Thanksgiving in Rotterdam

No more past stories, I'm done with it. If you want to hear about Portugal, Paris, Brussels, just ask me someday and I would be more than willing to tell you about my time in those places. But from now on, I just want to write about the present or near past, so I'm skipping them and fast forwarding to now...

I'm on a short one-hour train from Brussels to Bruges. This morning I was in Rotterdam, where I had spent a surprising 5 nights considering how fast it went by. I had only planned on passing through Rotterdam on my way to Bruges or possibly Antwerp, but ended up loving my hostel and the friends I made there, and decided to use Rotterdam as my home base for a couple day trips around to other towns and cities in the Netherlands, as well as the place where I would spend my European Thanksgiving.

I arrived midday on Tuesday, and got to Hostel ROOM to find a very nice hostel with a lively atmosphere and a young and friendly staff. There was only one other person in my room, an Australian girl named Gretel, and we quickly became friends. We spent that night staying in the hostel which had its own bar and great music, meeting the staff and other travelers in the hostel.

The next day Gretel and I rented bikes from the central station and set out on a day to explore the city on two wheels. She had been in Rotterdam for a full day before me so she had a pretty good idea of where to go and what to see. To make it even better, she was even studying architecture at school, and as I would come to learn, Rotterdam is well known globally for its great architecture. Nearly completely flattened by German bombs in WWII, the city planners, architects, and whoever else does that stuff has turned it into a city full of beautiful and unique buildings. Just google Cube Houses in Rotterdam, and you will see an example. Why don't I just show you a couple pictures? Oh well thats easy - I am an idiot and forgot my camera that day. There.

That evening I met three other Americans staying in the hostel and by the end of the night we had decided on staying the next day to do Thanksgiving together. The day after I went to a museum, it was great, blah blah, and then we got together to plan dinner.

Turkey is awfully hard to come by in Rotterdam. Plan B, consisting of roasting a chicken, was also equally difficult once we realized there was no oven in the hostel kitchen. Plan C? Buy the only rotisserie chickens we could find... three little things that looked like chicken rolling around in a spit outside a deli - good enough. We then put more effort into the rest of the meal, making a salad, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and deviled eggs, accompanied with bread and of course, wine and beer.




The other American cooks before we start making dinner... starting with a glass of wine, of course.




The prep work, and unfortunately the only picture I took of us cooking



The meal! Success! Accompanied by friends from other nationalities as well (Aussies mostly)



The Americans/Cooks. Fake Fall-colored flowers were a nice touch, don't you think?

Here's the best part though- Somehow we didn't know until we were done cooking, that the entire hostel and friends were having a thanksgiving feast. Maybe its because they were eating around 8 and we were trying to eat at more normal Thanksgiving time, but we shared our meal with others (in typical Thanksgiving style we made way too much food) and then we joined them for theirs. Wish I had a picture, because we had a table that stretched from the reception area/bar all the way through the common room, seating around 30 people. And only 7 Americans, including us. Having to explain the meaning of Thanksgiving gets hard when you grow up and realize its not just about pilgrims and Indians (mass genocide, throwing them out of their land, etc), but I think I did a good job emphasizing the family aspect of it.

The day after I took a day trip by bike to a neighboring town full of windmills and quite canals. Why am I not telling you the name? Because I forgot it. Its written on something somewhere in my bag, and I'm not in the mood to find it, sorry. Pictures!











I know, so artsy. I've developed a fool-proof way for a good picture. Throw a windmill in it, maybe some water, maybe a beautiful sunset, or better yet a combo of two or more and you're good.

This trip inspired me to take it to the next extreme. The following morning I packed my day pack and headed out on bike again, but this time to Den Haag (The Hague). Only "an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes away" said the receptionist, but I managed to make it a wonderful three hour trip there. I wish I could say it was because I was taking my time, but alas, I got lost a few times. But glad I did, because the whole way was surrounded by green fields, farms, and just perfect picturesque moments.




My bike, and check out that view.

I was influenced to go there because it was one of the towns that Van Gogh had lived and worked, and I don't know why but I just assumed it would be a little country town, full of sunshine, starry nights, and huge weird looking yet beautiful sunflowers, but instead found myself biking into a city. A big, clunky, shopping city. In the couple hours I walked around, I stayed mostly around the Grote Market, where everyone seemed to want to be. Though not me. Where were my sunflowers? Where were the beautiful little country homes and warm, inviting pubs where Van Gogh drank too much Absinthe? Nowhere to be found. I took the train home.

