barcelona, paris, luxembourg, nuremberg, prague, budapest, vienna

It's getting to the point where going home is no longer a distant fantasy, but a reality looming on my horizon. If I'd been asked three weeks ago, I would have said I was excited to leave Europe and ready to be home. But, of course, my feelings have changed and the thought of returning to the States terrifies me. Traveling has just started to become comfortable! (Although, perhaps, some of that is subconsciously due to my knowledge that I won't be doing it for much longer.) Earlier I wrote on here (or perhaps I didn't write it down, but thought it) that I was perplexed by the people who travel for a year at a time—how taxing that must be!—and now I find myself envying them. I've started to really enjoy the ability to go wherever on a whim. The portion of my trip with Alex was lovely and so much fun, but it was pretty well planned out. Being on my own gives me the ability to find out what spontaneity really means. I can decide on a moment's notice where I want to go. Right now, I'm trying to decide if I want to stay in Vienna tonight or push on to Salzburg. I've booked an extra night at my hostel here, but I want to get to eastern France by the weekend and I still have some castles to go visit in Germany. I intended on staying in Vienna an extra night so I could go visit Bratislava today, but I unfortunately find myself very sick again and I decided not to go with my friends. So I'm sitting in my hostel wondering—what now? It's a very liberating question.

I'm trying to figure out what exactly I can and should do in the week and a half I have before I meet Drew in London. It's frustrating, because there is SO MUCH to see and I've really just started to get tired of the big cities and ready to explore the small towns. I had so many thoughts before I came on this trip: Scandinavia, southern France, Portugal, etc. I've realized that I am not going to accomplish seeing every nook and cranny of Europe, and nor should I; if I leave no stone unturned, what will there be to come back to? (No, the travel bug is not out of my system, even yet...although I expect to be sated by this trip for quite a while.) So this is where I am: alone in my hostel dorm room, coughing up half a lung, trying to decide what happens after the fairytale castles and before I get to see my darling boyfriend in the UK. It's really not a bad place to be. (On the Vienna versus Salzburg question, I've just made a decision, which is to stay here for the night because I've paid for it anyway. I'll take an early train tomorrow. Budget travelers must stay budget conscious!)

Anyway, you're probably on here because you want to find out what exactly I've been doing and not because you want to read the pseudo-philosophical haggard-backpacker ramblings. (Did I mention that I'm sick? Again? As in, I was sick for almost a full month, recovered for about a week, and am now back on medication? My body will definitely be happy to be at home and recuperating.) So let me try now to reach back into what feels like a distant memory, over four weeks ago (oh my god has it been that long I am so sorry for being such a bad blogger aghhhh) to when my Mom and Ian joined me in Europe.

I had an early flight from Rome to Barcelona, which coincided with their arrival time in to Spain, so I had to leave the apartment in Ciampino around 6:30 am. It was really great to see the two of them, although they were looking very "fresh" from their long overnight plane flight. We got into a cab and headed to our hotel, conveniently located on the popular Las Ramblas. We checked in and they cleaned themselves up a bit and then we searched for food. I introduced the two of them to falafel—a middle-eastern dish that is a cheap diet staple for me in Europe—and we wandered up and down Las Ramblas for a while. I knew it was time to take them back to the hotel and let them lay down for a while when my mom started freaking out over these little mouth squeakers that the street vendors were selling; I dragged her back to the hotel before she could buy every single one of them. We had some amazing massages, ordered in dinner at the hotel, and called it an early night.

The next day, we slept in late and then went to see some Gaudi architecture. I think the two reasons anyone goes to Barcelona are to see the Gaudi buildings and to party on the beaches. Unfortunately, the latter was not an option for us because it was too late in the year. We headed first to Park Guell, the beautiful Gaudi-designed park that overlooks the city. From there we went to Sagrada Familla, the famous unfinished church that will someday be the world's largest cathedral (someday being when it's finally finished, which is projected around 2040-something). After that, Mom and I had a drink on the rooftop terrace. Ian wasn't feeling well, so we left him at the hotel and went out for dinner on our own, to a famous seafood restaurant named Botofumiero. It was good—although the waiter misunderstood Mom's order and brought her the wrong paella. After Botofumiero, Mom and I went to go see some flamenco dancing, which was really the highlight of the night. It was so passionate!

