Ms Frizzle's Magic School Bus- round two, chapter uno

Technically I'm writing this from back in the United States. So if you don't think this is legit enough to read anymore I won't be offended. I don't really have an excuse as to why I didn't write it earlier.

Now, use your imagination and transport yourself back three weeks or so. This was the beginning of round deux of Ms. Frizzle's Magic School Bus adventure. By Ms. Frizzle I mean our somewhat vertically challenged academic professor Jerry. I'm just joking, Jerry is a great guy and an amazing teacher. But he is short. The bus was again a big Mercedes bus with a gigantic Flemish driver (Alex, who was the shit).

I packed up my big ass suitcase with enough clothes for 10 days, actually probably 5 days but if wearing underwear twice before you wash it is wrong, I don't want to be right. We departed at 7 am from the closeby bus station. 7 am sounds like a reasonable time to leave, except that at this point in the year its only light outside in Belgium from 8 am to 4pm. Kind of depressing. Our entire first day was spent on the bus, driving to Vienna, Austria.

We drove for at least 12 hours, entertaining ourselves in various ways from playing "Are you smarter than a fifth grader" to watching movies on the bus TVs to trying to sleep spread across two bus seats. It paid to be a tiny little girl this time, they fit perfectly on these seats. For big gangly gingers like me, however, it was more difficult.

Fast forward. We arrived in Vienna. We got in pretty late and wanted to grab some grub. My friend Mike and I walked around the main drag of Vienna and that is when we discovered the beauty of doner. Doner is a basically a big spit of meat. Usually they have beef and chicken, but I'm not totally convinced that they both aren't just horse or something. This first Doner was wrapped up in a kind of tortilla with some veggies, some mystery sauce and some spices. Little did we know that this was to be probably the best doner that we had throughout our eastern europe adventure.

The next day was basically a school day. The cool part of having a school day on vacation in Vienna is that you spend your whole day meeting with semi-important people. We visited the OSCE and then headed over to the UN building in Vienna to hear from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization and the IAEA. Me being the nuclear physics dork that I am, I loved the IAEA presentation.

UN. Sweet flags bro

Outside of Hapsburg palace in Vienna

Also important to note. This was the beginning of a new trend that we noticed the more east you get: Lady cops. Not only lady cops, hot lady cops. You would think that 'eastern europe' would have big butch women named Helga. Not true. Eastern European women are beautiful and I definitely would have let one take advantage of my American citizenship.

Main square in downtown Vienna

That night, we "went out" in Vienna. By went out I mean we walked across the street to this traveller's bar. What in the hell is a "traveller's bar?" Apparently its the alcohol version of a youth hostel. I wasn't complaining, there were a lot of cool people there and drinks were pretty cheap. I met by boy Alex who is studying in Vienna. The cheap drinks got us in a bit of trouble. The night ended with Mike lighting his balls on fire. Ya not including a picture.

The next day we visited another bullshit human rights organization, Fundamental Rights Organization. I don't know if human rights organizations are easier to schedule for big groups or what, but it seems like all we do is hear about more and more human rights. I guess I shouldn't hate. I don't think human rights are unimportant, it's just not what I'm really into hearing about day in and day out. But the meeting was rather boring. So boring that my friend Zack created several random facts about the FRA. For example, it beat the UNHCR in the annual flag football tournament in 2010. Ok thats absolutely bs but thats how bored we were.

I guess I really shouldn't take going to all these cool places for granted. O well. On to Budapest.

The bus ride was again, ridiculous. We entertained ourselves by equating each member of our program to a Disney character. I don't remember what I was, or maybe I'm just too embarrassed to reveal. Once we arrived in the big bad Pest, we left the hotel and started exploring the city. Budapest is actually two cities: Buda and Pest. So I wasn't being coy when I said big bad Pest.

Big bad parliament in big bad Pest. Seriously, this thing is the world's biggest parliament building

Unfortunately for you, Budapest was the time and place where my camera decided to break, again. I had the same camera before I left for abroad and it broke in the same fashion. Hopefully Cannon will send me another faultily designed piece of junk free of charge. Thanks but no thanks. So any pictures I have from here on out were either taken on my cell phone or straight up stolen from other kids on my program. But hey, if you're gonna put them on facebook I don't feel one ounce of remorse for stealing them.

Budapest was honestly one of my favorite cities. Historically, it's always been under one empire or another (Hapsburg, Ottoman, Communism). Because of this, it has such a distinctive flare. It also has distinctively spicy food that destroyed me from the inside out. Totes worth it though. Hungarian food is freakin delicious. We spent every dinner at the Budapest Christmas markets enjoying some sort of chicken or beef goulash heavily saturated in fat and paprika. Yummm. Possibly the best part of the Christmas market food was the strudels, however. OMG explosions in my mouth.

Mike and I enjoy a delicious strudel. Or three.

Besides the spicy yet destructive food, another great part of Budapest was the longest lasting Ottoman relic: the Turkish baths. While we originally thought we had to bear it all and jump on in the sauna with some old Hungarian dudes, they actually made you wear a bathing suit. While I was mildly disappointed by the fact that I couldn't jump right in to the local custom, the baths proved to be amazing. They had at least ten different options between pools at various temperatures, hot and cold saunas, even an intense dry heat room that you entered from the freezing outdoor air. I also got a massage which was possibly the most homosexual thing I ever experienced. Let's just say the Hungarian masseuse got really close to my butt.

