Budapest or Bust!

Hello everyone! I know it has been some time since my last post, but this one should not let you down. I went this weekend to Budapest, which is located in Hungary. I honestly knew nothing about Budapest before we set out on our journey. I just knew a rough location of where it was and that was about it. Well let me tell you, Budapest is a shinning emerald in the crown of European cities. The city is absolutely stunning, I had one of the most enjoyable days of my life wondering the city with friends. 

In front of the Capitol Building, I thinks it is prettier from
the water though.

We took a tourist bus for around 6-7 hours to get there. It was a pretty relaxed ride, the country side was really beautiful. Farms that seemed to be draped of the rolling hills. It was a really wonderful time just watching as rows of vines and other crops blurred past the window. Once we arrived in Budapest we were treated to a small tour from inside the bus. The city has on of the most interesting histories and again the buildings are nothing short of monuments. An interesting fact is that it was once a law that 20% of the cost of building a building here had to be in the cost of the decor. So the bigger the building the more elaborate and intricate was the facade. I really loved it, also they had a Starbucks, now I do not care to much for Starbucks, but I like my American sized cup of coffee, so I was ecstatic that I could get some coffee!  

An old beggar that was
 ignored by everyone around her. 

So after being in the city for a quick tour via bus we all dropped off our things at the hotel and walked around the city for a short time. After most of us went on a tour of the city via the river. Let me suggest if you are visiting Budapest to go on a tour from the water as the sun is setting. Most of the pictures in this blog are from that tour. They had champagne for all the riders and everyone was so jovial. I was like a kid in a candy store, I took over 500 pictures on that hour. You cannot help but to fall in love with beauty of this place. I have not been to Paris yet but I give Budapest for a city of love. What a place to have as the setting of a love story. After our boat ride we all split up and went out into the city. It was St. Patricks day but I really did not want to spend my only night here at a bar. So me and two others went out to find dinner. We had a guide book of the city and found a back ally that had a small Hungarian restaurant. The food was simply fantastic! We shared a bottle of local wine between the three of us. It was such wonderful company and conversation. We ended up talking until the place closed. Once we left we were feeling good from the wine and wanted to climb up the mountain that overlooks the city. It was quite a hike to make, especially on a full stomach of food but once we finally reached top we forgot all about how tired we were and looked over the city. It was again stunning, you had a 360 panoramic view of the city. It was such a humbling thing, to see the massive beauty before us and just how expansive the city was. After standing in awe for a small time we went down the mountain again and decided to take in a bath at the natural hot springs that we heard so much about. Luckily you can rent everything including a bathing suit and the baths are open till four in the morning. So we ended our fantastic day soaking in natural sulfur hot springs. 

 The next day we visited some of the land marks of Budapest. Notably the Hero's circle is amazing. It was built to honor the cities 1000th birthday. The statues are massive and they are all of men who have played a important role in the history of Budapest. After we went walking around the town again from land mark to land mark. It was so much to take in. But I am running out of ways to describe just how beautiful it was. After taking in some more of the city we climbed back on the bus and headed home. We did make a stop for lunch at a small village that was located near a lake. It was fun to watch the fishermen just lazily catch fish. It would be nice to come back once the water warms up and to spend some time here in Budapest.

Other than that I have been visiting some local museums in Croatia. I have been slowly cooking more and more, if you have any good recipes be sure to send them my way! I hope every one is safe and hope to see all my friends back home soon!  God Bless

This is the Capitol building from the water side.

Another week and even more fun!

How is everyone doing? I know an update! I promise to try and squeeze in just the good stuff! It is hard to write everyday! I run out of ways to say how happy I am to be here! It got me thinking, if I had won student government president I would be back in the states and never traveled abroad. I would graduate next year and have started working a 9-5 until I decided to go pursue a masters. I really am very happy how things turned out. It is nice to be here and be able to gain new perspectives on life and really suck the marrow of life. I have spent many nights thinking about all the little choices that brought me to where I am now. From failed relationships to burning my self out from doing to much, everything just seemed to lead me here. 

