budapest and home!

I am home! We flew into Boston last night and Ryan and Jeff met us at the airport. Our last 2 days in Budapest were great. Emily and I were absolutely exhausted but we kept pushing and saw everything on the tourists maps and then some. We basically did one day in Buda and one in Pest - saw the parlament building, 2 castles, the 2nd largest synagogue in the world, the opera house, a few churches and did a boat tour on our last night. There were some shopping areas and the city was pretty easy to navigate (we had transportation passes so we took the tram, bus and metro everywhere). We had a nice meal at Menza which was supposed to be an old communist cafeteria but was more of an upscale cafe but it was still good. I would definitely want to come back to Budapest...to try it again when I wasn't so tired. Anyway, Emily and I made it home just fine after a flight from budapest to london, london to reykjavic, and reykjavic to boston. All those flights and trains during the trip - no delays, nothing missed. I had a great experience and now I hope to get some rest and do some laundry.

Vienna and Bratislava

we are getting ready to leave bratislava...we did a whirlwind tour of vienna seeing everything on our tourist map before lunch. well we saw the outside of the museum quarter, parliament, national library, the university, some churches, theater, the main shopping street (where there were tons of men dressed like mozart trying to sell tickets to concerts) and the highlight was the belvedere museum where we saw the kiss by klimt. emily got a pastry from the famous damel and it was good...there were even tv crews in there filming when we went. then we hoppped on a train and headed to bratislava. it was only a one hour ride so it wasn't too bad. we walked from the train station to our hostel and saw the presidential palace on our way. we also made an american friend who joined us for our afternoon sightseeing. we saw the "castle" which was rebuilt in the 1960s and was pretty stark but there was a well that was about 85 meters deep that you could look down and the view from the terrace there was nice. the old city center was cute with shops and cafes but that was really it. not too much to see and many of the cafes and kiosks only take cash but i didn't exchange any currency (showed a rate of 35 but for the euro i was trying to change and they would only give me 25 at the window). oh well. we'll do a little more walking around this morning and then we're off to budapest which we are very excited for. i can't believe i've seen all these places and there are only 2 more days!

Cesky Krumlov

we finished our time in prague with a more in depth tour of the old jewish ghetto and went into the synagogues and saw the exhibits (only one was still functioning). then we finished off with some mcdonalds...the only place that took credit card. emily and i continued on by train to cesky krumlov - a medieval town about 3 hours from prague. it was very cute. we took a tour in the castle, saw the bears that guard it, and watched people rafting down the river (though we thought it was too cold to try ourselves). while the scenery was very nice, the people that worked in the town were not. krumlov really was overrun with tourists but we seemed to be the only ones speaking english and seemed to get the most attitude. anyway, it was very nice and very cheap...beer is cheaper than water and you could get a big glass of wine for about $1.50. oh, and there was a tower with over 160 steps so we climbed it. we also saw the synagogue which was on the tourist map but was also boarded up. it looked pretty large for such a small town. we just arrived in vienna and we plan to walk around and take in as much as we can in the morning and then we head to bratislava. 2 more countries, 3 more days!

Latvia, Warsaw, and Prague

Happy 4th of July. I am writing from our hostel in Prague...though we have been in 3 countries over the last 24 hours. we did a two hour walking tour in latvia and saw the highlights of riga (black cat house, the square, etc) we also went into the occupation museum but the rest of the museums were closed. we had a lunch at a garlic restaurant (i had garlic ice cream...sounded like something i should try because i like both of those flavors...but best left separate). we finished our time in latvia with a friend from business school, Uldis. He is from there and moved back to Riga after school. we went to the skybar for a drink and had a lovely view of the whole city. then we went on to dinner on the rooftop terrace of a hotel in the old city and had a very nice dinner. it was great to catch up with someone else from school and someone from riga that could show us the art noveau buildings that we didn't see on the walking tour we took in the morning. we flew from latvia to poland yesterday afternoon and then spent around 5 hours going around warsaw. we actually managed to see quite a bit in a short time - opera house, tomb of unknown soldier, presidential palace, science academy and walked around the old town square. around 9:30 pm we jumped on a train and headed to czech republic. the overnight train was pretty fun, we had a three person sleeper compartment which even had a little sink in the room. they also gave you bottled water, a chocolate croissant for breakfast and cup of coffee in the morning. i don't think any of us slept all that well though...but we kept on touring anyway. we did a 4 hour walking tour this morning in prague and saw the palace, the old city, the new city, and the old jewish ghetto. since most people here are atheist, the old churches are used for concerts...so we went and saw a classical concert this evening too. we are here for two more days (one of our longer stops) so i'm sure i'll have more to report. miss everyone - 1 more week to go!

