Eurotrip 2006

Happy 2007 from Budapest! I'm back from Eurotrip 2006. In one word it was simply... amazing, incredible and fabulous! Okay, so that was three words. But it was great! Just to remind you of the plan for Eurotrip: the idea originated over the summer when I was discussing holiday plans with my family. At that point of course I knew I would be in Budapest. The options were for us to spend the holidays apart, for me to fly home, to meet half-way or for everyone to fly here.

After much deliberation and several "disagreements" which nearly resulted in cancellation of all holidays plans, we decided to meet in London (as half-way as is possible, considering the existence of the Atlantic Ocean) and spend a few days in London and a few in Paris. After some family time together, my parents would return to the US and Ryan and I would continue our European adventure for another ten days. For this leg of the trip we bought Eurail passes and I planned an itinerary which included the cities of Cologne, Berlin, Dresden and Munich in Germany, and Florence, Venice and Milan in Italy. We would then return to Budapest for a few days and eventually Ryan would fly back to the US from Budapest. We made a few definite plans (visiting a friend of mine in Munich and New Year's Eve in Florence) and decided to go with the flow on the rest of the itinerary.

At this point I will recopy from my stained, crumpled but surprisingly legible notes on 4x6 notebook paper to give you the trip play-by-play, along with photos:

12/18-Arrived London (it was a challenge... flight two hours delayed, Gatwick Express train from airport then my first shot at the London Underground... 16 British pounds...!), checked into hotel (where my family had already arrived) and went out to eat at Portuguese chicken restaurant. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Kensington, 2 blocks from the Earls Court underground station. Excellent location. Small room. TV but no heat (this becomes important later). Went to 24 hour Tesco, which was right down the street from the hotel.

12/19- Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, the London Eye (largest ferris wheel in the world), London Dungeon, Covent Garden and Chinatown (where we had dinner). The culinary highlight of the day, however, was Pret a Manger, where we had lunch. I would say it's the upscale British equivalent of fast food combined with the "fresh" food selection you find at a 24 hour store (or at least the 24 hour store across the street from Max and Noah's house). Lots of ready-to-eat gourmet salads and sandwiches, along with hot soup and drinks and baked goods. We also purchased tickets for the Big Bus, a sightseeing bus you can hop on, hop off in order to see the city and visit the touristy sights.

12/20- Museum of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We had a Pret a Manger copy-cat for lunch (EAT) and Italian for dinner, where the owner was Spanish and gave us free shots of some sort of Bailey's/amaretto delight. My mom doesn't drink so I had hers as well. And a shot of limoncello... hey, that stuff is amazing and I simply could not resist :).

12/21- The Globe Theater, Florence Nightengale museum, Cabinet War Room, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Harrod's Department Store. We had more Italian for lunch and ate dinner at a real British Pub, the Albert Pub. Oh and we partook in dessert prior to dinner when we found a McDonalds serving this orange McFlurry thing that was simply irresistible.

12/22- Westminster Abbey, Kensington Palace, National History Museum (I skipped on that one and went to visit the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine instead), Christmas market. We had lunch at the museum cafe and Thai for dinner. And then Ryan and I went to another pub for a drink, and then to McDonalds for another orange delight.

12/23- Eurostar to Paris, taxi to hotel, lunch at a French cafe (where the waitress spoke no English and my mom stood there dumbfounded and giggling trying to figure out what she was saying). We tried to go to the Pantheon but it was closed, so we walked to the Centre Georges Pompidou instead and had a snack at their cafe. Our hotel in Paris as the Louvre St. Honore, which featured some heat and no TV. Actually let me expound on the television issue. We played with the TV for 10-15 minutes trying to turn the static into something more exciting. Hotel TVs can be confusing. Foreign TVs can also be confusing. We thought perhaps the combination of foreign and hotel had resulted in a major puzzle. So I went downstairs to ask and the guy said the service was out. So when did he expect it to be fixed? "Well, it hasn't been working for 2 weeks, so... I don't really know when they're going to come and fix it." Hmph.

12/24- Louvre, Hotel of the Invalides and French WWI/WWII museum (where we had lunch), night bus tour of the city, more Italian for dinner and finally the 11pm music service at the Notre Dame Cathedral. We took a taxi over (somehow I reached into the depths of my brain and recalled enough French to get us there) and walked back.

12/25- Christmas at the hotel! We opened some presents in the morning (although this trip was our real present), had a late lunch/early dinner near the Champs Elysee and went to the Eiffel Tower. It was very foggy, as you can see from the pictures. So foggy, in fact, that from the top of the Eiffel Tower we could not see the ground. Ryan and I tried to do laundry before lunch but a very drunk, somewhat scary drunk was a bit too interactive with us and so we left. We went back in the evening and got half the wash done before he showed up again.

12/26- Sacre Coeur, St. Chapelle, Pantheon and lunch at a French restaurant run by Asians. We tried to go to the Musee D'Orsay and the line was 2+ hours long... so we bought tickets for the next day instead. Then Ryan and I went out with my friend Ludo to Montmartre, Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, Kilometer Zero, the Latin Quartier and finally his friend's apartment, where we had pasta for dinner.

