Spring Break part 2

We left our hostel in Prague at 4:30am to catch the 5:00am train to Budapest. We managed to find our way to our hostel without any problems. We were greeted by the owner of the hostel who we deemed "creepy Pete" because he was creepy and we never knew his name. He was extremely helpful, showing us every single sight in Budapest on a map for the next 45 minutes. We showered and then set out to see some sights. We decided to head to Hero's Square and then the museums. The square was quite impressive with huge statues depicting the history of the city. We tried to go to the National Gallery because all the museums would be closed the next day, but it was only open for another 40 minutes or so. Instead of spending the money for such a short amount of time we opted to walk around the City Park directly behind the square. We saw the castle and a huge empty beer tent and then proceeded to get lost in the park at which point it started raining. Some how we untangled ourselves and found the baths in the park. Budapest is known as the city of spas and has 40 something baths/spas all over the city because of its natural hot springs. We brought our bathing suits so we changed and ventured out in to the bath.
The outdoor baths were like a swimming pool, about 4 feet deep, with different water patterns made by jets and a round shape separated in the middle that looked like a spa but was completely inside the pool. Alternately there would be bubbles that came up in groups from the pool bottom and then a strong current that circled around the spa. I was completely fascinated with gliding around in the jet stream that made me fly around the spa in circles.
After about 2 hours we had had enough and decided to start drying off. This was made somewhat difficult by the fact that we did not think to bring towels. We dried off under the hand driers in the locker room (which had only a weak stream of cold air) and some paper towels. Despite the less than ideal conditions it was a really fun adventure.
We were very relieved to return to the hostel. We planned on venturing out to find a supermarket but everything was closed as it was getting late and it was a Sunday. The overly helpful "creepy Pete" offered to go to the one open grocery store for us because we didn't want to get back on the metro and go all the way there. We insisted that he not do that. We did however, have him help us order a pizza. We split a can of tomato soup that I had brought with us also. The can opener in the hostel kitchen was broken, and creepy Pete insisted on finding a way to open the can for us, to prove his manliness. Did I mention he was looked like a scrawny Albert Einstein?
The next day we set out early to go on a walking tour of the city. This was definitely the best investment we made. We saw Hero's Square again but the tour guide explained all of the history of the statues. Some of my favorites were the king who loved to read so he was always pictured with books, and the king to brought an end to witch burning. Our guide told us he was supposedly very ugly and stopped the witch burning as an effort to get with the ladies. We saw the statue of Anonymous and rubbed his pen for wisdom. We wanted to look for the statue of a bull, by rubbing who's balls you supposedly can have good luck on your most difficult exam. We saw the opera house and downtown, the chain bridge, and a panoramic view of the city. After the tour was over we stopped to see the cathedral. In front there was a plague column. After the first time the plague hit Budapest they built the column as a thanks to God they survived. Unfortunately the plague came back so they decided that it wasn't big enough and knocked it down to build a bigger one. It must have been sufficient because the plague didn't come back this time. Maybe some body should have gotten busy inventing penicillin or whatever keeps the plague away instead of erecting columns. Just a thought.
We headed back into the city and stopped for some lunch. We split a giant piece of potato bread covered in cheese, garlic and sour cream. It was definitely the most delicious thing I ate the whole week. I was basically ready to move to Budapest at this point. After that we were pretty tired and it had once again started to rain. We headed back to the hostel, just stopping on the way for a cup of coffee. We watched Blood Diamond in the hostel common room (luckily crazy Pete's wife was on duty so he didn't try to watch with us) and then ate leftover pizza and soup for dinner. It was St. Patrick's Day so we headed out to celebrate. Along the way we met up with our friends we met in Portugal and encountered again in the Granada airport. The seven of us went to a pub crazy Pete had pointed out where they were having a music night and you got 4 free beers by paying entrance. It was something like 5000 florencs which is like 3USD.
The next morning we dragged our butts out of bed around 6am and caught an early bus to Vienna!

