Madrid

MADRID

Day 1 - April 15, 2012

Sightseeing Tour, Shopping,

It has been a very long day.... Well, it hasn´t been quite as busy as some of the days I´ve had in other countries but it definitely started the earliest. As I mentioned in the last post (or I will mention once I finish it), I took an overnight bus from Barcelona to Madrid at 11:30 pm. Unlike the fancy Student Agency buses I took to Brno, Vienna, and Budapest which had tv screens to play games on, wifi service, and hot beverages, this was just a normal bus full of Spanish people. It wasn´t actually that bad at all except that the guy behind me had the most annoying ringtones ever. It kept going off on all these random ringtones while everyone was trying to sleep. One was what sounded like an alarm and gave me a mini heart attack. Could´ve strangled him. Needless to say, I didn´t get the most comfortable sleep of my life. 

When we finally got to the bus station it was 7:30am and it felt really weird to be out and about that early. The subway and streets were practically deserted! It was kind of cool though to see a bit of Madrid before the people came out. It´s definitely very different from Barcelona. Barcelona seemed more chill, vacation-y, artsy, and definitely warmer, not to mention that they speak Catalán which is very similar to Spanish but not quite the same. Sorta more like what I would imagine Miami is like. In comparison, Madrid is much bigger (although the major sites are more clustered which makes it easier to see them), more metropolitan, colder (I was chilly all day...in Spain!), and speaks Spanish. To be fair, I haven´t seen as many different neighborhoods in Madrid and would probably just stick to the downtown area but it´s a bit more like the rest of Europe and maybe New York. Maybe, kinda ish. 

At about 8, I found my hostel, Musas Residencia, and checked in. Since my room wouldn´t be ready until 3pm, taking a nap was out of the question so I just ate breakfast and took a shower instead. It felt so good to be clean but was kinda awkward because I didn´t really have anywhere to put my stuff or change since it was a public bathroom (well not public, but not a one stall bathroom) and the toilet stalls were super tiny. I just sorta ended up jamming my bag under the sink and changing in the shower stall. Thank god I´m tiny! I don´t think I like this hostel as much as the others. It´s not that it´s bad - they seem to plan a lot of activities and stuff - but the staff aren´t very friendly and I feel a bit like I´m imposing on them when I ask questions. Plus, the people don´t seem to interact much. Maybe I was just spoiled by Sant Jordi though.

Aaaanyway, continuing on with this day. The hostel offered free tours at 11:30 so after I got ready I decided to take one of them since my last one in Budapest was so helpful. This was a much smaller group and not quite as extensive but I really liked our guide. Her name was Erika and she came from Colombia (South Americans are everywhere in Spain). She was loud, sassy, and funny as well as knowledgeable. During the tour I also made friends with this Australian girl named Zoe. She´s taking a gap year and working as a teacher´s assistant in England. It actually sounded pretty cool. Possible future plans maybe?

Puerta del Sol. Try to imagine it without all the stupid tourists in the way

 We started off at Puerta de la Plaza del Sol, one of the MANY Spanish plazas. This one, as we found out from Erika, contained a special Spanish symbol; a statue of a bear pawing at a Madrono tree called La Estatua del Oso y el Madroño. According to Erika, the bear was is supposed to be trying to get at the fermented berry juice in the tree which will make him drunk, take a nap (siesta), and wake up with a hangover. But when he wakes up, he´ll be so thirsty that he´ll go and drink the berry juice again. Apparently the bear is just like the Spanish people. I guess the moral of the story is that bears are alcoholics.

La Estatua del Oso y el Madrono. This was obviously before he blacked out, danced with a lampshade on his head, and made embarassing calls to his ex. 

From there, we walked to the Opera House,which wasn´t all that impressive on the outside but Erika said was beautiful on the inside; the Palace Real and the Catedral de la Almudena behind it; and finally, Plaza Mayor, a plaza that used to be the center of commerce in Madrid but is now mostly the center of tourism. I felt like I saw a lot and got a lot of good insight into the areas and histories but I definitely want to see the palace more.