Oh! Almost forgot. When I got back to the hostel that night, I walked past the kitchen which was on the lowest floor, with a window out to the side street. In the window I saw three Russian-looking men sitting around a table, while a party was going on in the bar upstairs, drinking what appeared to be a bottle of vodka. Of course I had to investigate. Thirty minutes later I'm sitting with them - two russians, one Slovakian. I was almost sad when I found out it was Gin they were drinking, I wanted it to be vodka just to go along with the stereotype. Ended up staying with them for an hour, drinking straight gin, and talking about politics. That's the kind of thing that only happens in hostels, and also only if you put yourself out their more. One of the best lessons I've learned so far.

Loved Rotterdam. Loved Hostel ROOM. Loved the staff. Loved my Thanksgivings. What was I thankful for? The opportunity to do what I am doing, the family and friends that support me along the way (including the ones I make along the way), and to have such great people in this world, they would drop whatever they were doing for a day to make a small handful of strangers happy and feel a little less homesick on one of my favorite holidays.

And other stuff.

To be honest, I finished this post on the train from Antwerp to Luxembourg. Why Luxembourg? Because I can (Country #16). I'll get you caught up on Bruges and Antwerp tomorrow. Talk to ya soon.


- Matt

Location:Rotterdam and Den Haag, Netherlands

Another Blog to Follow

Speaking of good friends, just reminded me that I wanted to let everyone know about another blog a hundred times better and more interesting than mine. One of my best friends, Will Armour, along with his longtime girlfriend and my good friend Maggie Pahos, is part-time working/volunteering/living in Ghana, and part time traveling the continent before eventually traveling through Europe as well. Great people, and great writers. Please don't compare their blog to mine. You can see a link to their blog, titled Our Battered Suitcases, in the list at the bottom of my blog under My Blog List, along with a couple other blogs that I'm following. Or just click here-

Link to Will and Maggie's Blog

Another great one worth checking out is 365 Days of Germany, written by one of my best friends Lauren, who is working as an Au Pair in Germany. Very cool perspective as someone actually living in Europe and starting to integrate into a European culture.

K go. Bye


- Matt

Location:Africa and Europe

Madrid - Enter Colin

In Madrid I met up with one of my best friends since High School, Colin Hopkins. Colin and I are weird together, we know that. We have a special handshake that is so cool, it has stopped people in their tracks in awe at how cool we are; twice! Having this kind of companionship in my travels was going to be a first for me, so I was really excited to do some traveling with him.

I arrived in Madrid early morning to find his flight had gotten in early and was waiting for me in the train station. A college friend of Colin's was nice enough to let us stay at her place for the week (Thank you for the millionth time, Katelyn), and we made our way over there. We spent the first day wandering Madrid; we visited Katelyn's work, ate some tapas, and in the late afternoon we made it to the Prado museum. The Prado museum houses the best collection of Spanish art from the 12th through the 19th century, and is one of the top museums in all of Spain. So we were excited - even more so when we pretended to still be students and got in for free.

Touring a museum alone can often be a very good experience if you do it right. You can take as much time as you want, or as little, you really cater your museum experience around what you want and nothing else. Well, touring a museum with a close friend is better. We played such classic museum games as Rename Each Painting Based On Absurdities Found Within and Find The Similarity Of Every Painting In This Room. Seriously, do other people not see these things? Individually, Colin and I are very responsible, fairly mature, young adults. Together, not always the same story. At one point in our tour of the museum, we broke into uncontrollable full-bodied laughter over an artist's name, that was very similar to something like Heironymous Bohner. That night we went to see the new Tintin movie, a favorite cartoon from my childhood, and then met up with Katelyn at a pub by her apartment for a quick beer.

One of the best things about Spain is tapas. Not just the tapas themselves, but the common practice of giving a patron a tapas or two with the beer they order. For instance, here's a pic of our first experience with this that night -


Simple stuff but still just a great concept. Our week in Spain we would frequently stop into places for a beer and a tapas, just to try different types of tapas. Beer may have been watery and boring, but at least the food was fun.

The next day Taylor joined our group. We decided to do touristy things and started in the center point of the city at Puerta del Sol. We learned a bunch of historical stuff, but I won't bore you. One cool thing in the square was the actual geographical center point of Spain, the marker called "kilometer zero."



Look how cool we are

From there we followed suggestions my guidebook had and checked out a confiteria Salon La Mallorguina. We stopped in and had our lives changed by their coffee and tasty treats. Exaggeration? Yes. But it was very, very good. We ate Madrid's answer to doughnuts, rosquillas. And another treat with chocolate in it, so obviously that was delicious too.



