Budapest and the Parental Visit

I'm sorta on a roll right now so I figured I'd keep writing. If only I was on a roll like this with my presentation for Athenian Democracy. So blah, blah, blah I forget what happened during the week between Prague and Budapest so I'm just gonna start with my journey from Athens to Budapest.

It was my first time traveling on my own since I've been here so I was a bit nervous. I got to the airport with plenty of time (after leaving my Latin class early) only to discover that, of course, my flight to Munich was delayed an hour. Normally, that would not be the end of the world. But when there is only one, maybe two, direct flights from Athens to Budapest and only a couple more connecting flights per day? NOT OK. I quickly ran over to the Lufthansa desk and asked if I would definitely miss my flight. To their credit, they immediately ripped up my old boarding pass and put me on the flight connecting through Frankfurt instead. Which is great, except that it had started boarding at 5:30. They handed me my new boarding pass at 5:50. The flight was scheduled to depart at 6:00. By the time I got to security, they were calling my name over the loudspeaker. When security stopped me and had me open my bag, I started crying. A man came in to security yelling for passengers for my flight. When he saw me, he immediately started trying to get me to stop crying and told me it would be alright.

I made it onto the plane with a minute to spare. The German lady next to me was very nice but didn't seem to realize I wasn't German (I get that a lot in Europe) until after talking to me for several minutes I still just looked at her with utter bewilderment. Two glasses of wine later, I was landing in Frankfurt, only for the flight attendant to tell us that the local time was 8:50. My connecting flight was scheduled to leave at 8:45. I started tearing up again only for my iPhone to reset its clock and inform me that the flight attendant was just an idiot and that it was only 7:50. I ran into another girl from CYA who was on my flight and heading to Dublin, and we set off through the airport together.

The rest of the trip was relatively easy and another glass of wine later, I was in Budapest. When I got to the hotel, my mom and dad were there waiting for me with a bag of bagels from HOBAGS. I miss hobags so freaking much it's a bit ridiculous. That night, I got to sleep in a real bed with clean sheets in my own room in a real hotel with real locks on the door and a real bathroom that was actually clean and it was heaven.
The next day, my mom's birthday (11/11/11), we crossed the bridge into Buda. 

 A view from the bridge of the Matthias Church:

 Parliament in Pest:

 Looking back at Pest and our hotel:

We took the funicular up the hill to the castle and president's house where we saw the changing of the guard (I think I like their outfits best of all the guards I've seen so far):

 I really like the silver trim on their jackets and their hats with the feather:

 The president's house I think:

Then we made our way over to Matthias Church, also known as the Church of the Coronation. The church (cathedral?) was decorated in a way that made it distinctly Eastern-European or folksy, and I really liked it. It's definitely one of my favorite churches I've visited thus far and I've seen quite a few.

 Church of the Coronation:

 Across the square (usually there's a little cafe set up under the arches):

More views of the church:

 I love the tiled roof:

More tiled roof:

 Inside the church:

A CROWN:

 It has little painted scenes on it...

 Best part was that they let you go upstairs and the stairwell looked like this:

 Everything was brightly colored and had beautiful stenciled paintings:

And I found my favorite stained glass window, ever. Which is pretty high praise because I LOVE stained glass windows:

 I like how it looks more like a fabric or embroidery pattern than anything religious. I think it makes it more unique than the token scenes portrayed on the stained glass in most churches.

 Also, it's just really really pretty:

 Outside, a statue of Saint Sebastian (one of the only saints I can recognize in art):

One last view of the church:

Afterward, my parents and I went to a local coffee shop to get sweets and try the Hungarian specialty of cremes. I got the last one and it was the best thing I've ever had in my life:

LOOK HOW FLUFFY.
After that, we wandered around in Buda (where my great-grandfather used to live when he was little) a little more before heading back to Pest.
Budapest suffered a lot of destruction during wartime and here in this building you can actually see bullet holes from WWII (I think).

