By the way...i hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving!
mine was great! my whole group got together to do a dinner, and we had a TON of food! it was awesome! we got turkey and ham and mashed potatoes and stuffing and carrots, peas, green beans, rolls, cheesecake, ice cream, apple turnovers....it was yummy :-)
and it was nice to be with everyone since i couldn't be with everyone back home...but I got to talk to family types that night! yeah. so it was a great day!
and i'm so thankful for all of you guys back home, and i'm excited to see you all soon!
take care, and enjoy the weekend!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Pictures!
Here are some pictures from my Poland trip!
From Auschwich
"Work Makes You Free"
From Auschwich
"Work Makes You Free"
A park near our hostel
The rest of these are from the old city...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Poland :-)
hey everyone!
update on my latest travels: I went to Poland last weekend! It was a sorta last minute thing: we'd been thinking about it for a while but didn't actually book anything until Thursday (and we left on Friday...). So that was pretty cool!!!
We took a bus to Krakow on Friday afternoon..it left Budapest at 2 and was supposed to get there at 9:30. well, things don't always go quite as planned: there was a snowstorm. so we went wicked slowly, got stuck at least once, stopped a couple times (i made my 1st snowball of the winter!!) and finally reached Krakow at about 3:00am. yeah. so that was a looong bus ride!
The next day, we got up and took the 1 1/2 hour bus ride from Krakow to Auschwich. we took a tour in the freezing cold (it was snowing again) which was very...i dunno...interesting, depressing, neat but sad. it was crazy to actually be in the place where all of the disturbing, terrible things happened: we saw the prison cells, the tiny shoes of all the kids that they killed, the luggage of the Jews who thought they were just moving to a new place, the room full of hair that they shaved off because it could be used to make clothe...we walked under the gate stating "work makes you free" into the compound surrounded by barbed wire...we stood in the gas chambers and saw the ovens they used to burn bodies after murdering people.
yeah. so needless to say, there was a lot to think about on saturday.
after that, we went out and had a nice dinner (it was SO CHEAP! i love conversion rates in countries that aren't on the euro!) and then saw a couple bars before turning in for the night. (oh--forgot to mention: the kids sitting in front of us on the bus also happened to be american college students studying abroad in Budapest--one at Corvinus another at a different school--and they were staying at the same hostel as us! so they joined us for dinner & stuff. that was fun!)
On sunday, we checked out of our hostel and then braved the cold and snow for a little while so we could see the old city. it was really pretty!! we stopped in a couple stores to warm up in between seeing old churches and castle-type buildings. (i'm not really sure what some of the buildings were, but they were pretty!!) after we were sufficiently frozen, we went to the mall that was right near the bus station. we ate lunch there (which turned out to be a bad idea: no one really liked the food they got...oh well...) and then bought a few snacks for the return bus trip.
At 2:30 we got on the bus and settled in for what turned out to be only the 7 1/2 hour bus ride that it was supposed to be! (on both bus trips they played movies almost the whole time, which was nice!!)
yeah, so that was my weekend! It was awesome! very relaxing and very, very pretty!! the snow reminded me of home and Christmas...it was probably one of my favorite trips this semester!
I only took a few pictures, but i'll post some once I've uploaded them to my computer!
see you all soon!!! :-)
update on my latest travels: I went to Poland last weekend! It was a sorta last minute thing: we'd been thinking about it for a while but didn't actually book anything until Thursday (and we left on Friday...). So that was pretty cool!!!
We took a bus to Krakow on Friday afternoon..it left Budapest at 2 and was supposed to get there at 9:30. well, things don't always go quite as planned: there was a snowstorm. so we went wicked slowly, got stuck at least once, stopped a couple times (i made my 1st snowball of the winter!!) and finally reached Krakow at about 3:00am. yeah. so that was a looong bus ride!