View of Budapest from high up. Check that river Danube

After a relaxing, rejuvenating, and extremely finger-pruning four hours in the baths, we hit up the goulash once more and then started get our drank on. After a few juvenile rounds of never have I ever (I lost every time) we head out for a bar that my boy Paul recommended. Paul studies in Budapest but unfortunately was up in Copenhagen that weekend. Thank goodness that he suggested this bar called Szimpla. One of the best surprises of the entire semester happened at this bar. I turn around and one of my favorite people in the world is standing right in front of me- Jules! Now I already seen Jules thrice this semester, twice when we visited Prague and once when she came to Brussels. But the fact that I just found her in the darkness of a gigantic Hungarian bar was the most amazing feeling.

Jules and I love each other so much!

Ok if you have read all these words so far then props to you. This blog has turned more into me remembering what happened than actually crafting and serving it up for readers. But don't you enjoy when someone actually talks real to you? So many people are so fake on the internet and I'm really not tryna do that.

This marked the end of our time in semi-Western Europe. After this, on to Belgrade. That's when we really got in the shit and entered good ol' Eastern Europe. Stay tuned y'all.

Rome: Where history meets shithole

Now don't be fooled by the title of this post. I really liked Rome. There's no disputing, however, that it is a dirty dirty place, a problem only exacerbated by the presence of dirty italians. O wait, I'm Italian, I can't say that. woops. #sorryimnotsorry.

Let me get my Rome bitching out real fast. It's dirty as shit, the public transport sucks, and you feel like you're in a tourist playground.

Ok, now that I got that out, back to business. We rolled up into Rome and found our way to my friend Nicole's apartment. After dropping our stuff off, Rachel and I set out to explore the immediate area, a section of Rome called Trastevere. It's is the hip, trendy, and up and coming area according to some of my friends. We found some pretty sweet steps aka another opportunity for some bomb ass rachel photography.

so artsy

That night, we randomly chose a little restaurant on the main street in Trastevere. The thing about Italy is that even if you just pick a random place on the street, the food is going to be bomb. We were the only people in this little restaurant around 7pm, much too early for the real italians to eat dinner. I got a pizza, Rachel got some gnocci, and we both fell in love (with the food). The qualms that I did have with Rome are immediately redeemed by the food. After staying with Nicole one night, we decided to go stay with our friends Pat and Brian because there were a bunch of other kids also staying with Nicole. Pat and Brian were incredibly hospitable as well.

Time out. Haven't yet discussed the really old old things in Rome ie the reason everyone goes there. You usually think just Colosseum as the main ruins in Rome. Nien. There are ruins everywhere, just straight chillin in the middle of the street like its nbd. That's probably one of the main reasons that Rome has a small and dysfunctional metro system. They can't build underground because there are so many goddamn ruins everywhere. Thanks a lot Caesar.

straight chillin

But the main tourist attractions really were amazing and really were worth the exorbitant prices we had to pay to visit them. How is Italy in so much debt when it charges 20 euro to see a bunch of old rocks aka the Colosseum. Also, the Vatican Museum (the place with the Sistine Chapel) brings in five hundred thousand euros PER DAY. that's 500,000! Obscene. All I can say is that that sounds more like the international headquarters of Judaism and not Catholicism. Distasteful joke? Maybe. This blog is now flagged by AIPAC.

How colosseul

sweet purple shirt bro

The Colosseum was actually pretty damn cool. It's hard to imagine how they built these gigantic structures without modern construction equipment. Granted, they still had slaves back then. Too soon. But seriously, how do these things stay standing for so long? I just can't forsee something like the Sears Tower standing for thousands of years.

full view of inside the Colosseum

After visiting the Colosseum, we schlepped over to the Vatican. We did a lot of schlepping in Rome. Definitely got a workout just from all the walking. To replace all the calories that I may have lost while schlepping, I aggressively consumed proscuito sandwiches and gellato. Yummmm. 

The Vatican was definitely an impressive place. With an income of 500,000 euro per day it damn well better be. Because I am not Catholic or even Christian or even religiously attuned, the Vatican probably did less for me than for others. However, discovering it through the historical and cultural lens was also quite powerful. Everybody knows that the only thing anyone wants to see in the Vatican museum is the Sistine Chapel. "Everybody" also includes whoever designed the museum. Thus, we found ourselves on a very dragged out walk through exhibits that weren't so interesting before arriving 45 minutes later at the Sistine Chapel. Funny thing was, they kept putting signs that said "Cappella Sistina" like it was just around the corner. Could not have been further from the truth.

Look at all dem frescoes

Famous painting with Aristotle and Socrates in it

I'm going to rag on Rome and Italy one more time. I'm not surprised that they are having huge debt problems. They simply don't work. The construction workers who were fixing the side of Pat and Brians apartment worked from approximately 8am to 9am. This was real cool especially when we had been out until 4 or 5 the previous night.

We hit up all the regular tourist sites. My favorite was probably the Trevi fountain. I of course threw in a coin. Not really sure where this tradition comes from but hey, why not

Make a Wish!

One thing that I really liked about the Trevi fountain is that they collect all the change that tourists throw in and donate it to local charities. We also visited the Spanish steps and Pantheon, some other famous Rome sites.

Spanish steps in all their glory 

view from the top of the Spanish Steps. Cool except for all the other tourists

I don't have any pictures of the Pantheon because my camera died. I swear this camera sucks. That's a story for a later time though.

Going out in Rome was a lot of fun. Pat and Brian were gracious hosts and showed us a great time around Trastevere. Rome is the most confusing place in the world. Granted, I have zero sense of direction. All the streets wind and change names every block. There is seriously no rhyme or reason to how this city was designed.

I feel like I have given Rome a bad rap in this entry. Its really not that bad. Let's just say I'm glad I don't study there for an entire semester. It also was the second half of a ten day trip. We were both real tired and definitely happy to get back to Brussels. After ten days together, Rachel and I were definitely ready to never talk to each other again. 

best friends?