Sorry it took so long for this to happen, but here are the (long awaited, I'm sure) videos from my trip to Paris with Rhaelynn!
Final Cut
Click here if embedded video fails.
For the extended version, click here.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Less than 2 months left
The time is wasting away!!! And I have so much to do- papers, articles, reading, etc.
More importantly, though, I have so much left to experience in Budapest/Hungary/Europe, and I only have 42 days until I fly back home.
I tentatively scheduled out the remainder of my trip, therefore, and here's what you can expect to be reading about in the future:
Castle District (It's sad but I still haven't explored it.)
Fish Pedicure (Yep, I said fish.)
Venice
Vienna
Berlin
Szentendre, part 2
Medve Otthon (Rehabilitated bears!)
Memento Park
Eztergom
Assorted Museums
The amusement park in City Park (with a really old carousel!)
Aquincum (Roman Ruins)
Botanical Garden
Visegrad
Vac
Forgive me for inaccurate spelling of words; I learned today that Hungarian has 14 vowels, and I don't know how to type them on my computer.
More importantly, though, I have so much left to experience in Budapest/Hungary/Europe, and I only have 42 days until I fly back home.
I tentatively scheduled out the remainder of my trip, therefore, and here's what you can expect to be reading about in the future:
Castle District (It's sad but I still haven't explored it.)
Fish Pedicure (Yep, I said fish.)
Venice
Vienna
Berlin
Szentendre, part 2
Medve Otthon (Rehabilitated bears!)
Memento Park
Eztergom
Assorted Museums
The amusement park in City Park (with a really old carousel!)
Aquincum (Roman Ruins)
Botanical Garden
Visegrad
Vac
Forgive me for inaccurate spelling of words; I learned today that Hungarian has 14 vowels, and I don't know how to type them on my computer.
Szentendre
After about half an hour of unnecessary exploration, we found the HEV, which was conveniently located right where we initially arrived in Buda. The HEV, which reminded me of the RER train in Paris, took Dani and I to Szentendre, a town north of Budapest.
I read my guidebook on the way and learned that the town is too small to get lost in, so upon our arrival, we did not follow the pedestrians and went our own way, which was as rewarding as Frommer's promised. The side streets and alleys were beautifully cobblestoned, but the thing with cobblestones is that they are quite inconvenient to walk on. They do, however, make a nice sound when horses walk on them, and yes, there were a few horses in the streets of this fine town (actually, I think they were ponies, and I'm pretty sure it was just a tourist gimmick, but still).
Our meandering eventually did lead us to the main tourist street, which was riddled with little shops selling Hungarian wares, which were fun to look at, but too overwhelming to actually purchase from because there was just so much stuff to choose from. Dani was rather tempted by a Hungarian military hat from a shop that also randomly had some gas masks. The thing with little shops, though, is that you can't just browse without the well-intentioned shopkeepers approaching you, which makes me (and Dani) feel pressured and therefore unable to form any logical thought process that could lead to a purchase.
We walked along the river for a while after buying drinks from a random little soda bar, and thoroughly enjoyed the river banks of the Danube, which was amazingly beautiful in the first vestiges of Spring that are currently upon us. Dani climbed a tree, which was brave of her considering the masses of ants that existed and kept me away.
Finding someplace to eat was stupidly difficult, as there were restaurants everywhere, but I wasn't in a mood to brave Hungarian cuisine and the other options exceeded my budget, but we finally found a place with Italian food, which is basically all we eat (good thing we're finally going to Italy next weekend, so we can have the real thing). It was really really good, too. It's on the river and the second word of the two-word name was "Trattoria," but unfortunately that is all I remember of its identifying features. We ate outside and it was lovely. The service was also great, which is a change from what we've normally experienced. I recommend it.
Anyway, Dani and I plan to go back the week after Spring Break to eat what my guidebook calls the "best langos in Hungary," because the place was closed today. We also ran out of time to go to a museum she was interested in, and we also wanted to go to an open-air ethnographical museum, so hopefully those things will happen next time.
I read my guidebook on the way and learned that the town is too small to get lost in, so upon our arrival, we did not follow the pedestrians and went our own way, which was as rewarding as Frommer's promised. The side streets and alleys were beautifully cobblestoned, but the thing with cobblestones is that they are quite inconvenient to walk on. They do, however, make a nice sound when horses walk on them, and yes, there were a few horses in the streets of this fine town (actually, I think they were ponies, and I'm pretty sure it was just a tourist gimmick, but still). 