The next day, we went exploring the area around our hotel. After lunch at a cafe, Ian was still having trouble adjusting to jet lag, so he went back to the hotel. Mom and I walked around the whole afternoon. In the evening, she and I wanted to go to a hip restaurant called Moo, but it was booked...so we went anyway. They were still booked, but we were able to eat at the bar and it was really unbelievable food.

We thought we were leaving the next day, Sunday, for Paris, but we were actually heading out on Monday, so we didn't have anything planned for Sunday. Mom decided to hire a car to take us on a personal three-hour tour of Barcelona. We were able to get out to see Gaudi's famous Casa Batillo, a dazzling house and well worth the visit. The whole tour was great and we saw so much of Barcelona, including many places that we would have missed out on otherwise. For dinner, we had more falafel...I'm sure Mom is cursing that word, because that greasy food really did not sit well with her.

On Monday (the 18th of October), we left for Paris. Being in France during this October was an interesting experience, to say the least. All over the country, riots and strikes were taking place because of a pension reform plan that was passing through to law. Many oil refineries were shut down and a lot of trains were canceled. So we entered Paris feeling a bit nervous about the situation, all of us worried about our ability to leave. We checked into our hotel and grabbed lunch at a nearby cafe. Afterwards, we walked around Rue de Saint-Helené, a famous shopping street right near our hotel. It was mostly uneventful, although we did spot Mila Kunis, which was kind of funny.

The next day, Ian had a massage while Mom and I walked around and did some more shopping. Mom had a very long manicure at the Anne Fontaine salon and then we went to dinner at a chic little restaurant in the Marais quarter.
On Wednesday, Ian stayed back at the hotel while Mom and I went exploring. We had a grand lunch at a beautiful hotel whose name is slipping my mind—Mom will have to fill in that hole. Afterwards, we walked over the the Musée d'Orsay to see some impressionist painting. There was a great exhibit on the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, whose work I had never really seen before. When we left the museum, we headed over to Marais to do a little shopping. That night, Mom and I went to a restaurant recommended by our concierge. Unfortunately, she slipped on a stair in the bathroom and hurt her back, so we left dinner early.

Thursday, Mom and Ian left Paris, and they thankfully did not have too many problems getting to the airport. I had one night left at the hotel, so I had a lazy day. I walked around our neighborhood, bought myself a rolling bag (tired of carrying that heavy backpack!), went back to Marais again to return some clothes that Ian didn't like, and had a light dinner. I wasn't sure where I would be going for the weekend, but I knew I needed to get to Prague by Tuesday, so I had to start working my way eastward. However, as I mentioned before, many of the trains weren't running, so my options on places to go were slim. At the last moment, I chose Luxembourg—it wasn't too far from Paris but it successfully got me out of France and, miraculously, trains were still running there.

Friday morning, I headed to Luxembourg. My train was quite early in the morning, around 7:10 am, so I had a taxi take me to the train station—I didn't want to deal with the Metro in case there were problems with it. The train ride was relatively uneventful and I arrived at my hostel in Luxembourg around 10 am. Luxembourg was freezing! There was frost on the ground and the sky continually threatened snow. But my goodness, it's a pretty place. After I checked into my hostel, I walked around the city for a few hours and had lunch. I went back to my hostel around 1 pm to start the laborious process of doing laundry, something I hadn't done in far too long. Around 6 pm, I went back down to change out my laundry and was having trouble making the dryer work. Luckily there was someone else in the laundry room—a 19-year-old Canadian girl named Kathryn, and she helped me out. We started talking and kept talking, eventually getting dinner together. Her French roommate, Marie-Fleur, joined us. The three of us spent all night comparing our different countries, bemoaning the French strikes, and planning out our next day in the city together. At one point, we met Allan, a nice guy from Texas, who decided to join us on our walk the next day.

So on Saturday, armed with new friends and my very warm new winter coat, I headed into the city to do some sightseeing. Our degree of success is debatable. We weren't really sure what many things were, but we walked for hours. Luxembourg is very hilly, and the city appears to exist on several layers. One of the downhill portions of the city is called "Grund," and you're able to get down to Grund by taking an elevator. Once down there, we walked to an old church and what I believe was once a 19th-century military hospital. From there, we headed back up into the main old town area of Luxembourg. There was a big markets going on in the center square and we perused that for a while. I bought some magnificent cheese from Trier, some really tasty sun-dried fruits, and a bar of lavender-flavored chocolate.

