Homeward Bound

My brain was in check-list mode today.

1. Wake up
2. Pack everything
3. Get to airport
4. Get on plane to Amsterdam
5. Get on plane to Atlanta
6. Survive the trip home
7. Hug Jared
8. Go to sleep for the next 8 years.

Fortunately, everything on my list went perfect until the last one... but we'll talk about that later. After going through the motions of the day, we got on our final leg to Atlanta. The little old man next to me on the plane was yelling about his treatment while going through security, and wouldn't quiet down. Eventually, the pilot came and made him leave the plane. All of that because they made him take his belt off...

8.5 hour flight. Movies, books, music... no sleep. I didn't think that was such a big deal; I mean, I'll sleep when I get home, right? Wrong. I slept all of 3 hours the first night home. Even that wouldn't have bothered me... but apparently, in my worn down state, I caught the strep virus from someone. First day of classes, 8-4:45, and I have strep. That, my friends, is why this blog is coming to you so late after my arrival back in the states.

Final Lap

We woke up bright and early so we could get to the airport and catch a flight from Budapest back to Warsaw. Gellert called a taxi to the house, we said goodbye, and that was that.

Last day abroad and I manage to get detained by the police. Stupid taxi driver isn't about to pull anything on me! My receipt printed, and the guy tried to tell me it didn't work because only the first three letters of anything printed. Obviously the little printer was just out of ink... Instead, he swiped my card again, and another receipt printed, the same way as the first. He wanted me to go in

to the airport to an ATM to pay him. He was following us inside. Of course he spoke no English... After arguing with him, and telling him I already paid, TWICE, for the cab, the police stepped in to handle the situation. 30 minutes later, I'm let go because the driver pulled out an old receipt and said that if I had paid, then my receipt would look like that one. Sure enough, the letters that were on my receipt matched up perfectly with the ones on the "good" receipt. BOOM.

After all of that hassle, we thought we were going to be late for our flight. The lines to check in were extremely long, and didn't seem to be moving anywhere. Eventually, we made it through, got on our flight, and headed towards good ole Warsaw.

I'm going to be honest with you... We were absolutely LAZY the rest of the day. We napped, facebooked (yea, it's a verb), blogged, and napped some more. Eventually, we headed out for some dinner in the Old Town, at a restaurant that we loved when we were here two weeks ago. We stopped by a little store to grab a few souvenirs that we hadn't wanted to carry around from city to city. After that, it was back to... napping, facebooking, and blogging.

Forget the Sziget

We got up early, grabbed a map, and headed out. I had the address of a church of Christ in Budapest, and it happened to be on the Buda side of the river, whereas we are staying on the Pest side. We took a bus a short distance to the train station, got off and went down to the Metro line, and took it across to the other side of the river. On the metro, I got into a "silly faces" fight with a little girl sitting across from  me. Not many people are willing to pull their ears, cross their eyes, and stick out their tongues in public... but, that's me!

We walked a good mile and half before finding the address of the worship services. It was in Hungarian, but there was a guy sitting next to us translating, and the preacher paused after each statement to give the guy time to translate it for us. He did a wonderful job, and we were very thankful for his help!

Our hop on/hop off tour included a second day, as well as a boat ride on the river. MaryAnn wanted to go on the boat, so we set off to find one of the bus stops. We walked for what seemed like an eternity, before coming back around to the place we started from. There was a bus stop RIGHT THERE. Want to know why I missed it? Well, as we were exiting the metro station, a beggar said something in Hungarian to me. We've been told to ignore these people, so we just kept walking. He started yelling at me, and following me, so I turned around and told him I speak English. He yelled, "Give me money!" My day wasn't going so well at that point, and his yelling at me did NOT help. He chose the wrong day to harass a young American. He had a cigarette hanging from his mouth, one behind his ear, and a whole pack in a grocery bag. I turned to him and said, "I'm not going to give you money for more cigarettes" and walked away. He commenced to screaming at me, and a Hungarian lady stepped in and started yelling at me. He was cursing and calling me all sorts of names, and in my irritated (and non-rational) state of being, I just kept walking, threw up my arm in a wave good-bye, and said, "Love you too!!"

