Bratislava, Budapest, & Salzburg

Well I'm unsure why I write these, I think they are mainly for my parent's enjoyment, and I guess they deserve to know what their money has gone towards. Haha. But here is the latest installment of my journeys in Europe.

Last weekend we were all still pretty exhausted from our misadventures over fall break on top of working non stop on 12 pages worth of papers, (I could probably draw you my hotel room dirty clothes and all with my eyes closed.) so we decided to take it easy and just do day trips.

Thursday we went to Bratislava, Slovakia since Dr. McVey told us he was going to take us when he was here (never did). We left around 2ish to walk over to Sudbahnhof to catch a train. We got to the station at 2:20 and the train left at 2:30. So we booked it to the platform, and made it on just in time for it to roll away. When we made it to Slovakia it was about 3:40 and since the time change happened, it's been getting dark here very early.

We walked around a little bit looking for a tourism office in the train station to no avail. So we just set out on foot looking for something promising to do. We saw a steeple and headed towards it since we knew there was some church that was supposed to be cool there. But when we got inside we found it pretty grungy and a ladies service going on. Though we never figured out where the lady speaking was...

We decided that we should ask for directions to the city center or for a tourism office and luckily no one spoke any English. Seriously, if you are going to have english as your second language on ALL your signs, please be able to speak it, I have never learned a lick of Czech.

So we wandered aimlessly, unsure why anyone would ever want to come to this place, and just decided to head back to the train station since it was getting dark and sketchier by the minute. So alas our journey to Bratislava was a fail. But I got my patch (though it's a shameful patch) and that's all that matters.

We came home on a 5:45 train and then made our way to VaPiano's to eat dinner, since everyone in our group was cursing us because we hadn't been yet. VaPiano's is a cafeteria like restaurant where the people cook in front of you and ask you specifically what you want in your dish. You can choose from a myriad of pastas, pizzas, salads, or desserts. I got the shrimp and spinach campanelle pasta. It was alright, but the smell was better. I want to go back when I'm not feeling especially sick though.

The next morning we decided to go to Budapest. The UBahn was running slow and stopping a lot and we were really afraid we weren't going to make our train. So at 9:47 we're sprinting from the UBahn to the train platform for the train to leave at 9:50. Luckily though, it's been delayed and we don't actually leave until 10:10. Good heavens.

We made it to Budapest alright, left the train station after figuring out the Hop On Hop Off bus thing, and headed to the bank. We each extracted 10,000 florints. My goodness what a crazy amount! However, that only equaled to about $50. We went to find the bus stop and decided to eat somewhere before the bus came. We stopped at this place called Sloppy Joes (sounds American right?), and I got a chicken caesar salad (chicken was the only good part) and the others got burgers and sandwiches. Apparently the burgers were absolutely disgusting, requiring us to go to Burger King afterwards to get fries. We made it back in time to get on the bus and thus our tour began.

It was pretty rainy out, so none of us got good pictures from the bus windows, but the city was beautiful. Definitely didn't know that Hungary was so shaken by WWII. There are still several buildings will bullet holes everywhere. :/ Oh and did you know that Budapest is actually two different cities? Buda is on one side of the river and Pest is on the other. I think I definitely liked the Buda side better. However, we weren't able to make it off of the bus in time to explore anything since they pulled away so quickly, but it might be something I would want to go back to in the summer sometime.

Our main focus after this was to find food and a patch. So we got off at this one stop that looked really great, like there would be some souvenir stores around, but alas, another sketchy dark place, because even though it was 4:30 it was pitch black. So we walked towards the train station hoping to stumble across something but never did. We went to Burger King for dinner combining the money we had left over (check my facebook for the money picture, that's what was left) and ate. But we still had a bunch left so we finally found a souvenir store in the train station which wasn't even in like the main strip of stores, it was in this secluded side section. We got our patches and postcards but still had money left over. We found a food store and bought so much stuff, and still had about $5 for each of us. I guess that's going in my scrapbook.