Estonia

So we are in Latvia. Small airport but we had a driver from the hostel greet us and very pleasant staff and apartment here. Estonia was cute...didn't see too much more than on the first day. There were tons of outdoor cafes in the town square and lots of little shops as well...very targeted to tourists but still quaint. We climbed a lot of stairs...viewing platforms in a few towers around town. The view was nice but it was easy to see where the restoration stopped. We had great stuffed pancakes (i had one with blueberry and cottage cheese) for the equivalent of $4 which was nice. Overall our stay there was pretty inexpensive (if you stayed out of the souvenir shops). Yesterday we went to the beach and dipped into the Baltic Sea (emily actually went for a swim and the rest of us dunked our toes because it was freezing) but the weather today would have made for a much nicer beach day. we had estonian wine and cider which was good and happened to be there the weekend of a music festival that only happens once every five years. We are in latvia until July 3rd when emily, nozomi, and i fly to poland to begin the train portion of our trip (vanessa will be heading back to sweden to see her friend and travel around Scandinavia some more). I am enjoying my travels but really miss home and cant wait to get back...10 more days!

St. Petersburg

so today we arrived in estonia. we took a train from st. petersburg to tallinn and had a nice trip in a 4 person sleeper compartment (though the border control and russian customs agents were pretty intimidating). our time in st. petersburg was good...we covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. we saw the summer palace, the winter palace, pushkin, a bunch of cathedrals, russian state museum, and the hermintage which was great. we also saw swan lake at the hermitage theater which was very small and cute and apparently used to be the royal family\s private theater. the hotel was surprisingly nice, we had a driver and guide the whole time, and ate borscht and vireniki. the hermitage and ballet were probably the highlights for me...we found the people there catered much less to tourists than in the scandinavian countries and did not want to speak english but there were people that tried to help us along the way. estonia seems very quaint - at the least the old city where we are staying. there are lots of cute cafes and buildings but it seems to be all tourists (with money exchange and souvenir shops on every corner). we also saw the synagogue in st. petersburg which someone told us was the second largest in europe which i find hard to believe because it wasn't that big...it was pretty though so i tokk some pictures. we're going to try to upload pictures again tomorrow so hopefully that will work. i miss everyone and am looking forward to being home in 12 days!

Helsinki

we had a very packed day in helsinki. we arrived around 9:30 and checked right into the hostel (which is not as nice as the one in stockholm) but the four of us have a private room so it is ok. we did a self-led walking tour of the city which is very easy to explore by foot. we saw the parliament, senate square, some cathedrals, the waterfront, old market hall, olympic stadium, sibelius statue (which was very hard to find) and the other touristy things listed in the guide books. we weren't able to go to any museums because it is monday and they are all closed though we did go to the design center which had an interesting clothing\fabric exhibit. helsinki was not at all what i expected it to be...while it some beautiful buildings, there are drab areas that do not seem to fit with the stylish, clean image of the rest of the scandinavian countries. well i'm really excited and a little nervous to head to st. petersburg tomorrow. i hope all goes smoothly and will post as soon as i can (i don't expect any internet access while we're there - until 6-29) i will hopefully have access when we arrive in estonia. miss everyone so much!!!