Needless to say, with all that excitement, we were just walking AWAY from that guy, whether that route took us to a bus stop or not. After finally finding one, we hopped on the bus and figured we would just ride it until we got to the stop for the boat transfer. Of course, as was my luck for the day, we got on the bus at stop 14. The boat transfer is stop... you guessed it... 13. We were on the bus for over 2 hours before coming back around to the boats. On top of that, the boats leave on the hour, and we got there at 3:15. After waiting for awhile, we boarded the boat, and took a one hour tour down the river. If it wasn't for the impressive view of the Hungarian Parliament building, the tour would have been a total flop.

After finally finishing with the, what I was continually called the "stupid", boat tour, we headed back to Gellert's apartment for some rest. We had a music festival to attend!!! The Sziget music festival has won awards as the best European festival. I suppose for some people, it is great... but the alcohol, drugs, cigarette smoke, and the band screaming the F-word multiple times, just wasn't for me. Time/money, down the drain. The boat tour might not have been a total flop, but for me, the festival was!

Budapest sign at the festival

 Due to the colossal disappointment called the Sziget festival, MaryAnn and I decided to go eat at a nice restaurant. This is what we told our taxi driver, and he decided to take us up and around to the top of the world, to the Citadella Panorama. We were provided with an excellent view of the city at night, along with an expensive meal. It was worth it though! We ended up enjoying the evening anyways.

Hoppin'

The best way to get to see everything you're "supposed to see" while in a city, is a hop on/hop off bus. They're surprisingly cheap (at least the one's I have taken). It was so easy to jump off at a stop, get our pictures, read the info, and then hop back onto the next bus. Sometimes we grabbed the very next bus, while other times we walked for an hour before hopping back on.

Heroes Square

Wine holder!

Budapest castle, on the Buda side of the river

Walked by this on the street...

 After the bus tour, we went back to the apartment to relax for awhile. Gellert wanted to take me to this famous bar downtown, so after some relaxation and a nap, we headed out. The place was amazing! Older people were there... kids with their parents were there... married couples... singles... It was just a really cool local environment. The decorations spread throughout the place were randomly awesome. The apartment building used to be part of the Jewish district and was going into ruin when someone decided to open a bar in it. There is a large open space in the center, with multiple floors that have terraces facing the open area. The individual apartments have all been opened up, allowing everything to flow smoothly. Whoever made the first suggestion that the place be turned into a bar, is a genius! It was great seeing such a neat place that ALL the locals hang out at.

After leaving the bar, Gellert and I headed to McDonalds. This wasn't quite the McDonalds I was thinking of...

Hungry in Hungary

As we are getting closer to the end of this trip, we are getting lazier. The day didn't start until close to 10 AM. We lazed around the apartment for awhile, slowly packing, until it was time to head to the train station. We got there in time to just hang out in the McDonalds with some coffee until our train arrived. Out of the other two trains MaryAnn and I have been on, this one was by far the nicest. The seats were set up like those of an airplane. We had a lot of leg room, and the ride was so smooth!

We arrived in Budapest, and went to our host's apartment. It turned out that he had gone shopping, just because we were coming. He had so much food in his fridge and pantry, that he doesn't even eat. This degree of hospitality was unexpected, but much appreciated! 

It was a rather uneventful night... Gellert, our host, showed us around the city a bit, and left us on the cities busiest shopping street. He made sure we knew how to get home, and set us free! I like getting most of my souvenir shopping done on the first day that we are in a place... It just makes the other days easier, as I don't have to search for anything! I always have to get postcards, a pin for my map, and a t-shirt, from each country. Eventually, I will have enough t-shirts to make a quilt! Check out the new tab on the blog; it shows the t-shirts that I've gotten in each place.

Slovakia!

Our boat ride to Slovakia was leaving early in the morning, so we got up and headed into the city. Unfortunately for MaryAnn, we didn't have time to get any coffee... The trip down the Danube river was calm, quiet, and beautiful. After an hour and a half of relaxation on the river, we arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia. Bratislava is at the center of Europe, in the extreme southwest of Slovakia. The edge of the city actually forms Slovakia's borders with Hungary, to the south, and Austria, to the west, making it the only capital city to border two neighboring countries.