All day and all previous night, I'd been whining to my new friends about how much I missed Mexican food—something that Allan and I saw eye-to-eye on—and he mentioned that there was a Mexican restaurant in the center of the city. Kathryn and Marie-Fleur were kind enough to agree to go there for lunch. It was a chain place called Chi-Chi's Tex Mex, and while it was far from the best Mexican food I've ever had, it tasted like a revelation. It was so wonderful to have guacamole, margaritas, Spanish rice, black beans, and all the other flavors I'd been missing so much.

After we finished eating lunch, Allan needed to head back to the hostel and grab his bag so he could leave. Marie-Fleur needed to go shopping for some work clothes, so Kathryn and I went back with Allan and then went to the train station with him so we could book our own train tickets for the next day. By that point, I'd chosen Nuremberg, Germany as my next destination; Nuremberg was two easy train rides away, was a city full of fascinating (if macabre) history, and was a short trip away from Prague—it seemed like a good decision. We said our goodbyes to Allan and met back up with Marie-Fleur. The three of us went shopping and I was able to get a nice warm hat, something that I desperately needed in the Luxembourg cold. (I'm not exaggerating, folks, it was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit! In October!) We visited the main cathedral in town and then headed back down to Grund to go grab a drink at Marie-Fleur's favorite pub. After our beers, we went back to the hostel for dinner. All in all, it was a wonderful day in a very beautiful city.

On Sunday morning, I left for Nuremberg. I arrived in the early afternoon and checked into my hostel before going to walk around by myself for a bit. After about an hour and a half of walking around Nuremberg, I decided to head back to the hostel—cold rain was starting and I realized that I'd seen most of the old town already. What would there be left for me to do on Monday? So I had some falafel for dinner and watched a movie before calling it an early night.

Monday was kind of boring. Nuremberg is sort of a picturesque Bavarian town, but there isn't too much to do. I followed my path from the day before, and this time went all the way up to the Kaiserburg, a castle that's situated on the old city walls. It was really pretty and had great views of the city. From there, I went and grabbed some soup for lunch. After that, there wasn't much to do. I'd seen all the old churches already, and the infamous old Nazi rally grounds were situated outside of the city, so that wasn't an option. I ended up back in the hostel early again, cursing my decision to go to Nuremberg. I shouldn't have spent two nights there—there was just enough to see for one day of exploration. But all was well, as I had Prague to look forward to the next day.

The big perk of going to Prague, other than getting to see a wonderful city, was meeting up with my friend Chris from Semester at Sea. He'd been living in South Korea for the past year, teaching English, and he and some friends set off on a journey when their contracts ended in late August. They went up through China and Mongolia before hopping on a train through Russia and ending up in Eastern Europe. Chris is the same guy that I traveled with in Japan and in Thailand, and I knew that I would have a great time with him and his friend Chase.

I arrived in Prague and went to my hostel, the Czech Inn. Prague was much cheaper than the rest of Western Europe, all things considered. My hostel was running a special on the large female-only dorm and I was able to stay there for around 5 euros a night—an obscene amount cheaper than any other hostel I'd stayed in. The hostel was situated outside of the city center, but it was an easy tram ride in to the main attractions. Chris had left a note for me with the front desk, saying that he and Chase would meet me in the hostel's bar for happy hour around between 6 and 7 pm. With my belongings secured in my room (so clean! and large! and lovely!), I decided to go out for a walk and see how far I got. I ended up walking quite some distance: past the National Museum, all the way down Wenceslas Square (named after the same Good King in the famous Christmas song), into the heart of the old town where the famous astronomical clock tower is located. It was here that I found a holiday market going on, called "Holidays of Spices and Cheese." Amazing! I bought this type of street pizza thing called langose, which consisted of a piece of fried dough covered in garlic sauce, ketchup, and cheese. It was quite yummy. Just as I finished eating it, I saw a bunch of people gathering around the astronomical clock and arrived just in time to see it go off. It's a moving clock and it's actually kind of anticlimactic, but it's been around since the 1400s, so I guess that's cool.

After that, I went back to the hostel and met up with Chris and Chase in the bar. It was so good to see a familiar face! We met two other guys in the bar and the five of us headed out for the night, back toward the old town. We couldn't find any good bars so we mostly just walked around the area. We did manage to make it over to Charles' Bridge, which was very beautiful at night.

