Long Lost Family

At this point, I was thinking I would just consolidate the end of my journey, except Budapest definitely needs its own post. Budapest was by far my favorite city. Not only did I get to experience the touristy aspects of the city, but I also got to meet my Hungarian family for the first time. To put the story of discovering my Hungarian family in short, 3 years ago, one of my distant relatives passed away and there was no sufficient will. Since my maternal grandfather passed away over 30 years ago, my mother, aunt, and uncle were in the inheritance. One thing lead to another and my cousin, Gyorgy, flew over to the United States to meet everyone, except me cause I was stuck in good ol' Lewisburg. Gyorgy is the only one of my relatives who is fluent in English so when he wasn't around, I would having to use sign language to speak to his mother, Agie, his sister, Ester, and his grandmother, Pana, by far the most adorable and loving hungarian of them all. My entire visit she continued to give me kisses and stuff my face with delicious Hungarian and Eastern European food. Can I go back now?

After my flight from Pisa and my first Hungarian meal cooked by Agie, Gyorgy and his girlfriend Regi gave me a night driving tour of Budapest. I loved Budapest because it isn't a massive city, but it is fully immersed with culture and everything just seemed much more open than all of the other cities I visited. Gyorgy was so knowledgeable about Hungarian history. And did I mention that it is gorgeous at night?!?! Chyup. They also took me to a ruin pub, old buildings that were damaged from the world wars. As Gyorgy and Regi put it, tons of tourists were there. And I just kept pointing out the American abroad students. After three months, we are very easy to point out.

The next day Gyorgy took me to a nearby town called Szentendre. The entire time I just kept thinking (and saying) how adorable the town is. I also got to try my first Lagos, a fried dough with garlic, cream cheese, and shredded cheese. From there we went to the Buda side of the Danube and walked around the Buda Castle area including the outside of the castle, Matthias Church, and the Fisherman's Bastion. We then drove up to Gellert Hill where I continued to see more gorgeous views of Budapest.

The next day I spent on my own walking around the Pest side of the river, and thank god it is much flatter. I started at the market where I enjoyed great deals on authentic Hungarian goods (the scarves were cute and cheap!). From there I walked to St. Stephen's Basilica and then up Andrassy Avenue to Heroes' Square and Vajdahunyad Castle, a castle built for the Hungarian millennium in 3 different architectural styles. I then got to enjoy the end of my visit with all of my family :)

The View from Buda Castle

Parliament

They have an incline in Budapest too!

Another view, this time from Gellert Hill

Vajdahunyad Castle and all the crazy architecture

To say the least, I loved my time in Budapest. I absolutely loved being able to spend time with my lost family and learning about all of family and my Hungarian heritage. Hopefully in time, the rest of my family will be able to visit soon.

Ciao London, Ciao Italia!

It still blows my mind that I am technically done with my [study] abroad experience! Since we were done soooooo early, I am now travelling Central Europe for nearly two weeks. First stop, Italy with another Delta Gamma from my program in London, Whitney.

We started our travels very early with a flight out from all the way at Stanstead Airport (the furthest of all the main London Airports) after Whitney nearly missing the bus and an interesting combination of other things, we finally arrived at Pisa Airport. Since we were in Pisa, we obviously had to go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa to get your typical photo shoot with the crooked building, bringing my large amounts of luggage and all. We then went back to the airport to take the bus to Firenze!

As you can probably expect, Italy is carbs carbs carbs carbs carbs! Pasta, Pizza, Panini, nom noms! So good. And you cannot forget about Gelato as well. We even got to eat at O'Vesuvio, the pizza place where the cast of Jersey Shore worked in Florence. Even though I would not think that Snooki would be worthy of a good pizza, it was quite tasty :)

Jersey Shore Wall at O'Vesuvio

Nomnomnomnoms

Like every trip we also did your typical touristy sights. We lucked out because the day we arrived in Florence was the beginning of culture week aka free admission to the museums! That being said, we were able to see Michelangelo's David for free and also go into the Uffizi for free. Quite a number of Euros I saved there. We also went into the Duomo as well, which was already free in the first place! I was appreciating that most of the things I did other than eat were free, especially with the rest of my travels coming up. However, when you have the San Lorenzo Market with so much cheap leather, all of that money that would have been spent elsewhere, was spent there. There were so many other things as well such carnival masks, pasta, glassware, and whatever else you can think that maybe Italian, it was probably there.

