Music by Beirut
Rome, Siena, Florence, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Amalfi coast
Monday, December 1, 2008
Home. Home. Home.
Well, I am home. The trip is over and NaBloPoMo is over as well.
In Rome we went to church and then retraced our steps...We ate pizza at the first place we had pizza. We ate gelato at the insane place with a million flavours. We threw another coin in the Trevi Fountain and got lost a bit too.
Spending all night in the airport was an experience. Full of uncontrollable laughter and incoherent sentences.
Waving good-bye to Sharlie and Kimberly was sad, but I will see them again.
Now I am back and it's weird having a cellphone and hearing people's voices and weird that everything is in English.
Came Home to the Following Family Changes:
Katie moved out.
Caleb grew half a foot.
Tyler is engaged!!!
Anyway, brain not working...so this will sadly fade off...
In Rome we went to church and then retraced our steps...We ate pizza at the first place we had pizza. We ate gelato at the insane place with a million flavours. We threw another coin in the Trevi Fountain and got lost a bit too.
Spending all night in the airport was an experience. Full of uncontrollable laughter and incoherent sentences.
Waving good-bye to Sharlie and Kimberly was sad, but I will see them again.
Now I am back and it's weird having a cellphone and hearing people's voices and weird that everything is in English.
Came Home to the Following Family Changes:
Katie moved out.
Caleb grew half a foot.
Tyler is engaged!!!
Anyway, brain not working...so this will sadly fade off...
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Muszeums
Muszeum Number 1 was a dark exhibit of Hungarian Holocaust History (alliteration unintended).
It was depressing, as we all know the Holocaust is, but it was pepper with poorly lit rooms and dark walls and heart beat sounds that had shivers running up and down my spine.
There was a cool synagogue-type room with glass chairs of some of the victims. I thought it was really pretty.
Muszeum Number 2
MODERN ART!!! I just adore it.
We also got a good view of the Hilly Buda Side
Thursday, November 27, 2008
A Few of Many
Things I am Thankful For:
-my family
even though i only talked to them for about 30 seconds today, i still felt the love and the fact i am so sad to be missing them right now makes me remember how much i love them
-the oppurtunity to travel
it's been so good for me, i can't even explain really.
-the kindness of strangers
the various guys who have helped us with our huge bags, the countless people who have given us directions, the lady at the bakery who smiled at us despite us butchering the pronounciation. and just the fact that even though we are in a foreign country we don't have to feel completely alone.
also people you can just strike up conversations with just as soon as you figure out if you have a language in common.
-friends
who express their concern and miss me and put up with me on a day-to-day basis.
-my nearly perfect schedule for next semester
which i will probably come to hate by mid-march
-diversity in food.
because i get bored easily and love food from other countries SO much
-different languages
because they fascinate me greatly. i really want to learn them all.
-having a tredmill at home
because i'm going to need it this upcoming month.
-really great roommates (old, current, new, temporary)
because life would be a lot harder without them. without someone to have sleep conversations with. or throw things at from bunkbeds. or dance around with. or to
-living in Oregon.
because no matter where you go, if people have heard of it they think it's beautiful :p
-Jess from Gilmore Girls
i do not know why i love him so much, but i cannot stop
-The fact i don't absolutely love Thanksgiving food
i do miss my mom's sweet potatoes, but everything else i can live without, which is good otherwise i would be heartbroken right now.
-that my computer has a 2 year warranty
Europe did not agree with it.
today for thanksgiving we woke up and ate amazing bakery goods (which we refer to as vanillaicia crossaint and double eyeglass cinnamon goodness and cheesy cinnamon roll thing) we went to an art muszuem (peter would be so proud). this cute little lady led us around and told us all these things we already knew about italian art, but we pretended we didn't know. we also went to the zoo. where we saw your average animals and watched pelicans eat fish for about ten minutes which was actually really entertaining and disgusting at the same time. they trapped them in their pouchy-beaks and then swallowed them whole!! then we wandered around and looked at some castles but almost froze to death.
so we came back to the hostel and ate nutella on toast and cinnamon cereal. not a bad day.
we have had some really good food since we've been here.
i just wish i knew hungarian.
also, got this email from my wonderful little brother:
i now u are in Italy but HAPPY THANKSGIVING
-my family
even though i only talked to them for about 30 seconds today, i still felt the love and the fact i am so sad to be missing them right now makes me remember how much i love them
-the oppurtunity to travel
it's been so good for me, i can't even explain really.
-the kindness of strangers
the various guys who have helped us with our huge bags, the countless people who have given us directions, the lady at the bakery who smiled at us despite us butchering the pronounciation. and just the fact that even though we are in a foreign country we don't have to feel completely alone.
also people you can just strike up conversations with just as soon as you figure out if you have a language in common.