The next day, we got up and took the 1 1/2 hour bus ride from Krakow to Auschwich. we took a tour in the freezing cold (it was snowing again) which was very...i dunno...interesting, depressing, neat but sad. it was crazy to actually be in the place where all of the disturbing, terrible things happened: we saw the prison cells, the tiny shoes of all the kids that they killed, the luggage of the Jews who thought they were just moving to a new place, the room full of hair that they shaved off because it could be used to make clothe...we walked under the gate stating "work makes you free" into the compound surrounded by barbed wire...we stood in the gas chambers and saw the ovens they used to burn bodies after murdering people.
yeah. so needless to say, there was a lot to think about on saturday.
after that, we went out and had a nice dinner (it was SO CHEAP! i love conversion rates in countries that aren't on the euro!) and then saw a couple bars before turning in for the night. (oh--forgot to mention: the kids sitting in front of us on the bus also happened to be american college students studying abroad in Budapest--one at Corvinus another at a different school--and they were staying at the same hostel as us! so they joined us for dinner & stuff. that was fun!)
On sunday, we checked out of our hostel and then braved the cold and snow for a little while so we could see the old city. it was really pretty!! we stopped in a couple stores to warm up in between seeing old churches and castle-type buildings. (i'm not really sure what some of the buildings were, but they were pretty!!) after we were sufficiently frozen, we went to the mall that was right near the bus station. we ate lunch there (which turned out to be a bad idea: no one really liked the food they got...oh well...) and then bought a few snacks for the return bus trip.
At 2:30 we got on the bus and settled in for what turned out to be only the 7 1/2 hour bus ride that it was supposed to be! (on both bus trips they played movies almost the whole time, which was nice!!)
yeah, so that was my weekend! It was awesome! very relaxing and very, very pretty!! the snow reminded me of home and Christmas...it was probably one of my favorite trips this semester!
I only took a few pictures, but i'll post some once I've uploaded them to my computer!
see you all soon!!! :-)
Sunday, November 16, 2008
pictures!
So here's some pictures from last weekend with Mom & Julia!! I would love to post all of them, but unfortunately some people are a little bit picture-happy and there are over 600 of them. :-) so you'll have to settle for 9. enjoy!
night view of the Danube, Parliament, Chain Bridge, and Castle.
Us at the castle district
In the castle district
Julia and a friend in the castle district ;-)
Mom & I in the castle district
St. Stephen's Basilica
Liberty Statue
At the baths
night view of the Danube, Parliament, Chain Bridge, and Castle.
Us at the castle district
In the castle district
Julia and a friend in the castle district ;-)
Mom & I in the castle district
St. Stephen's Basilica
Liberty Statue
At the baths
Heroes' Square
Thursday, November 13, 2008
last weekend
hey all!
things here in Budapest are going quite well!! this weekend was wonderful as i had a visit from Mom and Julia!!! it was awesome to see them! we got to see so many cool things! we went to the castle district, margret island, the liberty statue, the baths, hero square, st. stephen's basilica, the malls, my school, the central market, city park....plus we ate lots of good food!! i of course had to introduce them to don pepe's (my favorite pizza place) but we also had gyros, some good greek food, and of course authentic, hungarian, goulash soup. it was awesome!!!
and of course all of that was mixed with good times filled with laughter, random picture taking, a couple movies, some late nights and a (very) early morning. oh--and we went to church on Sunday!! that was probably one of my highlights of the weekend! and Mom planned a birthday party for me! it was a lot of fun!! spice cake and ice cream and candles and presents and friends AND family!! yay!
so yeah, it was an awesome weekend!!!! i'll probably post some pictures soon! and if i've left anything out, i'm sure you can bug Mom or Juli for details :-)
I hope everything back in the US is going well, and i can't wait to see the rest of you when i come home in a month!!!
have an awesome friday tomorrow! and then a great weekend!!!!
~Andrea~
"How great is our God! Sing with me: how great is our God! And all will see how great, how great is our God!!" ---the first song we sang at church last Sunday :-)
things here in Budapest are going quite well!! this weekend was wonderful as i had a visit from Mom and Julia!!! it was awesome to see them! we got to see so many cool things! we went to the castle district, margret island, the liberty statue, the baths, hero square, st. stephen's basilica, the malls, my school, the central market, city park....plus we ate lots of good food!! i of course had to introduce them to don pepe's (my favorite pizza place) but we also had gyros, some good greek food, and of course authentic, hungarian, goulash soup. it was awesome!!!
and of course all of that was mixed with good times filled with laughter, random picture taking, a couple movies, some late nights and a (very) early morning. oh--and we went to church on Sunday!! that was probably one of my highlights of the weekend! and Mom planned a birthday party for me! it was a lot of fun!! spice cake and ice cream and candles and presents and friends AND family!! yay!
so yeah, it was an awesome weekend!!!! i'll probably post some pictures soon! and if i've left anything out, i'm sure you can bug Mom or Juli for details :-)
I hope everything back in the US is going well, and i can't wait to see the rest of you when i come home in a month!!!
have an awesome friday tomorrow! and then a great weekend!!!!
