it figures that my last full weekend in paris, i’m sick as a dog and can hardly leave my apartment without the overwhelming feeling that i’m going to pass out.

finals begin tomorrow, wish me luck!

budapest, finally!

i’ve been lazy and have been putting off my final blog post of my spring break, my trip to budapest. now i’m trying to get all my ducks in a row before finals, so here it is!

we arrived tuesday and the weather was a bit disheartening: cloudy and rainy. we walked around anyways, did some light shopping, grabbed food, and crashed. this hostel we’re staying in is more of apartments you can rent- probably only about 15 people staying there at a time. anyway, we made enough of a stink about not getting wifi in our room that we were upgraded to an even better room (and given 50% of our money back!) it was fantastic.

wednesday we woke up, grabbed a late breakfast, and went on a free walking tour. it was fun, but not nearly as informative as the one in berlin. afterwards, we went to the hospital in the rock, which was a secret military hospital later used as a soviet nuclear bunker. it was literally built into caves, and we saw all the different parts of the hospital and its inner workings. pretty amazing! we then went to a mongolian barbeque restaurant (strange in budapest, i know, but it was delicious) where i first discovered my love affair with goulash, a traditional hungarian soup. it’s so delicious! we ate to our heart’s content and then crashed once again.

thursday we got up, walked most of andrassy ut, this lonnnng street with lots of nice shopping and restaurants. we passed the opera house, then went to the house of terror, this cool museum about the fascist and communist regimes in hungary. it was really greatly put together, i just wish more of it had been in english! the hungarian people are very strong, though, that much is evident. afterwards we walked to city park, did some touristy shopping, had dinner (ate goulash again!) and went to a few ruin bars. they’re called ruin because they’re bars created in abandoned buildings, lots, etc. we met a couple french dudes who bought us beers (hooray!) and called it a night.

friday we woke up, got lunch, and went to the széchenyi medicinal bath: this huge complex with all these different pools filled with water supplied from thermal springs. the water temperature was about 75 degrees! it was quite nice but i couldn’t stay in the water too long without getting overheated, seeing as it was quite sunny and warm in budapest during our stay (except for the first night). the water is supposed to have magical powers and can cure certain ailments. it was very cool. we walked around some more, i bought some shoes, and then we headed to grab dinner where i had an amazing goulash dish with noodles. we knew we had to do quite a bit of packing so we ended up going back early, eating snacks and drinking beer we bought from a little deli. 

by the time we woke up saturday to head back home, i was more than happy to be going back to paris. we had a rough time at the airport, though, lots of lines (the french are notorious for cutting lines, too)- but all in all, it was okay. i had such a great spring break experience! i know i definitely want to go back to berlin at some point in time, and i have a feeling it won’t be too long before then!