Whitney and I stuck in the rain outside the Duomo

The view of Ponte Vecchio from a window of the Uffizi.

I definitely wish I had more time to travel to other parts of Italy because it is so gorgeous and there are absolutely so many places to see! Florence and Pisa were definitely a great start, but I would love to go to Rome and Venice in the future. A Mediterranean beach wouldn't be bad either :) So since I am doing so much traveling so fast, these will be relatively short and sweet :) Next stop, Budapest!

Mumsy and Popsicle in London!

Over my Mom’s Easter break from school, my parents came to London to visit me and to celebrate their 25^th anniversary. I had a great time with them, especially since this had been the longest I had gone without seeing them. Unfortunately, the beginning of their trip was delayed when they got stuck in Toronto due to Air Canada Labor disputes. Thankfully, they arrived 8 hours later safe and sound.

Instead of meeting my parents at Heathrow as originally planned, I took the train out to our family friends, the Spaeths, whom my mom went to Bucknell with. After spending the day around Surrey, we then went to the airport to pick up my parents who I know were just happy to be on the ground. The next morning, we spend the day around western London, including Windsor Castle.

Outside Windsor Castle

Guess they are going to Hogwarts!

The next 3 days, my parents celebrated their anniversary in Paris. I would have loved to go, except I had two of my finals during that time. Boo no fun. Upon their return, I surprised them by booking two reservations. The second was dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant where you order food by touching the table, which I told them about.  The first was the complete surprise of Ice Bar. They did not know where we were going until we arrived at the door. Both of them were very confused and thinking, “Ummmmm…. OK?”. Once we walked in and they threw on the thermal capes with gloves, my mom realized what it really was and got much more excited about it.

With Mommy at Ice Bar

A few weeks before my parents arrived, I found a Groupon for a 50%-off day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Too good to be true, I bought 3 so we had something to do while my parents visited. Stonehenge was very cold and windy so it was good to know that we did not need much time outside since all it really is are... stones. We had a good time in Bath where we found a pub that served Abbey Ale (I should just cary a sharpie and cross out the 'e's all over the UK haha), walked through the roman baths and also the inside of Bath Abbey. We ended our day back in London with a quick visit to the Harrods pet store and gift shop where we gawked at the dogs dressed up in the salon.

The first half of the next day was mostly spent waiting in line for Madame Tussauds. My mom especially wanted to go after she went to the one in Las Vegas. Even after the 3-hour wait in line, we all still had fun. That evening, I had my first legal margarita with mom and dad at a Mexican restaurant (guess I will have to wait again until October) and then saw the new musical Matilda. Based off Ronald Dahl’s book and movie, we knew what it was about at it was FABULOUS! Best part? We can say we saw the original adult cast (kids are always changing). When it comes to Broadway April 2013, SEE IT! It is now in my top 5 favorites.

Our last full day together was definitely a tiring one. We started early to take a ride on the London Eye. Even though it was a cloudy day, we still got some amazing views of London. Thankfully, there was a bench in the middle for my mom so when her fear of heights kicked in, she was able to sit and get away from the downward views. Afterwards, we walked across Westminster Bridge where we saw your typical Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey like every other tourist.

And she managed to pull through!

Discovered the Panoramic Setting on my camera while on the London Eye!

Next was my dad’s least favorite part, shopping! We went to the absolutely, insanely crowded Portobello Market in Notting Hill and then to Primark on Oxford Street, also insane. We then did a quick trip inside the Tower of London (more my dad’s cup of tea). By this point we were al exhausted, our feet hurt, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it looked like we were limping, the cobble stones inside the tower did not help either. We braced ourselves for the walk across Tower Bridge where our dinner awaited. By the point we sat at the table, it took a long time before we stood up. The best part was watching the lighting of Tower Bridge change as the sun set over the Thames.

It was quite a busy week for us all, but we had a fantastic time together! Even though Rachel was extremely jealous the entire time while she was stuck at Bucknell, we know she will get the chance to have some of the same experiences as me in a few years. And to say the least, her upcoming birthday might as well be British themed. I never realized how much shopping my mother really does until now.

So I guess I should still post about Oxford and Scotland...

