Okay, so this week started out heading to Vienna, Austria - one of our excursions as part of the program. The train ride wasn't too bad, and before we knew it, we were there!! For the first day, we started off with a tour of the city by the amazing and talented Dr. Schnabel (who knew time travel was possible!!) But in all seriousness, thank you Dr. Wasser for encouraging the little kid in us all. It's really inspiring to watch you do things like dress up like Dr. Schnabel and guide us around the city without a single care what other people think. You have added so much fun and happiness to this trip just by being who you are with us. Anyway... this is is a beautiful city. There are impressive buildings and structures EVERYWHERE as well as so many horses!!! (I'm the weird horse girl). After touring the city and having sample "medicines" from back in the plague era, we had a little bit of free time! We walked around some more, and I bought some street art from a kind lady while out! Next for dinner... the GOULASH MUSEUM (not to be mistaken for an actual museum). It was so good, oh my goodness. I had the beef goulash and of course had to try some of the famous horse goulash (contrary to previous statement about being a horse girl). After that and some wine, it was time for dessert! The chocolate goulash was literally incredible. a bowl of chocolate basically with some sort of cake baked good in it. I could eat that every day for the rest of my life. After dinner, we went out for a casual night and ended up in some smoky bar playing pool. A shock to everyone, it was Cass and I who beat the boys in pool.
The second day in Vienna, we started off with a trip to the anatomical wax museum. It was truly remarkable the creativity and precision it must have taken the creators of these masterpieces to utilize. Though I respected, admired, and enjoyed the museum thoroughly, I can say one thing - it surely made me reconsider any thoughts I previously had about having children (that's all I'll say). After the museum, we did some ore exploring of our own, went back to the hotel to get ready for later that night (the one time we all were actually required to dress up a little bit!) and headed to dinner before the classical concert we would be seeing afterwards! It was the girls (Cassidy, Maddie, Madison, and me) plus Bryan at a nice restaurant where we all had different kinds of pasta - which by the way was delicious. It was so relaxing, and I always love spending moments like that with my people that I've grown to love so much. Done with the sentimental stuff (for now), it was soon time for the concert! We walked into the beautiful St. Anne's Church with perfect timing for the performance to start! We watched and listened peacefully to several pieces from Mozart and Beethoven. The music was wonderful, and being in that church made the experience all the more beautiful.
The next day, we went to tour an old psychiatric hospital. Along with some cool facts, we largely learned how far we have come as a society in our treatment of mental disorders, and the differences are dramatic. It's always shocking learning of how medicine has changed through time. After, the girls and I went to a nice coffee shop in town for some coffee and the best chocolate mouse cake ever. Once it was our group's time, we met at the church right in the center of town to go down into the crypts. What an eerie experience. We walked into the church then through several doors that took us underground the ginormous building and to the crypts themselves. We saw all sorts of coffins and bones and even a few mummified bodies. It was also only after the tour was over that our tour guide informed us it was actually old bones and other remains we had been walking on throughout our time down in the crypts. No wonder it was such uneven ground, wow... A very cool experience and one of my favorites in Vienna but certainly a little creepy! After that, it was time to lighten up the mood a little bit with gelato of course! Then, it was on to the Natural History Museum which included the famous Venus Von Willendorf we had learned so much about from Dr. Wasser! A very cool museum with such variety of things to see and learn about. Then, Cassidy and I visited the Belvedere Palace in our free time for some good art! We even got to see The Kiss painting by Gustav Klimpt which I now can say was my favorite painting I was able to see on the trip - just so happy and peaceful. After finishing up there, we headed home for a nap then (supposedly) went out that night (...should've eaten dinner...).
The next day (Thursday) was also the last day of our Vienna excursion. In the morning, we went to the Sigmund Freud Museum which was very interesting. Something about the id, the ego, and the superego that I just find super interesting, I don't know. Ever since beginning to learn about Freud in high school I've loved psychology, so this was super intriguing. After this last and final event for Vienna, it was time to grab our bags from the hotel and head to our next destination... Budapest, Hungary! And this time it was just the four of us girls...
It was just a short train to Budapest which was great to finally have after a lot of long travels! When we arrived, we checked into our airbnb (which was so so cool by the way - it was so modern and decorated so interestingly). We then were super hungry so we went to find food after first pulling our some "forints" (the currency in Hungary). It was definitely the most confusing currency we had dealt with as just 1 USD is equivalent to about 280 Hungarian forints. As we were walking the streets, we passed a restaurant we thought looked good and boy were we right. Living and going to school in Texas now for the last three years, I've had my fair share of amazing Mexican food, but I can hands down say I had the best quesadilla of my life at this place (I have actually been craving it ever since I had it). After dinner, it was time for dessert, and since we had heard so much about things called "chimney cakes," we had to find them - which certainly was not hard. Our first ones were from a stand on the street. They're sort of like ice cream cones except the "cone" part is actually like a flavored bread (most of the time cinnamon sugar) and you have a choice of ice cream as well as toppings and what the inside of the cone is filled with (nutella was the best). These are incredible. Literally the best of everything... baked goods AND ice cream AND candy. So good. After this little adventure, we had heard a lot about ruin bars in Budapest and had to check it out. We found our way to one and WOW was it cool. When you walked in, there was a map with different areas and bars including cocktail bars, wine bars, beer bars, disco areas, and so much more. This place was HUGE plus it had several levels! After exploring for awhile and ordering a few drinks, we began talking to a fun group of London guys who were celebrating for a bachelor party. Little did we know the bachelor himself would offer us what was equivalent to over 400 USD to buy drinks for us and a few of the other girls on the program that also made a trip to Budapest (28+ and all investment banking Ferrari owners, it did not hurt these guys financially to drop that sort of cash). Anyway, as you can imagine, this lead to a good time, and before you know it, we were about to hop into a few cabs with these guys to head to another bar (thankfully our senses kicked in and we decided against this... see mom and dad, your all your lessons regarding the movie "Taken" really did pay off!! And dad, you didn't even have to use your Liam Neeson skills!!!). All in all, it was a great night and so, so much fun - as it always is when I'm with my girls!
