Trip to Prague

I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to Prague this past weekend.  My French companions and I filled our 2 days in the Czech Republic with taking a “free city tour” in which you simply tip the tour guide at the end, a museum about communism in the Czech Republic (in an ironic side note, the museum was located in between what may be the two greatest symbols of capitalism, McDonalds and a Casino), touring Prague Castle and visiting other major sites of the city.  We took what has become my favorite way of travelling, a bus company named PolskiBus and the trip is about 5 hours from Wrocłow.

The bath we went to in Budapest

Beautiful Budapest Castle at night

            This is coming a week after I arrived home from my Budapest trip, which I have concluded is my favorite city in Europe I have visited thus far.  In Budapest, we visited the castle, the parliament building, the national museum (which was hosting the World Press Photo for 2011), the Jewish quarter, one of Budapest's famous thermal spas, and some fantastic restaurants.  All in all, two great weekends with some more excitement planned for the future including a trip to Gdansk (Danzig) next weekend and a trip to Vienna and Bratislava during the first weekend in December to see Vienna’s famous winter market square.  I’m collecting refrigerator magnets from the cities that I visit and the refrigerator in my dorm room has slowly gotten more and more decorations.  So far I’ve been to Krakow, Warsaw, Auschwitz (no magnate here), Prague, and Budapest and I’m looking forward to more cities to come.

Trip to Budapest

I’ve started a long weekend in good fashion beginning with watching a rival football match that determined who will continue in the Belgian Cup with two of my Belgian friends last night.  The match was between Ghent and Bruges and it ended not only in overtime but in penalty kicks.  Needless to say, my friends from Ghent was all smiles and my friend from Bruges spent the rest of the evening sulking in his room.  I had fun introducing them to “American Football” and bragging about how well the wildcats are doing this year.  I think they still believe the sport is too slow and complicated to ever enjoy but I think all parties involved learned more about “football”

On top of that, the entire dormitory was awoken at 4:45 this morning in a fire alarm and I had the unique privilege of spending 30 minutes in the company of 300 tired, and cranky international students.  Turns out it was a drill and it makes me wonder how worried the administration is of a steel and concrete building burring down.

            I am currently with four German friends riding on a bus to Prague.  Our plan is to make it down to Budapest for our 6 day weekend and our first night will be spent in the in the Czech capital.  I’m looking forward making my first trip outside of Poland and I’m excited for some of the plans we’ve made so far like going to a well known Budapest restraunt and trying out one of the famous Budapest baths. 

The group I travelled with in front of the Budapest skyline.

            This trip comes thanks to what I am calling the Polish equivalent of a “fall break” because my usual 4 day weekends (I don’t have classes on Thursdays or Fridays) has been lengthened to a 6 day weekend due to the All Saints Day Holliday on November 1 in which most Polish students go back home to honor their loved ones who have died.  It would be a close to a two week holiday except for 2 classes that I have on Wednesday afternoon.  It’s probably good I’m forced to come back to Wrocłow for a day even though I’m in the process of planning another trip (possibly to Gdansk) for the following weekend just so I can recuperate and touch base with everybody (with hopefully another blog post).  I have a feeling, however, that I’m going to be using Wrocłow more as a gateway to other cities than my home in the next few weeks.

Thant’s all for now and I’ll let you know what Prague and Budapest are in a couple of days