The next morning, we got up early to go on a free walking tour of the city. The tour started at the clock tower, where we found out some interesting history about the clock. It was the first mechanical animated clock in Europe, and the citizens of Prague were very proud of it. When they found out that the guy who designed it was planning on building an even better and bigger mechanical clock in a different city, they knew they had to find some way to stop him...so they poked his eyes out and blinded him. He was understandably pretty pissed about that, so he went up into the clock tower and smashed all the mechanisms into bits. Unfortunately, he was the only person who knew how it worked, and he had been blinded, so there was nobody available to fix the clock and it sat around unmoving for something like 150 years. Crazy! We also learned all about the Hussites, a religious minority in Prague that had been subjugated by the Catholic Church. In the 15th century, the Hussites were quite mad about their position in society and started defenestrating city officials. In case you don't know what "defenestration" means, it's a word that I learned on the walking tour: tossing people out of windows. What a method of revenge!

Although our guide was not the most enthusiastic, the walking tour was all-in-all very informative and I think we all enjoyed it. We also met a girl on the walking tour named Ashley, who was staying at a different hostel. After the tour, Ashley walked across Charles' Bridge with us and over to the castle. For some reason, the castle was closed, so we were only able to see the cathedral. There were really great views from the top of the hill, though. Ashley was headed to Budapest after Prague, the same as me, so we exchanged contact info. That night, we had dinner in the bar and met a British guy named Sam who was on holiday from his job as an officer in the Queen's Royal Navy. Sam, Chris, and Chase all went out for a pub crawl, but I was tired from the day's activities and opted to stay in for the night.

Thursday, the 28th of October, was a national holiday in Prague. I think it's technically celebrated as the independence day of the Czech Republic, because it signifies the day that they separated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some Czech people told us that it wasn't really celebrated. However, it did mess up the transit system quite nicely, as a lot of trains and trams weren't running at their normal capacity. Chris, Chase, and I had decided to go Plzn that day to go on a tour of the Pilsner brewery. We got all the way to the bus terminal necessary to go to Plzn (which took us something like an hour and a half), only to find out that there were only two tickets left on the 3 pm bus to the city—and three of us people. The brewery closed at 5 pm so our only chance would have been to make the 3 pm bus. It was really disappointing. But we tried to make the best of our day and headed back into the heart of Prague to do some sightseeing. We walked up a huge hilly area called Petrin hill to what is called the "Eiffel tower of Prague," Petrin tower. There were great views of the city from up there. We took the funicular back down the hill, took a tram over the river to our side of the city, and walked back to our hostel. That night, we made a lot of friends at happy hour, including a Canadian girl named Jacqui who was in the same dorm room as me. We all went to a bar called B-52, suggested by a girl from New York named Jarra, who had studied abroad in Prague a few years prior.

The next day, Chris, Chase, Sam (the British guy), Jacqui and I got on a train to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour outside of Prague that houses the famous "bone chapel." The inside of the chapel is decorated in thousands of human bones, mostly victims of the bubonic plague. It was quite a sight to see, similar to what many catacombs look like but more ornate. After checking out the bone chapel, the five of us headed back to Prague. By this point, it had been decided that we were all going to do the pub crawl that night, the same one the guys had been on a few nights before. So we got back to our hostel, all got ready, rallied the troops, and headed out with a big group of people. The pub crawl starts at a pub that has open bar from 9 pm to 11 pm, and lots of drinking games to play, including beer pong and flip cup (two very popular drinking games with the university set). After that, you head to three other bars and clubs, and there's a free "welcome shot" at each other place. By the time we reached the fourth bar, we'd lost Chris and Sam, Jacqui and I were ready to go home. The three of us ate some street food and took a long walk back to the hostel. All three of us were going to be heading to Budapest, so we planned a few things out. Jacqui was due to take the night train on Saturday night and arrive Sunday morning, and Sam would do the same thing on Sunday night, arriving Monday morning.