 Once we were back in Pest, we tried to go see the Great Synagogue which is the largest in Europe and only second in the world to New York's. Unfortunately, I couldn't go inside because we went right before Friday night services so they had closed early. http://www.greatsynagogue.hu/gallery_syn.html

 During World War II, the synagogue was part of the Jewish ghetto and had to add a graveyard because of the huge number of deaths, despite the fact that it is against religious law to bury people on the grounds of a synagogue.

In the gardens, there are also several very moving memorials to those who died in the Holocaust.
On each of the leaves of this weeping willow there is a name engraved:

 There are also memorials devoted to some of the heroes who helped to save as many of Hungary's Jewish population as they could. I don't think I got a picture of these, but here is another link for more information about the synagogue: http://www.budapest-tourist-guide.com/budapest-great-synagogue.html

After we saw the synagogue, we wandered around and looked at local crafts and did some souvenir shopping before heading to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had dinner at Gundel's (Gundel Budapest) which was amazing. The restaurant is next to the zoo and a park where my mom told me that my great-grandfather used to play when he was little. The food there is incredible. They also came and sang to my mom for her birthday which was hilarious.

The next day, we went to a local market for more souvenirs and to buy good paprika and other things:

 Afterward, we got lunch at a really good cafe where I had the same brand of beer that I had in Oktoberfest! I was very excited. Then, we headed over to Saint Stephen's Basilica:

 Saint Stephen's is beautiful. Sain Stephen was the first king of Hungary and is now their patron saint. His right hand is mummified in the basilica:

After this, I got my nails done in the hotel spa (yay) and we had an early dinner before going to the Budapest opera house. We saw a production of Rossini's La Cenerentola which was incredible and made up somewhat for not seeing a concert when I was in Prague:

The next morning, on our way to the airport, our driver made sure we got to see the front of Parliament:

We flew to Athens without mishap. My parents were staying at one of the nicest hotels in Athens but unfortunately it was in Syntagma which was all blocked off in preparations for the demonstration and march on November 17th (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Polytechnic_uprising). Eventually we made it there, and that night we had dinner with Alex and Rosie in the rooftop restaurant.

I don't have any more pictures from this week but here's a run-down of what we did:
Monday: POET SANDALMAKER and Monastiraki. We had sushi that night (yum) at Kiku. Which is more than NYC prices... ugh.
Tuesday: National Archaeological Museum with my Art and Archaeology class, then I had class all day (my mom joined me for Latin too). We had dinner at a really fancy restaurant (Spondi?) that night.
Wednesday: I had to do some work on my papers but I showed my parents around in the afternoon. That night we went to a cute local taverna in Plaka.
Thursday: Acropolis Museum with my Art and Archaeology class, then they went to see the temple of Poseidon at Sounio while I went to classes. That night, they joined me and some of my friends for dinner at my favorite taverna.
Friday: I went to northern Greece and they went home to NYC :(

Note: NEITHER GOT PICK-POCKETED. Success.

Prague

Again, sorry for the delay but hopefully I'll be caught up in the next day or two before I go to Amsterdam. Prague was awesome. It is now one of my absolute favorite cities in Europe and I want to go back so badly. It's absolutely beautiful and I want to live there someday. I went with Alex, Rosie and Shawna for the weekend and we ended up running into about half of Penn. I don't think there was a single time we left our hostel and didn't run into someone we knew. At least 10 girls from my pledge class were there in addition to all the kids studying there and a few others who were also visiting for the weekend.

First things first, though. We almost missed our connecting flight from Frankfurt. Why? Not because our flight from Athens was delayed or because we were getting food or shopping and were late to the gate, but because sitting at the gate, we were playing with the most adorable child ever. We looked up and realized that we were the last ones there and we were the last ones on the plane along with one other couple. Once we got there, we also had to find our other friend from Penn in the airport which turned out to be a bit of a strug-fest. Finally we got to our hostel and, after lunch, began to explore.
One of our first stops was for these delicious cinnamon rolls and hot spiced wine (both are now two of my favorite things):

 Then we set off to cross the Charles Bridge:

 There are about a billion things to do and see on the bridge. There are tourists and vendors swarming everywhere and we kept getting distracted by all of the sights. We got about halfway across when a very familiar looking boy walked by us. I yelled after him and it turned out to be one of our friends from Penn. He took us to go see the Lennon wall, first stopping by to look at a gate covered in locks (I forgot the significance. I want to say locks of love, but I know that's a charity to donate your hair to so that can't be right...)