We took a tour around the city, and I just thought it was hilarious that this lady wrapped tissues around her headphones... She didn't want to catch any crazy diseases? The tour took about two hours, and after that we just walked around, spent all our money, and ate too much food.

Bratislava Castle

So tired of paying to PEE.

This guy thought he was so clever...  I believe there is a seat under him, connected to the top of that pole that he is holding. The piece connecting the seat to the pole is in his sleeve. That pole goes down to the ground, and there is a "base" under the rug. Sneaky, sneaky...

For lunch, I had Bryndzové halušky. When you ask a Slovak what their national food would be, this is their answer. Whatever it was, I had to try it! It turns out that it is boiled lumps of potato, covered in a cheese called bryndza. It's a cheese made from sheep's milk, that is allowed to begin to ferment (or so I read) and is somewhat similar to feta cheese. It was quite bitter, but wasn't "bad." I'll try anything once!!

Prater

I'm exhausted, so this blog will be rather short...  Get over it. ;)

 

The day began with a visit to the Danube tower. When I researched Vienna, I did NOT read anything about a bungy jump from the tower...  Now, it's too late to book it! So disappointed... Either way, the view from the restaurant in the tower was great! You could see the entire city, and the food was delicious. There are tons of beautiful parks scattered throughout Vienna!

 After lunch, we wandered around the city a bit more, before heading to the Prater, which is an amusement park near our host's apartment. It's quite famous, and was a blast. You can see the rides from Marc's apartment, and I've been trying to convince MaryAnn to go on some of them! Finally, she was willing to go.

The ATM...

EPIC

MaryAnn did it!

We just HAD to do a wet ride...

Wien

After leaving Wieliczka, we headed to the train station. Our train to Vienna, a night train, would be leaving around 10:00. I didn't know what to expect, as I had never been on an overnight train before. As we handed our tickets to the conductor, he said "35 and 36, top bunks." When I booked the tickets, there was no mention of top/middle/bottom anything! There was no way MaryAnn would be able to get up on the top bunk. After a bit of polite arguing, she was allowed to take a bottom bunk that no one was sleeping on anyways. The bunks were so tiny! I didn't expect anything fancy... but even with me being so small, I had a hard time fitting on the bunk. On the train from Warsaw to Krakow, we had air conditioning. This one, the one we would be on for 8 hours, did not. Needless to say, it was quite the experience!




Upon arriving in Vienna, or as the Austrians call it "Wien", we met our host and began the day's adventures. After about 15 minutes, MaryAnn got this horrified look on her face and said "My purse is on the train." Those are NOT the words I was wanting to here after no sleep, on a hot, muggy train. Marc, our host, immediately began leading us back to the train station. Having someone speaking the language was an immense help. We ran this way and that, called multiple people, went to the security office... All of which, to no avail. Finally, after a few hours of searching, we got news that "someone" had found "something" on the train. No description. They didn't turn it in. The train was gone. We felt hopeless, until we were told the train was coming back to Wien tonight at 9:30. Until then, we just had to explore the city, as if nothing was wrong!

We traveled around on the subway, being lead by our amazing host, Marc. He showed us all the famous buildings in Vienna: The opera house, St.Stephen's cathedral, the Parliament building, etc. We went to the Summer Palace and got lost in a labyrinth. There were two people painted silver standng near the palace... they sat perfectly still until someone put coins in their cans. Then, they slowly bowed... Just watch the video and see! We ate lunch at a hole in the wall restaurant, that we never would have found on our own. All in all, the afternoon was well spent! We had a few hours before we needed to go to the train station, so we went to get settled in at Marc's apartment. A nap was much needed! We finally just relaxed for a little while.

Had to buy it :)

After chatting on Facebook, watching some shows online, blogging, and napping, we were finally ready to go get MaryAnn's bag. We didn't know if it was actually her's, but we had to be optimistic! We found the train, and Marc began speaking in German to a man who worked on it. MaryAnn and I could only watch their facial expressions to gauge whether this was a positive conversation or negative. Finally, Marc turned to us, grinned, and said, "They have it!" Sure enough, they had MaryAnn's purse with everything in it. Her wallet, cash, cards, camera, glasses, and passport are all accounted for. I talk about enjoying new experiences, good or bad, but this was one experience I could have done without! I don't know what we would have done if Marc weren't there to save the day!