Pestbuda or Budapest?

Monday:
Today was our last class day before we left for Vienna. We had lectures from both Dr. Wasser and Prof. Waltz. I have truly learned so much from both of them in only six weeks. During our pre-departure meeting at lunch, Alexa and Brian brought me a cake with gummy bears on top for my birthday. I'm not a big fan of my birthday, but they made me feel special today and it was so cool that they remembered. After we got out of class, a lot of us got gelato then went to the Birkenstocks outlet. After that, we headed to the bier garten on the Rhine. It's such a great place to hang out after class. I'm gonna miss it. After hanging out and enjoying one of our last days in Bonn, I headed home to my host family's house. My host mom made an EXCELLENT meal for my birthday, and we had some cake after. It was a great 20th birthday, even though I had to get to sleep since we left for Vienna at 4 AM the next morning!

Tuesday:
3:30 AM alarm woohoo! I was surprisingly awake and pumped to go to Vienna on this early morning. After about 10 AM, the exhaustion finally hit. I didn't let that stop me from having a good time. As Alexa and Dr. Wasser say: "you can sleep when you're dead." After we arrived in Vienna, we had a great walking tour of Vienna from Dr. Schnabel. As a retired Black Plague doctor, he educated us on the Plague and gave us some medicine to protect us from the Plague on our walking tour. Among the medicine was cloves, "little boy urine," and rosemary. I really liked Dr. Schnabel's tour and I am so glad I didn't catch the plague in Vienna! After eating lunch, we visited the catacombs underneath Michael's Church. Theses catacombs contained the bones of 3,000 people! Our tour guide explained how the cemetery used to be in the middle of town, and stunk up the whole town. People couldn't bear the stench anymore, so they started moving the bodies into the catacombs underneath the church. Although it was a little creepy down there, it was very interesting and it was a nice break from the heat outside. After this, we headed to the Goulashmuseum for an excellent meal. Although there was horse goulash on the menu, I steered clear and got beef goulash followed by three different desserts. It hit the spot! After singing some a cappella on the way home with friends, we went right to bed. It was a long hot day but I loved walking around Vienna.

Smiling through the pain of drinking "little boy urine"

Dr. Schnabel

Desserts

Wednesday:
Today we headed to the Drogistenmuseum in the morning. This was an old pharmacy with thousands of old medicines, books, and documents about medicines. It was fascinating learning about the advancements of medication throughout the years, and how some of the medicines we use today were used centuries ago. It was also interesting to learn that pharmacists would just hand out cocaine as a prescription drug. Oh how the times have changed! Afterwards, we had a free afternoon in Vienna. We went to the Naschmarkt, which had dozens of kiosks selling a variety of foods and other things. There was a variety of dried fruit, meats, and nuts being sold. I got lunch (some sort of meat pastry) for 2.50 euros, although I am not quite sure what I was eating. It was tasty though. After walking around Vienna some more, we visited the Austrian National Library. And I thought the MedSci Library was nice... This was GORGEOUS. It looked like the setting of Beauty and the Beast. It was nice and cold in there, so we ended up staying here for about 2 hours to take a break from the sun. There were many signs that talked about the history of Vienna and how the library came to be. They even had some manuscripts dating back to the 4th century! After cooling off, we went to a famous cafe in Vienna and got some iced coffee and desserts. It was wunderbar! For dinner, we went to Suji's favorite Indian restaurant in Vienna, nirvana. I'm not exactly sure what we ordered, but it tasted AMAZING. It was a nice change-up from all of the German food I have been eating. I was really missing some spice. We then headed to a famous "American" bar in Vienna that was recommended to us by a local Viennese. This bar has been visited by many stars like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and more. It was a pretty small, classic bar, and we all pretended like we were sitting in the exact spot that Brangelina sat. It was a cozy place and we all had a great time. After this, we called it a night.

Austrian National Library

Thursday:
Today was my favorite day of the Vienna excursion. Our first stop was the Narrenturm or "Fool's Tower." I had no idea what to expect, but this surpassed whatever expectations I had. This old hospital was used to treat both regular medical patients and patients with mental diseases. It is now used as a museum, and it contains thousands of important medical artifacts. There are hundreds of these wax figures that were made from pouring wax on real people. These figures had deformities I didn't even know could exist. It was so interesting to look at different lumps, bumps, rashes, and cuts on these figures. There was also a collection of human specimens preserved in jars. There were even human fetuses, hearts, brains, stomachs, skeletons and more. My favorite specimen was the stomach of a troubled man who had eaten loads of hay. It had clogged his stomach and he died of starvation eventually, although he had a stomach full of hay. Another interesting fact I did not know was that doctors used to treat syphilis patients by injecting them with malaria. The high fever from the malaria would kill the syphilis, but then the patient would end up with malaria. The doctor would then have to cure the malaria. Or in some cases, the syphilis would not completely disappear, and the doctor would have to repeat the whole process. Whack! After our tour, we had lunch at a Pakistani restaurant. I really liked the concept of this restaurant, as it was a "pay as much as you can" concept. There was no set price for the buffet, so many students will come here and pay whatever they can that day. Later on, we had a lecture on Sigmund Freud then visited his house. Unfortunately, it was under renovation when we went, so we were only able to see a couple pieces of his furniture and possessions. It was still very intriguing to learn about this man and his thoughts on psychoanalysis. One thing that shocked me is that there are "Freudians" that make a pilgrimage to Vienna just to visit Freud's House. They think of him as a god-like figure. After this interesting visit, we had a little bit of free time, and then we got ready for the string quartet. The string quartet was lovely, and I have never witnessed anything like it. The sound filled up the St. Anna Church beautifully, and the violinists and cellists were incredible. After this concert we grabbed a quick bite, then had a night out in Vienna. It was tons of fun.