~Andrea~
"How great is our God! Sing with me: how great is our God! And all will see how great, how great is our God!!" ---the first song we sang at church last Sunday :-)
Monday, November 3, 2008
so here's some pictures from italy...i know there's a lot, but I took a ton so it was hard to decide which ones to post ;-) haha. enjoy!!
they are the river and a church in venice, a museum and a tower/basilica in florence, the protest in florence (by the way...we ended up seeing the same protest in rome...) followed by coliseum pictures, pictures of St. Peter's basilica, the Vatican museum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and finally the Pope.
they are the river and a church in venice, a museum and a tower/basilica in florence, the protest in florence (by the way...we ended up seeing the same protest in rome...) followed by coliseum pictures, pictures of St. Peter's basilica, the Vatican museum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and finally the Pope.
hello everyone!!
so i'm back from italy!! it was an amazing trip! there's waaay too much to be summed up in a post, but here's the basics:
it all started with an 11 hour bus ride from Budapest to Venice. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds because it was overnight and so we could do our best to sleep the whole way there...didn't really happen, but we got some sleep! and got to watch "Daddy Day Care" in Hungarian. :-)
Venice was gorgeous! we stayed there only one overnight, but that gave us plenty of time to wander around and admire the view of the canal and visit the little shops and restaurants. (Italy has awesome lasagna!! :-)
we took a train from Venice, which was an adventure in and of itself: the guy traveling with us realized that he had left his passport at the hostel, which was about a 30 minute bus ride away…so he went off to get it while the rest of us (myself and 3 other girls) tried to figure out how we could make it so he didn’t lose his train ticket when our train left in an hour or so. After running around to various ticket windows and customer help offices, we finally switched his ticket to a later time and found someone at a random travel agency who would hold it for him. We finally got our phones to work in time to call him and let him know where to pick up his ticket before leaving on our train. So that was exciting :-)
we all made it to Florence and eventually found our hotel we were staying at. (we knew the road and number, but for some reason the numbers went up to a hundred then back to the thirties…it was confusing…) Florence was a lot of fun too!! We walked around to a lot of things because we were staying probably 15 minutes walk away from most of the big attractions! We saw the statue of David, which was amazing! And went to a couple gorgeous churches, and we saw this riot/protest thing that had something to do with Italy’s university system. We walked along the river and saw a bridge across it that was the same as the road: complete with houses/buildings on either side. It was a pretty neat place!!! We stayed there for three nights and then headed off to Rome!
Rome was definitely the coolest place on our trip. We stayed there for five nights, so we had plenty of time to see everything!! And we stayed in this very interesting hostel—called the freestyle hostel that we picked because it was cheap and had free breakfast and dinner. It was what you would think of when you picture a youth hostel: we stayed in a dorm for 11 people, so it had five bunk beds and one normal bed squeezed along the walls of the room. Then there was a common room which also served as the dining room for breakfast and dinner (no, there wasn’t a table…just seats lining the walls) it was also where you checked in and out and where the computer was for guests to use. Other than that, there were two bathrooms and a tiny kitchen. It was interesting. But a lot of fun!! There were a lot of cool people to meet, from all over. (mostly from Europe and the US, but there were some Australians and a couple people from Japan) it was a fun place to stay :-)
Since we did so much in Rome, I’ll break it up by day:
Wednesday: arrive at dinnertime, head over to the Spanish steps after dinner with people from the hostel
Thursday: head to coliseum, see that and the roman forum/palatine hill. After dinner: some people went to a pub crawl, I went with the group who wanted to see what the coliseum looks like at night…looks pretty cool! We hung out and talked…and one kid brought his guitar. Good night!! :-)
Friday: went to Vatican city. Saw St. Peter’s basilica (gorgeous!!) and the Vatican museums (including the Sistine chapel!!) that was an amazing day!!!
Saturday: went to all the random things that wouldn’t take a full day to see: saw the pantheon, the Trevi fountain, a few gorgeous basilicas, and some castles and fountains.