 And here's the Lennon wall (obviously, named for the Beatle):

 translation fail -intentional or not?

 In Tyler We Trust:

 On our way back to the bridge (we still hadn't crossed it), we ran into a group of girls from SDT who were on their way to see the wall. After chatting with them and planning to meet up later, we got back to the bridge. Finally, two plus hours after we first set foot on the bridge, we made it across.

We next went to Old Town Square because I wanted to go see the Astronomical Clock and we stumbled upon a food festival of sort. We had more hot wine (yum) and waited for the clock to strike the hour. These pictures are actually from the next day I think but you can see the clock better than you could during the night:

In Old Town Square, we ran into another group of Penn kids (this time Oz and Theos boys) before heading back to our hostel to nap and change before dinner. We went to a cute Czech restaurant for dinner but apparently they eat a little earlier than in Greece and the waiter was not happy when we were still there after 11. He actually turned off the heat on us. Jerk. After, we went to an underground bar (it had Wifi) and played a few rounds of loaded questions before going to the our friends' apartment to meet up with the rest of Penn. We all went to an 80's and 90's music club (i.e. AWESOME) which was amazing. We were all dancing up on the stage when the Backstreet Boys came on the speakers and I'm pretty sure I punched some random guy in the face when I jumped around in happiness.

The next day, we got breakfast at a cute cafe and went to the castle. We were about to go into the castle when we ran into Shawna's friends from school, one of whom now lives in Prague. We were chatting with them when I looked up and saw even more Penn people, including one of my friends from my hall freshman year and one friend who I was glad to see still standing after the previous night.
The view from the path up to the castle:

Some statues:

 The palace (or its entry-way?):

 Saint Vitus' Cathedral:

 The Window of Defenestration!!! (my favorite part of 8th grade history with Mr. Weickert, other than the fact that I somehow managed to write my term paper for a class on European history about sharks):

 overlooking the rest of the city:

After we wandered around for a bit, meeting some fellow study-abroaders from BC who of course we all had mutual friends with, we went on a cruise up the river where we had amazing fried potatoes and I tried "grog."
Sadly it was not on this boat which was clearly made for me:

Also, I stopped for a little snack. These are waffles on a stick (but look like octopus legs):

Later that night, we met up with the whole Penn group we'd been with the night before for dinner at an Italian restaurant (where Shawna, Alex, Rosie, Luzi and I sat at our own table and played loaded questions, as usual). After dinner, we went back to their apartment for a bit where we lost Alex to a bout of narcolepsy(?) and Shawna, who went to go meet up with her friends from school. The rest of us, however, went to some multi-level club that was super touristy and sketch. One of our friends had her wallet and camera stolen and we spent most of the night there trying to find it.

The next morning, we tried to collect our fallen and missing companions and possessions before going for brunch with more Penn people, one of whom was apparently on her way to the hospital to treat an ankle she had twisted the night before due to some over-excitement? Anyway, we had bagels and then headed to the Jewish quarter.  Where, of course, we ran into the Theos/Oz crew we had seen at the club the night before.
The Old Synagogue:

 Jewish Cemetery:

 Star of David stained glass windows:

We shopped for a bit in the market there before wandering around and doing our last-minute souvenir shopping. Of course we ran into the SDT group and the Theos/Oz group again before we even made it back to our hostel to get our bags.

This concert hall apparently has the best acoustics of all of Europe. George Lucas just recorded the soundtrack for whatever his next project is there this past summer. I really wanted to go see a concert there but we didn't have time...

Some last views from the Charles Bridge:

After we made it across the bridge with minimal stops, we went to a really cute cafe for lunch, gathered our stuff from the hostel and headed for the airport.