Less than amazing Opera House

Plaza Mayor

After the tour, Erika offered to show the few of us remaining a good spot for lunch. I wasn´t super hungry but I thought it would be nice to hang out more so I went with Zoe. I got a little tosta, or piece of bread with tomatoes, goat cheese, and onions on it. It was so good! Just thinking about it makes me hungry. After we ate, Zoe and I decided it would be cool to go see the Sofia Museum, which is more of a modern art museum. We walked all the way to the museum only to find out that it closed early on Sundays :( That definitely threw off my plans but hopefully I´ll see it tomorrow with Jaxson. Since we were near the bus station, Zoe decided to head off and buy her ticket to Cordoba, a Spanish city nearby where she was visiting cousins the next day. We said our goodbyes and I headed off in search of a sundress for Mom and Gabbi. I wandered all around the Puerta del Sol and Plaza Major area for hours without finding much besides tourist shops and chain stores like H&M. Why is souvenir shopping so hard??? I gave up at around 8 and decided to go for dinner. Since I really didn´t know of any good places in particular and was super hungry, I just ended up going to the first restaurant I saw: this somewhat expensive Italian pasta place. There I got basil tortellini with mozzarella inside and a sun-dried tomatoes and oil sauce. It was good but rather expensive. While sitting there waiting for my food, I thought of all the things I could say to the waiter and came to the conclusion that despite not having spoken Spanish in a year, I still could speak and read it enough to get by. It´s just when people talk to me that I start having trouble. At least I still have something!

When I finished up with dinner, I headed back to the hostel and started getting ready for a pub crawl they were hosting. Originally, Zoe and I planned on going together but when I saw her in the hall, she said she was tired and was going to bed. That kind of took some of the excitement out of going since I wouldn´t know anyone. Well actually, I´m sure I would have made friends just like I befriended Zoe but I was also pretty tired myself and was partially only going to hang out with her. Since I was already all dressed up, I decided to tough it out. However, when 11:45, the scheduled meeting time came and no one seemed to be there to go to the crawl, I abandoned my effort and went on the computer and went to bed. Oh well, there´s always tomorrow!

Barcelona

BARCELONA

Day 1 - April 12, 2012:

Travel to Barcelona, Meet people in the hostel, Party at Shoko

In the middle of Czech class on Thurday, Jaxson and I left to catch a plane to Barcelona and begin our 6 days trip of the two largest Spanish cities: Barcelona and Madrid. I would have loved to travel to some of the other cities like Seville, Granada, and Cordoba but there wasn´t much time and Jaxson had friends in these two.

The trip itself was fairly uneventful, although Jaxson did make two friends while standing in line at the airport check in (which took forever!). He seems to make friends everywhere! Not only were they standing in front of us in line, but they were either in front or behind us during the whole airport process, and sat a row in front of us. It  turns out that they´re also from America studying in Prague and were going to Barcelona too. What a coincidence. We planned to meet up with them at this club on the beach called Opium (interesting name) but never did (more on that later).

We finally made it to our hostel, Sant Jordi Sagrada Familia (the first of three for me, but I´ll explain why later) at about 6 and were pleased to see that it was clean, young, hip, and very friendly. Not only did the travelers there seem really sociable, but the staff was also very interested in meeting and talking to people.
 The combination of Jaxson´s natural outgoingness and the people at the hostel meant that we met a ton of people. There was the Romanian hostel worker Lucian (more about him later), who showed us card tricks; a kid from Copenhagen with thick eyebrows; Andre, the American living in Germany; Jon the German; and a lot of others.

Upon checking in, we were told that the hostel was planning a trip to a bar and then a club on the beach at 11 so we decided to go to that. To pass the time until then, we sat in these really cool chairs (they were like cut-outs in the wall that were padded), talked to people, and eventually Jaxson even got three French girls who barely spoke English, a Australian, and another American to play Cheers Govna´ with us. The basic premise of the game is that people go around counting until you get to 21, when you shout ¨Cheers Govna!¨ and everyone drinks. The person who said cheers then makes up a rule, for ex, instead of saying 6 you say xis or something. Now whoever gets six has to do that and if they forget,they drink. You keep going and making up rules until it gets really confusing. Anyway, it worked and by the time we left for the bar, everyone was laughing.

At the bar I talked to a German kid named Jon about Germany, its shady Nazi history, and the current and future world powers. I don´t know why, but whenever I drink in Europe it seems I end up having deep political discussions.

Jaxson and I at Shoko

From the bar, we took the metro to a club on the beach called Shoko. On the way, Jaxson met this American guy named Andre who is working for the military and stationed in Germany. He seemed cool and immediately became attached to us, which proved to be a good thing since his height made him easy to spot after I lost him and Jaxson almost immediately after we got to Shoko.
Shoko itself was pretty cool but I didn´t spend much time dancing. Once I found Jaxson and Andre, Jaxson mentioned that Opium, the club we were supposed to meet the two people from the airport at, was right next door and wanted to go there. Unfortunately, the line was extra long and people were all very pushy. Although I was able to get in eventually, Jaxson and Andre weren´t so we met up with Jon the German and his friend and decided to go home.