...2 posts behind, 1 1/2 months behind. Better now than never.

Back in February, a few of us went on a trip to Oxford. When we arrived, we had a tour of the town and the different colleges. Most importantly, Christ Church College aka basis of the great hall of Harry Potter. As you can expect we were all going nuts. Instead of "walking" through the room and being in and out in a few minutes, we managed to be inside for about 15 minutes. Whoops.

GREAT HALL!!!! (with a ceiling)

In the beginning of March, a number of us took the train to Scotland. This trip was organized through our program so we were not entirely sure of what to expect. Once we arrived in Edinburgh, we got a walking tour around the city by our very own Scotsman, kilt and all. Unfortunately once the tour was over, most of the attractions were closed so we sufficed with some shopping and dinner at a delicious pub. The location of our hostel was amazing. You could see Edinburg castle right from our window. We then woke up very early for a day full of sitting on a bus… not the most exciting thing in the world.

The entire next two days were spent mostly on a bus getting on and off at various points such as the Commando Memorial, Glencoe, Stirling (where we learned how to properly fold a kilt) and part of Loch Ness. We spent the second night in Oslo, a small port city near the Isle of Man in western Scotland where we climbed up a muddy hill to a castle and I had some really good Scampi and Chips. Even though I feel like I saw a lot of Scotland, more emphasis could have be placed at the “tourist attractions” so we could have seen them more rather than walking by them. In the end, it was still tons of fun and I got to meet a lot of people as well.

View from our room

Rainbow out of Loch Ness

At the top of the hill where we nearly died walking to the castle

Gorgeous Glencoe

The adorable hairy coo (cow)

Don't worry, I haven't died...

So I have been the worst blogger ever and haven't posted in weeks. At the same time though, this wasn't unexpected for myself. I'll do a mini-post now and then talk more in-depth of where I have gone and such, especially considering my last post was when I went to Paris.... sad.

So instead of getting into some of the trips which probably deserve their own posts, I thought I could talk about all of the places I have visited around London, especially in my Performing Arts and History classes. In my Performing Arts class, we went on 2 walking tours, one to the Globe Theater and the other around the theater district in Covent Garden. Even though I am not crazy about Shakespeare, it is cool seeing how it all started, even though it technically isn't the original theater, but it is close enough. Additionally, we have seen 5 different shows: 1 Shakespearian (A Midsummer Nights Dream), 2 plays, an opera, and a ballet. My favorite by far was the ballet, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, kind've expected with my dance background though. And it was also cool since it was at the Royal Opera House. Oh yeah, and the Mad Hatter tap danced too :)

Our seats in peanut heaven. Still really cool though!

With my Historic London class, we met at a different location each week either for an outdoor walking tour or to visit a tourist trap. We have had walks throughout the City of London, City of Westminster, and Southwark (pronounced like suv-erk...ish), as well as visits St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Imperial War Museum, and the British Museum. Best part was that I did not have to pay to get in! London is just so interesting because there is so much more history to it, especially when you compare it the United States. The US seems like a child in comparison.

We found a beefeater at the tower of London!

Ok so this post is short and sweet. I will post about Oxford and Scotland soon!

Les Cauchemars à Paris

... I will explain the title later.


Ce week-end dernier, Ally, Ashley, Morrisa, et moi sommes allés à Paris! C'est la première fois que j'ai pratiqué mon langue française. Il était un peu difficile, mais je me suis souvenu plus que je pensais.

Ok, so I must admit, I did cheat a bit and use a translator for parts of that because I have forgotten my verb conjugations. BUT if it was 3 years ago, I could have totes done that. Plus, I can still understand it :)

So we began our journey by taking the Eurostar aka the really fast train that goes through the Chunnel. It's really convenient because St. Pancras International is 3 blocks away where we live so there is no need to spend extra money for trains to the airports... thank god. Since we left fairly late, once we arrived, we quickly got on the metro and went to check in at our hostel. On the way, we got to have a few laughs at Ashley trying to speak French first. Womp.

Compare the size to the people on the right...