But enough about my contemplative babble, more about the events that lead me to these thoughts. I started my week off at my favorite place, with my Croatian family. Now Kristina is one hell of a cook, I know I haven't said to much about her cooking (which she tells me) but really what can you say? I feel that it really is not fair of me to show you all the incredible food I have been getting spoiled with! But do not worry, I am going to anyway! She cooked a really good soup to start with, it is really hard not to fill up on soup before you eat the main part of the meal because the soup is so tasty! Luckily I did because Kristina made one mean lasagna! You can almost smell the cheese bubbling up in the photo! I am so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful and caring family! I know I would be dieing for my mothers cooking if it was not for them! So I only miss my moms cooking less! But after having lunch with Kristina I left her apartment and saw this stop sign. I know it is cliche idea but it still made me chuckle, I actually did do a little hammer time dance, but I made sure no one was looking. 

Later in the week I went to go meet a friend for coffee, but while waiting I went to the cathedral. I like to go there when I have free time, one because it really is one of the most awe inspiring things you can see, and two I find comfort in my religion. But while sitting in the pews passing some time away, a surplus of nuns and priest starting filling the pews, followed by regular citizens. I was assuming a regular mass was going to be held until a the mass started and a man in a red little had started to give the mass. That little red hat means he was a cardinal. I was enjoyed about half the mass before I stepped out to meet my friend. Another point of interest was how long the line was to the confessionals. I wonder if I went to confess in English does it matter? If the priest does not speak English. I will look into that later. But I had a wonderful time meeting my friend. My friend is American and it is nice to be able to relate some of the experiences with someone who is in the same boat. 

Later in the week I tagged along with a class that was going to a museum of arts and crafts. It was really cool. The museum was filled with Croatian artist's work. The have a collection from baroque to post modernism, it is a very expansive collection. We had a tour guide and it made all the difference, she pointed out how to tell the difference between the different time periods and what made each period unique. I uploaded some of my favorite pieces here. One is a clock that sits on the floor, it is of a hot air balloon, and it was made to commemorate the first hot air balloon ride, but it has angles all around it because that is the only way a hot air balloon gets off the ground. Even though we now know the science I would still like to imagine a group of angels lifting the hot air balloon.

Another of my favorite pieces was a glass chandelier, completely made by hand. I do not even fancy the style to much, but rather I really like to imagine the person who spent so much time, making all the delicate pieces and attaching them to the chandelier one by one. You can tell by just how elaborate the piece is that the artist really took pride in this piece. I think that is a problem today, it is hard for people to appreciate the process. We take for granted how everything is, cars, fancy advertisements, we are constantly being bombarded with images that we are only worried with the final product. We don't care if a machine made an intricate cabinet or if it took a year by a master carpenter. I think this is sad, more people should wonder, wonder why things the way they are, wonder who made the things around them, I think the world should wonder a little more that it has been. It lets you appreciate things even if they are not your favorite.

That is why I also added this picture of a clock, it is incredible to me to think that people made these clocks by hand also. That people have an exact ratio that must be followed to get all the clocks to have the same movements. I really liked this clock because you can look inside and see all the moving parts. It again demystifies how clocks work. instead of just looking at the hands of the clock and getting the time, it shows you all the work that is taking place to tell you the time.

After visiting the museum I had a pretty relaxed week. I did find  another chuckle at the end of my road. It is the Mc Kebab, talk about blatantly stealing an idea! The sign is a altered version of the Mc Donalds sign. I was chuckling the rest of the walk home after seeing it.  I am going to eat there on my way to school, I will let you all know if it has any good food, but really i'm sure it does because I really love kebabs!

Then it came to the end of the week so we of course partied. We found a really nice bar that had a cheap happy hour. So right before it ended we bought a whole bunch of beers, this was after drinking for a while already. It was a really fun night, and yes I do remember it. I posted this video because my mom is scared I might get a drinking problem. So this photo is just to freak her out. Love you Mom! Then we went out the next night also. We went to a dance club, we had to work off the beer from the night before. So we danced all night and well into the morning, we stayed out till 9 in the morning. It was one long long night, but it was really fun because we ended up at a little shack down by the river here. It was literally a boat that was just sitting in the flood plain that was turned into a club. It was clearly a place that was off the map. Luckily we have friends here that know all the more obscure places. It makes going out way more fun!

