The Building Blocks of my Days

So, I was thinking; I blog a lot about the places I go and things I see, but never as much about my day-to-day. The daily routine stuff is mostly over now, but one day I decided to try to take pictures of my normal stuff. I didn't take as many as I would have wanted to to best illustrate a day, but hopefully you will get the idea.

First, I wake up. It's pretty bright in my room and sometimes I go on the Internet for a few minutes before I actually get moving. Then I take a shower and get dressed.


By the time I'm pretty much ready to go I have breakfast. I usually have a bowl of cereal and some water. Depending on what I have for groceries there might also be juice, yogurt, and or toast. Sometimes I get a pastry by where my class is.


My class starts at noon, so around 11:15 I'm out my door. The view is pretty nice.


My first stop is the métro. I get on the line 6 at the station Trocadéro.



I take the 6 to Denfert-Rochereau. There I head through the station past the gypsie woman begging for money. She sits in a wheelchair, I've seen her walking. There I get on the RER B for two stops to Luxembourg.


Next, I get off the RER and head back into the daylight. I head down the road towards class. It's during this walk that I sometimes get a pastry, it's always very good.



Class is two hours long. It's boring. We review homework from the night before for about an hour an a half then do something pointless for the remaining time.



After class I meet Alix in the foyer and we head down rue St. Jacques towards the AIFS office or get food. One day there were burger cars parked on the road, handing out free microwavable burgers. They were bad, but free. Another day we got Moaz which is a vegetarian falafel shop. It's good. We headed to Notre Dame to sit around and eat.




This is generally the time that we meet up with Adam and Cao and do something. We either just get lunch and hang out for a bit, or go see something. Often, these are the smaller things in Paris that I've posted about.

After this I usually head back to my apartment for a while. I hang out in my room for a little, go on the Internet or whatever until dinnertime. If I have dinner at home it is usually pasta. It's the easiest and I don't feel bad about making it. I've always thought I shouldn't monopolize the kitchen making something bigger. Sometimes we meet up for dinner. Some weeks I get fancy about it and get a bottle of wine to go with my dinners. This week I even went as far as getting stuff for salad.



After dinner I either continue hanging out around the apartment or meet back up with everyone to do something. Sometimes we go to a movie, sometimes we meet up for a beer, or hang out outside by the Eiffel Tower (it's the closest for all of us) or on a bridge over the Seine.

Sleep. Repeat. Not too glamorous, but the semester was a ton of fun nonetheless. Plus, it's all in Paris.

Munich, Germany

I was happy to visit Munich at the end of my journey, but it was really just a lay over between traveling back to Paris. We left Vienna on a night bus to Munich on Sunday night. I expected that we would arrive pretty early, around 7 then spend a bit of time before I had to head to the airport. As it turned out, we got into Munich at 4:30am!

We had to wait for the first metro to show up, then we headed into the city. Cao checked in early to her hostel, and then we hung out there for a little while. Afterwards we headed out to the city to see what we could see. We found a main square with an impressive (church?) and other buildings. We planned on going to a café she had read about that looked out over the square, but it wasn't open. Instead we got coffee and a pastry at another shop. While waiting for Cao to go to the bathroom I started falling asleep in my seat.







After breakfast we headed to a large park in the city. The place is famous for nude sunbathing, but it's mostly just people sunbathing, not nude. It was too early when we got there to get much sun so we walked around like zombies for a while. We found a stone gazaebo type place (I'm sure there's a more Greek word for it, but who knows) and hung out there for a while. We also found two maß (a 1 liter beer mug). We both wanted to take one, but I had no space in my backpack and Cao could only fit one in her bag.





We spent a bit of time sitting around. We were walking (still like zombies) towards one of the only empty benches, and got distracted briefly then someone snuck in under our noses and took it! After laying around for a little while we got lunch in the Beer Garten in the park. I had a bratwurst and some potato salad and a maß.

Afterwards we proceeded to lay in the sun for a few hours.


Around 2 we headed out of the park and I headed to the airport. I didn't have too long to wait and just checked in and killed a bit of time before boarding. The flight was pretty short and they had sandwiches and drinks during the flight. I got home in the evening and concluded my two-week jaunt across Europe. It was great. I was exhausted.

Parents Visit!