We made it back safely and were quite thankful for our beds.

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Salzburg. When we got there we headed towards our hotel which was called the Vier Jahreseizten or the Four Seasons. :) It definitely had some charm or could have had some charm... I mean Pavarotti stayed there it must have been good at some point! We got to the room which was actually two combined with a separate toilet and bath area. The bed Bethany and I shared was this huge king sized one which was fabulous but the one Meredith and Laura shared was rock hard. And I still apologize for that. :/

We went to find lunch before the Sound of Music tour and found this really really cute foresty place. We all got schnitzel or schnizzle as we're called it now but unfortunately actually getting the food took a good 40 minutes. We were supposed to be back at the hotel at 1:40 for them to pick us up and it was already 1:30. So as soon as we got the food we scarfed it down and ran back down the street. I'm sure we looked completely ridiculous and like we dined and dashed but we paid I promise! I was pretty sad about running out on that meal though, it was the best schnizzle I'd had so far in Austria.

We got to the van and the lady took us to the bus which was just around the corner... we totally could've walked there. :/ Oh well. Our tour guide lady was named Trudy and she was a crazy Brit. But she definitely loved the Sound of Music, so over all she was pretty good. We drove around to a lot of locations, the Mirabelle Gardens, the Nonnburg Abbey, the Mozart Bridge, to Mondsee to see the church where the wedding was filmed (also the scene where the kids are hanging in the trees), Lake Wolfgang (which wasn't in the movie but was proof that God exists), Hellbrunn Palace where the exteriors of the house were shot, and to Leopoldskron Palace which was where all the backyard scenes were shot.

It was absolutely amazing. I can't get over how beautiful Salzburg is. Quite possibly on my top 3 list of favorite cities. Sunday we went to Mirabelle Gardens since it was supposed to be the last thing on our tour but since it gets so dark so early we weren't able to. It was so cute, though I'm not sure how they filmed some of the scenes because it was pretty small. Especially the last scene of Do Re Mi where the kids are hopping up and down those stairs. There's this huge ledge thing right in front of it that would not allow them to have the proper angle for that shot... Movie magic I guess.

We played on the Pegasus fountain, found the little gnome they all patted, and ran around the mazes playing Harry Potter. After the gardens we went over the river to the shopping area. Not very much was open but we found a little merry go round (probably meant for people an 8th of my weight) and hopped on. We were especially excited about the Gartenzwerg I rode. We walked up and down that street getting souvenirs and what not, and then found a place for lunch. I really enjoyed it. It was down under other shops and was really cozy and warm. I got bacon and cheese spatzle which was deeeelicious. We walked around some more and had hints of what the Christmas markets were going to look like and then decided it was probably time to head back.

I have to definitely recommend that hotel though. The staff was so friendly. One of the guys even let us order pizza for Saturday night's dinner even though his boss wouldn't allow it. But he told us he wasn't there, and he just wouldn't look. He was even helpful enough to order it for us and give directions to the delivery man. Definitely a keeper. :)

So that was my weekend. Pretty low key but pretty fun.

This weekend Meredith and I are staying in Vienna along with Brynn, Abbie, and Meghan. Homework plays a huge factor in that decision, but there are also several things I need to get done for this next week. Sketches, about 11 pages worth of papers, two tests, and a soccer game would have done me in stress and health wise if I didn't stay to get stuff done. But Christmas markets start this Saturday(!!!!!) so we're going to hit those up as well as finish visits and go see other things we haven't gotten to yet. Overall I'm glad we're staying, even if that did mean giving up Cinque Terre and Venice. (that's ok. the cruise I wanna go on for my honeymoon goes to both those places ;) ) I think I'm a bit tired of traveling as well. I just need a weekend away from trains and staying in one place for a bit.

Three weeks from today I'll be home. Almost under 20 days.