This weekend I met Howard and Lorraine in Budapest with my roommate Joanna. We had lots of fun. Since it was a trip with Howard we ate a lot but the food was not that great.

Thursday: Joanna and I flew in to Budapest and then took a cab to the hotel. Our plane was tiny and had propellers. When the pilot started the plane one of the propellers didn't start spinning so I got really nervous that the pilot wouldn't notice. Luckily it started spinning and we took off fine. When we were landing though it was really bumpy and at one point I thought we were going to do a barrel role. But we ended up making it out alive. We stayed at the Sofitel Budapest and it was beautiful! We were so excited to have a not rock hard kolej bed. When we got there they let us check into the room even though my parents flight was delayed. Then Joanna and I walked around the city for a little while and had lunch. We were shocked by how warm it was when we got there! The weather was beautiful all weekend. While we were walking around we sat in front a beautiful building but had no idea what it was. We later found out that it was Parliament. After our walk we went back to the hotel, sat in the cafe for a little while and had a drink and waited for Howitzer and LL to arrive. Once they were there we went to dinner, walked around for a little while to see the city at night and then went to bed.

Friday: On Friday we did the Hop On Hop Off bus tour. This bus goes to all the main tourist spots and you can get on and get off wherever you want. We got to see a ton of sights this way. While we were seeing the city we had a really bad lunch. So then we walked around for a little and went to a cafe for cake. Mom's chocolate cake was ok, Howard's apple strudel was good, Joanna's gelato was good and my cake was pretty good but it had marzipan in it that was really good. Then later in the afternoon Joanna, Mom and I went to the baths. We got to take a luxurious Sofitel taxi on the way there but we took the subway back since it was faster. Luckily everyone at the baths wore bathing suits. We went into a warm pool, a hot pool and a sauna and it was a lot of fun to be able to be outside and relax. Then when we were done with the baths we went to the Easter market to look around and have dinner. We all tried different stuff from the stands for dinner and some of it was pretty good, like the turkey kebab I got but then other stuff was bad like the stuffed cabbage.

Saturday: Saturday morning we went to the Terror Museum. This museum was really creepy because it showed what the secret police in Hungary did and it was in the same building where people were jailed, beaten and tortured. No one was executed there but many died in the basement. Part of the museum was actually in the basement and showed the different cells where people were kept. It was horrifying. After we went to the Terror Museum we had lunch at an Italian place that was cool and right on the river. Joanna and I got salad with shrimp and they gave us 2 lettuce leaves and 3 shrimp so my dad shared some of his pizza with us. Then we went over to the castle area and walked around and saw everything. We were going to go to the Marzipan Museum but did not want to spend the money. After we walked up there we decidedd to get gelato. It was pretty good, not as good as Loser's, but still good. Howitzer actually went back to get a second cone. But he said since they were small it only counted as one. Then we walked all the way back to our hotel. By this time we were really tired and our feet all hurt so Joanna, Howitzer and I used the pool and the sauna at the hotel. After that we sat in a room that had weird blue light and talked about Jewish summer camps. Then we relaxed for a while in the room and watched CNN. After that we went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant that was right near the Four Seasons so we knew it would be good. It ended up being the best food we had in Hungary. Then we all walked along the river at night and went back to the hotel.

Sunday: My mom and dad left Budapest around 10 and so Joanna and I had the rest of the day before our flight back to Prague. We went to breakfast and got really good scrambled eggs. It was a little difficult to relay the message of no bacon and sausage in them and it took two tries but the waiters were really nice and the food ended up being really good. Then we went walked to the zoo and had to walk on the shady side of the street because of my delicate skin. The zoo ended up being pretty small and only took us a little while to go through so we sat in a park in the sun for a while. Then we took the subway back toward the river and walked around for a while then we sat and had lunch in a cafe. I just had a tuna sandwich and Joanna had Greek salad. Then we walked around for a little while and sat in the grass by our hotel until we picked up our bags and took a taxi back to the airport. The Budapest airport was small and the terminal was wicked crowded and hot so it wasn't a very pleasant experience. The lady at the special lounge wouldn't let Joanna use her priority pass either because she seemed to just be confused and too lazy to understand what she was saying. Then our plane was delayed because of Obama. Luckily I like Obama so I didn't mind too much and we ended up getting in around the same time we would have anyway. The plane was also a lot bigger than the one we took to get to Budapest so the ride was a lot less bumpy.

Overall Budapest was a great trip. The city was beautiful and a really interesting place to be, so I think it is one of the best places I have visited so far. The weather was also gorgeous and way warmer than we expected it to be.

Lennon Wall

This week was mostly just classes, getting some work done and running some errands. On Tuesday Joanna and I did a little shopping after class since she needed shoes and I needed a better bag to use when I'm touring. I needed something that would go over my shoulder, not be too big or too small and not be too similar to a fanny pack. And be cheap. Luckily I found something that met this description at H&M.