Spring Break Leg 1

During Semana Santa, the week before easter, we didn't have classes so we had the opportunity to travel. Since we weren't allowed to be in the dorms at all over break it was logical to use that week for a big trip. Marlise and I traveled together to four countries in the middle of Europe: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Germany. The day we left I was feeling sick again and was worried I would be fighting a cold the whole week which would put a damper on the trip. Luckily sleeping all day Thursday helped me get over it quickly and we flew from Granada to Gerona (about an hour outside of Barcelona) Thursday afternoon. We spent the night in the airport, but luckily we discovered the friends we met in Portugal were on the same flight as us to Gerona and were also staying in the airport. We passed the night with card games, trivia games, trying to throw a wadded up piece of paper across the hallway into the opening in a soda machine, and eventually sleeping on the benches in the airport. Around 6:00am Marlise and I finally got to get out of there and flew to Brno, Czech Republic. I had read the Brno was a nice picturesque town and would be a good place to spend half a day. It was pretty dreary and industrial. We went right to the train station to figure out where to catch the bus to Prague. All the signs were in Czech which made it extremely difficult to figure out what we were doing. After running all over looking for a bus schedule, ticket booth, or anything, we waited in line to ask the train people where to catch the bus. When we finally got to the front of the line the woman at the window told us she did not speak English. Luckily, she spoke a little German. She told us there was no bus that day and that there was a train in 3 minutes. It turned out to only cost about 10 euro each so we bought tickets and RAN to the train.
After arriving in Prague and figuring out, after some confusion, which train station to get off at and where to go from there we found our hostel and checked in. We took a short break to change and freshen up and then we were off to conquer Prague! We found our way to the Nove Mesto, the new square and looked around at the huge metropolitan area. Marlise heard fried cheese was the snack of choice so we had some fried cheese sandwiches and spiced wine and then head over to the Stare Mesto, the old square. There was a spring festival so there was a lot to see. We milled around among the booths and watched the astronomical clock tower when it struck the hour. Turns out its just some statues that move in a circle and you can't really see them well from below. Don't waste your time if you are in Prague waiting for the clock to chime.
We waited around in the plaza because there was a ghost walk at 9:00pm. There was a band performing and I really enjoyed their Beatles melody. It started to get colder and colder and we turned to spending as much time as possible in each of the small tourist shops to stay warm. Finally we met our guide for the tour. He was wearing a black cloak and carrying a lantern. He was also Czech. Very creepy. We walked around the city with our guide and four other people on the tour and heard some of the ghost stories of Prague. Unfortunately, the legitimacy of the tour was seriously damaged by the guy who kept dressing as various ghostly characters and jumping out when we turned corners. I was reminded of our cave tour in Portugal (this rock looks like an Indian, this one looks like President Sarkozy).
The next day we set out pretty early to get in all the sites we missed the day before. Before we hit the sights we went to get our tickets to Budapest at the train station. We changed money first for the day, but turns out all our research in travel books and online was a waste of time because the train tickets turned out to be almost twice as much as stated, almost 50euro each. That put a serious damper on the day but some unexpected costs always happen, so we just shrugged it off and set out to see the city. We started by climbing the astronomical clock tower to get some views of Prague from above. It was worth the climb, but really small and cramped on top. After we made our way back down we found Bohemia Bagel for lunch/first meal. Navigating the back streets of Old Town Prague was a small price to pay to have a vegetable sandwich on a bagel. After we set out again we found a statue of Franz Kafka and decided taking a picture of it was sufficient and we didn't need to see a whole museum on Kafka. We walked through the Jewish quarter and saw the old synagogues and the cemetery. We then walked along the river bank and crossed Charles Bridge which is decorated by mostly biblical statues dating from the 18th century. The bridge was crammed with foot traffic and street vendors. Across the bridge we saw the biggest cathedral in Prague and climbed the hill to the Castle. The castle itself was open but the inside parts like the cathedral and museums were closed so we just checked it out and took some pictures from the amazing vantage point on top of the hill and then headed home. That night we cooked up some spaghetti with sauce we bought at the grocery store. It was a huge improvement over the soup that we made the night before from the packets i brought with me that was pretty lumpy and gross. Booking hostels with access to kitchens and bringing some soup and pasta with was the best money saving idea we had the whole trip. We made four nights dinner for two people for less than 10euro combined! Our train left at 5am the next morning so we had only a few hours of sleep before we set out for our next destination.