That, of course, was easier said than done. By that time, the metro had stopped running and we didn´t know which bus to take so we tried to get  cab. Since there were 5 of us, no cab would take us because it´s illegal in Spain. Jaxson and Andre kept going from cab to cab but they all said no. I was beginning to lose hope and just say that we should split up when Jaxson finally found a driver who would take all of us so we piled in and went our way.
We arrived back at the hostel at about 3 but I wasn´t really tired and instead spent a good hour and a half talking to the Romanian about his life. He left Romania to get a better life somewhere else and first tried Peru but he got paid terribly so he decided to either go to London or Barcelona. Since London is so expensive, he picked Spain and has lived there for 6 years. It was all really interesting to hear but I eventually got tired and excused myself to bed.

Budapest

Budapest

Day 2 - 3/30

Katy, Jesse, and I got here at around 11 or 12 last night after a 7 hour bus ride. I was pretty fried from the trip but also really excited. Unlike a lot of other cities in which you see a lot of things (museums, castles, etc) but don't DO a lot, Budapest is more of a doing city.

Our hostel is nice but not as awesome as the hostel in Vienna. Katy and Jesse apparently thought that I didn't want to come to Budapest with them so they planned their accomadations and travel without me. I was able to book the same buses and hostel but since they booked a private two-person room, I had to book a bed in an 8 person dorm room. They aren't even in the same building as I am! Whatever, though. Aside from dealing with a snoring older man in my dorm room last night, my accomadations are pretty good.

Anyway, this morning we went on a free tour of part of Budapest. We woke up early and walked to the meeting place called Vorosmarty Square where they happened to be setting up for a spring market in which artisans set up stands in the square to sell jewelry, food, beltes & bags, glasswork, etc. There was this one stand with the most amazing jewelry but since the owner was just setting up and we were leaving soon, I didn't get anything. Hopefully I will go back tomorrow and buy some handcrafted, metal earrings.

Waaaant

Our tour guide was this very attractive Hungarian guy named Andrej. It was a really great idea to go on the tour bc we went to the places I was planning onseeing anyway but I got some nice background info. For example, although I kinda already knew this, he explained that Budapest was once two cities, Bda and Pest (pronounced Pesht) but they were united in the 1800s (I think). He also told us all about the Hungarian history of conquerors (much like the Czechs) and explained that the reason tha tBudapest is famous for its baths is because of the Turks, who occuppied Budapest and built many Turkish-style baths.

Anyway, back to the tour: starting off at Vorosmaty Square, we walked along the river on the Pest-side a bit, getting a nice view of the Castle and Chain Bridge; through Erzsebet ter Square, where we saw a love lock tree and found out that Hungarians are always in love and sometimes put multiple locks on the tree; to St. Stephen's Basilica. We didn't get to go inside St. Stephen's but it was really gorgeous. Thanks to Czech Art, I could tell that it was this awesome mix of neo-classical architecture and Renaissance which gave it a very regal look. Andrej told us that despite how old it lookos, St. Stephen's, like most buildings in Budapest was built in the 1800s after a flood destroyed a lot of the city. Interesting.

Erzsebet

St. Stephen's - possibly one of the prettiest Basilica's I've seen so far and definitely one of my top 3 favorite places in Budapest

With St. Stephen's, we basically finished our Pest side of the tour and walked across the Chain Bridge to the hilly Busa side to explore Castle Hill. Unlike Prague which has a relatively narrow river running through it, the Danube is pretty wide so it was quite a hike crossing it. It was so windy that several times I thought I was going to lose my sunglasses...or myself!

FortunatelyI didn't lose either and once we made it to the Buda side of the Danube, we began climbing up the park-like Castle Hill. After being in the more urban areas of Prague for weeks, it was really refreshing to be around grass and the outdoors.

 Once we got to the top, I was a bit surprised at the Buda Royal Palace, which seemed kinda plain. Andrej said that it wasn't very extravagant or impressive because it was just symbolic and no ruler actually used it so I guess the lack of ornamentation made sense. Still, it gave us an awesome view of the Danube River, the Chain Bridge & St. Stephen's, and Parliament

While walking along the top of Castle Hill (we basically skipped the actual castle part), Andrej pointed out some protesters outside of one of the government buildings (can't remember which). He told us that the Hungarian president Dr. Pal Schmitt had just been outed for having plagiarized his doctoral thesis pretty much word-for-word. President Schmitt apparently said that it was the administration's fault for not realizing he plagiarized earlier and said that he won't step down from office. I personally think that his comment was ridiculous and arrogant but I'm not sure what should be done. Certainly his doctorate should be revoked but I'm not sure that he needs to give up his presidency. Admittedly, the whole scandal reflects bad on the country for voting such a morally questionable guy into office and on the universities for not catching it, but the fact of the matter is that he didn't get elected because of his doctorate, he got elected (I'm assuming) because of his ability to lead and as long as he can still do that, his private affairs shouldn't be an issue. Then again, he did break the law and shame the country. It's a tricky one. What do you guys think?
UPDATE: As I was posting pictures on Facebook, I looked up the Hungarian president and it turns out that he did step down from office! Andrej was so sure that he wouldn't but I guess he had a change of mind. It's so cool to think that I was in Budapest, observing protesters before his resignation. Sorta feels like I witnessed history, which is especially nice in such historic cities