We started our first official day with baguettes and nutella for breakfast, aka the beginning to our carb feasting, and trying to figure out weird european showers (they shut off every 20 seconds forcing me to press a button over and over and over again), we were off to la Musée du Louvre where I got to have fun with glass pyramids, chill with the Mona Lisa (that is surprisingly tiny), and look at MASSIVE paintings. We then walked around to find another carb filled meal (pretty much all sandwiches are made with baguettes, and served with a side of baguettes) and went off to Notre Dame! Sadly, the clock tower was closed so I couldn't pretend to be a Disney character, but it was still gorgeous! Like I mentioned in my last post about Dublin, I loved the stained glass windows in St. Patricks Cathedral. The same goes for here as well. And then of course, we HAD HAD HAD to make our way to La Tour Eiffel! We hoped to see the sunset from the top but a. we could not go all the way to the top because of frost b. there was a line and c. it was so cold, I don't think I would have lasted. But even halfway up, the views were amazing! You could see every inch of Paris, even at dusk.

Louvre!

Notre Dame

Ally, Morrisa, Myself, and Ashley in front of La Tour Eiffel!

GORGEOUS VIEW!

Day 1: done. Now for day 2. We started off our morning at Musée d'Orsay where I got to see tons of the impressionist artists that I had learned about in high school including Renoir, Monet, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, and the list goes on and on. I also find impressionism more interesting than the others with the vivid colors and you can get a different perspective depending on how you look at them. After that was time for SHOPPING on Les Champs-Élysées aka window shopping. I must say, to my parents disbelief, I have been very good at saving money and really only spending it on the necessities and travel. We walked down the avenue all the way to L'Arc de Triomphe to get our typical snapshots and then turned around, for some oh so delicious Ladurée. I was adventurous and tried all completely different flavors including Orange Creme, Rose Petal, Lemon, Coffee, Blackcurrant, Chocolate, Vanilla, and Raspberry. As lame as it sounds, Vanilla was my favorite, probably because the flavor was very rich which I liked. Sad to say, they were all gone within a few hours.

L'Arc de Triomphe

Omnomnomnomnom...

Ok so here is where we get to the title, Les Cauchemars à Paris... Nightmares in Paris. We went to Les Grands Boulevards expecting to have a good night out. For starters, as many people have heard, Parisians are rude (the custom officers were really rude when we left Paris too). At the first bar we went to, they wouldn't let us in because we were American, even though 2 of our other friends also got in. We eventually gave up and moved on. At around 1:00, we find out that the metro closed (we thought it was open until 2:30 since Friday is usually considered the weekend). By the point we were ready to go home, it was IMPOSSIBLE to catch a cab. People were up and down the street trying and every one is "occupied". It was below freezing and windy so we were not lasting long. Ashley and I kept running into phone booths to warm up...ish. Eventually, we gave up and decided to go back inside the now dying bar. At this point, we planned on staying there until the metro opened. We sat there falling asleep until the bar closed at 5. We are all exhausted and frozen. The metro does not open until 5:30. We could barely last a minute and nothing nearby was open so we were in a panic to find warmth. Eventually, we manage to walk into a hotel across the street and chilled in the hallway for a half hour until we could finally get the metro back to our hostel. We get back and the cherry on top of our horrible night? Someone is sleeping in my bed, so once we got that fixed it was about 6:30 and the sun was starting to appear. If any of you saw my "Worst. Night. Ever." tweet, this is that long story.

Room of PINK!!!

3 hours later, we wake up to check out. ugh. Thankfully with caffeine, we managed to pull through. I guess being a college student helps you with that. We went to a boulangerie/patisserie down the street where we had... MORE CARBS!!! and coffee. We headed off to Versailles which was absolutely... WOW! No wonder why everyone hated Louis XIV. If you want to be a hated ruler, spend all of your money on your palace by making huge gardens, a mural on the ceiling of every room, and multiple crystal chandeliers per room. Sadly, we could not go in the gardens because of the snow (it wouldn't have stopped us). 

Now all journeys have to come to an end, and we we kind've happy to be going back to London. It started on a high note, but unfortunately, did not end well. Hopefully, I will return again so Paris can redeem itself.

It looked like it was made of gold!

Hall of Mirrors

Selfies in the mirrors

Luck of the Irish!

Now that I have been settled in London for a number of weeks now, I finally had the chance to go on my first trip! For 3 days my roommate Morrisa and I traveled to Dublin, Ireland, the land of potatoes, rugby and NOT leprechauns (I'll explain later).

