Lots of pictures coming your way!
For our History of Austria class, we have to visit Schloß
Schönbrunn and write a paper on it (due this Friday…wooh)! So a bunch of us
went and toured the castle. And put our feet in the fountain.
The next day, we visited yet another museum. So. Many.
Paintings! There were lots of paintings by Reubens—one of my favorite artists.
They’re sort of horrid but beautiful. I couldn’t stop looking at this one…
Here’s Becca demonstrating how we feel about these
paintings: “Ooops! My shirt fell off. I guess I should just leave it like
that…”
There was an artist doing some paintings in the museum.
Alright, now for my trip to Hungary and Slovakia! There’s
definitely a different feel when you go to these more Eastern European
countries. Almost like a step back in time. Not technologically, but socially
and culturally. You can tell that these countries were under Communist rule.
My word to describe Budapest: Grungy. But not the grimy,
dirty connotation; more of the cool music and fashion sort of connotation. It’s
a beautiful city!
St. Stephen’s Basilica!
The view from the top:
We found this really cool fountain! When you move your hand
over the water, the columns of water retreat back into the ground, and you can
walk through without getting wet! We had a fun time feeling like wizards and
water benders.
We found statues of two US Presidents. Reagan and Teddy
Roosevelt. We’re not quite sure why. Maybe we should read up on our history of
Budapest?
Hungarian is a CRAZY language!
Also, I can’t even understand their signs that just have
pictures…haha
This is the Parliament building—pretty darn cool! Right
along the Danube.
Floating bus?
The money in Hungary is HUFs. We have named them
Hufflepuffs. There are 288 Hufflepuffs to 1 Euro. So we’re withdrawing 15,000
HUFs and spending 2,500 for dinner like it’s no big deal. Needless to say, we
took a lot of pictures with us fanning the money :)
One day for lunch, 9 of us ate together, (Luke and the 8
ladies) and we had to pay together. Kristen was counting up the money and we
were somehow 400 short. We kept asking if everyone remembered to add in the
money for their drink or the 10% tip, etc. And some people were saying that
they put in extra, so we were really confused as to how we were 400 short! It
was kind of tense, and then Jenna slaps down a 500 and says, “Alright. I’ll
just put in this 500 and solve this thing.” And the rest of us are like, “Oh,
Jenna! Let’s give her any extra money. She’s such a good person to take this
burden upon her shoulders!” And then we converted 400 HUFs to Euros. We were
fighting over 1 Euro and 37 cents. HAHA! So we just laughed about it and moved
on.
Here are some more pictures of Budapest:
Two types of umlauts? Crazy language, I tell you!
Archery!
Luke the Wilderness Man.
Renae was really good! It's in her Native American blood. :)
A solar powered fan hat...?
Reflection of St. Matthias Church.
Fisherman's Wharf or Castle or something. We didn't have time to go in.
The famous horse with the golden genitalia.
We did an underground labyrinth, which was really fun! It
was dark, we had gas lanterns, there was a lot of fog, and there was creepy
opera music playing in the background. We found Dracula’s grave and a dungeon.
We went to the Turkish baths! I am a firm believer in swim
trunks. We saw way too much skin and way too many men in speedos. There were at
least 12 pools, indoor and outdoor. Some hot, some perfect, some really cold.
There were saunas and steam rooms and some pools with minerals/healing powers
:) The sauna was 85 degrees Celsius, which is about 185 degrees Fahrenheit. It
was HOT! But I really liked it! But I had no desire to jump in the 18 degree Celsius
cold pool after sitting in the sauna, haha.
After treating ourselves at the Turkish baths/spa, we ate at
this restaurant. I just really like the translation from Hungarian to English:
It’s nice that we speak German because translations from
Hungarian to English make almost no sense. But the translations into German are
much easier to understand. :)
St. Stephen’s Basilica at night, with Kristen and Katelyn
jumping in front of it:
Chain bridge at night:
The ghetto metro:
And here we are in Bratislava, Slovakia:
Playing on a xylophone thing. That's what we do when we go to Slovakia.
Spaceship on a bridge?
I thought this sign was pretty funny.
Also, if you made it to the end of this post, here’s the
link to the video I compiled and mentioned earlier (I still can’t upload it to
my blog, but here’s the YouTube link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVsFg_iw3mw&feature=plcp
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