So a brief break from catching up on my travels to let you know that my parents are currently here visiting me and Paris. They arrived Monday morning. I was late picking them up, but we got situated in the hotel and visited Sacré Coeur. So far we've done some good stuff, mostly touristy, but I don't mind being the tour guide in the city.

The semester also finished on Tuesday. I had an Oral Exam to finish everything off with. It was supposed to be at 2, but I didn't get to go until after 3. It went pretty well I think, but it was a huge waste of time really. I'm glad to be done with school and have some totally free time in the city before heading home.

So far it's been nice seeing them and we've had some pretty good meals. We had dinner twice at an Italian restaurant, which was really good. I had Penne Calabrese one night and Pizza another. Tonight we're having dinner at a pretty nice restaurant, I'm hoping it lives up to expectations. We also got lunch at the Bombay Palace, which was good as always. If I haven't mentioned it before, it's an Indian restaurant that we've been to numerous times, very good.

Today my parents spent time at the Louvre while I ran around doing some last minute stuff. I pretty much have everything done, like stuff I need to buy etc. Also, I had to run back to my homestay quickly. I accidentally left with the key, so I had to return that before heading out for good.

Tomorrow we're going to Musée d'Orsay and Saturday to Versailles. The weather has been really rainy so we pushed back Versailles and unless tomorrow is really nice for some reason, skipping Giverny. It will definitely be nice to see Versailles again and the gardens will be much nicer than when I saw them 2 years ago.

Finally, Sunday I'm heading home! My flight leaves just after 9 I believe and I'll be back in the 'States between 3 and 4. I'd be back a lot earlier, but I have to stop over in Hamburg.. thank you Lufthansa. Looking forward to being back!

Vienna, Austria

Vienna was one of my favorite cities on the trip. The experience was great specifically because of our Couch Surfing hosts. We stayed with a couple Hannah and Flo in their flat just outside of the city center in Vienna.

They were really welcoming and a lot of fun to hang out with. When we arrived they showed us the their flat, which was small, but very very nice. They had decorated it nicely and it was very comfortable and homey. We spent most of the afternoon and evening talking and listening to music, before going out for some food and beer.

We went to a place called the Centimeter where we tried Flo's favorite Austrian beer. We ordered a 3 liter tap for the table. It comes out as a column of beer in a base which has a tap on it so you pour draught your own beer. It was a lot of fun, and a good idea for a group. I think it could be really popular at home, it's a bit of a novelty, but also a lot of fun.

The next day we had a good breakfast at their flat. We even got to try the strawberry jam we brought for them. It was really good, and they liked it. We went out to a coffee shop after breakfast. The place is a historical site where many important artists used to spend time. The coffee was great.

They took us on a tour of some of the city. I didn't take hardly any pictures unfortunately, but it was still fun. We lucked out because that weekend was a festival in the city. There were tons of food stands and some stuff for kids to do like a fair. Cao and I both tried schnitzel, I really liked it.


This huge platform used to hold large flak cannons during World War II. There are several of them in Vienna. Today this one is a climbing wall. Pretty cool I think.





Unfortunately, it started raining, so we headed back to the flat after braving it for a little while. It was okay though, we got to spend more time with them and just relax. The time passed very quickly as we hung out, played Xbox, had tea, and watched videos on YouTube. We ordered pizza for dinner and went on a short walk to pick it up. A personal pie was only 4€ and it was good. It was a nice surprise, because someone had told us that Vienna was one of the most expensive cities in Europe. It is clear that this person had never been to Paris, which is still the most expensive place I've been to.

I can't stress enough how much fun it was to hang out with Hannah and Flo. They were great hosts, and I think we got to know them pretty well. They were a lot of fun, and had good taste in music. Plus they gave a good tour around the city and knew some cool places to check out. I'm looking forward to hearing from them if they visit New York.

After writing in their Couch Surfing guest book we took the metro to the bus station to head to Munich on an overnight bus. That leg of my journey is next, so check back soon!

Budapest, Hungary

By the time we were getting to Budapest I was starting to get exhausted from traveling. We took it pretty easy in the city, but it definitely deserves a lot more than one day to really get a good feeling for it.

I had a good time, but we ran into some weirdness upon arriving. First I got approached by a guy trying to change money. I was almost going to do it, like an idiot, but didn't. We had some Slovak crowns left over so we wanted to change them into Forint. We just used the Western Union in the train station. After that the British guys, who ended up going to Budapest that day also were having trouble finding a place to stay. Our hostel was booked, or certainly wouldn't have fit them all.

