London and Dublin and Paris, oh my!

      Well, its been a few hectic weeks. Fall break in Europe means travel, travel, and more travel. From Italy to England, Ireland to France, I've seen more of Europe in the past three weeks than I have seen of America. The trip began with a class trip to Rome. Rome is...an experience. Not the place to be if you have a fear of large masses of people or questionable sanitation. Despite the hustle and bustle of the city, the sights were unforgettable. Rome has a rich cultural and architectural history hiding within its busy streets. Giant palaces, ruins of ancient cities, and feats of human engineering that seem to defy all laws of physics. It was really cool to explore the city and its many historical monuments, like the Colosseum and the Pantheon. After five days exploring Rome and the surrounding Italian countryside, we split off from the others and began our real fall break. First stop was London.

      London was an absolute blast. Like a smaller, less crowded New York, London was a welcome departure from the grimy streets of Rome. Riding through the city on the top floor of a double-decker bus is probably the best way to get around London. The skyline of the city is beautiful, especially at night when everything is lit up. Although I didn't ride the London Eye (tickets cost like 50 dollars and I'm a cheap college students), it was still an experience standing at the base and looking up at the towering structure. Unfortunately, Big Ben was under construction when we were there, and only the face of the clock was visible behind all the scaffolding. Buckingham Palace was a quick stop on our sightseeing journey through London, as was Westminster Abbey. Although they were interesting, we didn't spend too much time for anything more than a couple pictures at these stops. All in all, London was an awesome experience and was by far one of my favorite stops during the break.

     Despite having a fairly good time in London, we did run into some trouble the second nights stay at the Airbnb. Shaken awake at 2am by Bree, I knew immediately that something was wrong. There was panic in her eyes and her hushed whisper had an intensity to it I'd never heard before. Then came the knocking. A man, probably drunk or on drugs of some sort, was pounding on the door of the apartment, screaming for the host to open the door so they 'could talk'. This went on for about a half hour, with the pounding becoming more intense to the point the man was throwing himself against the door trying to get in. He also tried to talk to us through the mail slot and the kitchen window, but luckily we had most of the lights off in the house and just stayed completely still hoping the man would lose interest before we had to call the cops. After a half hour of fear and panic, not knowing if the man would find a way into the home or not and arming ourselves with corkscrews and butter knives from the kitchen, the man left. It was an experience I hope to never have again.

     After our long night in London, a flight to Dublin cleared our heads with gorgeous scenery and amazing food and drinks. As one does in Ireland, I had to try a Guiness. While I am not a huge drinker, especially of beers, Guiness was a decent beer that I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Kudos to the Irish for knowing how to make a good beer. While Ireland was our shortest stop of the break, it was probably my favorite place we went. The countryside is beautiful and the people were nice beyond compare. The first day we did a lot of souvenir shopping in downtown Dublin. It was probably the cleanest city we visited. After a night in a cute little Airbnb apartment, we booked a tour to the cliffs of Moher. I have always been particular to craggy shorelines as I love the sound of waves as they crash against rock but these cliffs just took my breath away. The shear natural beauty of the area was astounding, and despite the dreary conditions we visited them in, the cliffs were still able to awe all three of us into near speechlessness. Also, shout-out to our tour guide Wes for being the best part of the trip. Probably one of the nicest guys you'll meet, he even offered to drive us to a pub after the tour was done since we had a few hours to kill before our flight to Paris.

     The final stop on our European tour was Paris and man did it start out with a bang. As we were heading for our Airbnb, we needed to get tickets for the metro. While trying to figure out the machine, a man came out of the blue and started beating the daylights out of a poor woman in line. He kicked, punched, and pulled her hair before eventually being torn off her by a couple bystanders. We were left speechless as we had been in Paris for less than an hour and already witnessed a physical assault. The most interesting thing about this story, however, was that the man worked for the metro line. We are not sure if the woman was a pickpocket or what, but it was definitely a very bizarre experience. After recovering from our shock, we quickly bought our tickets and boarded the train before we became the next victims of the metro man's rage.

      The Airbnb we stayed at was probably the nicest and most compact house I've ever stayed in. The host was super nice and even left us tea and snacks. Paris was a nice mix of Rome and London. It had all the amenities of London with the history and sight seeing aspects of Rome without the people and clutter. Seeing the Eiffel Tower in person was the experience of a lifetime. Exploring the catacombs of Paris was also very cool, as well as a bit morbid. To see how many people have lived and died in the city was a sobering experience. I would highly suggest seeing the Eiffel Tower at night around the hour as it does a little light show for onlookers every hour on the hour until 5 minutes past for the entire night. I would also suggest taking the stairs up to whatever floor may be open at the time because looking out at Paris at night is amazing.