Then there was yesterday, where Kristina made a wonderful lunch, and having gotten home at 9 am I slept through my alarm and missed lunch by an hour. I felt completely horrible about missing her lunch! Luckily she still had me over and it was as tasty as every. I don't think I am going to stay out that late again. It messed up my entire sleep schedule. But the food was really good. Then later Zvanko and Nada came to visit. While they were here we decided to skype with my parents back home. It was fun, we all were passing the computer around and talking with them. And just like I started my week with my family here, I ended another wonderful week in Croatia with my family here. Man am I lucky how things turned out! Next time things do not work out the way I want them too, I will think twice before considering it bad luck!

Skyping with my parents and Zvanko!

Apartments, Food, Guitars, and Family

Well Hello! It has been a week and time for an update! This has been one crazy week. I moved into a new apartment, I bought a guitar, and as always I have been trying new things! It was a really productive week if I say so myself! 

This Sunday I went to Tina's place, it is on of Kristina's best friends. We had lunch and it again was completely delicious! I really need to learn how to cook like they do here, one because it is all super healthy and tasty, two because I really need to learn how to cook in Croatia. I always cooked back home and I had a few dishes I could cook but here I have no idea what I am buying. It makes cooking quite interesting. For example yesterday I went shopping and bought noodles for spaghetti and had no clue where the pasta sauce was. There we lots of different jars full of red sauce and I know some were paprika, I had no clue. Thankfully Kristina went with me later in the day and showed me what ones are pasta sauce:) I have no clue how I would live it wasn't for her help!

Tina's place for lunch

 But before Sunday, on Saturday we went to Nada's parents house for lunch. Again the food was out of this world. It was all so fresh and really full of flavor! I will note one particular food item, the fish. I have always been a bit nervous about eating fish that have bones, let alone the skin still on them. Mainly because I just never have so why start now? But they had a plate of almost sardine sized fish that everyone kept just devouring. So I threw my inhibitions to the side and tried one. I was pleasantly surprised, they were really good, like fish sticks from back home but way way better. So by the end of the meal I had a small pile of fish tales and spines sitting on my plate. I really love trying new things, in fact on a side note, I think I am starting to like tomatoes. Those of you who know me know I hate tomatoes, yet I try to like them because I do not want to be held back by not liking tomatoes. The logic goes like this, why limit yourself by not liking something, when you know if you just try it a few times you might like it. So being in an adventurousness mood here I have been ordering my sandwiches with tomatoes. Yesterday I ate tomatoes with a slice of cheese and meet drizzled in olive oil and it wasn't that bad. So I am completely excited. I realize to some of you this is stupid but to those of you who have heard my tomato theory in person, you get me. 

lunch at Nada's parents

 But before we went to Nada's parents Kristina went and had her hair done. She went to the salon her family owns. It is really amazing all the different things this family does. I am learning to just assume they can do anything they want. They are so interesting and amazing to be around it truly is a delight to be able to spend time with them. While Kristina was getting her hair done, Zvanko took me to get my guitar from his nephews guitar shop. I found a really good deal on a honner guitar. It had a bright sound but I haven't played in a while so my fingers are really hurting as I type this blog. But only a little longer until my calluses come back. I am learning "Here Comes The Sun" right now, it has easy chords but really hard picking style. So My dexterity has been getting better the more I play. I am really happy to have a guitar. It is really a great companion to have, I love the sound guitars make. After getting the guitar we met up with Kristina (Whose hair was the definition of fabulocity) and then we had lunch at Nada's mother house. Somthing happened to Nada's mother, she fell down the steps and broke her leg bone. She went through surgery and is doing ok, but the doctors are still concerned so if you could keep her in your prayers I would appreciate that.

Some of the food from downstairs

Another thing that happened this week is I moved into my new apartment. It is literally across the street from Kristina. I am so happy to have found a place so close to my Sister here. It is comforting to know that she is so close. It is a really nice pad, on the second floor with an elevator (Huge upgrade from six flights of stairs). It is really nice because I am right above a really good pizza place, I ate their twice so far and both times it has been really good. I also feel like I should eat there because I am using their internet connection. I am really lucky because any higher and I think I would not get the internet! So I am in the perfect place. I really am, I am in a perfect place with my friends, my living, just life in general. I know this is where I am supposed to be doing what I am supposed to be doing.

Walking to meet my friends I took this photo