We walked along the river for a while after buying drinks from a random little soda bar, and thoroughly enjoyed the river banks of the Danube, which was amazingly beautiful in the first vestiges of Spring that are currently upon us. Dani climbed a tree, which was brave of her considering the masses of ants that existed and kept me away. Finding someplace to eat was stupidly difficult, as there were restaurants everywhere, but I wasn't in a mood to brave Hungarian cuisine and the other options exceeded my budget, but we finally found a place with Italian food, which is basically all we eat (good thing we're finally going to Italy next weekend, so we can have the real thing). It was really really good, too. It's on the river and the second word of the two-word name was "Trattoria," but unfortunately that is all I remember of its identifying features. We ate outside and it was lovely. The service was also great, which is a change from what we've normally experienced. I recommend it.
Anyway, Dani and I plan to go back the week after Spring Break to eat what my guidebook calls the "best langos in Hungary," because the place was closed today. We also ran out of time to go to a museum she was interested in, and we also wanted to go to an open-air ethnographical museum, so hopefully those things will happen next time.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Prague
(I have no idea why the formatting is so weird on this post and no matter what I try, I can't fix it. I apologize.)
We took Orangeways to Prague. The bus was nice enough, as comfortable as a bus can be, I guess. The ride was long, though, and I didn't bring enough food with me so I was extremely hungry by the time the trip was over. During the ride, mediocre movies I've already seen played, like Date Night, Bounty Hunter, and Prince of Persia. I did enjoy the scenery, though, because there were so many country hamlets all centered around a church with a single steeple, and they were all so beautiful. And I noticed that cities are more visually appealing usually because the buildings are so many colors! I was mentally comparing it to driving through Baltimore and other places, and realized that that was the major difference, plus less pollution. I couldn't sleep at all, however, even though I was exhausted from the late night before, followed by an early morning. I had to get up at 4:30 to pack and shower and get to the bus station early.
We took Orangeways to Prague. The bus was nice enough, as comfortable as a bus can be, I guess. The ride was long, though, and I didn't bring enough food with me so I was extremely hungry by the time the trip was over. During the ride, mediocre movies I've already seen played, like Date Night, Bounty Hunter, and Prince of Persia. I did enjoy the scenery, though, because there were so many country hamlets all centered around a church with a single steeple, and they were all so beautiful. And I noticed that cities are more visually appealing usually because the buildings are so many colors! I was mentally comparing it to driving through Baltimore and other places, and realized that that was the major difference, plus less pollution. I couldn't sleep at all, however, even though I was exhausted from the late night before, followed by an early morning. I had to get up at 4:30 to pack and shower and get to the bus station early.
When Caitlin, Dani, Julie, and I arrived in Prague, we immediately found an ATM to acquire some crowns and then chowed down at the conveniently located Burger King before heading off to find the hostel. The metro wasn’t too hard to figure out, and the hostel had pretty good directions printed on the booking receipt, so we found it with little trouble. The public transportation in Prague is actually pretty good. It has the same number of metro lines as Budapest, but the metro system seemed more up-to-date and efficient, as if the lines were placed better or something, I don’t know.
The hostel we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard. The bottom floor of it was a pub with the reception desk located at the bar, and it was dark but cozy and there were computers we could use for free to get on the Internet, which I didn’t realize until the last day, so I didn’t really take advantage of it. Our room was on the top floor of the hostel, so there were a lot of stairs. We were in a room with 32 beds but only about 10 people, so it could’ve been much worse. The beds weren’t that comfortable, but they were cheap and clean, and we got lockers with interesting graffiti on them. 
The first day was spent in spontaneity. We walked to the old town area after a woman from the hostel wrote some directions and marked important things on our map. It was beautiful. I felt like I wasn’t even in a real place, and while it was overwhelmingly touristy, it was still amazing. I can’t even imagine people actually living there, but there were apartments in the area.
We wandered around, just taking everything in, and saw a Museum of Torture. Of course, Dani and I needed to go there, so the four of us paid the entry fee and descended down the spiral stairs. It was so cool! It reminded me of the project of torture devices I did in 6th grade with two of my friends, and it was cool to actually see the things I read about. It was creepy, I’ll admit, because there were many wax figured demonstrating the use of these things, but still really interesting. Julie and Caitlin couldn’t handle it and rushed through, so we went to a nearby chocolate museum afterwards to be fair. That was fun, because we got to see a guy demonstrate the art of making chocolates, which came with a free sample, but then the experience ended in the chocolate store, where I spent too much money. But they had chocolate covered Belgian waffles…so delicious.
We went up the tower where the astronomical clock was without even noticing that the astronomical clock was there, which was actually kind of dumb of us, but we were excited about going up the tower to see the city. It was about dusk then, and so the city was illuminated beautifully and we could see everything!!
