MORE TRAVELLING

 

Febuary 21st-March 6th

Did you guys feel that Earthquake Monday the 21? Specifically at 1:30 pm Budapest time? That was the radioactive eruption of Merci and I hugging. The two most popular, beautiful, amazing people from Ithaca college were reunited in Budapest. 

Let me take you back in time. 2019 to be exact. Before Covid was a worry for us, four Ithaca freshman – Athina, Merci, Nick, and Ani– had a trip planned for that upcoming summer. Merci would take her three besties to Budapest for the best trip of their lives. Bad news for them, Covid prevented that trip from happening. GOOD NEWS FOR ME THOUGH because I wasn't able to go on the trip (still a sore subject)! Flash forward to 2022, and I am ironically the first of Merci's friends to see her origin country. 

Merci's stomping grounds. Merci's homeland. Merci in Hungary. I flew to Budapest Monday morning and was in Merci's bed by 12:00. 

I think I've mentioned this before, but one of the hardest parts of being abroad is the loneliness. Sure, I am having the ABSOLUTE TIME OF MY LIFE, but I'm having the time of my life without the people I love. I'm a people person, and I thrive when I am with my best friends and family. The people I've met in Dublin are amazing, but they're still fresh friends. They only know me as Julia, the one from Jersey, and I only know them however they want me to see them. Being able to visit Merci gave me that comfort and companionship I've been craving.  

When Merci was back from class and sitting in her bed with me, I didn't even know what to say. The fact that we were in her dorm room in Budapest and not our shared dorm in Ithaca was bizarre. How do I sum up my past two months of living in Dublin to someone who knows about everything I've been doing but also knows nothing at the same time. Same goes for Merci. I knew everything she had been up to, but I also didn't know the nitties and gritties of her past month abroad. 

On my first day in Budapest, Merci gave me a small glimpse of her city. After we went thrifting with some of her new friends where I could not buy anything because it wouldn't fit in my suitcase, she took me to meet her grandma. Merci has family still in Budapest. Because her grandma does not speak English and I don't speak Hungarian, I sat on the side and watched Merci and her grandma talk. Even though I couldn't understand the conversation, I could still enjoy the interaction. 

For dinner we had traditional Hungarian food and beer. I ordered myself a dark beer and drank the whole thing. Pretty big flex. My food was a pepper type dish with these thick noodles. We also shared this cheesy, soupy dish. 

That night Merci kept me out until 4 am. I mean, why not stay out until 4 am. We looked hot, we felt hot, and we're even hotter together. We partied hard until it was time to get gyros. I tried my absolute hardest to find a guy to buy me a gyro, but instead I bought Merci one. Funny how things work out.

Tuesday I joined Merci and her friends on their walking class around around Budapest. Merci lives on the Pest side and we explored the area by Parliament. It was an interesting class because we went through all of the monuments around us and learned the history associated with them. Something I'm really enjoying about being abroad is learning the different histories of different countries. Truthfully, American education is kind of shit at teaching us about the world around us. Yeah American history is important, but I also think it is important for us to know about the world that surrounds us. 

Whenever I try and explain places I've visited so far, it's hard to put into words all of their beauty and history because the US just isn't the same. The architecture and monuments and buildings hold so much history that you just don't really find in the US.

Merci took me around Budapest for three days, and I still didn't see as much as I could have. Wednesday was our major tourist day. We conquered the Buda side starting with a small but sweat inducing walk up Gellért Hill where the Liberty Statue was at the top of. From there we walked to the Buda Castle and Matthias Church. The view from the castle was breathtaking, especially when Merci and I were posing. On our way to the church we took a short stop at the Houdini museum. Houdini was from Hungary so we watched a very cool magic show and learned more about Houdini than we really cared to know. 

Lunch was at a cute Hungarian restaurant where we got Aperol Spritz and they had heart shaped ice cubes. We spent a lot of the day walking from place to place, but it seemed like everywhere we went there was something for us to see. Hungary kind of reminded me of a much cleaner and prettier New York City because there was so much to see and you didn't get tired of it. 

Thursday was a day spent by myself because Merci ditched me for class. I really just walked all over the Pest side of Budapest. I was kind of jaw dropped by all of the beautiful buildings so I spent the whole day walking and ogling. Picking a place for lunch without Merci to translate for me was intimidating, but I found a small restaurant that sits on the river where I got THE BEST goat cheese salad. It was amazing. 

Thursday night Merci and I hopped on a plane to Prague. When we got off the train that took us to the city centre, I was kind of shocked. Prague actually looked like a movie set. Where Budapest was a large, spread out city, Prague was this smaller condensed city center with cobblestone roads and pastel painted buildings. I really can't explain the awe I was feeling. I think I was caught off guard because of how perfect everything looked. We checked into our hotel, and I was on top of the world. A big bed, a big shower, and COMPLIMENTARY SLIPPERS. It was absolutely a dream.

We woke up bright and early Friday morning to hit the town. The morning consisted of a scooter tour that took us all around the city. It was a very fun tour. We spent the rest of the day exploring Prague, going through an art museum, and eating a traditional Czech meal. Merci and I enjoyed a Pilsner beer which I honestly didn't enjoy that much. We ended the night early with traditional chimney cakes stuffed with ice cream.

Saturday we had less planned. We bought tickets to explore the Prague Castle and Basilica. It was a very cold and rainy and snowy day, but we made the most of it. After our tour I bought a 13 euro bag of candy, probably one of the most expensive things I bought, then we got some cocktails to go for lunch. 

