Budapest, Vienna and Salzburg

WEDNESDAY

Friends from my school who are also studying abroad in Italy took a day trip to Florence. Kayli and I were in contact throughout the day trying to meet up. By the time she found wifi and I was out of class, they were about to leave. Luckily, I was able to walk over to the train station to say hello. It was so great to see some familiar faces and to catch up with them on what they have been up to.

THURSDAY

What a busy day. I had class all day and then around 5:30 pm, I had my second cooking activity with Leigh. We made soup with fresh pasta, chickpeas, tomatoes, and broth from cooking the chickpeas. We also made this fudge-like salami roll thing. After one slice it put us into a chocolate coma. That activity ended around 8 pm. At 8:30 pm, Maggie and I had to meet our tour group at the train station. We boarded a double-decker tour bus and started the 10-hour drive to Budapest.

FRIDAY

Around 9 am we were welcomed to Budapest with lots of rain. We checked into our hostel and got some breakfast. We had an optional 3-hour walking tour, that we decided not to participate in. We walked about 45 minutes to the Széchenyi thermal baths. It was so relaxing and beautiful there. We headed back to the hostel to dry off and found a cute little brunch place called A la Maison. It didn’t realize how cheap Budapest was. Our whole entire meal was €15! Afterward, we walked across the bridge and up the hill to the Buda Castle. The views going up and looking down at the skyline were incredible and we could see blue skies. We ended up walking by the river towards the Parliament building to take some photos. We caught the blue hour, and with all the building and bridge lights on, and it looked like something out of a movie. I definitely could have spent the whole weekend here. Unfortunately, the photos don’t do Budapest justice. It is something you got to see for yourselves.

SATURDAY

Getting up at 5:45 am so we could be down at breakfast at 6:30 was so difficult. We were supposed to leave for Vienna at 7, but two girls were missing and we had to wait around for our tour leaders to try to find them. We ended up leaving around 8 am, still missing the girls, so one of the leaders stayed in Budapest while the rest of us left. They ended up being fine. They just had too much to drink and passed out somewhere. The first thing Maggie and I did when we arrived after the 3 hour bus ride was to find somewhere to eat. We wandered up and down The Vienna Naschmarkt and ended up getting a hot dog. It was very yummy. We then mapped out some of the sites we wanted to go to. The previous day burnt us out, so we mainly stayed within a 20 minutes walking distance from our hostel. We saw the St. Stephens Cathedral, which was very pretty but in a weird location. There were shopping stores all around it. For a good portion of the day, we just wandered through different stores while taking a couple quick food/coffee breaks.

We went back to the market to wander around looking for a scarf for Maggie. We ventured into a new part of the market that looked like a huge rummage sale. Next, we went back to the hostel to rest and for dinner, we got some delicious Asian food at a restaurant called Yumi. I got Hao Bai (shrimp wrapped in a rice wrapper and then steamed) and then a bento box with chicken and sushi. We sat outside under a nice heated light with blankets. We wanted to find a place to try sacher torte. We ended up eating at Cafe Museum, where I got a truffle torte instead.

SUNDAY

Another early morning getting up at 5:45 am and this time actually leaving at 7. We got on the bus and headed toward Salzburg. Three hours later, we arrived and got to wander this quaint town for about four hours. Again, we went in search of food. We found this cute little restaurant called Cafe Motzartwinkle that had schnitzel. I did not enjoy it. The service was terrible (the waiter was rude and grumpy). It was just a bad experience. Afterwards, we headed towards the Mirabell Palace, this beautiful area that had statues and flowers on its premises.

We ended up in another cafe that sold apple strudel. It was delicious. It had vanilla ice cream (real ice cream, not gelato) and homemade whipped cream. We still had about another two hours so we went into various shops looking for souvenirs. We went into this one chocolate shop that had everything Mozart. Towards the end of our visit, we saw this really amazing shop called Christmas in Salzburg. It was an enormous store filled with egg ornaments. There were ornaments for all different holidays and they were all hand-painted on eggshells. Maggie and I spent probably 45 minutes looking at all of them. They were on the pricier side, but well worth it (can’t get anything like that in the states).

We met up with the rest of the group and headed towards Florence around 3 pm. We got stopped at the Germany border and had to hand over our passports to some very good looking border control men. We drove through some very scenic parts of Germany for about an hour and a half. I absolutely loved this leg of the bus ride. We also got to see hills and fields of grass. I forgot how much I miss grass and trees. Most of Florence is buildings and roads, and only the parks have trees and grass. I tried to get some pictures of the mountains from the bus window. We finally got back to Florence around 12 am.

3 Days. 3 Cities. 3 Countries (Hungary, Austria, Germany (drove through)). Almost all the photos (except the St. Stephens Cathedral) were taken with my phone. I was too lazy to carry around my camera.

MONDAY

At 9 am I had to be a work. Yes, work. I had applied for a “Professional Opportunity” through my school for a graphic design position. I am working with a company that is co-hosting a conference here in Florence. I am helping with their graphic design projects. So at the crack of dawn (at least it felt like it), I woke up and walked about 20 minutes to work. It was a full day of work and I got out around 6pm. The hardest part of working there is figuring out the Italian keyboard. The keys are in different places and I end up writing a bunch of gibberish instead.

The tour I went through was Bus2Alps. I really liked the set up of the tour, although I probably would have liked to have done just the Budapest 3 day tour instead. It was very well organized and the leaders were very nice.

Next weekend I am staying in town because midterms are upon us.