When we got back down, we admired the astronomical clock before eating dinner at an Italian place located out of the hustle and bustle of the main tourist zone, so it wasn’t ridiculously expensive. We did a ghost tour that night, which was so much fun because our guide was inexperienced and therefore kind of hilarious, albeit unintentionally. I took photos of what he said were orbs, but I think that’s bogus. We also did an underground ghost tour with him after, and that was more creepy because it was dark and we had lanterns and people used to be tortured there. We planned the next day before going to bed.
We got up the next morning and ate the hostel breakfast at 9, which was basically stale bread and cereal and boiled eggs (ew). We first went to the Mucha museum because he’s one of Caitlin’s favorite artists, and that was nice. I didn’t have a whole lot of fun there but I could appreciate it. We then went to the Jewish district to see the cemetery, but it was the Sabbath so everything was closed. Bad planning on our part. We set off to the castle, planning to walk across a bridge and through a park to get there scenically, but our plans were kind of thwarted by a half marathon that was occurring that day. We ended up getting stuck in the marathon’s loop for over an hour before finding a metro station to get to the other side of the river that way. We ran into Laura, who was there with her parents, and they ripped out a page of their guidebook with a dinner recommendation on it, which was very nice of them.
The royal gardens were beautiful, but we were running out of time at that point so we hurried over to the ticket office and bought the smaller version of the castle tickets that would get us into three places rather than all of them. The gothic cathedral was magnificent, as gothic cathedrals usually are. The castle part itself, though, didn’t look like a castle at all. I guess it was more of a palace but not very gaudy at all. The inside looked like a castle, though, and there were balconies with gorgeous views of the city. We also got to go to a medieval Catholic church. We were so exhausted after, though, so we sat on a cool looking bench and ate some food from a stand nearby. I hadn’t liked my lunch (obtained in the Jewish district after much exploring to find something that wouldn’t eat my wallet), and so I got something that claimed to be a hot dog but was actually kind of gross. We walked across the Charles Bridge, which was gorgeous but had way too many tourists on it, and made our way to a Czech pub for dinner. I tried garlic soup, which was surprisingly good. We went souveneir shopping after, and some shopkeeper kept trying to get me to buy vodka with a worm in it, which is apparently a thing people drink. It grossed me out and we instead went to a different store, where I bought a Slavic nesting doll for my parents as well as one for me.
The royal gardens were beautiful, but we were running out of time at that point so we hurried over to the ticket office and bought the smaller version of the castle tickets that would get us into three places rather than all of them. The gothic cathedral was magnificent, as gothic cathedrals usually are. The castle part itself, though, didn’t look like a castle at all. I guess it was more of a palace but not very gaudy at all. The inside looked like a castle, though, and there were balconies with gorgeous views of the city. We also got to go to a medieval Catholic church. We were so exhausted after, though, so we sat on a cool looking bench and ate some food from a stand nearby. I hadn’t liked my lunch (obtained in the Jewish district after much exploring to find something that wouldn’t eat my wallet), and so I got something that claimed to be a hot dog but was actually kind of gross. We walked across the Charles Bridge, which was gorgeous but had way too many tourists on it, and made our way to a Czech pub for dinner. I tried garlic soup, which was surprisingly good. We went souveneir shopping after, and some shopkeeper kept trying to get me to buy vodka with a worm in it, which is apparently a thing people drink. It grossed me out and we instead went to a different store, where I bought a Slavic nesting doll for my parents as well as one for me.
We didn’t have much time the next day because we had to be at the bus station by 3. We went to a fortress, and it was amazing. It was located on the river and it was gorgeous and I was so disappointed that my camera was near death and I had brought the wrong power adapter with me. We tried to go back to the Jewish district, but found that you couldn’t get into the cemetery without buying a ticket for a bunch of other places, which we had not budgeted for or left time for, so we gave up on that idea and ate lunch instead before heading back. Prague was beautiful, and it would have been nice to have more time there to do things more slowly and leave time to just wander around the streets without an agenda.
A Zoo, A Wine Cellar, and a Labyrinth
I realize I've kind of dropped off the face of the Earth with this blogging thing, but I have good excuses.
This week was mostly awesome. I didn't accomplish much work, unfortunately, because I'm actually starting to have things I need to do, but I had so much fun.
