Budapest

I know it's taken me a while, but I wanted to put up the pics I took in Budapest! It was a great trip, and it might be my new favorite city, mainly because of how much it exceeded my expectations. I was reading about it before I visited, and all the stuff about it being a former Soviet city made me picture it as being pretty ugly. Fortunately, that was not the case! It actually was gorgeous, with buildings and monuments left over from when it was ruled by the Habsburg family (as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), and the Turks (Ottoman Empire). Originally it was two cities, Buda and Pest, that got too big and eventually combined into just one, Budapest. 

Monument in Heroes Square.

Guards outside Buda Castle.

So many pretty flowers!

View from the top of castle hill.

Us at the castle!

The only picture I have of myself where my eyes aren't closed. Yay!

We also took a day trip to Eger, a smaller city about two hours away. From there we walked about 15 minutes to the edge of town, to a place called the Valley of the Beautiful Women, where we got wine for the equivalent of 50 cents a glass. Here's some pics of the city.

And this is a pic of the Parliament Building in Budapest that I snapped before I left. The building is massive, and was built by the Habsburgs right before they lost control of the city. 

Normandy/Amsterdam

So i don't have many pics from my last two trips, but here's what I do have! First, our group went on an excursion to Normandy a few weekends ago. I had to come back early because I had a dress rehearsal for my orchestra concert, so I missed the entire day where we got to see the beaches and i was pretty bummed. Still, on Saturday we went to Mont-Saint-Michel, which is a very popular tourist attraction. It's a fortified island that was originally built as a monastery in the 8th century. Afterwards it became a pilgrimage site and then a prison. Originally it was connected to mainland by a tidal causeway that you could walk across during low tide, but over the centuries everyone has tried to mess with the water supply to control it and make it manageable as farmland so it just looks like a giant mudpit. We basically got there through a series of bridges/raised dirt causeways. After the tour we got to go out on a guided walk across all the mud, which is apparently all quicksand (hence why the walk was guided). Anyway, here's some pics!

The island.

As you walk up to the monastery you go through this little town full of restaurants and souvenir shops. The island only has about 40 people who actually live there.

View from (almost) the top).

View from the absolute peak.

Cute little garden at the top of the island.

Old dining hall.

This tells the story of Saint Michael coming down to demand that a monastery be built on the island - that's how it got its name.

This giant wheel is actually really cool - it was hard to take a pic, but back when the island was packed with prisoners, they used this wheel and the attached rope to bring provisions up into the prison without having to lead. In order to turn the wheel, five grown men could fit inside and walk like hamsters!

View of the back of the island, as seen from the mud/quicksand.

Bottom of the mountain looking up.

Then last weekend I went to Amsterdam with 3 of my friends. The city was gorgeous and the weather was actually really nice! Here's some pics.

Amsterdam is probably made up of 50% canals and 50% bikers who will run you over.

The boat on the right was actually our hotel! It was cheaper to stay on a super cool hotel boat than it was to stay in a hostel, so of course we did that. I couldn't get a good pic of our (tiny) room, but the inside is pretty standard - cramped but cool.

View of the boat from the side. We started referring to it affectionately as a "boatel" instead of a "hotel." We were pretty proud of that one.

A super cool flower market we came across! I bought a few little gifts here, be excited.

The famous "Iamsterdam" sign. So many of my friends have photos of them sitting on it, so I didn't bother - it's just a tourism gimmick, their slogan is I amsterdam and it's everywhere.

The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, which basically houses all their best art. We walked around and explored the lobby, but it was 15 euro to get in and we had already gone to the Anne Frank House Museum so we figured we'd gotten our culture for the weekend.