Our first day was fairly uneventful since we had a later flight, but I did get to try Persian food! I know I should be trying actual Irish food, but when it's 9:00 pm and you want food, pubs are only selling booze (aka Guinness) and a pint was not going to satisfy our appetite. Morrisa also learned that when you pick the right hostel, they are not scary (It was her first time staying in one). The one we stayed at was only build this past summer and for €11, you can't beat that.

Me and my Type A personality, I had to plan out everything. After getting ready in the morning, I sat on the floor off our room, laid out our map, and circled everything we wanted to visit. From there, we sorted out which places we would visit each day so we could just walk. However, Dublin is so small, we actually did walk everywhere which was great for everything but my feet.

Officially Certified Jameson Taste Testers

After spending an hour circling my map, we were finally off to our first destination. We started at the National Museum of Ireland of Decorative Arts and History. My favorite exhibit was the different eras of furniture. We also went to the museum cafe for lunch where I had a garlic potato cake. I couldn't leave Ireland without having some kind of potato. Next was the Jameson Distillery. Being that I am technically still underage in the United States, I am not the most knowledgable when it comes to my alcohol except for Natty Light, Jungle Juice, and Andre. We went through the process if how the whisky is made and how Jameson differentiates from other brands. At the end, Morrisa and I were selected to be official taste testers and compare Jameson with Jack Daniels and Scotch. By far Jameson was both of our favorites. After the taste tests, we received our "diplomas" for whisky school!

Fun Sized!

Our next endeavors were to the National Leprechaun Museum. Since we came straight from Jameson after our taste test and our free drink on top of that, we were definitely a bit giggly and talking about mystical creatures was no help. The museum starts with everyone becoming the size of a leprechaun for the adventure and walking into a room with giant furniture. Our entire tour was women so the tour guide continued to make fun of us. We then walked trough the rainbow to the pot of gold when we learned that leprechauns are not from Ireland, but an island in the Irish Sea near the Isle of Man. According to our tour guide, the original stories were all lies.

The view from the Gravity Bar inside
Guinness Storehouse

On Friday, we started our day at the Guinness Storehouse where I had my education on brewing beer. At the top floor of the Storehouse is the Gravity Bar with gorgeous views of Dublin and everyone receives a free pint. While we were up there we managed to find other Bucknellians who were also in Dublin. Apparently, the Bucknell Bubble cannot even burst in Europe. Compared to what I am used to, Guinness was much heavier and I tried, but I could not finish my pint, so we gave the rest to two other guys from Bucknell who most likely downed it.

After Guinness we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Inside was GORGEOUS and there is so much history. I was by far the most in love with the stain glass windows and their intricate designs. My mother loves this, but there was a gift shop in the back of the church and what did I buy? The best leprechaun shot glasses ever. Sad to say most other shoppers were looking at them as well. Why they were sold within a church is beyond me. We then ended our touring at Dublin Castle which had oh so fantastic pink, green, and navy rooms, my favorite :)

Pretty St. Patrick!

They look so much better in person

Inside a Dublin Castle guard booth

We finished dinner in Temple Bar at a Mexican/Italian restaurant. Weirdest combination ever, but it was still good. We then went to a pub and  somewhat began to understand rugby. The six nations game of Ireland vs. Wales was on so there were many Irish, as well as Welsh fans around us who tried to explain the game to us. They then proceeded to say american football is not real and one guy in particular kept telling us the Patriots were going to win the Super Bowl. Clearly that was a bunch of lies.

Birds "walking on water". Can you find the hidden heart?

Our final day in Dublin was sadly a rainy one, but that did not ruin our fun. We started off by walking to St. Stephen's Green. I have not seen so many birds before. One elderly woman kept feeding them whole pieces of bread (and they flew holding entire slices) so they were going nuts. I kept wanting to sing like Julie Andrews "Feed the Birds", but then I realized I was not in London this time. After our stroll and bird photo shoot, we went to the Irish National Gallery and then the Book of Kells at Trinity College. It was interesting to see how the books were written and the shelves of books that still remain.

Like all adventures, they have to come to an end and this one had to end on the Luton runway in the snow. Considering every plane was delayed, I have no clue how we landed, but only Ryanair I guess will take that feat when your ticket is £13.

Oh yeah, and I can't forget about by new St. Patrick's Cathedral souvenirs!

My Lucky Irish Leprechauns!