Last night we went to the John Lennon wall and spray painted on it. The Lennon wall is a wall near the Charles Bridge that is covered in paintings and graffiti in memory of John Lennon and for peace. It is huge and completely covered and one of the main paintings on it is a huge peace sign with the word imagine through it. Some of the other Miami students have to do a school project and they decided to make a video of people painting the wall and interviews of what they think about it. The design was to paint the symbols for peace, love and anarchy. I helped paint the peace and love symbols, but not the anarchy one because I don't know how I feel about anarchy. We all then painted other symbols that we wanted to at other parts of the wall. I painted a letter G and then her initials with a heart.

Vienna

Friday: We left for Vienna pretty early to catch an 8:30 AM train. The ride was about 4.5 hours and I actually was able to fall asleep. This was very exciting since it is a rare occurrence that I can sleep in general. Once we got to Vienna, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then went to lunch. This hostel was also very hostelish but I knew all of the people in our room so it was fine. Once we dropped our stuff off, we went and had lunch at a restaurant near the hostel before doing some touring. We didn't get anything too exciting for lunch because the menu was in German so we did not really understand and we were in a little bit of a rush. Then we went on a tour of the city with our tour guide who is a professor. We just saw the historic city center, with museums and monuments, and saw the gorgeous buildings all over the city. After the tour we went into St. Stephan's Cathedral and looked around. Then we walked around on our own for a little while and decided to go to a cafe that Zuzana recommended. It was called Cafe Central and if anyone ever goes to Vienna they should go. Their coffee was amazing and they had tons of different cakes, pastries and desserts. I had a chocolate truffle cake that was delicious and the people I was with had strudel and a chocolate nut cake, which were all really good. After this we walked around the city for another couple of hours just to see all of the sights. Once we got tired of walking we stopped at this really cool bar. We sat on couches at a little table and when the waiter found out we were from Miami he asked if one us could please marry him so he could move there. He also started talking about how everyone in Europe loves Obama but that he would have never gotten elected in Europe because people are racist. After the bar we were hungry and got falafel off the street for dinner.

Saturday: On Saturday morning we woke up and just walked around the city. We also got Starbucks! This was expensive but exciting. The weather was really nice and we just sat on a bench for a little while before we had to meet up with the group. Then we went on a tour of Vienna and saw the Town Hall, Parliament and other government buildings. As we were walking we came across an Easter market that was selling tons of crafts and food. So of course once our tour was over we went back there for lunch. I just got a pretzel and then Joanna and I wanted to buy a little piece of cheese but the woman basically gave us a buge wedge, so for the rest of the day we were trying to get people to eat it. Then we passed a candy store and I bought a marzipan strawberry. After lunch we went to the Schonbrunn palace which was the Hapsburgs summer home. It was absolutely huge and was gorgeous. We did a tour of the inside and got audio guides which were cool to listen to and hear the rooms described. There was also a huge garden which was beautiful but things weren't blooming yet so it will be even prettier in the spring and summer. There was a huge hill in the back that we all sat on in the grass and a man on a bicycle yelled at everyone to get off. So we went to the Easter market that was at the castle, had some gelato and went back to the hostel. Then we relaxed for a little while and went to dinner. The place we went for dinner was a really cool Italian place that was kind of like a cafeteria but nice. You would go up to little sections for salad, pasta, pizza etc. and order and they would give you a buzzer to pick it up. The food was really good though and the place was actually pretty nice and not too expensive.

Sunday: Sunday we did a walk through the city and then went to two museums. This would have been really cool but it was really rainy and cold and I was soaking wet a lot of the day so I was kind of grumpy. The first museum was the Belvedere and had the painting "The Kiss" by Klimt which was really pretty. It also had tons of other artists. The second was the Kunst something and had tons of art and then had a huge ancient Egypt exhibit with mummies. The museums were really nice though and the second one the building itself could have been a museum it was so beautiful. After the museums we had an early dinner of more falafel and hummus before going to the train station to head back to Prague.

Today in one of my classes we went to a Czech protest. Many authors, writers, artists and musicians were protesting the fact that the government has canceled funding for literary magazines. At the protest we just hung out for a little while and observed what was going on. People brought giant puppets that were really creepy looking to symbolize the Ministry of Culture. At one point, everyone took one shoe off, danced around and then threw their shoes at the puppets while they were having a fight. It was very interesting.

Berlin Pictures!

Here are my Berlin pictures...

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=257716414/a=159932039_159932039/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

Rome Pictures

Here are the rest of my Rome pictures...