Hungary for adventure

It was 8:30 in the morning. The wind was cold and the small jacket around my body did little to hold out the frigid air that surrounded me. Walking alongside Bree, Ashley, and Bailey to the bus stop, I regretted my decision to not pack a heavier jacket in my luggage. We sat huddled in front of the large billboard for a few minutes, touching shoulders to conserve as much heat as possible while we searched for the place our bus would be picking us up from. We were nervous and excited, hopeful we wouldn't miss our bus or its connection to Budapest after hearing about another group's unfortunate failure of a trip to Oktoberfest. Platform N at 9:25, that's where our bus would be. Now we needed to figure out what to do to keep warm for the next hour or so. After wandering around in a huddle of bodies for a while, we decided on getting a quick breakfast at the train station across the street. There I found one of the most surprising things I've had on this entire trip. While I have not been a huge fan of the central Europeans' choice in cuisine, I will give them credit and say that they have some damn good donuts. They are very unassuming, almost looking like cake donuts (which are far too cake-y for my picky tastes) but goddamn if that wasn't one of the best donuts I've ever had. It was light and fluffy just like a donut from the states, and the fruity frosting was the perfect amount of sweet to really wake me up.

After warming up over a cup of foam with a few drops of coffee as an afterthought (Europe, pick up your coffee game) and a good donut breakfast, it was time to board our bus. The trip to Budapest was a fairly uneventful 6+ hour bus ride, although Ashley and Bree forgot to mention to me before booking a bus that car sickness was a major problem for them. This meant I spent a majority of my time either sleeping or comforting some very uncomfortable and slightly nauseous friends. We had one connecting bus at Burno, with an hour or so layover where we once again sat huddled in a cuddle-puddle on a bench in a bus stop in the middle of the city. After another four hours on a bus, we pulled into Budapest. The most interesting part of the entire trip may have been where this bus dropped us off. In all the other cities we had been to, there had been actual buildings or at least a few benches that marked the bus stops. However, for whatever reason, in Budapest the bus company thought it'd be a great idea to just drop everyone off in a sketchy neighborhood right behind what looked like a murder field a gang might use. Needless to say we were a little sketched out.
As one must do when first visiting a city they've never been to, our little gaggle of friends rushed to the first restaurant with a free restroom (which is a lot harder to find in Europe than you might think) and bought some lunch. This meant that our first taste of Budapest was a very American-centric burger restaurant. The burgers were actually pretty good, but it wasn't really the culture I was hoping to get from this trip. Next on the agenda was finding a way to our AirBNB. While we have been walking quite a bit in Europe, the  room was a good 3 hour walk away from where the bus had dropped us off, and we were already exhausted from the trip so a walk like that did not sound ideal. Luckily for us, a taxi service was operating out of a bus stop just a few blocks away from the restaurant. A very nice man helped us to get a taxi, although his kindness extended a little too far when he took Ashley's backpack off her back without her asking trying to put it in the back of the taxi and the rest of us expected him to just take off with it. Luckily he was just trying to help and we didn't have to chase down a pack thief.
After reaching the AirBNB, it was time to make plans for what to do in Budapest. Bailey had found an interesting sounding tour of the city called a Pub Crawl. Essentially, you pay a tour guide a set price and they take you around to the most popular clubs and bars in a city and give you free shots and beer, as well as teach you local drinking games and just try to give you the best time they can. It makes for a good time, although the night went a little south after someone who shall not be named had a little too much to drink and ended up having quite the time in a public restroom. Poor Bree was traumatized from that experience and it really sobered up the entire rest of the night for the rest of us. Ashley, although having a bit to drink herself, actually slipped into a psychologist mindset and may or may not have changed a young man's life for the better that night. The next day, after waking up around noon with non-alcoholic related headaches, we all decided it would be best to keep it very low-key for the rest of the day. We ate more food, visited a castle, shopped in a few tourist traps, and took a dip in Budapest's famous healing natural springs. We discussed going on a cruise of the river through the city but never ended up going through with it as we all decided a quiet night in the room sounded better.

Our final day in Budapest was, in my opinion, the best. I love looking at all the architecture that Europe has to offer, especially the old stuff from Gothic times, so our idea of visiting the castle district was right up my alley. I was not disappointed. The castle district is essentially a castle and small town square up on a hill overlooking the rest of Budapest. The architecture is beautiful, and right in the middle of all of it is a majestic Gothic church. Although we really wanted to see the inside, apparently the church was only open to locals when we eventually got around to seeing it. A guard at the door first told us to wait a half hour and it would be open once again, but after returning after the half hour waiting period and still not having access to the inner chambers of the church, the guard feigned ignorance and argued he couldn't even speak English, so we had to give up and leave without ever seeing the inside.

Our trip back to Olomouc was probably the most eventful part of the entire trip. After walking around all day, all four of us were ready to just sleep on the bus. However, at first we couldn't find the bus stop (remember, this stop was in the middle of a shady neighborhood in front of an empty lot). After locating it, we ate dinner at a nearby restaurant, although it took a while to find one since apparently everything in Europe closes by 7pm. After boarding onto the bus, Ashley and Bree once again started complaining about not feeling well, although this time we believed it was because of an oncoming cold. We once again stopped in Burno, but since it was 2am, the room we had used before was locked and it was far colder than the first time we had been there. We decided the best option would be to use a nearby train station for a restroom and a warm place to stay for the 2 hour layover. After walking in, however, we immediately regretted our decision. The station was under construction and looked nearly abandoned. There were long, dark hallways that seemed to lead nowhere, trains sitting abandoned on the tracks, and construction tools everywhere. Needless to say it was a close second to the sketchy bus stop in Budapest for most interesting public transport hub of the trip. Luckily we survived and made it back to Olomouc no worse for the wear considering we had been up, walking around for nearly 14 hours straight.