The next day in Budapest was our time to do all the site seeing we wanted. We saw and were able to go inside a magnificent church first off. Then we saw the Hungarian Parliament Building (which we walked up to right as some strange ritual was going on with the guards directly on the steps of the building - still, we have no idea what was happening, but it seems we always came upon interesting ceremonies like this one on our trips). This was a truly impressive building with its red roofs and numerous peaks. We also saw the shoes on the Danube Bank (a memorial sculpture for the Jews of this time), the chain bridge, and many, many other landmarks. It was then time for some lemonade as we sat down for a moment after all the walking. Once we finished and walked across the bridge, we took again what seemed like a mountain climbing train up to another area of Budapest (it truly felt like we transported to a different town altogether - there was a different feel up there). We saw more architecture, fountains, and the most beautiful view of the city from the top. At the top, we window-shopped and had dinner at a nice restaurant where I had some delicious pasta (pasta and pizza were always go-to meals for me and most people). It was then time to head back to where we were storing our luggage - after a stop at the famous thermal baths - so we could gather our things and head to Prague! (not before another chimney cake, though). And it was a good thing we had those to put us in a good mood, because we didn't realize we were about to be on an overnight train from hell. Between being asked for our tickets one thousand times, the drunk people playing music and pacing up and down our cart, the uncomfortable sleeping positions, and more throughout the night until around 06:00 the next day, it was easy to label this as our least favorite train ride. Still, all was good because eventually, we made it to Prague, Czech Republic!!! (plus we passed through Slovakia, which is a pretty cool thing to do).
After storing our luggage at the hotel we chose since our airbnb guy hadn't messaged us back, we were ready to get going on our new day and on our Prague adventures - especially in our accidental perfectly matched outfits. We headed to the Old Town Square first which was only a couple minutes walking distance from our hotel. Our first introduction to Prague was some drunk man at 07:00 telling us he lost his friends and that we should be drinking right now so it was in our best interest to follow him to a bar. Hm. Thanks but no thanks sir!! No worries, though because it only got better (and I mean a lot better) from there. Prague is simply amazing. There is no other way to put it. We started our site seeing by making our way to a garden by which we could hike our way to the top of a lookout over all of Prague. Seeing all the red roofs, the green copper tops, and more was breathtaking and truly awe-inspiring. These were once-in-a-lifetime type views and here I was at 21 seeing all of it. I am so lucky. We also saw the amazing St. Charles Bridge that led us to the other side of the river. This side was home to the Lennon Wall, which by far was something I was most excited for. We went both days we were there, and on the second day, a man was playing guitar and singing Beatles songs with a sign on his guitar case that read, "I need money to repair my time machine to go back to the 60's." I made sure to take a picture, as I know my dad would relate to that. We also saw another beautiful cathedral before grabbing lunch (this is when I ate and finished the biggest calzone I'd ever seen in my life). And of course, why not another chimney cone (I wonder why I've gained ten pounds on this trip). When we were back at the hotel, we were shocked at our room which was actually a suite with a terrace overlooking the beautiful city. We grabbed some bottles of wine and talked until it was time for bed.
The next and final day of our long weekend trip, we did some more exploring and once again came upon another strange event. This one, however, seemed to take up the whole city. All that we could gather was that it was like a parade with members from all countries imaginable. Tons of roads were even blocked off, as our Uber struggled in finding a route to one of our destinations across the bridge! Not entirely sure still what was going on, but it was pretty cool. After making it back to the Old Town Square, we grabbed some good sausage and a potato type dish before grabbing our things from the hotel. We took our time before getting to the train station later in the afternoon and were soon on our way back to Bonn. Though I had sworn the last train ride was the worst I would ever have, I was proven wrong as we hopped on this train that appeared to not have enough seats since a field trip of what seemed to be one hundred kids plagued the entire train, filling up each seat and even two to a seat - which was the case in the cart where mine and Cassidy's seats were. Wow, I have had a lot of instances on this trip that have discouraged me from being a mother. Anyway, no complaining here, it was honestly hilarious that this was our circumstance with all the jokes we had been making. We put our headphones in, and by around midnight, we were home! We walked in to our host family up with guests, warm soup, and a glass of wine from the best host parents two girls could ask for. After our nice meal, it was not long before we were in bed and asleep, preparing for our next and last week of adventure as part of the program!! It's a good life.
-Kylie Reis
Right in the city.
A spectacular show by the one and only Dr. Schnabel.
Budapest temple bar.
Hungarian parliament building.
Views in Prague and matching outfits.
We love chimney cakes (note chocolate on Madison's face).
The Lennon Wall.
St. Charles Bridge.
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