Mom and Dad Visit

Better late than never, right?

So mom and dad arrived while I was still in Budapest and just toodled around Switzerland and France. I got to meet up with them Saturday (April 5th) for dinner in Fribourg. It was a great reunion! Sunday then came from Montreux to stay in Bulle for a few nights. That night they took me and my other two gringas out to dinner. It was nice to be able to have a conversation with people who knew me and spoke english! And of course, having them treat us to a good meal :)

Monday I took them to the usual touristy spots around here. Gruyeres to see the town, the castle, and tour the cheese factory. We had a really good lunch at the cheese factory, too. Since they had a car (which was soooo nice) we drove up to Moleson, our "token" mountain in the area. The day was kinda crappy so we didn't get to take the funnnnicular up to the top, but it was still a nice drive. From there we decided to trust the GPS and drive around a bit. I was falling asleep, so mom and dad dropped me off here for a nap before dinner. I took them to a nice place in Bulle that served all kinds of food. Delcious, as always.

Tuesday they picked me up in the morning to head off to Zurich. We explored there Tuesday and Wednesday. It was definately a fun city. Not to big, but lots to do. We walked a lot, took a boat ride, ate at an authentic beer hall (where if there are extra seats at your table, other people sit down), shopped, went to some museums, and saw all the necessary sites. We were going to go to the zoo, but when we went to check it out it seemed a little lame.

Thursday we left to go to Interlaken. On the way dad took us to the Rhine Falls. They were soooo incredible. Not very high, but the rocks that they flow over are really amazing. It was quite cold, so we got all the pictures we wanted and then left. Next stop was the Bernina Factory. It was in this little random town in the middle of no where. We were lucky that the sun came out after lots of rain in the morning. Dad got a kebab for lunch and mom and I bought some bread and cheese. After seeing the factory, we headed to Interlaken. Unfortunately, I fell asleep during the best part of the ride! We had to drive up and over a mountain. Towards the top it was snowing like crazy, and big trucks were pulled off to the sides. Mom was freaking out and I slept through all the excitement - damn! I woke up when we were on the other side of the mountain, out of all peril. Interlaken was adorable. Right on the edge of the lake, surrounded by mountains. We finally found our hotel, checked in, and started walking around the town. Of course we shopped a little. Dinner was interesting. We chose a place that looked reasonable and good food. Walked in and the place was absolutely full of asian tourists. We felt a bit out of place. There was one main waiter who was out of his MIND. Singing, dancing, ringing cow bells, etc. It was entertaining, to say the least.

Friday dad planned for us to go to the "Top of Europe", which is the highest accessable point for tourists in Europe (almost 12,000 feet!). We had to take one train up a ways, then wait for another to take us the rest of the way. The train goes right through this amaaaaaazing skiing. We were all very tempted to strap on some skis. The second train takes you right through the mountain to the top. There, you can go to different look out points, walk through ice caves, and more in the summer months. It was soooo beautiful. We decided to get lunch up there and wait for the next train to go down. That was a bad idea. As we were on the train waiting for it to leave, I started feeling very sick. Luckily the train started going, and after only about 5 minutes of decending I felt fine. Man the altitude is rough on you! The ride down was just as beautiful, and at the bottom we got in the car to drive around the area some more. Man I love this gorgeous country!

Saturday, the plan was to go straight to Geneva, and I would take a train back later. Thanks to the GPS, we realized that we could go basically right through Bulle. Thus, I could drop all my stuff off and then spend the day with mom and dad in Geneva. Got to Geneva, checked into their hotel, returned the car (in France... yea, don't ask), then got to spend the rest of the day in the city. At the lake there were about 15 hot air balloons just hanging out. It was a beautiful scene! We took a boat ride around the lake, shopped (of course), got dinner, and then I had to get my train back to school. Mom and dad think I was happy to see them go, but it was definately sad saying goodbye. We had such a good time traveling around, taking lots of pictures, and eating good food!

Speaking of food... dinner time!

.love and chocolate.

Spring Break!

Sunday- Flight to Prague from Geneva was interesting. We have come to learn that with EasyJet, your flight prooobably won’t go out on time. Oh well. We got there. Took a shuttle to our hostel, checked in, found out room. Met one of our roommates, Matt. He’s from Connecticut, studying outside of London, was on vacation. After such a long day, the girls and I decided to go find a local bar. Since Matt was alone, we had him join us. We all found a fun bar that had a club-type place downstairs. There was a group of guys there from the UK for one of their buddy’s bachelor party. Not sure why they were there… seeing as there were no naked girls dancing in cages. But they were fun to talk to. The music was very different from the states and even in Switzerland. More techno-ish. It was entertaining anyway.

Monday- The four of us went out to explore the beauuutiful city of Prague. We started by finding an Easter market which was adorable to walk through. After getting semi-lost, we wound up near the pendulum. We walked all the way up to that, and then down to the castle. The castle was huge and really nice to take pictures of, but at that point we were all hungry. Our quad headed down from the castle and found a café-like restaurant to warm up and have lunch at. Oh, side note. The 3 of us girls call ourselves first (me), second (Caitlyn), and third (Elyse). So since we had Matt with us, we started calling him fourth J After lunch, Elyse and Caitlyn went to do some shopping while Matt and I went back to nap. I had gotten really chilled through out the day, so I cuddled up in my bed until the girls woke me up.