Sunday: went back to St. Peter’s to see the Pope! Sat in the courtyard during the mass and saw it on a screen and then saw him when he gave a speech/blessing from his window. That was really cool!
Monday: went back to the Spanish steps, but this time to do some studying…we had a midterm on Tuesday morning!! So we studied there until lunch and then headed to the airport where we studied until 8 or so when we could finally check in for our flight.
So that was our trip!! We got back to Budapest around midnight, and I got back to my apartment around one in the morning. It was an awesome trip!!! Pictures will be posted shortly!!!
so i'm back from italy!! it was an amazing trip! there's waaay too much to be summed up in a post, but here's the basics:
it all started with an 11 hour bus ride from Budapest to Venice. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds because it was overnight and so we could do our best to sleep the whole way there...didn't really happen, but we got some sleep! and got to watch "Daddy Day Care" in Hungarian. :-)
Venice was gorgeous! we stayed there only one overnight, but that gave us plenty of time to wander around and admire the view of the canal and visit the little shops and restaurants. (Italy has awesome lasagna!! :-)
we took a train from Venice, which was an adventure in and of itself: the guy traveling with us realized that he had left his passport at the hostel, which was about a 30 minute bus ride away…so he went off to get it while the rest of us (myself and 3 other girls) tried to figure out how we could make it so he didn’t lose his train ticket when our train left in an hour or so. After running around to various ticket windows and customer help offices, we finally switched his ticket to a later time and found someone at a random travel agency who would hold it for him. We finally got our phones to work in time to call him and let him know where to pick up his ticket before leaving on our train. So that was exciting :-)
we all made it to Florence and eventually found our hotel we were staying at. (we knew the road and number, but for some reason the numbers went up to a hundred then back to the thirties…it was confusing…) Florence was a lot of fun too!! We walked around to a lot of things because we were staying probably 15 minutes walk away from most of the big attractions! We saw the statue of David, which was amazing! And went to a couple gorgeous churches, and we saw this riot/protest thing that had something to do with Italy’s university system. We walked along the river and saw a bridge across it that was the same as the road: complete with houses/buildings on either side. It was a pretty neat place!!! We stayed there for three nights and then headed off to Rome!
Rome was definitely the coolest place on our trip. We stayed there for five nights, so we had plenty of time to see everything!! And we stayed in this very interesting hostel—called the freestyle hostel that we picked because it was cheap and had free breakfast and dinner. It was what you would think of when you picture a youth hostel: we stayed in a dorm for 11 people, so it had five bunk beds and one normal bed squeezed along the walls of the room. Then there was a common room which also served as the dining room for breakfast and dinner (no, there wasn’t a table…just seats lining the walls) it was also where you checked in and out and where the computer was for guests to use. Other than that, there were two bathrooms and a tiny kitchen. It was interesting. But a lot of fun!! There were a lot of cool people to meet, from all over. (mostly from Europe and the US, but there were some Australians and a couple people from Japan) it was a fun place to stay :-)
Since we did so much in Rome, I’ll break it up by day:
Wednesday: arrive at dinnertime, head over to the Spanish steps after dinner with people from the hostel
Thursday: head to coliseum, see that and the roman forum/palatine hill. After dinner: some people went to a pub crawl, I went with the group who wanted to see what the coliseum looks like at night…looks pretty cool! We hung out and talked…and one kid brought his guitar. Good night!! :-)
Friday: went to Vatican city. Saw St. Peter’s basilica (gorgeous!!) and the Vatican museums (including the Sistine chapel!!) that was an amazing day!!!
Saturday: went to all the random things that wouldn’t take a full day to see: saw the pantheon, the Trevi fountain, a few gorgeous basilicas, and some castles and fountains.
Sunday: went back to St. Peter’s to see the Pope! Sat in the courtyard during the mass and saw it on a screen and then saw him when he gave a speech/blessing from his window. That was really cool!
Monday: went back to the Spanish steps, but this time to do some studying…we had a midterm on Tuesday morning!! So we studied there until lunch and then headed to the airport where we studied until 8 or so when we could finally check in for our flight.
So that was our trip!! We got back to Budapest around midnight, and I got back to my apartment around one in the morning. It was an awesome trip!!! Pictures will be posted shortly!!!
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