As my friends and I got to the airport, ready to head to Budapest from Germany we all declared we have reached that inevitable point during study abroad where we all gained a bit of weight, thanks to a diet primarily consisting of potatoes, pasta and Guinness. I was in a bit of denial, which didn’t last long. I bent down to grab my passport and reality hit me as my pants ripped, the timing could not have been more fitting. The day was just starting to get chaotic. Easy Jet, easily our least favorite airline insisted that we could only have one bag. Try telling that to a group of girls on a 10-day trip. We scooted off to the side of the line to layer up. Each time I bent down to grab a new layer, my pants ripped a bit more. The sound of my splitting pants and our ridiculous outfits caused us to laugh harder, making the check-in lady yell faster and louder in German. Somehow we all managed to waddle through security sporting all types of new styles including pants worn as scarfs and sweaters made into shawls. We were now running late so people started staring at the odd looking Americans fumbling through the airport.
Thankfully we made our flight and decided we would reward ourselves with a glass of wine and a good dinner. We dumped our stuff and found a place with unreal seafood risotto! That night we went to ruin bars. It was an area of Budapest left to decay after World War II, but now is turned into an artsy, hipster bar scene with a laid-back atmosphere. The bars are all created from old abandoned buildings. Artists come in and leave their mark on the walls; it has an underground feeling but a surprisingly inviting atmosphere with some of the coolest themed areas. Many of the buildings have several rooms; one of the buildings we went to had about 25 rooms all with different types of music and vibes, each decorated differently. Some rooms were clubbier and others more relaxed like a pub. After our eventful night we headed back to our apartment where we found a 24-hour gyro stand attached to our building, needless to say we made many stops there over the next few days.
We woke up early and headed off to the Baths the next day. The baths are natural warm spring waters under the city. Budapest has had several great thermal baths for centuries, it used to be said that the warm springs were healing waters. They continue to teach aqua therapy and have medical practices in the healing spas. However my group just wanted to catch a tan in the warm water, play some Marco Polo and start a few whirlpools. We were all surprised by the demographics of the baths. I would say about 98% were 85 year olds and we were definitely the talk of the baths that day.
(Taylor, Tricia, Me, Alex)
The remainder of the day we found an outdoor market and then watched the sunset on the top of Gellert Hill. The following day we continued our gyro binge and headed off to ‘The House of Terror’. This was the site of political imprisonment. People were tortured and killed at this location throughout WWII. After the war, from 1945-1956 the building housed the communist government’s secret police where they continued to use torture. I remember one of the quotes from a prisoner, Vendel Endredy: “Before I was first interrogated I prayed to God for an hour to make me forget the names of my friends.” It was a very eerie and unsettling experience as we walked through chambers, there was no hope for anyone who walked through the doors of ‘60 Andrassy Ut’. Many of the elderly who has visited the museum had personal ties to some of the victims that died in this very building. It showed the ghastly history, seeming to feel all too recent.
That night we went on a stationary ship for dinner and cocktails. Once again the seafood risotto was out of this world!
The following day we hit a massive indoor market and stocked up on food for our 8-hour trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia. We acquired enough food to last us a week and boarded a train. We grabbed a compartment that looked just like one from the Harry Potter movies, set up speakers and laid out our ridiculous amount of food.
The train ride was one of my favorite parts of spring break. We successfully ate all of our food, much to the ticket collector’s surprise and we enjoyed goofing around while watching the landscape change as we passed by.
We arrived in Slovenia around 9:00pm where a friend of a friend, Sarah picked us up. Sarah used to live in Milwaukee but now lives in Slovenia. She is a mind-blowing woman who has traveled the world and lives a thrilling life. Sarah spent the whole weekend showing us around and taking us to the most beautiful and hidden parts of Ljubljana.
Sarah took us to our hostel right away. It was cute and very clean for what we were used to with hostels in the past, but we did have a few oddball roommates so it wasn’t completely uneventful. In the morning Sarah took us to Lake Bled, it is an incredibly beautiful place. We could see snow glistening on the peaks of the mountains as we ate lunch on a patio bistro. Swans occupied the lake and in the distance there was a castle on an island. We took a boat to it and discovered the other end of the lake. There was a thickly vegetated forest, snow covered mountains, rocky cliffs, and grassy hills; all these landscapes in one eyeshot.
Next Sarah drove us along the winding roads to a similar looking landscape except this location stood in solitude, hidden in a forest (picture above). It was immensely more beautiful than our last location. I am still speechless trying to make sense of such a complex view. There was an awareness of pure silence. Alex had ventured to the other side of the lake and kicked up a loose pebble. It echoed and skipped across others and ended up breaking the glassy water. I stood at the shore of the water. My eyes made their way from the side of the mountain to the motionless water. Instead of finding the lake bottom the water reflected the towering mountains, magnifying each crevice and flake of snow on the peak of the mountain.
We stayed for a while silently observing the perplexing view until we soaked it all in. We hiked a near by mountain about half way up to a waterfall. The way the mountains collided made it appear to look sideways but the water was flowing straight down as it normally does. It is a hard picture to paint but it sure was gorgeous. The water was emerald green and it pooled in a pond at the bottom.
That night Alex (my roommate, she is in the picture above), Taylor and I went to a Mexican restaurant and stayed all night talking and laughing about our few months we have spent traveling the world as we sipped margaritas. We finally got kicked out as we were the last customers at 2:00am so we headed home to sleep and prepare for another eventful day.
We woke up early to get breakfast at Ljubljana’s Saturday morning market. My breakfast consisted of sausage links, a block of cheese and olives, perfect! We headed out to the Seaside and had lunch by the water. We got a whole fish, the catch of the day with potatoes and all sorts of things on it along with a side of mussels.
After our late lunch we headed into Italy to a vineyard. We watched the sun set and went to one of Sarah’s friends house for a glass of their family’s wine. We enjoyed their wine and vineyard, which was in the backyard. Afterward we headed down the road to Brda Winery for a wine tasting and tour of the cellar. The wine was delicious; we tried an assortment of reds and whites. I found some definite winners! We walked through the cellar and learned about their fermentation process and saw hundreds of barrels of wine.
I love Ljubljana and all the places I was able to explore on spring break, I can’t believe how much we were able to do in 10 days but I was in dire need of clean clothes and a comfy bed. I was also very ready to see some familiar faces and thankfully didn’t have to wait long! Kaleb came to visit me and we went to Amsterdam a week later. The day before he left my family came and we ventured all over Ireland, more to come on that (:
Here is some of the food I talked about