On Wednesday, I went to the zoo with Luke, Rebekah, Catherine, Caitlin R, and Dylan. It was awesome. The Budapest Zoo is better than American zoos because you can actually feed and sometimes even touch the animals!! This is how I was licked by a giraffe. I also pet a zebra and some camels. Actually, though, we weren't supposed to touch or feed the giraffes, we later found out, because Luke got rebuked by a zoo worker. Oops. There was also a playground shaped like a pirate ship, with an awesome zip line and a whale thing you could climb on. There were lots of things there that could be climbed on or into, actually, like a pole and a cage and some tunnels and stuff. We also saw a seal show, which was fun. Best zoo ever!
After that, I went back with Luke and Dylan to their apartment to figure out where to go to see Womb that night, which is a movie that was advertised in the Funzine. We ended up eating out at Tacos Locos first with Nick and Matt also. It was a sad excuse for Mexican food, but I guess Budapest is far enough from Mexico that I can't have very high expectations. It was still fun, though. Then, all of us except for Matt went to a theater located surprisingly close to my apartment to see Womb. We had no idea what it was going to be about. That was the best way to go into it, honestly, because if you know anything about the plot, it ruins the shock factor. It was one of the strangest movies I've ever seen but I really liked it for that reason.
On Thursday, we had a pre-departure meeting for the Venice/Vienna trip, which will be happening next Friday by bus. I think it actually might be miserable. So much bus time. So much museum time. It's not even like I don't like museums, but I like choosing the ones I go to, and I definitely don't like filling out a questionnaire as I go through them. But hey, it might actually be fun. We also get a decent amount of free time, so I need a moment to consult my Lonely Planet guidebook to figure out what I wanna do besides a gondola ride. I also need to meet up with Laura, Dani, and Caitlin B to make at least a list of what we wanna do in Berlin, since we leave for Berlin about 5 hours after we get back from Venice/Vienna.
I went to Morrison's with Julie on Thursday night, which is really close to where I live, which was really fun. We got there while there was no cover charge and stayed until a bit before 11, just dancing and having lots of fun. We're gonna go back next Tuesday.
On Friday, I went to a wine tasting at Faust Wine Cellar with 9 other study abroad students. We arrived in the Castle District early so we killed time at Fisherman's Bastion, which was gorgeous. The Cellar was located in the Hilton, so we had to walk through the lobby to get there. Then we went down lots of stairs into the wine cellar and I felt like I was in Poe's "The Cask of Amantillado," which was fun. The wine guy, Gabor, welcomed us in and it began. He was really nice and gave great descriptions of the wines, and I learned wine adjectives! I actually really liked most of the 8 wines we tasted. Most of us went to the labyrinths under the hills after, and it was so much fun because it was almost completely dark and we got to use lanterns!
I was supposed to go to Szentendre with Dani today and a hike tomorrow, but I have so much to do still that I'm skipping the hike and going to Szentendre tomorrow instead. There are only 44 days left here, which is weird.
I promise I'll blog about Prague today!! I have no clue when I'll be able to put up photos, though, because my Internet is so awful. It's also so windy that my windows and doors keep blowing open, and it's been like this all week.
Oh, and we're watching Titanic tonight!!
This week was mostly awesome. I didn't accomplish much work, unfortunately, because I'm actually starting to have things I need to do, but I had so much fun.
After that, I went back with Luke and Dylan to their apartment to figure out where to go to see Womb that night, which is a movie that was advertised in the Funzine. We ended up eating out at Tacos Locos first with Nick and Matt also. It was a sad excuse for Mexican food, but I guess Budapest is far enough from Mexico that I can't have very high expectations. It was still fun, though. Then, all of us except for Matt went to a theater located surprisingly close to my apartment to see Womb. We had no idea what it was going to be about. That was the best way to go into it, honestly, because if you know anything about the plot, it ruins the shock factor. It was one of the strangest movies I've ever seen but I really liked it for that reason.
On Thursday, we had a pre-departure meeting for the Venice/Vienna trip, which will be happening next Friday by bus. I think it actually might be miserable. So much bus time. So much museum time. It's not even like I don't like museums, but I like choosing the ones I go to, and I definitely don't like filling out a questionnaire as I go through them. But hey, it might actually be fun. We also get a decent amount of free time, so I need a moment to consult my Lonely Planet guidebook to figure out what I wanna do besides a gondola ride. I also need to meet up with Laura, Dani, and Caitlin B to make at least a list of what we wanna do in Berlin, since we leave for Berlin about 5 hours after we get back from Venice/Vienna.
I went to Morrison's with Julie on Thursday night, which is really close to where I live, which was really fun. We got there while there was no cover charge and stayed until a bit before 11, just dancing and having lots of fun. We're gonna go back next Tuesday.