12/27- We checked out of the hotel, Chas and Krissy went to the airport and Ryan and I went to the Musee D'Orsay. Our plan was to then take the mid-day train to Cologne, look around and then get back on a train to Berlin. We got to the train station and everything was full... and I mean everything. We tried to go to Barcelona, Madrid, Nice, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rome... you name it, it was full. Our options were Munich and Vienna. Since Vienna is nearly Budapest and we had already planned on stopping to see my friend in Munich, we chose Munich. I made a frantic phone call to Philipp to tell him we were arriving the next morning instead of three days later as planned. Since the train was not leaving until that night we had another day in Paris, and went back to the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore for a few hours, and then went to McDonalds and waited for our train.

12/28- Overnight train in the couchette (bunkbed style sleeper car) was great and we arrived in Munich at 9am. We had breakfast (which included the best jam I've ever had in my life, as well as amazing apple-cinnamon tea) at a coffee shop called Coffee Fellos, met up with Philipp, went to a local brewery for lunch, walked to where Oktoberfest is held, walked downtown on the Theresienwirse where all the shops are, saw all of Munich's major churches, and then went to the Olympic Park. Philipp was very kind to let us stay with him- where it was not only warm but the TV worked as well (ha ha).

12/29- After doing some brief shopping in the morning, Ryan and I went to Dachau (former concentration camp) and then took the overnight train to ... Rome! Not on the original itinerary, but we ended up with an extra day or two since we could not get our train to Cologne, so... why not!

12/30- Arrived Rome, hoping we would be able to find a place to stay. After a few misses (56 Euros a night EACH for a single at a hostel or 140 Euros a night at a hotel), we came across a pensione where the hand-less woman who only spoke Italian but somehow understood my Spanish charged us 55 Euros. Phew. The weather was gorgeous (upper 50s and sunny!) so we set off. We did another bus tour so we could see the city, stopping at the Colosseum, Forum and the Vatican. We had amazing Italian food for dinner and went out that night with some new Colombian friends we met at the pensione.

12/31- Tried to go to the Vatican museum, which is free on Sundays, but even at 9am the line was so long we could not even see the end, so instead of toured the Colesseum, had more great Italian food and then took the train to Florence. We stayed with someone from Hospitality Club, who made us a great dinner and served amazing Italian champagne. By this point we were so exhausted we took a nap between dinner and midnight, and then went back to bed and slept until... 3:30pm on New Year's Day.

1/1- After getting a bit of a late start we walked around downtown Florence, had more fabulous Italian food and went to bed again.

1/2- The plan was to get up early, take our bags to the train station and get tickets for Venice, go see the David, and then take the train to Venice. So we got up early, took our bags to the train station, and found out that all trains to Venice were full. All day. No buses go to Venice apparently either. I was feeling a bit panicky at this point. The woman at the ticket counter was mean and not very helpful at all. In desperation we went to the information desk and I started to whine to the guy there (in Spanish). I think he felt bad for me because he said, "that rain there is leaving for Venice in 2 minutes. Go!" When I stood there, looked at Ryan in confusion and then looked back at him he started to yell. "GO!" We ran to the train (although it did not say that it was going to Venice), and literally five seconds after we got on the doors closed and it left. It took us to another station in Florence where we switched trains and took a dining car seat (sound familiar, Monika?) for the three hour ride to Venice. Venice was incredible, of course. No cars, lots of tourists and people walking around. Looks just like the pictures you see. Wonderful. Had great fried calamari and pizza for lunch. Took the night train to Budapest.

1/3- Night train was awful- they kept the lights on all night, we were woken up every 1-2 hours either by Border Guards or ticket checkers. First it was hot, then cold, then very, very hot. Arrived in Budapest slightly tired, as you can imagine. After stopping briefly at CEU, we met Monika and Nathan for lunch, then went home to "rest." My host mom had prepared a feast, including champagne. After stuffing ourselves we laid down to rest, a rest which lasted until the next morning.

1/4- After a warm, quiet and dark night of sleep, we woke up feeling refreshed. My host parents did our laundry, and it was great to be clean from shower but also to wear clean clothes. We went to the Castle District, National Art Museum, Westend. Went to see "Borat" (the movie) in the evening.

1/5- Liszt Ferenc ter, Terror House museum, Basilica and coffee with Linda. Mailed postcards. Met Linda, Noah and Szilvia for a drink in the evening, and took the night bus home (quite an experience if you've never done it, let me tell you).

1/6- Made CDs with all trip pictures (almost 600 in total!) and went on a tour of Budapest's public transport system (took hev, vilamos, metro and bus to the airport- a journey of one and a half hours!). I was very sad to see Ryan leave, which officially marked the end of Eurotrip 2006 and our 17 days of travel plus three days in Budapest. Fun, fun times.