On Saturday, I got on the train to Budapest. Chris and Chase were still sleeping when I left, so I managed to avoid doing a sad goodbye. Ashley, the girl we'd met on the walking tour, was booked on the same train as me, so we met up in the train station. We were miraculously booked into the same compartment! The train ride to Budapest was about 6 and a half hours long, and both of us thought we'd spend most of it napping, but we ended up talking for a majority of the time. When we got into Slovakia (the train passed through it), we received a nasty shock: our Eurail passes weren't valid in Slovakia, a fact neither of us was aware of, and the ticket collector demanded that we pay him. We'd both spent as much of our Czech crowns as possible and had not yet pulled out more money, since we were changing currency to Hungarian Forints...so neither of us had any money on us. Thankfully, a Hungarian girl around our age was in our compartment and spoke English, and she offered to lend us 7,000 Forints (close to 30 U.S. dollars) so we could pay. Crisis averted, we spent the rest of the trip talking to the Hungarian girl about her country, which was very illuminating.

When we got into Budapest, Ashley and I parted ways: she was staying at the Grandio Party Hostel (yes, "party" is part of the name), which I couldn't get a reservation for, so I opted to stay at the much more tame Suite Hostel. It was a little unsettling arriving in a new city after dark, but I managed to find my way to my hostel. I cannot express enough how much I enjoyed the Suite Hostel. It was set up in a bunch of converted apartments. The apartment I was staying in was the main hang out area, and it had a full kitchen for guest use and giant living room complete with an expansive DVD library. The dorm rooms were situated on the second floor: two rooms with eight beds each and en suite bathrooms. I had an experience that I like to call "winning the hostel lottery," which consists of booking the largest, cheapest room available and ending up in a smaller room. This has happened several times on my trip. I booked a 16-bed room at the Suite Hostel and ended up in an 8-bed. Not so bad! After I checked in and put my stuff away, I went into the living room and asked if anyone knew where the closest grocery store was. A guy named Chris, funnily enough, said that he knew and was about to head there himself, so we went together to buy groceries. Back at the hostel, he offered to share his salad with me and I made enough pasta for the both of us, so we cooked dinner together and hung out with everyone that was coming and going in the kitchen. After dinner, we put on the Ricky Gervais show "Extras" and watched a few episodes before bedtime.

On Sunday (Halloween!), I left a note for Jacqui with reception and went out on a free walking tour. The walking tour I had in Budapest was nowhere near as informative or as good as the walking tour in Prague or the one I'd done before that in Paris. I think part of the reason is because there was a very nice family with three very young girls—ages 4, 6, and 9—who needed attention. The guide seemed to take the tour at a slower pace to accommodate the family, which is understandable, but did not make for the most interesting tour. However, the little girls adopted me as their best friend and I spent the entire time entertaining children, which was actually quite fun. Budapest is really constructed of two different cities that combined in the 19th century, Buda and Pest, and the tour went from Pest over to Buda and around the castle. After the tour ended, three and a half hours later (ugh!), I went back to Pest to my hostel and finally met up with Jacqui. The two of us cooked dinner and then started getting ready for the main event of the evening: Halloween.

Halloween in Europe is mostly nonexistent. However, when you're staying at hostels, you're surrounded by mostly non-Europeans, and we knew that there would be a party happening somewhere. That somewhere, it turned out, was at Ashley's hostel, the Grandio Party Hostel. Jacqui had another friend that was staying there, so we went about the business of figuring out makeshift costumes. Jacqui decided to go as a hippie. I had no idea what to be, but I had a yellow dress with me, so I decided to revive my makeshift Semester at Sea Halloween costume: mustard! I drew a French's mustard sign and pinned it onto myself and I was good to go. A guy from our hostel, Stephen, decided to join us at the party, so he taped a bunch of maps around himself and went as a map. The party was crazy! We arrived just after pretty much everyone there had done 10 (yes, TEN!) Jagerbombs each. Ashley had taken a picture of the Jagerbombs being lined up, and it was insane, something like 500 drinks in a row. I have to admit that I am very glad we came just a little bit too late, because that sounds like my idea of a nightmare. A few minutes after we arrived, the hostel shut down the main upstairs bar and sent us all to the basement bar. The basement looked like a cave, and it was very creepy to have a Halloween party there. The best part of the evening was, by far, all of the makeshift Halloween costumes.

