beer. We then headed back to our hostel where we felt it was necessary to each drink 1.5 liters of beer (in the same glass, mind you) before heading out to a club. After defeating these beasts, it was time to check out the club scene in Austria. Turns out the club we went to was having some sort of rock night (lame) so, not wanting to spend more money, we went to kick it at the hostel bar again. No complaints here.
Finally, after about a week or so of heavy travelling/drinking/eating, it was time to head back home to Graz. Our trip certainly treated us well, and we all came back with big smiles on our face. It's a pretty amazing experience to be able to seamlessly and easily hop from country to country with no plans or problems. Each city has such an entirely different and uniquely wonderful feel to it. Traveling with good friends who have similar interests certainly helps to make the travel more fun, but just moving from place to place and trying all the different foods and beers and seeing all the sites is a truly inexplicably incredible experience. It's been unlike anything I've ever done and the first part of my European adventure has been simply amazing. It's hard to believe I've been here for over two months. I have seven weeks left and while I am getting a bit homesick, I plan on savoring my last bit of time here and getting as much from this trip as possible.
Yours truly,
Eric.
