Budha, Budha, Budha, Budha Rockin' Everywhere!

Day 45. Yay for meeting new friends! Today I woke up and was chatting with some of the people in my room and I met Adithi. After talking with her about Vienna I decided I wanted to stay one more night and explore the city with her. Adithi and I started the day by going to see the Schonbrunn palace.  We bought a pass that gave us a tour of the palace, and access to the mazes, gardens, and an awesome view and the top of the yard. The Schonbrunn is where Marie Antionette grew up which I thought was super cool. The audio guided tour was nice and it was interesting learning about  the history of the Hofburg’s, but my favorite part was the mazes (of course)! There were 3 different mazes, one was very high and with lots of dead ends and Adithi and I had a race to the center platform (She won and we both cheated, haha). The other two mazes had challenges/games in them! There was a particularly challenging math challenge that we had to solve backwards to figure it out (Yes I am a college graduate), there was a climbing obstacle and motion detecting water shot that would spray you if you weren’t quick enough on the stepping stones (I wasn’t quick enough and it startled the heck out of me). And there was a little kid’s playground with an awesome bird structure we climbed and played in. After the Schonbrunn we got some gelato and ingredients for dinner and walked to the parliament building, the Rathaus (The city hall but it looks more like a massive church with a stunning interior), and the University (also stunning on the inside, I went into a conference room (it was in German) and got a brownie, hehe). They were all very impressive and old and very cool to see. We crossed the street and went into another big church with very interesting artwork, not your typical church style maybe because it was so close to the university, I don’t know (p.s. we were counting all the churches we saw today and got to like 14 before we lost track). After walking around all day my legs were killing me, but Adithi had yet to go to the Opera and I was definitely down to go again, so we walked to the Opera house and met some very nice German girls as we waited in Line for standing tickets (4 euros for amazing spots!). We got there at the perfect time and the line grew massively as we sat down to wait. OH MY GOODNESS SO INCREDIBLY GOOD!! It was Il Barbiere Di Seville (The barber of Seville) and it was so much better than the previous night. Don’t get me wrong, last night’s Opera was impressive and I enjoyed myself, but this was a completely different experience. It was amazing! Figaro, Figaro, FIGARO!!! It was so lively and entertaining and funny, it completely drew you in and enchanted you. I was dead tired from walking all day, and then having to stand for 3 hours watching the Opera, but I didn’t care at all because it was just so great. Figaro was so good! I loved it. Mom I am GOING to take you here to see it!! I thought of you the entire time, you would have just loved it! Ahh, the Opera!!! We walked back to the hostel singing and whistling along to all the songs stuck in our heads raving to each other about how great it was. We wanted to celebrate the evening with a drink at the hostel, and I saw people playing Banana-grams asked to join them. I love Banana-grams and word games and it was fun playing and meeting two new friends. Joe and Stephanie from the States! Apparently I was the first traveler to come up to them and we must have played about 4 games together. I had meant to work on my blog, and we were going to cook dinner, but I got side tracked from Banana-grams and we decided to just make a feast for breakfast instead. Nom Nom. Bed time!

Day 46. Today I woke up after dreaming of being in an Opera and Adithi and I made excellent breakfast omelets and an avocado/mozzarella sandwich for later. It was a very overcast day, but as I was catching a train to Budapest I didn’t mind at all. I said goodbye to Adithi and was originally planning to make a day trip to Bratislava, but I would have had to get to the other train station and I decided I couldn’t be bothered to make the trek and I also didn’t want to arrive in Budapest at night so I changed my mind and went straight to Budapest! It rained the entire voyage there and then as soon as we hit Budapest, maybe 25 minutes out it was sunny! Thanks best friend (The sun and I are best friends, you can be jealous)!!! I made it to my hostel without any problems (except that Google maps definitely has the street names wrong right outside of the train station, luckily I am an excellent guesser) and they were so welcoming!! They sat me down and showed me where I needed to go on the map, answered all my questions and even gave me a tour of the hostel. I could immediately tell this hostel was going to be fantastic (Thanks for the advice Laura and Chris!!) I got settled and hung out at the hostel and made some friends. All of the hostel workers were great, Liz, from Canada, especially. Liz and I went out for a couple drinks at one of the sister hostels and I met some more great people. The hostel cooks dinner every night for just the cost of ingredients so after a few drinks we headed back and I met a great group of Swedish travelers. Dinner was a chicken caesar salad and then I learned about what was planned for this evening. Everyone was going to go on a boat cruise along the river at night! Yup, a BOAT cruise, but that’s not even the best part,  we all got a bottle of champagne and after words the boat takes you to what was voted the world’s best club by lonely planet!! What!? Are you kidding me?!? Haha, SO AMAZING! First day in Budapest and I am already in love with the city. The boat ride was fantastic, and the view from the river of Budapest lit up at night even better. I popped my bottle of champagne like a G6 and met a group of French guys and other many other awesome travelers. It was CRAZY. The club we went to was A38, on another boat along the river. The music was so good, and there were so many people everyone was having such an amazing night! I danced the night away at the club in quite the haze and had a blast. Definitely a night for the books! I walked back to the hostel with people I met on the boat. We made a quick stop for food, and then went to bed at who knows what hour in the morning.