Not all who wander are lost...

Buda and Pest and the Danube River. That is what makes up the capital of Hungary, Budapest. I took a discount airline Wizz Air from Eindhoven to Budapest and the first thing I will tell you is they call it discount for a reason. Imagine if a dollar store had an airline...long crowds, no sitting areas, lack of information, no restrooms, vending machine food, you have to take a bus to get there, and no one speaks English. Oh, and the flight was delayed 6 hours. I'm not a fan of discount flights for that reason (and super cramped legs on the plane), plus they always get you with extras...want to know the seat you are in before getting on the plane? That'll be an extra 15E (each way). Bringing luggage more than a backpack? That's an extra 20E. The extras add up. Double check your math before final booking. I went for 5 nights, which was actually 4 days because the layover got me in after midnight. When you get in and get through customs, if necessary (I have a EU id card and ...

I'm almost tempted to recommend NOT going to a German Christmas Market simply because it was so crowded you could barely move. We lost our tour guide, each other, the bus... This was an ISOW day trip, only made bearable by being with friends...who I lost, but when we were together it was fun. The crowds are nothing to joke about and I heard more than one American voice raised trying to find lost family members. Prices are high as you would expect from a tourist trap and you'll pay 50c to use the toilet, but the attendent will make you wait while they clean it up inside after each use, which is kinda awesome and somehow very German. Of course, me being me, I was thrilled to go into two different churches and then got told to hush for calling out at wedding that the balloons they released were going to kills hundreds of sea turtles (my bad...eh..not so much). We also went into the Eau d'Cologne store ( Farina House ) and heard about the original cologne. Word f...

Prague is definately at the top of my European favorite cities list. I've even marked it as a 'you must go back and show the hubby' list, which is saying something because he does not impress easily. Prague was a 4 day trip with IxESN and my first time in mixed room hostels. First, the bus ride was super long and only got interesting when we got closer to the city. Second, I had forgotten what sleeping in a room with a bunch of twenty-somethings who can't hold their liquor is like. That was not pretty and the room smelled of vomit for the rest of the night. Third, I am weird, I go on group trips and then get as far from the group as possible. The trip cost included our hostel (we were in Hostel Ananas ), which was okay once you got through the rediculously long and inept administration to check in, but there were about a hundred of us, so that may have had something to do with it. You do pay for linens, so be prepared for that additional 10E fee. We had dinner and...

Something you have to remember when traveling, is that if it could happen...it probably won't, unless you are me, or walking around with me; then, you never know, you may end up eat amazing Napoleon pizza followed by decadent Dutch hot chocolate in a rain storm on a canal and then get locked inside a church tower without lights only two hours later. Think it can't happen? Oh, I beg to differ, as do the three other girls who were with me during said rain storm and lock in. IxESN was better organized than ISOW, but they also were smart, the trip to Giethoorn and Zwolle was just that, a bus ride to one place and then to the other and home. No embellishments, no tour, just the bus, which makes things easier. If I'm traveling locally, especially a day trip, I normally pack a sandwhich for something for lunch and then just get a drink or snack, but on this trip I decided to eat with the girls I was traveling with after we walked around Giethoorn, which is this super adorable...

I made the conscious decision to be more extroverted, outgoing, and adventurous when coming to Europe. Honestly, I'm more inclined to sleep on Saturday than get up at 5am and get on a bus, but that's exactly what I've been doing almost once a month since coming here. Because of my age, I'm typically too old for many student tours, even though that is exactly what I am, but there are two organizations at school where they overlook the age: ISOW and IxESN. ISOW is the Internation Student Organization and ESN is the Erasmus Student Network. I'm not Erasmus, but they allow any international student at my school to join. Bonus for me! I've had the opportunity to travel through both organizations quite a bit, and I'll talk about ESN in the next post, but for now, let's go to Den Haag! The day trip (always on a Saturday from roughly 6am-11pm) took us by bus to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Kinderdijk where we walked around and took photos of a dozen s...