I'll Have One of Everything, Please!

The weekend quickly blended into the week, starting with an early Monday morning flight from Madrid back to Bonn. We landed at 9 am and went straight to school for two project presentations at 10:15. Yeah, that's the life I live… taking a flight straight back to class! It was a pretty long school day with Genetics as a night class. This is typically when I use my time wisely: booking Spring Break plans, or doing my blog posts. ;) That was our last lecture before we take the exam. After another 6 days of travelling and having fun studying on flights and buses and trains, we get to prove just how much this "Study" Abroad trip has been about studying. For the record, I am actually keeping up with lectures and readings way better than I did in a regular semester. But most likely because I really only have Physiology, Genetics, and History of Medicine.

This week in HOM, we took a 4 day excursion to Vienna! This was one trip that I was most excited for since Austria was my favorite part of my last trip to Europe. We did a lot in those four days, including the Michaelkirche crypts, a Drug (pharmacy) Museum, the Albertina, a previous Insane Asylum, Sigmund Freud's house, a classical concert, the Spanish Horse Riding School, and a Natural History Museum. During our free time, I immersed myself in the Viennese Cuisine. If you didn't know, Vienna is famous for cakes and wiener schnitzel. As you also probably know, I am NOT a cake person. But let me tell you, this title says it all. Everything was SO good! One of the pastry shops we went to is right next to the old Palace of ? & was the official royal bakery. A bakery good enough for royalty. So of course, we had to go. In fact, I went a few times! The traditional goulash and wiener schnitzel were good of course, but this week has certainly satisfied  my sweet tooth. My dentist on the other hand… he might not be as happy as I am. Vienna was a cool city, but I definitely prefer the Tyrol. If Austria is ever home, it will have to be somewhere more remote, just for the pure beauty of the countryside.

However, I did find myself a new favorite city! Budapest. My goodness, if you're gonna live in the city this is how you do it. To start, 1 USD gets you a long way in Hungary. We only stayed in the capital so I can't even imagine what it's like in the countryside. I promised myself I'll find out one day. To begin the trip to Budapest, three of us girls booked a quick 3 hour, 9E bus ride for the night that things finished up in Vienna. We all arrived on time for our bus, and as the other two board, the FlixBus worker informs me that I have the wrong ticket. Sooooo here I go, running around this big bug station to find my bus, since we all booked our tickets for 7:30. The travel board says to go to bus stop 3. I run to bus stop 3. There is no bus, and there are still 5 minutes before departure (keep in mind this is a bus, not a plane, so arriving hours early isn't the same). So I don't board any bus, and look at the time table inside the station. My route shows that it is coming at 21:30, so 9:30 pm. I figure, "ok my bus is delayed, no big deal, let me just check with the clerk at the information desk." So I wait in line for over 30 minutes to have the clerk tell me that his system doesn't show any delays - and neither does my app. So everything still says 7:30 for my ticket, and here I am at 8 pm, with the time table saying 21:30. If you've figured out the problem at this point, I congratulate you. I had not figured it out yet. So instead, I decided to buy the ticket for the next bus instead of waiting another hour and half, mostly because I felt really bad that my friends were arriving earlier and waiting on me because I was the one who booked the AirBnb. Anyway, I make it onto a different route and am finally on my way to Budapest. After about 30 min to an hour on the bus, I realize… I bought my ticket for 7:30. My friends bought their ticket for 19:30. So while I was running around the bus station like a chicken with my head cut off, I had already missed my bus… 12 hours previously. It's all part of the hero's journey, ya know?

Eventually made it to Budapest, and went straight to the AirBnb, which was super cute and stylish! When I go back to Budapest I think I might stay there again. Even though we only had about a day and a half, we got to see a lot! There were so many cute cafes and restaurants. We went to a Hungarian porcelain shop and OMG that place was bougie! Pretty much every place was bougie af, so I have nicknamed the city Bougiepest But the best part, was that it was bougie AND affordable!!!! And that my friends, is why Budapest is where it's at. I got my favorite shampoo and conditioner (2 of each!) for about 40% cheaper than what it costs in the US, with Katie's discount. We also saw the Parliament building, went to a local market where I bought some jarred/canned berries to eat on my breakfasts, ate some delicious street food, saw some more beautiful art, went to the thermal baths, ate some yummy traditional meals, attended a pasta making class, had more yummy cakes (better than Vienna tbh), saw the setup for the Prime Minister's State of the Union address, and went to an old hospital built into the caves of a big hill. It was crazy fun & now you know why Budapest is my new favorite city, in all of the world!

The coming weeks will be pretty relaxed so I hope you all got your fill on vicarious vacationing in the past few weeks. The current #countrycount for 2019 is six, not including the United States. Now time to start preparing for this Genetics exam… wish me luck!