On Friday, I went to a wine tasting at Faust Wine Cellar with 9 other study abroad students. We arrived in the Castle District early so we killed time at Fisherman's Bastion, which was gorgeous. The Cellar was located in the Hilton, so we had to walk through the lobby to get there. Then we went down lots of stairs into the wine cellar and I felt like I was in Poe's "The Cask of Amantillado," which was fun. The wine guy, Gabor, welcomed us in and it began. He was really nice and gave great descriptions of the wines, and I learned wine adjectives! I actually really liked most of the 8 wines we tasted. Most of us went to the labyrinths under the hills after, and it was so much fun because it was almost completely dark and we got to use lanterns!I was supposed to go to Szentendre with Dani today and a hike tomorrow, but I have so much to do still that I'm skipping the hike and going to Szentendre tomorrow instead. There are only 44 days left here, which is weird.
I promise I'll blog about Prague today!! I have no clue when I'll be able to put up photos, though, because my Internet is so awful. It's also so windy that my windows and doors keep blowing open, and it's been like this all week.
Oh, and we're watching Titanic tonight!!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Moldy Shoes
Did you know that shoes can grow mold? I didn't, until this morning, when I was trying to get ready to go to my first ever press conference. So now my gray flats are no more, and now I also need to replace those as well as my walking shoes.
Anyway, that is not the most exciting thing that happened today, so let's move on to the Housing Forum for Europe Central Asia, where I attended a press conference. I thought it was exciting, because I want to be a journalist and it was a great opportunity, since it was an international forum and I got to experience it within the safety of a class.
I got to Mechwart Liget early and waited with the professor for quite a while, but nobody else from class shower up so Mr. Smyth and I got on the bus and then walked to the conference. We got there and signed in, and I got a press badge! Super cool. Eventually, three other people from my journalism class showed up, and so did other journalists. I saw other McDaniel students at the conference as well, since many of them were volunteering either for an independent study or just because they wanted to. This is the same conference I was going to volunteer at until I found that it overlapped with Prague, which I'd already booked tickets for (more on Prague in a later post).
So, the conference began, and there were four speakers representing Habitat for Humanity Hungary, Habitat for Humanity International, United Nations Development Programme, and the International Federation of the Red Cross, and they proceeded to make their statements before taking questions. I'm excited to write an article about this, although I don't yet know from which angle to pursue it because anything newsworthy that will come from the conference will be happening at the conference's conclusion, since the purpose of it is to bring people together in order to create discourse and formulate solutions to the housing crisis in Europe and Central Asia.
With that said, I have lots to do today, especially since I was gone this weekend.
Here's my to do list (luckily, only half of it needs to happen today):
outline for lit paper
1 page from perspective of secondary character in Tracks
opinion article for journalism class
Housing conference article
McDaniel Europe article
my other article
Messenger website- get archives
Marketing homework
grocery shopping
put photos online
make videos for Paris, Romania, and Prague
scholarship applications
laundry
clean desk
buy new shoes
Anyway, that is not the most exciting thing that happened today, so let's move on to the Housing Forum for Europe Central Asia, where I attended a press conference. I thought it was exciting, because I want to be a journalist and it was a great opportunity, since it was an international forum and I got to experience it within the safety of a class.
I got to Mechwart Liget early and waited with the professor for quite a while, but nobody else from class shower up so Mr. Smyth and I got on the bus and then walked to the conference. We got there and signed in, and I got a press badge! Super cool. Eventually, three other people from my journalism class showed up, and so did other journalists. I saw other McDaniel students at the conference as well, since many of them were volunteering either for an independent study or just because they wanted to. This is the same conference I was going to volunteer at until I found that it overlapped with Prague, which I'd already booked tickets for (more on Prague in a later post).
So, the conference began, and there were four speakers representing Habitat for Humanity Hungary, Habitat for Humanity International, United Nations Development Programme, and the International Federation of the Red Cross, and they proceeded to make their statements before taking questions. I'm excited to write an article about this, although I don't yet know from which angle to pursue it because anything newsworthy that will come from the conference will be happening at the conference's conclusion, since the purpose of it is to bring people together in order to create discourse and formulate solutions to the housing crisis in Europe and Central Asia.
With that said, I have lots to do today, especially since I was gone this weekend.
Here's my to do list (luckily, only half of it needs to happen today):
outline for lit paper
1 page from perspective of secondary character in Tracks
opinion article for journalism class
Housing conference article
McDaniel Europe article
my other article
Messenger website- get archives
Marketing homework
grocery shopping
put photos online
make videos for Paris, Romania, and Prague
scholarship applications
laundry
clean desk
buy new shoes
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