But back to sightseeing. We walked around with the tour group a bit more at Castle Hill before finally stopping at Matthias (not saint) Church and Fisherman's Bastion. Although we didn't go inside Matthias Church, it was really cool just seeing the outside. The windows and tower were very neo-Gothic (it was re-built in the 1800sm remember?), intricate, and formal; the detailing gave it a very impressive feel. At the same time, though, the patterned roof felt a bit whimsical and reminded me that Budapest is a quirky, relaxed city that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Matthias Church. Not quite as powerful as St. Stephen's or St. Vitus in Prague but unique and kinda spunky

After the tour ended, Jesse, Katy, and I explored Fisherman's Bastion, a neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque terrace that overlooks Pest. since we were right there anyway. Before even going to Europe, I had looked up some things to do in some cities like Budapest and saw pictures of Fisherman's Bastion so I was excited to finally see it in person. Still, the pictures didn't do it justice. Tied with Vajdahunyad Castle (more on that tomorrow), this was my favorite site in Budapest. I couldn't get enough of it! It's not cookie-cutter or overdone like some of the places I've been in Europe, but seemed very unique.

Lugos. Good enough to give you a heart attack

When we finally finished up with Fisherman's Bastion, it was 2 and I needed to be at the train station by 3:45 because I WAS GOING CAVING! Katy, Jesse, and I hustled back to the hostel, stopping along the way to get lugos, a Hungarian food of  fried dough with sour cream and cheese. It was delicious but sooo greasy that mid-way through I had to stop because it was filling and so bad for me. I also kinda wanted an apple just to feel healthy again.

Jesse and Katy wanted to go to a market in Budapest instead of caving, but I didn't mind. Caving is something I've never done, or even had the opportunity to do, before and I wasn't going to miss out. While there are definitely caving programs in the USA and even in PA, I've never gone and since Budapest is the only European city with caves, I figured that this was my chance.

Don't let how good I look fool you. This was intense

The Oxfords (red & yellow)

After waiting half an hour for everyone to get there, an hour to travel to the actual caves, and another hour for our group to go (about 50 people showed up so they split us into three groups and mine was the last to go), we finally set out at about 6. I didn't mind the wait that much, though, since I got to meet some interesting people while waiting. My group was mainly young (20s, 30s) tourists. There was Adriana and Brienne, two girls from Wisconsin studying abroad in Florence; Katie, an American girl traveling by herself in Europe for two months; the two guys from Oxford whose names I can't remember; a guy from New Zealand a guy from Hong Kong who didn't really talk to anyone much; and six guys studying abroad from the US. It was an intersting mix of people but I really liked them and meeting them gave me hope for traveling in Italy.

Climbing through the caves was just incredible. I think I expected it to be like walking through rooms of stagmites but it was totally different. We were dressed up in bodysuits and headlamps and made our way through by crawling, climbing, and squeezing. The caves themselves ran deep and seemed endless; part of me felt like I was the first person to ever explore there before. They were very much untouched, with almost no man-made markings or anything, and we were so far down into the earth that everything seemed quiet and natural; there weren't even bugs! At one point, Cylad, our Hungarian guide, had us turn off all our lights and just sit in the dark. At first I was impatient to move on but sitting there after a while in complete silence made me realize just how far away from civilization we all were.  Then he sang a Hungarian folksong in the dark and we sang Hakuna Matata. So yea, it was pretty magical.

The hole of doom

Before I went, I thought that caving would be really difficult for me, ya know, because of the lack of upper body strength or really any strength at all. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was a natural. Being short works well with being in caves! Whereas everyone else struggled to get through holes or cracks, I just slid right through. There was one hole in particular that seemed impossible. It took everyone else a good 10 min to carefully maneuver their body through but when it came to my turn, I just kind of threw myself through! It was so easy that Cylad actually grabbed my ankle to give me a challenge! Even the parts that did require me to pull myself up weren't too hard. I just kind of hurled my body and clung on to anything. It was exhausting but I felt like such a champ.

After we got done, I was supposed to clean up and then meet everyone at a club but I got tired and fell asleep. My bad