That night we met up with two of our roommates from Paris, Adam and Jason. It’s so funny how you meet random people during your travels, and get to meet up in more exciting cities later! They were with a friend who was from Prague, so he helped us out with the language barrier. After hanging out at one bar, we went to another place for the four of us to have dinner, since the other guys already had. We had an awesome time eating, drinking, and laughing. Adam and Jason had to head back, so we went to meet up with a friend of ours from UNH. Her name is Dana and she’s studying in Rome for the semester. She was in Prague for a bit with one of her best friends from home. Of course, we met up and went for drinks. It was fairly late at that point, so after one drink we said our goodbyes and the four of us went back to our hostel.

Tuesday- The girls and I got up to check out and then continue our travels around the city. Matt wanted to sleep, as he wasn’t leaving that day. Caitlyn and him exchanged numbers and we were off for the day. It was rainy/snowy/cold again, so all indoor activities were quite appealing to us. We went through the market again, climbed a tower at the Charles Bridge, and took a boat ride around the river. From there, we walked around until we found another adorable market and a warm café to sit in while the near-blizzard passed. The three of us sat in there with tea and hot chocolate for almost an hour until the sun came out. When we emerged from the café, we realized that we were right in the middle of the shopping district – perfect! We shopped for a while and realized that we should probably have dinner (I can’t remember if we had lunch or not…) Feeling like we should try some authentic Czech food, we chose a restaurant – bad decision. The food was not what we wanted and the service was terrible. Luckily, two doors down from that was a Friday’s. Don’t judge us, we were hungry. Went there and got food and very large drinks, which we got a lot of looks for. Clearly American, I guess.

Since that night we had a 12:30am overnight train to Budapest, we planned to stay up until then. We called Matt and met him at another bar closer to the hostel (which is where we had left our luggage). A drink or two later, we all headed back to the hostel for the girls to get our bags and head to the train. Said goodbye to our new fourth and attempted to find the train station (we did a pretty good job, thank you very much). Theeeeeen there’s the train to talk about.

Wednesday early morning- Overnight train. Wow. We didn’t know which car to get on, so we got on the first one we saw. Thank GOD that was not the one we had ticket for. Incredibly sketchy, dirty, dark, etc. Next car. A little less sketchy, but didn’t have beds as we had requested. Finally on the third car we tried (we sound like goldilocks) there was someone working who took our tickets and showed us to our cabin. It was a four person cabin, but only set up for the three of us which was a bonus. I don’t think that “basic” even begins to describe it. Tiny little space, mattresses no thicker than a comforter, but it did have a door that locked (we tried it with one of us on either side). I wouldn’t call it clean, but it also wasn’t terribly disgusting. I can’t say that I slept much that night, but it got us to Budapest safely.

Wednesday- Finally we arrived in Budapest. Our train was supposed to arrive around 8:30, but I think it was almost an hour late. It was clear we were not on a Swiss train. After flipping maps around and reading directions over 10 times, we made it to our hostel via the metro. It was called the Home Made Hostel… and home made it certainly was. Seemed like someone took their flat and converted it into a place where people stay to sleep. They had internet and clean beds, so we couldn’t complain. At that point we couldn’t check in yet, but we left our things and went for a walk around the city. We walked down their fake Champs Elysees to Heroes Square which was beautiful. We continued into the city park and found some sort of castle replica (I believe the real one is in Slovakia). Walking back down the main road we stopped for lunch then headed back to our hostel for some serious napping. We got up to go to dinner, which we had at a nice place around that main road again. A semi-italian dinner which was great. The plan was to go out that night, but all of us were too exhausted to do anything else more than sleep. So after dinner, that’s exactly what we did.

Thursday- We walked the other direction down the main road towards the river. There we got on a tour bus (yay American tourists) that took us on a 2 hour tour around both Buda and Pest. Normally we would never do such a tour, but it let you get on and off at different locations, as well as telling us about much of the history of the cities. We got off at the palace on the Buda side for some incredible views. There was a small market there where we bought this traditional Budapest pastry (though, we also saw it in Prague). They took a long snake-like piece of dough, wrapped it around a metal cylinder on a pole and cooked it over a fire. Then they dusted it with cinnamon and sugar – amaaaazing. After our delicious snack we got back on the tour bus, which then took us to the highest point in Buda for the best view of the cities. And it definitely was.

From there we took the bus back down to the Pest side to walk around some more. We walked over to the Temple (which is the 2^nd largest one in the world - the first being the one in NYC), then took the metro up to the mall. It was the first “normal” mall that we’ve seen in a while. Though none of us bought anything, it was nice to feel like we were just back in the states shopping. We had dinner in the area, and then walked back to the hostel. We bought some drinks along the way, thinking that we were going to go out that night. After getting back to the hostel, showering, and chilling out, I really did not feel like going anywhere. Caitlyn and Elyse were on the fence, and once we started chatting with some other guys in our hostel, I assumed they would go out. Ultimately, we all decided to stay in and sleep.

Friday- We hung around the hostel for a bit, then headed to the zoo! It wasn't huge, but it was definately fun. After spending a few hours at the zoo we walked down along the city park. We got to see the beautiful baths there and snuck in to take some pictures. Our flight was late that night, so for the rest of the beautiful afternoon we hung out by parliament and the river. Finally we went back to our hostel to gather our things. Next to the train station we need to be at was a mall. For a quick dinner we went to the food court there and then attempted to get on a train to the airport. Now that was interesting. The train was allll sorts of ghetto. And there was no way to determine when our stop was, because there were no signs. Super. Luckily the guy in the cabin with was very nice and helped us. He didn't speak English, but we showed him our tickets and he told us when to get off.

The rest of the night was normal travel stuff. Flight to Geneva, hotel in Geneva for the night, train back to Bulle Saturday! Whoo! It was quite a week. I know we all had a really great time. Update about my time with my parents soon!

.love and chocolate.