On Monday, Sam arrived at our hostel, and so the dream team was reunited! We decided to go to the House of Terror, a museum based in a building that had been used by both the Nazi forces and the Communists as a building to torture detainees. We got all the way over to the museum before realizing that it was closed for All Saint's Day, which is a national holiday in Hungary. We kept walking, and went on to the Hero's Monument, which according to my guidebook was "built to mark the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar conquest." After that, we decided to head to the huge mall nearby the train station, because we knew there was a giant Tesco's (super market) inside and we wanted to get food to make. Unfortunately, the Tesco's was also closed, but the movie theater was open, so we opted to go see a movie. We all received student prices (the benefit of having my old student card on me), so the tickets only cost around 900 forints, or close to five dollars. Five dollars for a movie! Not to mention that the movie theater was one of the nicest, cleanest, newest theaters I've ever been in and we had assigned seats in the middle of the theater. Jacqui and I managed to convince Sam to see "Easy A," the comedy starring Emma Stone that came out just before I left for Europe. I think she and I both really enjoyed it, although Sam thought it was kind of a chick flick. For dinner, we just made some more pasta because all the grocery stores were closed.

Tuesday was like a weird repeat of Monday. We walked down to the river front so Sam could see Buda, and then we had lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant. From there, we walked back down Andrassy, a boulevard known as the Champs d'Elysee of Budapest, where the House of Terror was located. It was thankfully open, and we were able to go inside and see the exhibit. I learned a lot about the history of Budapest and of Hungary, and it was a very interesting museum. The most chilling part of the museum was undoubtedly the recreated dungeons in the basement.

After the House of Terror, we went back toward the Hero's Monument, into the Varosliget, or city park. Here is where the Szechenyi Spa Baths are located. Budapest is well-known for its thermal bath houses, and we'd be poor tourists if we didn't experience them. We entered the spa and separated into the male and female dressing rooms. I rented a bathing suit, which sounds kind of gross but it was very clean, although it was a bit too small on me. From the dressing rooms, you enter the outdoor pool area. There are three huge pools outside, including two large heated pools and one lap pool. We spent a few minutes in the heated pool before going inside to the sauna. The sauna was wonderful, and when you left, there was a 60 degree chill pool to jump into. From there, we went up into the thermal baths. There seemed to be unending rooms filled with the thermal baths. Of course, they smelled a little weird because they had sulfur and all other sorts of minerals in them. Each bath had a varying temperature, up to as hot as around 120 degrees. There was one of the baths was a whirlpool that whisked you around the tub as you sat inside it. We also went into a steam room where the steam had a medicated smell, almost like Vick's. We ended the day back in the heated pools outside. All and all, it was an incredible experience. The thermal baths were so relaxing and made us all feel wonderful. It was especially great for me, as I was starting to get sick again (after having just gotten better!)

From the baths, we walked back to the mall we'd been at the day before so we could go to Tesco's. We had decided on making Mexican food, and Tesco's had everything we needed. They even had peanut butter, which I'd been looking for since Prague but hadn't been able to find anywhere! (Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a great cheap food option for me.) Back at the hostel, the three of us cooked up our giant Mexican feast and spent the night watching The Office.

Budapest was so comfortable, in large part because we were staying in a hostel that felt like an apartment, and we weren't in any rush to do more sightseeing. So on Wednesday, we decided to try out one of the other bath houses, the Gellért baths, which was situated on Buda. This bath house had two common pools but separate thermal baths for men and women, so Jacqui and I had to separate from Sam for part of the day. There weren't as many thermal baths as Szechenyi, so we weren't as impressed. We all agreed that we wish we'd gone to the Gellért baths first, so we would have appreciated it more—compared to Szechenyi, it just wasn't that great. It looked like there was a bunch of baths outdoors, but the outdoor area had been shut down for the season, so we didn't get to experience those.

That night, we cooked a huge stir-fry dinner. It was really wonderful having a kitchen and having people to cook with! That night, we decided to go out to a popular bar called Szimpla Kert. "Kerts" are, according to my guidebook, "fun, makeshift bars set up for short periods of time in buildings awaiting demolition." Szimpla, which was the first kert, has become a permanent bar. It was a really cool, eclectic space.

The next morning, we all slept late. Jacqui and I were heading to Vienna that day, but the trains to Vienna from Budapest are very frequent, so we took our sweet time getting ready. The three of us watched some more episodes of The Office while having a long lunch. Sam was heading to Krakow the next day, so he left for a while to go book his bus ticket. Meanwhile, Jacqui and I went out for a bit. I needed to mail some postcards, but I also had to get to a pharmacy—my impending cold had at this point become the inevitable and I was desperately in need of a decongestant. We stocked up and went back to the hostel to say our goodbyes to Sam, a sad parting since the three of us had been together since Prague. Then we went to Vienna.

