Hungry in Budapest

This past week I had my second week of classes. I had a group presentation/lecture in my marketing class that went well. I had another Finance class...still not loving it. I also started my Organizational Behavior Management class. The professor was very interesting and made us think about management differently. This class only meets 6 times though so I already have a paper (worth 20% of my grade) due on Thursday.

This weekend I went to Budapest, Hungary with the BuddyNetwork, the group at WU that sets up events and connects you with a full time student at WU. A lot of my friends from the orientation program went on the trip so it was a lot of fun. We had to be at school at 7:30 on friday morning. Louise and I grabbed pastries from the bakery in our u-bahn stop on the way. I had one of those cinnamon roll type pastries that was delicious. We took a bus to Budapest, and it was only about a 3 hour ride so the transportation was not bad at all. Once we arrived in Budapest, they took us to the West End and to a mall where we were able to exchange money and get some lunch. The currency in Hungary is the Florint and it is just out of control. The exchange is about 1 US dollar to 213 Hungarian Florint. So all the prices were huge numbers that made it confusing to figure out what you were actually paying. For lunch we went to the food court in the mall and I had thai food that was more like the US version of chinese food chicken and vegetables with brown sauce. It was pretty good. Then we had fro-yo! I was so excited to see a fro-yo place there! I had the original of course with chocolate shavings on top. It was like heaven on earth. I've missed my fro-yo. After doing a little shopping for things like pajamas (which I managed to forget to pack), we were back on the bus. They had a tour guide come on the bus and give us a city tour as we drove around. We stopped and got out at Hero's Square as well as the Castle for some beautiful views of Budapest. After the tour we checked in to our hotel. I was rooming with Elizabeth, Cori, and Emily. For Dinner we all went to a traditional Hungarian Beer Cellar for a buffet of traditional food and drinks. Then we went to a club/bar and had so much fun dancing, the music was great (with a few 80's throwbacks included).

Hero's Square & Elizabeth, Cori, Me, and Emily with the view from Fisherman's Bastion near the castle.

On Saturday we woke up for the included breakfast, which wasn't much but it would do. Then went back to sleep for a nice 1.5 hour nap. Then at 12 we met to go to Parliament. The outside of the building was beautiful. We were supposed to do a tour of it as well but they somehow cancelled our tour and didn't tell us. We ended up walking to Liberty Square, St. Stephan's Cathedral and walked around inside the beautiful church, and then did a tour of the Opera instead. The Opera house was absolutely gorgeous, I was really glad we got to see it. It was a little prettier than Vienna's but in defense of Vienna, its opera house was bombed during the war (while pretty much everything else of Budapest was bombed). After that Elizabeth and I went with a group to the New York Cafe, a beautiful coffee house where we had apple strudel and coffee/hot chocolate. It was delicious and in such a beautiful setting. Saturday night for dinner we went to a Mongolian grill where you pick the raw meat, etc. that you want and then they grill it for you. I tried shark and duck which were both very good as well as some veggies. They also had horse and goat but I wasn't that brave. It was really delicous. I also had a pumpkin soup that I loved and we had some goat cheese brushetta. The desserts were delicious too. We had a sponge cake that was very delicious and of course some delicious house wine and sangria. Then the whole group went to a club called Pink where we had another great night of dancing to good music.

Danielle, Pasha, Me and Elizabeth in front of Parliament.

St. Stephan's Cathedral & Emily, Me, Cori, and Elizabeth in front of it on the steps.

Sunday was our last day in Budapest. We woke up, had the included breakfast again, and then went to the House of Terror museum about communism and the Nazi occupation of Hungary. It was a very interesting museum. They had room that displayed different documentaries about the times of the Nazi and Soviet occupations, as well as the torture devices and rooms that they used. After the museum we grabbed gyros on the street for lunch and then went to Cafe Gerbeaud, one of Budapest's famous cafes/coffehouses. It was very beautiful and had delicious homemade desserts and ice creams. I had a cafe latte with homemade cinnamon syrup and an apple strudel with homemade cinnamon ice cream on the side. It was very delicious, I loveed the cinnamon ice cream. After the cafe we had free time and Elizabeth, Cori, Emily and I walked around the pedestrian area and checked out the shops. Then we went to McDonald's to grab a bite to eat before getting back on the bus and heading home.

This week I am pretty busy with another presentation for Marketing as well as other work, including that paper I need to get around to. Then on Wednesday Travis is coming to visit and on Thursday Emerald arrives. It will be a fun weekend of sight seeing around vienna and showing them around my wonderful city!