11 days and Finals approaching

Ughhh so I know I've been terrible about blogging the past 2 weeks but things are winding down and are a little crazy. We've actually been doing things after class so I haven't been home very much. So I left off 2 Sundays ago. I have to think about what all I actually did in that time period. Hmmm...

Maybe I'll skip over the weekday stuff. Although the Christmas Markets did open up last week and that was a lot of fun. We have done a lot of Christmas Market browsing in the last 2 weeks. We've been to the Markets in Rudolfplatz, Neumarkt, Heumarkt, the Dom, and Altermarkt. My favorite is Heumarkt and Altermarkt...they're kinda connected and really pretty. And there's an ice rink. Maybe I'll do that today? Who knows :-) They're all really nice though.

Last Thursday we all got together and had Thanksgiving dinner. They had a massive turkey which was DEEEELICIOUS definitely one of the best turkeys I've ever had. Stuffing was great, mashed potatoes and gravy were great, the cranberry sauce was the chunky kind so I didn't even try it, and there was apple torte instead of apple pie and no pumkin pie anywhere. But that's okay! The idea of pumpkin pie really freaks Germans out...this coming from the country where they eat pumpkin soup haha. We had a great time at dinner, everyone except for our professor Laurel who went back the US for Thanksgiving. We took a lot of great pictures and had a wonderful time! After dinner, Me, Paul, Hoss, and Jakob decided to try and find a brewery in Barbarossaplatz but we ended up getting lost and walking though a semi-shady part of Heumarkt. We hung out in Heumarkt for a while and then went home.

Friday I spent the day packing and getting ready to go to Budapest and we caught our flight there around 6:30 or 7. Budapest was really cool I must say. We stayed at a hostel called the Big Fish hostel. It was only $12-$15 per night! I can't believe how inexpensive Budapest was. I made it through an entire weekend - hostel included - on 50 euro. Unreal! Not to mention our flight there was only 45 euro round trip! Budapest was fantastic...I could actually eat in restaurants instead of living of dinner rolls from a supermarket. I really liked it there and I'd love to go back. Budapest is renowned for it's Thermal spas and trust me - they did not dissappoint! So anyways, we got to Budapest sometime after 8 and we went and found our hostel. We got all checked in, got our beds set up, and got a map, and decided to go grab some food and a drink. There was a little bar right down the street from our place so we decided to go there. We ate some goulash which was pretty good but a little spicy, and we drank some beer. By the time we were done eating and stuff it was already almost midnight so we decided to go back to the hostel and go to bed to get ready for the next day.

Saturday we woke up and got ready, then got out the door around 11. By noon we had eaten lunch at the most high tech McDonald's I've ever seen, and we were on a bus towards the castle. We got to the castle and walked around. It was more like a palace, and it was nice but at this point we've all seen much nicer castles. We decided to have a coffee in the cafe and take advantage of the free toilet situation. After walking around there we went to the Fisherman's Bastion. I'm not really sure what it's supposed to be but I know it's some kind of monument. It's huge and gorgeous with towers all over the place. I really liked it. Right next to it is the St. Mathias church which, along with most important sights in Europe, was covered in scaffolding. From there we walked down to the Danube and got some pictures of the gorgeous Parliament building. At this point I was soaking wet and also cold. Luckily about 15 minutes later the sun was out. We walked over the Chain bridge and along the river on the otherside to the Parliament building. We passed the shoe memorial for the Holocaust victims that were shot into the Danube between '44 and '45. It was really a moving memorial. After walking the river we went and saw St. Stephans Basillica - probably the most gorgeous church I've ever been in. It was decorated on the inside with dark red and green marble and had gold accents. I really liked it. We walked from there over to the Christmas markets which were packed and expensive. We didn't stay there long. We then walked back towards our hostel stopping for a halusky dinner and another free toilet. We took a nap at the hostel and got ready to go out to this Rockabilly bar that we found online. The bar was so cool, although they seem to think that "Confederate" is synonymous with "American"...something that we just had to ignore and laugh off as foreign ignorance. The bar was a lot of fun, I really like Rockabilly and they played a lot of songs that we knew. We met 2 hungarian boys and played foosball with them. We found out that they were 18 years old, and we were legally drinking with them in a bar. We laughed about this. They were nice guys and taught us some Hungarian words that we all promptly forgot.

Sunday was our relaxation day. We checked out of the hostel and they let us keep our backpacks and stuff there. We went and checked out a cool synagogue, and then had lunch at a Doner place. After lunch we went to this thermal bath that I can't pronounce, but it was HUGE and so pretty. Basically it was a giant thermal swimming pool in the courtyard of this huge european building. In the building were a bunch more thermal baths and saunas everywhere. We did a light therapy sauna that was really cool and relaxing. I really liked this place, and I wish we could have stayed longer. I'd love to go to Budapest again just to do the spa stuff. The best part of the Thermal baths was that is was less than 40 degrees outside but the water was over 100 degrees. So we could run around in winter weather outside in our swimsuits! The water felt amazing, but once you got out it was FREEEEEZING! I thought my feet were gonna freeze to the ground a couple of times. It was so much fun though. After the baths we went and ate some dough thing that was really good, then went back to the Christmas markets for a little. We caught our flight back home around 8 PM.

Monday I was really tired, understandably, but I made it through the day. I went with Nick and had lunch at Kim Phuc which was fantasmic as usual. Tuesday we had a girls night, so after class I stayed in the city. I went and got some stuff at the bookstore and went to starbuck's to read the German In Touch Weekly. Then I went over to the Dom and went to the Art library there to do some research for my art history paper due next week. I found some good stuff, unfortunately I have to do some translating because I couldn't find any sources in English. No big deal though, I got the gist of everything I was reading. From there I walked to Friesenplatz and ran into Emily at the Starbuck's there. I had another coffee and waited for the girls to show up. Girls night was Me, Emily, Ashley, Alex, Jess, Christine, and Lauren and we met up with our professors Ulli and Laurel. We went to an Indian restaurant, which was my first time eating Indian food. It was pretty good, but definitely a little different. I liked it nonetheless! We had a great time at dinner - I'm gonna miss these girls!

Wednesday was our last day of History and Special topics before finals next week. I hate my history class and it was brutal getting through the last one. I've never been so lost in a class in my entire life. Oh well. Thank god it's almost over. After class I went to the Christmas markets with Paul and had a couple of beers to celebrate never having to read an abstract historical idealogy text ever again. I went home took a nap, and hung out with my host family the rest of the night after that.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. It was our last day of classes! We finally went to that brewery in Barbarossaplatz that we had been looking for a week before. 11 of us went, and we drank 2 beer towers! A beer tower is basically a tower full of beer with a tap attached to it. It was amazing. 6 liters in all. After the brewery we went home and I took a nap and had dinner. Then we met at Nick's house and had a couple of drinks before we went to where everybody knows our name - the Capitol. We ate some pizza and pasta and then we went to Kim Phuc for the people that didn't want capitol food. We had a really fun night full of laughs :-) Today I have no school or anything so I'm gonna try and get stuff done for my final papers and start some studying.