The train ride to Vienna was short, comparatively—only about 2 and a half hours—and we arrived in Vienna somewhere near 8 pm. Our hostel, Wombat's, was easy to find from the train station. At this hostel, too, we "won the hostel lottery," as I like to say. We'd booked an 8-bed female dorm and we were placed in a 4-bed for the same price. Traveling during the off-season can be so beneficial. We had dinner at the hostel bar and called it an early night.

On Friday, I woke up feeling really awful. My cold was officially back in full force. We decided to make it an easy day, and after a long lunch at a Turkish restaurant near our hostel, went into the center of Vienna. There we took the trams around "Ring Road," a circle of roads created in 1857 to replace the town's fortifications. The tram ride took maybe half an hour in all, but by the end of it, I was exhausted, so Jacqui and I parted ways. She went to go walk around some more, and I went back to the hostel to nap. Being sick while traveling is the worst because it's the total antithesis of sightseeing. That night, Jacqui suggested we go see another movie, which was one thing that I felt capable of doing, so we went and saw The Social Network. Not bad!

We needed to actually go do some stuff on Saturday, and our hostel was located in walking distance of the Schönbrunn Palace, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. Schönbrunn looks a lot like Versailles, but I actually enjoyed visiting it a lot more; there were nowhere near as many tourists, which made it easy to sit and enjoy every room, and the history of the Hapsburgs was fascinating. It was a really remarkable sight and I'm so glad we did the full tour of it. After we finished the interior of the palace, we walked around the gardens for a while, but opted not to go to the ground's zoo (the oldest in the world). After the palace, we went back to the hostel, so I could lay down again, and Jacqui went out in search of a new purse. That evening, we headed to the Vienna State Opera House to see Mozart's The Magic Flute. We were able to buy standing room tickets for only 3 euros a piece. The opera was magnificent, but we couldn't see very well (only about a quarter of the stage from our perspective) so we ended up leaving at intermission. I'm so glad we did it, though, because it was a really worthwhile cultural experience. When we got back to the hostel, we ate some food, played cards, and watched some TV before going to bed.

On Sunday, we met up with my friend Kathryn from Luxembourg, who was also in Vienna, although staying at a different hostel. We met at the Albertina museum and walked over to the Sacher hotel, home of the original famous Sacher torte. Obviously, we had to try the torte, so we all ended up eating cake for breakfast. From there, we just walked around for a few hours. We saw the Stephensdom cathedral, but the catacombs weren't open yet so we decided to go back later. From there, we walked by the Spanish Riding School (whose famous show we had just missed), down past the museum quarter, and over to Naschtmarkt, a famous food market that was unfortunately closed for the day. Then we walked back toward the Stephensdom and had lunch. After lunch, I was feeling really ill again, so I left Kathryn and Jacqui and went back to the hostel to have yet another nap. I met the two of them in the bar around 5:30. Jacqui loaded her iPod up on my computer and then had to say goodbye—she was taking the overnight train to Rome. It was hard saying goodbye to Jacqui as we'd been traveling together for over a week and a half by that point. But I feel confident I will see her again someday—maybe in Vancouver!

On Monday (yesterday!), I was supposed to take a day trip to Bratislava with Kathryn and her fellow Canadian friend, Jeff, as I said at the very beginning of this post. But I was feeling really crappy and I opted to stay back. I got pretty much nothing accomplished yesterday, but when you're traveling, you sometimes have to have your down days. I was fine staying back—I feel like I saw everything I had wanted to see in Vienna.

And now I'm done with this post! Whew! I'm actually on the train to Salzburg, and I've been writing this post since I got on the train. Three hours later, I'm about ten minutes from arriving there, so this worked out really well. It's grey and cold-looking outside, and I'm really hoping that tomorrow will be clear because I'm planning on going on the Sound of Music tour. (I downloaded and watched The Sound of Music yesterday while I was sick in bed and am now very excited to visit Salzburg).

I cannot believe that I'll be home so soon! I will hopefully have a few more posts for you before then, and I hope to upload some more photos tonight, assuming that my hostel's internet connection is halfway decent.

Love and (just went through) Linz, Eliza