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=257682240/a=159932039_159932039/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

Berlin

Friday: We boarded the bus at 7 AM to drive to Berlin. We had a personal driver to drive us to all the sights and tour guide to tell us about them. We arrived in Berlin around noon and checked into our hotel. The hotel was actually pretty nice. After we dropped our staff off in the room we got back on the bus for a tour. For this tour we had a German tour guide, who I think was actually British and he showed us a bunch of sights and told us about the history of them. Then, we went on a walking tour. We went to the sight of the Nazi book burning, bebelplatz, which is a square across from the university where Albert Einstein taught. At the square there is a monument which is underground. There is a clear piece of plastic that you look in and underground there are empty bookshelves with enough room for the thousands of books that were burned. Across the street there is a constant book sale of copies of the books as a memorial. After we went to the memorial we went to one of the large parts of the Berlin wall that is still standing. We also saw checkpoint Charlie. Based on where we were standing by the wall we would have been standing in no man's land and would have been shot. I didn't realize that there were actually two walls and no man's land in between. It was also put up in three parts, at first just barbed wire, then bricks and then the concrete wall. Now there is a line of two bricks with the words "Berliner Mauer" that shows how the city used to be divided. The traffic lights are also different in what used to be east and west Berlin. After we went there we saw the Holocaust Memorial for Jewish people that were killed. This is controversial because people want it to be for all people who died rather than just Jewish people. The memorial is rectangles of conrete that dip down in the middle, it is really cool looking. Then we went to what is now a parking lot, but used to be where Hitler's bunker was and where he lived in the last weeks of his life and eventually died. After that we went and saw the Brandenburg Gate. Then our tour was over. After the tour we were all really hungry so we went to a German restaurant for lunch. At this restaurant some people got sausage because it is German food but I got chicken schnitzel and it was very good. Once we ate, we went back to Checkpoint Charlie and went into the museum. This was extremely interesting and talked about life under communism and the ways that people would escape from east Germany to west Germany. People used hot air balloons, hid in suitcases, hid in car engines, built tunnels and even used zip lines to get across. After the museum we went out for dessert and I got an apple and nut cake that was very good. Then we were all tired so we went back to the hotel to go to bed.

Saturday: First thing on Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast was great, there different kinds of bread, rolls, cheeses, yogurt, cereal, waffles, toppings, tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Then we went to Potsdam. Potsdam is where the big three, Truman, Stalin and Churchill met to decide what to do with Germany after World War II. We did a tour of where the conference was. The palace it was in was gorgeous and based off an English country mansion. Outside of it there is a soviet star made of red flowers. After this tour we headed back to Berlin and Joanna and I split a nutella crepe for lunch. There is a ton of street food in Berlin, so Howard and Joe would love it. There are sausages everywhere and their specialty is curry wurst which is sausage in some sort of curry tomato suace. There are also crepes, Asian food, pretzels and other snacks everywhere. Then we walked around for a little while and went to the Story of Berlin Museum. This museum had the entire history of Berlin in all sorts of exhibits. It was sa really interesting museum but the best part was that in the basement of its parking garage there is a nuclear fallout shelter that was built during the Cold War. We did a tour of it and it was really interesting. It was completely full of beds, but there were only a few bathrooms, then there was a kitchen. If it was full then people would get less air than they were used to and would most likely be very tired and sleep most of the time. It was also not stocked with food because the belief was that if the Russians were sending a bomb then there would be time to prepare. The shelter has a steel wall that cuts it in two parts and cannot be opened because if one side is contaminated or people are sick they did not want people on the other side to get hurt as well. People could survive in the shelter for two weeks but after that the air and water would not filter and it would be no different from being outside. After we did the museum we walked around the city for a while and then went to dinner. Berlin has the third largest Turkish population outside of Turkey so we went to Middle Eastern food. We had falafel, hummus and pita bread for dinner and it was the best meal I think I've had since being in Europe. It was this little hole in the wall place by our hotel. Our hotel waws not in a tourist area so everyone in the restaurant was speaking German or another language. The table was in the ground and we sat on cushions around it. After dinner we went to the German Parliament, the Reichstag, which is the most visited parliament in the world. The entire top is glass and mirrors and you climb up and around in a circle with views of the entire city. The idea is for transparency because since the goverment has been corrupt in the past they want the people to be able to see everything that is going on so it won't happen again. The Reichstag is a beautiful building, from the outside and the inside.

Sunday: Sunday morning we were dropped off in the center of town, by the Museum Island. Some of us decided to go to the DDR museum, which is not about dance dance revolution but is about what life was like in East Germany. It was really interesting and had a recreation of what a house looked like. The bathroom looked exactly like the bathroom here at the kolej. After the museum we were going to go to another but the line was too long and we did not want to wait in the cold so we decided to walk around an outdoor market for a little while. Then we went to...Dunkin Donuts! We were soo excited to see Dunkin Donuts all over Berlin that we had to go a couple of times. Seeing as how America runs on dunkin we were surprised to see it in Germany. After lunch we got on the bus and headed to Dresden. Dresden was bombed heavily during World War II and much of the city was destroyed and rebuilt. It is actually very pretty, with a castle and churches but it was freezing and windy so we did our tour kind of quickly and then had dinner. Luckily the city is pretty small so we got to see a lot in a short time. Then we got on the bus to go the rest of the way to Prague. On the way back we were stopped by the German police at the border. Apparently they stop people often but it was still kind of scary because we had to show our passports to the German police. But we passed whatever test it was and made it the rest of the way back to Prague.

Fun facts about Berlin:
It is the third gayest city in the world, after San Franciso and Sydney, Australia.
It is also the third Bridgeiest city.
Germans like to give their buildings funny and inappropriate nicknames.
Maurer means bricklayer in German. I discovered this at the DDR Museum