B & B

Like I said in my last post I promised a couple more posts about my continued adventures.  Last I left you guys off at myself leaving for Budapest.  Budapest is by far one of my favorite places that I have been to yet! The atmosphere of the area was a younger, unique vibe.  The vibe I actually get from a place like Boulder, Colorado.  On our first night there we actually hit up some street food and checked into our hostel.  This night was pretty chill due to that we were exhausted from traveling all day.  The next day we were sure to get up and moving at a decent time in the day and see what Budapest had to offer.  We went in and joined a free walking tour, which I highly recommend.  (if you haven't picked up yet, the free walking tours are the way to go.  You learn all of the history and only have to tip your tour guide).  During the tour we learned that Budapest is actually broken up into two different sides by the Danube River.  The sides are divided by the Rich side (Buda) and the modern side (Pest).  No worries, we visited the Buda side and checked out the views they had to offer. On the Pest side we experienced everything that I wanted to do.  We went to a tea house called Sirus and it honestly was like Alice in Wonderland mixed with Narnia.  the had little nooks for you to sit everywhere!  Our group had no issue with taking our shoes off and taking in the atmosphere.  We actually were just being really goofy and playing around for majority of the time, but it was what made it a blast. 

We then went and checked out the ruin bars at night.  The ruin bars were actually brought to Budapest around the year 2000.  These bars consist of the most random things you can think of.  For example we went to the #3 bar in the world and they had about 7 bars designated for individual drinks.  One bar sold only shots, one sold only beer, another sold only mixed drinks, and so on and so on.  Each bar had its own room, so they each had their own theme.  The wine bar had an outside theme so they made a tree out of old chairs and on the other side they had topless cars for you to sit inside of.  One bar was made up of old computers everywhere!  I know this is very hard to comprehend, but it is as if they took everything from multiple garage sales and made a huge bar out of the random stuff. 

The next day part of our group went to the baths.  The baths originally were used for everyone to come and take a bath in to wash up.  Now the baths are a huge tourist site for people like us to go and relax in.  This bath was just one huge hot tub that we honestly couldn't get out of.  the nice thing about the baths is that it isn't chlorinated so by the time you were done relaxing (A.K.A. when they closed down) you didn't smell like you were just bleached. 

This trip was absolutely one of my favorite trips hands down.  The time spent there was too short and I wish I could've extended it.  But we had to make it back in time for our next and last school trip to the Bohemia side of the Czech Republic.

Our first stop was to Kutna Hora.  In this town we went into a church/cemetery for those that died during the Black Death.  This was one of the coolest places that we visited because the entire inside was made out of human bones.  The church started out with 6 pillars made out of the skulls, femurs, pelvis, and other parts of the human body.  They then took two of those pillars down and created words, the crest, and a chandelier for the public to see.  The Chandelier is made out of every bone in the body.  This was awesome to look at because of my major I knew what bones I was looking at and could identify the differences between all of them. 

Afterwards we stopped into the silver mine.  I wish I had pictures to show you, but it was very dark and small inside the mine.  we all had to wear white jackets and hard helmets just like the miners did and I might say I was happy we had to wear them.  The miners had to wear white because it was the cheapest and they could see white better in their light condition than any other color.  The hard helmet was just used for protection.  When we went through I couldn't tell you how many times I hit my head.  The spaces we had to squeeze through were so tiny.  If you are claustrophobic then this was not the tour for you. 

We then went inside of a church, honestly all I looked at was the architectural structure of the ceilings because the way they were designed was perfect for the ceiling to not collapse. On the outside of the church They had pillars that looked like decorative pieces except they were to also help with the structure of the building to not collapse. 

On our next adventure we went to the "real" Budweiser plant.  The reason I put the quotation marks around the word real is because the plant that we have in the United States isn't the same brand.  Budweiser actually started in the Czech Republic and two employees moved to the states and took the idea from them and started a Budweiser.  The difference is that the Budweiser in the Czech is called Budweiser Budvar.  This beer is shipped into the United States, but is always mistaken as the American brand.  When in reality they are two completely different recipes.  A lawsuit happened and took many years for it to clear up over the name.

We then hopped on the bus and took off for Czesky Krumlov.  When we stepped off we honestly thought we had stepped into a fairytale land.  The rolling hills were beautifully green and all of the shops look like they came out of a Disney movie.  We toured a the castle here.  I learned that bears were actually used to protect the castle instead of crocodiles like everyone things of.  They family that first lived in the castle captured a bear and decided to use it for protect.  Though every now and then they would shoot a bear and stuff it for decoration in the castle.  This meant that they always needed to replace the bears to protect the castle.  They said that one time a drunk person climbed into the habitat and got attacked by one of the bears.  Now they have set a law that no more bears can be replaced inside due to the danger in humans.  DUMB.  Anyways, the castle has a theater and we were able to go inside and see how they used to do their performances.  They would do scene changes in about four seconds, which is very impressive. 

On our next day we ended our trip with a rafting trip.  This rafting trip was a perfect way to end our study abroad adventures with all of our friends.  We drank and some great laughs.  The laughter will not stop anytime soon because we are going to Barcelona!  Watch out for some/serious beach bumming. For now I am peacing out for the night, loves!