Saturday night was our big night. We started off the evening with some friends from Ithaca and burgers. I had an amazing vegetarian burger. Merci and I made sure to have a big dinner to help prepare us for our pub crawl. 

Our pub crawl began with a power hour of free drinks. In order to not spend money for the rest of the night, I drank five drinks and four shots to start off the evening. And it worked because I spent no more money for the rest of the evening. 

At our first bar we met a group of British men. I then spent the rest of the evening practicing my British accent with them and learning new slang. It was kind of a dream come true. The night moved fast and then all of a sudden I found myself in a five story club at 1 am. 

I am forever grateful that Merci and I splurged on a hotel room because being extremely drunk on the top of a bunk bed surrounded by strangers would not have been how I wanted to end my evening. 

Instead I was able to get changed in peace and curl up in my queen sized bed and prepare for the hangover I would soon wake up to. 

Sunday was rough. Roughhhhhhh. Merci woke me up at 9 to get breakfast and truth be told, I almost didn't make it. But I got myself together and enjoyed a piece of toast and coffee. After breakfast I took some time to myself to sit in the shower for an hour because why not? I had a large shower with perfect water pressure that was just begging me to sit in it. 

The rest of the day was extremely uneventful. The shower cured my hangover, but I was so exhausted I could not give Merci any productive conversation. We got some soup then Merci had to leave me to head to the airport. I spent the rest of the day exploring Prague. I bought a book from a Czech bookstore that was translated into english, a small wood carved ornament of a fox, and a new mug. 

This trip was exhausting in the best way possible. I have never travelled like this before, and I did a lot of it alone. It was lovely being able to be with a familiar face and spend this time with Merci. 

FAST FORWARD TO THE NEXT WEEKEND

I went to Amsterdam this past weekend. It might seem like I hate Ireland since I keep leaving, I don't, but the world is calling me!

Friday morning I hopped on a plane to Amsterdam to meet my beloved Gretchen and her friends. We spent Friday to Sunday night in Amsterdam. One of the main reasons that I wanted to go there was because of, yes you guessed it, the Fault in Our Stars. That movie had middle school me in a chokehold and made it one of my goals to visit Amsterdam. 

I find this weird to explain, but I never thought Amsterdam would be a place I would get to visit. The movie hyped this city up so much that it seemed like this dreamlike place that was unobtainable and somewhere I would never get to visit. So when I hopped off the tram and stepped foot in the city centre, I was kind of starstruck. It looked just like it did in the movie, I mean obviously it was filmed in Amsterdam, but it was even better than I could explain. 

Amsterdam seemed like a young person city. It's hip and sustainable and crunchy and seems like the perfect place to live. I could really picture myself biking around the city with a bouquet of tulips in my basket and eating lunch in my 2 million dollar canal-side apartment. I would be living my absolute best life. 

One of the best experiences I'm getting out of this trip is learning how to travel with dozens of different people. I really like how everyone travels differently and how different interests will dictate how the trip goes. This trip was filled with less organized outings and more of just a weekend walking around and exploring a beautiful city. 

Some of the things we did consisted of a romantic canal tour with Sophia, who is studying in and LOVING  Amsterdam. Then Saturday night we went to the infamous ice bar, which let me tell you, was absolutely freezing. I'm not really sure what we expected, but it was definitely not that. I had two jackets on, a scarf, hat, and gloves, and I was still beyond freezing. I sucked down my Heineken (gross) and we kind of got out of there as fast as we could. I think it was worth the money, but I should have prepared myself to be fucking freezing for forty minutes. (Us english people call that alliteration. Look it up). 

Now this is the mature part of my blog so if you're my mom, cousin Emma, or Parker who is posting this for the Ithaca study abroad page, please skip. 

As we all know, Amsterdam is the land of drugs. The beautiful city is encased in a haze of weed. Anywhere you walk, you will get a wiff of burning joints and walk past at least three places selling weed and other types of drugs in the window. I wasn't going to write about this in my blog incase of incriminating myself, but when I'm 50 and going back to read about and remember my trip, I want to remember the big fat joint I smoked while walking the streets of Ammy. 

You really are able to buy weed anywhere. Coming from someone who never buys their own weed and smokes a very minimal amount, it was quite liberating to walk into a smoke bar, ask the cute guy behind the counter for a pre-rolled joint, and walk out of there with the intentions of getting high. Mom please don't get mad at me for writing this. 

On our last day of the trip, my friend Lauren, who is studying abroad with Gretchen, and I went to the Vincent Van Gough museum. It was very interesting and beautiful. It had an extremely large variety of his works and the museum did a really good job of telling his story as well as showing how his art changed throughout the years and how it illustrated his own life and passions. The museum also included other artists and pieces that influenced Van Gough as well as artists he influenced. I really like how the museum did this because it really showed the impact Van Gough had on the art world as well as how talented he really was. 

Right before we headed back to the airport we did a tour of the Anne Frank museum. She was from Amsterdam and the annex that she hid in for two years is still there. We were able to see where she hid from the Nazis as well as hear parts of her diary. It was a place I always wanted to visit, and I think it did a really great job in illustrating what her experience was like. 

My past two weeks were incredibly busy, exciting, and exhausting. I'm happily taking this weekend off to relax in Dublin and read as many books as I can before I have to start my final projects. I have four essays and a final video due by the end of the semester. I'm not too worried about them, but I really really do not want to do any of it. 

THANKS FOR READING 

ANDDD thank you to all of the people who venmoed me for my trip to Budapest and Prague. I appreciated all of the money, and it was so incredibly generous. THANK YOU

📍Budapest!

📍Prague!

📍Amsterdam!