The past seven days have been a blur with no time to sit and reflect in between! Wednesday was extremely busy. I had class from 1:10 to 5:50, and then had to rush back to the dorm to get ready for a concert that CIEE encouraged us to attend. The concert was a half an hour away on public transportation, not including walking to the different stops. The concert was at the Bartók National Concert Hall which was glamorous and lavish. Our group looked great all cleaned up, and our seats were fabulous. We were a bit more than halfway back from the orchestra! The concert itself was lovely three hour performance of Mozart, Beethoven, and List by the Zugói Filharmónia. My favorite was the last part of the concert when the choir joined and sang List's mass. We learned a Hungarian custom that night: instead of giving a standing ovation or shouting bravo or encore, the Hungarians to a synchronized slow clap that accelerates in unison. After the concert we were all exhausted, so we grabbed a midnight snack at the gyro stand down the street and went to bed.
Thursday was absolutely hectic! I went to my class 19th and 20th Century Hungarian Art class at the National Gallery in the Castle District (about twenty minutes away) like every Thursday morning, and then went to my Hungarian Language class shortly after. Then, a few of us planned a spur of the moment trip to Vienna! I quickly through random garments into a duffel bag, grabbed my teddy bear and my backpack and I was off! The entire trip proved to be a comedy of errors though. We missed the first train from Budapest to Vienna by minutes, so we had to wait two hours for the next train. Then when we finally got to Vienna, we got off at the wrong train station, so we had to hail a cab to take us to the center of town. When we finally got to a hostel, it was full, so we had to try to find another one. (To any fellow traveler I would suggest Wombats Hostels. The staff is friendly and helpful and the facilities are very clean!) By the time we all got settled in, it was close to five in the morning!
However, that did not stop us from waking at the crack of dawn so that we could rent a car to drive to go ski!! Once we finally made it to Hochkar and our ski lodge, we skied all of Friday night and Saturday morning in the Austrian Alps, which are gorgeous! However, this was my first skiing experience, so I spent most of my time admiring the mountain with my back against it. I have the bruises to prove it! Our ski lodge was nice, however, they locked everything at night! We didn't realize this until about 11 pm when we all were starving from the tons of calories we'd burned all day, and we couldn't get out of the place! So we escaped through a window in the main dining room and climbed up an icy hill to a pub where the only food on the menu was jerky. At that point, we realized that we have the worst luck in the world and just didn't care anymore, so we gladly ate all the jerky we could handle before trekking back to our fire-hazard of a lodge. This is the end of the main intermediate slope from our lodge. We were in a great location!
We spent Saturday evening back in Vienna trying typical Austrian cuisine, and then all day Sunday wandering around small cafes and visiting museums. My favorite was the Kunst Historisches Museum which had an enormous collection of art from all different parts of the world. However the ultimate was when we were all slap happy and went to a ritzy cafe, drank hot chocolate, and ordered five desserts to split between the six of us. All the other patrons cloaked in their furs must have thought that we were crazy and obnoxious shouting, "Time to pass!" every few seconds.
Our small group got back late on Sunday night, and it was back to the real world of class all week. Unfortunately, I've come down with a cold and have been sick all week, but hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow since I'm leaving in the evening to go Prague! Time to pack, but I can't wait to tell you how fabulous Prague will be!
Thursday was absolutely hectic! I went to my class 19th and 20th Century Hungarian Art class at the National Gallery in the Castle District (about twenty minutes away) like every Thursday morning, and then went to my Hungarian Language class shortly after. Then, a few of us planned a spur of the moment trip to Vienna! I quickly through random garments into a duffel bag, grabbed my teddy bear and my backpack and I was off! The entire trip proved to be a comedy of errors though. We missed the first train from Budapest to Vienna by minutes, so we had to wait two hours for the next train. Then when we finally got to Vienna, we got off at the wrong train station, so we had to hail a cab to take us to the center of town. When we finally got to a hostel, it was full, so we had to try to find another one. (To any fellow traveler I would suggest Wombats Hostels. The staff is friendly and helpful and the facilities are very clean!) By the time we all got settled in, it was close to five in the morning!
However, that did not stop us from waking at the crack of dawn so that we could rent a car to drive to go ski!! Once we finally made it to Hochkar and our ski lodge, we skied all of Friday night and Saturday morning in the Austrian Alps, which are gorgeous! However, this was my first skiing experience, so I spent most of my time admiring the mountain with my back against it. I have the bruises to prove it! Our ski lodge was nice, however, they locked everything at night! We didn't realize this until about 11 pm when we all were starving from the tons of calories we'd burned all day, and we couldn't get out of the place! So we escaped through a window in the main dining room and climbed up an icy hill to a pub where the only food on the menu was jerky. At that point, we realized that we have the worst luck in the world and just didn't care anymore, so we gladly ate all the jerky we could handle before trekking back to our fire-hazard of a lodge. This is the end of the main intermediate slope from our lodge. We were in a great location!
We spent Saturday evening back in Vienna trying typical Austrian cuisine, and then all day Sunday wandering around small cafes and visiting museums. My favorite was the Kunst Historisches Museum which had an enormous collection of art from all different parts of the world. However the ultimate was when we were all slap happy and went to a ritzy cafe, drank hot chocolate, and ordered five desserts to split between the six of us. All the other patrons cloaked in their furs must have thought that we were crazy and obnoxious shouting, "Time to pass!" every few seconds.
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