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!!