Portugal

I know all my loyal readers have been dreadfully missing my blog updates. My apologies. I have been up to a lot this past month since I last posted so I will try to think back and write about all my exciting adventures.
In February my three best friends here and I took a road trip to Lagos, Portugal. Lagos is in the south on the coast and is a tiny beach town. Our original destination was Faro, a slightly bigger coastal city, but luckily our program director talked us out of it. We rented a small Fiat Leon from a rental company near the airport. In order to take the bus to Portugal we would have had to spend all day in a bus, switching at least once in Sevilla if not again at the border, and it would have actually cost more than splitting a rental four ways. The car ride only took five hours from start to finish, and was a easy ride with great views and simple navigation. Unfortunately only one of us knows how to drive a car with a manual transmission so Jodi did all the driving. We had a few small hitches with the car: first we could NOT get the little thing in reverse. This meant that I physically pushed the car backward out of the parking space while everyone else laughed at me and we prayed the rental company people would not see us. After we finally backed out of the spot, Jodi had a few problems getting the car to go. We stalled 4ish times in the parking lot, but eventually got out and it was smooth sailing from there.
When we arrived in Portugal we had a bit of trouble finding Dina's Guest House where we were staying. The directions from Hostelworld were translated VERY poorly into English and did not make any sense. We drove around the city three times, stalled several more, and finally found the parking spot indicated on our directions. From there the walking directions were ALSO very wrong. We found a nice Portuguese man who did not speak English or Spanish but walked us to the international youth hostel. We waited for him to leave and then were close enough to navigate our way to Dina's. The guest house was really nice and we had our own room with four huge beds and a private bathroom. There was also a patio attached to our bedroom and a kitchen for use.
We went out to explore the city a little bit. When we returned we discovered that the people staying in the other room of the guest house were two other people from our program in Granada!!! The six of us all went out for traditional Portuguese dinner and then hung out at Three Monkeys bar. The city reminded me a lot of Placencia in Belize, where all the locals knew each other and hung out at the same bars every night. Many of the businesses in Lagos are run be ex-pats, Australians and Brits who came to Lagos and just couldn't bear to leave. It made for a very American friendly environment and was much less intimidating than the big cities where I felt more on guard against pickpocketers, etc.
The second day in Lagos we slept in late and then had lunch at a burger joint called Don Torro's. The actually had a veggie burger on the menu, so I enjoyed it. Everyone else soaked up the joy of American-ish food, which I think all would agree is the thing we have missed most here. We then went to the beach just a few blocks from our guest house. The beach was gorgeous and had a ton of fun caves to explore that connected beach after beach along the coast. The edge of the beach was very rocky so we just laid on the sand and enjoyed being on the beach in February.
We went on a search for some recommended restaurants that night, but everything was closed because it wasn't high tourist season yet. Luckily we stumbled upon a fairly cheap Italian food restaurant and had a great affordable meal. After dinner we went to a few bars and had some drinks and then went home.
The next day we walked over to the other side of Lagos and spent the day at the larger beach. The water was so clear and warm, I could not believe it. I could have spent hours and hours just swimming and splashing around in the water. We took a ton of pictures of the water and the beach and just enjoyed doing nothing. I wanted to stay on the beach forever, but the sun started to go down and we had to return back to Dina's. We met our new guest house mates while we took turns in the shower. They turned out to be three American guys who are studying in Granada and live about 4 blocks from us there. It really is a small world. Everyone was kind of pooped so we decided to come home after dinner. Stephanie and Marlise went to bed early and Jodi and I spent some time watching youtube videos and then eventually turned in.
Before we left Lagos we visited a little breakfast place that had pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and bacon for three euro! This may have been the most astonishing discovery in all of Portugal. Before we left we took a boat tour of the caves, which turned out to be the four of us riding around in a run down old motor boat while our "guide" pointed out rocks shaped like things ("This one is an indian, this one is an elephant, etc.) Either was the caves were beautiful and the tour operator gave us a two euro discount so it was only six euros a piece for a one hour tour. The drive home went relatively smoothly as we were fueled by three euro breakfast, until we stopped for gas. We assumed that our car would take gasoline, not diesel, and didn't think much about the possibility that it would not. It wasn't until after we had put 20 euro of gasoline in the car that I saw the little sticker that said diesel on the inside of the gas tank lid. We weren't sure what to do so we started to drive while I looked through the manual, which definitely said gasoline, not diesel. Luckily we made it to the next gas station before the car shut off. Apparently diesel cars don't run that well on gasoline. We spent the next four hours calling everyone we knew asking for advice, trying to call the help line the rental place gave us (there was no phone number provided on any of the paperwork so that meant getting online and finding the number), being told the woman from the agency was out of the office and would call us back in ten minutes (aka 1.5 hours) and then eventually getting help from the police. Luckily the boyfriend of the woman in the gas station was a mechanic, and he sucked the gas out of the gas tank for us. By the time we got back on the road several hours had passed, it was dark, and we were hungry and tired. But we made it back safely and returned the car.
The last obstacle was getting back into the city, since the car rental place was at the airport. The last bus back to the city had already left and it turns out taxis will not come to the airport. There was a nice old man in the quick mart who said he would drive over to where the airport taxis are and see if any were there and if not he would take us in his car. This seemed sketchy, but better than a night in the airport gas station quick mart. The man came back 10 minutes later driving a taxi... whatever. We finally made it back to Granada, at which point we had to pay the taxi driver in small coins because we were flat out of money as we had not anticipated missing the bus nor having to buy another tank of gas. Overall we had an amazing weekend. Lagos was one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, definitely the best beach for swimming, and I would return in a heartbeat.