While they were talking to one guy about a place to stay, another guy came up and told me to let my friends know not to stay with him because he was a "gay bastard." It turns out that the second guy just wanted their business instead. They ended up going with the first guy, we never heard from them again.. As ominous as that sounds, I don't think anything bad happened, it was just a strange situation.

After the train station we headed to our hostel. The place was really cool. It was basically just an apartment with lofts built into some of the rooms so they all had about 6 beds in them. The place was just really cool because it wasn't like a normal hostel or hotel.


That night we set out for a restaurant recommended by a travel book. They were full and we had to wait until 11 to eat, but we took a walk across the Danube to the Buda side of the city. It's the more scenic castle side of the city. Pest is the city part, which is where the restaurant and our hostel was.





The dinner was pretty good. I was hoping for a little bit better, but the portions were huge! The thing about Budapest is the currency exchange is ridiculous. I think every Forint is worth about $0.006, which is great. However, everything costs thousands of Forint. In reality the city was actually more expensive than both Prague and Bratislava.


The next day we headed across town to find a flea market we read about. We didn't end up finding it, but there was a small market nonetheless. There were crafts and some food stuffs like jams and cookies. We got some hotdogs from a stand about bought a jam as a gift to our Couch Surfing hosts in Vienna.

On the way across town we ran into a little museum square. If we had more time maybe we would have gone in one of them, but the architecture was still amazing anyways. In the area there was also a castle. We didn't have enough time to go visit it either, unfortunately. I would definitely like to go back at some point and see the city for real and experience everything. It was still nice, but we didn't get to properly appreciate everything.




Before getting on the train we were walking around the area surrounding it and I thought I heard someone say something to me. As we were turning around one of them asked "How's Texas?" (referencing Cao being from Texas) and it was the two Australian guys we met in Krakow! They were in our room at the hostel. We ended up talking to them for a while and they ended up going to Budapest too. A pretty wild coincidence that in all of the city we ran into them.


Vienna is next!

Bratislava, Slovak Republic

We arrived in Bratislava in the evening. We had a bit of trouble finding the right tram to take at first, but we figured it out after a few minutes, and in the process we ended up getting some really good chicken sandwiches with a spicy sauce and onions.

The hostel was really cool. They had a bar, kitchen, and living room area and the floors were seperated into apartments with 3 dorms each. We were in a room for 6 but there were only the two of us and one other person. The funny part was, the hostel was turning away people the entire time saying they were booked full.

The area we stayed in was only a short walk from the old town, so after we got settled in we headed there to find something to do. At first we found a 3 floor club, which didn't seem too exciting. We just stayed on the main floor and hung out for a little bit before leaving. We walked around for a while not finding anything and figured we might start heading back. On the way back we found a "Rock" Bar. We went in and there was a cover band playing. It was actually a lot of fun. They seemed like the kind of band that would play hard rock, but they covered mostly American pop songs, one of which was by Kelly Clarkson...


After the show ended we started heading back to the hostel again. We were almost inside when we ran into a group of British guys who were also staying at the hostel. They asked us if we knew any good places and we said we couldnt find much. They were disappointed that we were about to call it a night, and convinced us to go with them to another place.

We ended up on a boat bar/club place for a little while. We weren't there for much longer than an hour. It was not really my kind of place, but it was still kinda fun. There was just too much blind strobe light in your eyes while Justin Timberlake songs blast on the speakers.

Afterwards we finally headed back to the hostel for the night. The next day we took another walk through the old town area. The city was pretty quaint, but by day the only people on the streets were basically tourists. After meandering about for a while we headed up to the main castle.




Once at Bratislava Castle, or Bratislavský hrad, we proceeded to be lazy. It was really enjoyable actually. First, we took in the sites from up on the hill. It was a great vantage point. The castle has been mostly rebuilt, but was still cool. From there we could see the main part of the city, across the Danube to the more residential side of the city, and beyond the city into the hills.




The residential side is very strange. Looking at it from a distance it is easy to tell that it is populated by hundreds of nearly identical residential towers. A pretty interesting thing to look at, but very strange all in all.




We spent most of the day relaxing in the sun by the castle before heading back to the train station to move on to Budapest. I enjoyed the time we spent there, but we got the feeling that there really isn't much to do in the city besides clubbing at night.

Check back soon for Budapest!