Ready for the String Quartet

Friday:
After packing up our things, we headed to the Haus der Musik. There, we learned about some history of classical music and the Vienna Philharmonic. I have concluded that it is on my bucket list to go see the New Year's Concert in Vienna. We also learned about Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn. It was a wonderful museum and I could have spent a lot more time in there. Later, we visited the Natural History Museum. I was amazed by this grand building, and even more amazed by all of the artifacts inside of it. I think there was something like 3 million pieces in this museum. We had a guided tour from Peter, who was such a great tour guide. He was so passionate about the museum and wildlife in general. Other than the Fool's Tower, this was my favorite part of the trip. After our tour, we returned to the hotel to gather our things and head to the train station. Next stop: Budapest! After arriving in Budapest around 10 at night, we grabbed a quick bite and walked around the Jewish Quarter. It was already buzzing with nightlife. Exhausted from the week, we called it a night.

Saturday:
Ok. Budapest is my favorite place in Europe so far. If you are reading this and haven't visited, go visit. It is totally different than any place I've ever been. There is definitely a greater Eastern European influence, and Hungary has such a unique history and culture compared to the rest of Europe. Our first stop of the day was the Danube River. On the bank of the river, there is a memorial for the Jews and others that were murdered by the Arrow Cross militiamen. These 3500 people were ordered to take off their clothes and face the river. They were then shot and fell into the river. It was a really chilling and shaking experience to stand where they stood, only 75 years later. Although I have seen so many artifacts and memorials of World War II on this trip, I am still unable to wrap my head around the tragedy that occurred. I was surprised to see that these shoes were right across the street from the stunning Parliament building. After a quick photoshoot, we were walking around the square in front of Parliament and the guards starting doing some sort of march. The crowd started gathering around to watch. I'm not sure what it was, but it reminded me of the Corps of Cadets. We stumbled upon another memorial for those that died on "Holy Thursday." This tragic mass killing happened October 25, 1956 in the town square. No one is exactly sure how the shooting broke out, but dozens peaceful protesters were caught in crossfire between Soviet forces and state forces and were killed. This was something that I had never heard of in my history classes. It was a somber site to visit. After this, we hiked up to Fisherman's Bastion. I accidentally took Sarah, Suji, and Ginny up the hard way. By the end of the hike, we were all in a full sweat. I love a good challenge though. ;) The view from the top was absolutely worth it. There was a beautiful church at the top with an amazing colored roof, but we were unable to go inside because there were multiple weddings going on that day. After admiring the view, we randomly picked a restaurant on Google Maps in the Buda part of town (Buda and Pest are two different cities technically). It looked tasty and cheap, so we headed there and discovered it was a Michelin Star restaurant! We had a fantastic meal there, for a pretty good price. I had a chicken crepe with paprika sauce. Yummy. After lunch, we hung around Buda for longer and visited the Buda Castle and Castle Hill for more great views. There was a surprise at every turn. Every corner had a beautiful building, majestic alleyway, or gorgeous fountain. Buda, you are so cool. After returning to pest, we went out to dinner then to a ruin pub. A ruin pub was a new concept to me, but the U.S. really needs to get on this train. It was basically an old Jewish ghetto/apartments redesigned into all these bars in one place. It was decorated with funky lights and artwork, and all the bars served different drinks. I hope to visit another ruin bar one day.

Shoes on the Danube

Parliament

Chicken crepe

Sunday:
After a long night, we grabbed some food and headed straight for the thermal baths. We visited the Szechenyi Thermal Bath on this sunny day and got to relax for a couple hours. There were hundreds of people here, all enjoying the 18 pools this place had to offer. It felt like I was swimming in a royal palace or something. Reluctant to leave, we gathered up our belongings and went to take a peak into St. Stephens Basilica. This place was HUGE and SO GRAND. It was built in 1905, so it's one of the newer Catholic churches I have visited on this trip. Because much of Budapest was destroyed during World War II, a lot of the buildings and infrastructure are newer, but still beautiful. After enjoying some of the best Kurtos Kalacs in town, we headed to the airport and started our trip back to Bonn. It was a wonderful week and weekend.

Kurtos Kalacs

One! More! Week!