-friends
who express their concern and miss me and put up with me on a day-to-day basis.
-my nearly perfect schedule for next semester
which i will probably come to hate by mid-march
-diversity in food.
because i get bored easily and love food from other countries SO much
-different languages
because they fascinate me greatly. i really want to learn them all.
-having a tredmill at home
because i'm going to need it this upcoming month.
-really great roommates (old, current, new, temporary)
because life would be a lot harder without them. without someone to have sleep conversations with. or throw things at from bunkbeds. or dance around with. or to
-living in Oregon.
because no matter where you go, if people have heard of it they think it's beautiful :p
-Jess from Gilmore Girls
i do not know why i love him so much, but i cannot stop
-The fact i don't absolutely love Thanksgiving food
i do miss my mom's sweet potatoes, but everything else i can live without, which is good otherwise i would be heartbroken right now.
-that my computer has a 2 year warranty
Europe did not agree with it.
today for thanksgiving we woke up and ate amazing bakery goods (which we refer to as vanillaicia crossaint and double eyeglass cinnamon goodness and cheesy cinnamon roll thing) we went to an art muszuem (peter would be so proud). this cute little lady led us around and told us all these things we already knew about italian art, but we pretended we didn't know. we also went to the zoo. where we saw your average animals and watched pelicans eat fish for about ten minutes which was actually really entertaining and disgusting at the same time. they trapped them in their pouchy-beaks and then swallowed them whole!! then we wandered around and looked at some castles but almost froze to death.
so we came back to the hostel and ate nutella on toast and cinnamon cereal. not a bad day.
we have had some really good food since we've been here.
i just wish i knew hungarian.
also, got this email from my wonderful little brother:
i now u are in Italy but HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
"a glimpse behind the iron curtain"
sharlie wrote i <3>
these monuments used to be up all over Budapest, but were removed from the streets in 1989-90 after the collapse of socialism.
it took us much longer than it should have to get there.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Starting to feel Hungary
I am tired of mediocre looking postcards. Some of them that I’ve found in my travels are 100 times worse than pictures I’ve taken. Maybe I should start making postcards. I might.
After a seven hour train ride and a fifteen minute luggage pulling adventure followed by an interesting elevator and outdoor balcony, I now lay on an Ikea bed in a room decorated with Ikea things (which I am only assuming from what I know about Ikea and the fact that we passed one on our way here, as I have not actually seen the inside of an Ikea in my lifetime). It’s a cute place. It smells like a hostel, but that never hurt nobody. And it’s only costing us 336,000 hufs.
Budapest is a lot bigger than Zagreb…or Siena. When we arrived in Hungary a parade of people came through to check our passports. They lined up and all checked them individually, because everyone looking at it at once would be irrational. And they came in pairs so one could look at the passport and the other could stare at us and speak three different languages. Then they wished Kimberly a happy birthday and asked us if we had, “Cigarettes? Beer?” no. “Cocaine, ecstasy? Heroine?” Nem.
The flags on their hats were Italian flags flipped sideways and I really wanted them to speak in Italian instead of Hungary. And then I felt for a tiny moment like I was the main character in Farewell to Arms (or maybe it was The Sun Also Rises) because he talks about the Italian policemen during the war. And I pictured it as such.
I really want to learn every language. I do not need to be fluent in more than a few, but I want to know a little bit of everything.
Also, wikipedia said Croatians invented the ballpoint pen but it was actually a Hungarian. Good thing I decided to go to both.
After a seven hour train ride and a fifteen minute luggage pulling adventure followed by an interesting elevator and outdoor balcony, I now lay on an Ikea bed in a room decorated with Ikea things (which I am only assuming from what I know about Ikea and the fact that we passed one on our way here, as I have not actually seen the inside of an Ikea in my lifetime). It’s a cute place. It smells like a hostel, but that never hurt nobody. And it’s only costing us 336,000 hufs.
Budapest is a lot bigger than Zagreb…or Siena. When we arrived in Hungary a parade of people came through to check our passports. They lined up and all checked them individually, because everyone looking at it at once would be irrational. And they came in pairs so one could look at the passport and the other could stare at us and speak three different languages. Then they wished Kimberly a happy birthday and asked us if we had, “Cigarettes? Beer?” no. “Cocaine, ecstasy? Heroine?” Nem.
The flags on their hats were Italian flags flipped sideways and I really wanted them to speak in Italian instead of Hungary. And then I felt for a tiny moment like I was the main character in Farewell to Arms (or maybe it was The Sun Also Rises) because he talks about the Italian policemen during the war. And I pictured it as such.
I really want to learn every language. I do not need to be fluent in more than a few, but I want to know a little bit of everything.
Also, wikipedia said Croatians invented the ballpoint pen but it was actually a Hungarian. Good thing I decided to go to both.
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