Yum. After we ate, we walked down to another large square, Plaza Mayor, a few more stops I won't bore you with, and then made it to the Royal Palace. A monstrosity of a building, it is from what I remember reading, the third largest palace in the world. Sadly didn't get a chance to go in because it was too late, but it was still a sight to see.

The day after we took a day trip outside of Madrid, to Salamanca. A small city in western Spain, its so beautiful and historically significant that it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage sight (well, at least the Old City is).

Salamanca followed right along the ideals of old, medieval european cities - cobblestone winding streets, hilly neighborhoods, churches on every corner, with the skyline dominated by the largest of the churches steeples and towers. I've developed a fondness for these kind of cities because I like the way they make you feel like you go back in time as you stroll down their streets. You never have anything like that in the States.

We loved our day in Salamanca. We toured a couple churches, ate a ton of different tapas, and enjoyed a beautiful day in a beautiful little city.



First we stumbled upon a group of older men playing a very competitive game of bocce. Later on, at a church we fooled around with some mirrors they had in their garden/courtyard area...



So artistic



See what I mean

Ok this has taken too long. Having Colin there was really a great time, and I am really lucky to have such great friends that they will travel halfway around the world to hang out with you.

Its late, I'm going to bed. Going to Bruges tomorrow morning.

Goodnight.



- Matt

Location:Madrid, Spain

Halloween in Florence

After the Sensation White party in Copenhagen, I flew down to Florence, Italy along with Taylor and Lindsay Kimble, another Elon student studying in Copenhagen. Well actually we flew to Bologna first, and then took a train to Florence to save some money. Going along with my pattern of eating foods related to their origins/common name, in the 30 minutes we had before out train I found a pizza place that had bologna on its pizza. OK FINE the guy said "hotdog" in his broken english, but I'm pretending and I don't care to hear otherwise.

In Florence we met up with Taylor's friends Michelle, Caroline, and Lexi, who were nice enough to meet us at the train station and walk us to their apartment where Taylor would be staying. Just on the 15 minute walk there, we passed more beautiful and historically important landmarks than there are in my entire hometown.


Boom. "Oh hold on a sec, I need to walk around this badass building to get to my astronomy class." I quickly began to realize why my friend Jacki had loved studying here her sophomore year - this town isn't real. Florence, as I would come to learn, is the home of the Renaissance and birthplace of the modern world - people don't actually go to school here - they live in a fantasy world of amazing italian food, awesome buildings, bridges, and captivating landscapes, oh and some classes they have to go to every now and then.

Even the girls' apartment was on a street right off the main touristy drag, right next to Pizzaria O'Vesuvio - recently made more famous as the pizza place the cast of the Jersey Shore worked in. Ah I hate that show. Not relevant to the historical buildings, but still really cool.

I waited in their apartment until I could connect with my friend Chris, who I had met at Oktoberfest (you may remember him from such enthralling posts as Oktoberfest, and maybe thats it I can't look back now I have a bad memory and have no internet access to see what I had written). When I did connect with him, it turned out he lived just around the corner...literally...and next to Dante's House - one of the famed tourist attractions in Florence where the author Dante had lived. Of course. Fantasy world.

That night we ate italian food, and my tastes buds changed forever. Never again will they be the same - YOU'VE BROKEN ME ITALY. Some examples:



Two kinds of pasta and turkey with cheese wrapped in chicken wrapped in cheese wrapped in bacon - like I said, I'm forever tainted.




Pizza the way it was supposed to be made.

Sadly thats it for pictures of food in Italy, guess I didn't bring my camera out much. More on food throughout Europe later (Just wait till I get to my post on Paris).

The following day Taylor and I toured Florence on our own with the help of my guidebook. We went first to the cathedral, or Duomo, the centerpiece of the town (partially pictured in the first picture). We walked down to the Uffizi Palace and around the Piazza della Signoria and the other fixtures of the old part of town, and more and more we stood around in awe, jaws down to our knees in disbelief that her friends refer to this place as "where they go to school".

We then walked over to the Ponte Vecchio, the shop-lined bridge across the Arno River. Pictured below...



Taken from the top of Mount Michelangelo, tallest natural point in city

Time ran short, and we met up with the girls to plan Halloween costumes. This was a long process of trying to come up with an idea or group theme to make all of our costumes cheap, witty, and yet easy as well. Of course, that would not be easy. Props to Michelle Gill for coming up with the winning idea - the four girls were gelato flavors and I the gelato man (I just bought a 5 euro chef apron and borrowed chris's hat - not lazy, genius. The girls put a lot more effort into theirs and created little gelato cups with their own flavor and attached them to their heads, with matching/relevant outfits). Picture to be added later after I steal it off facebook. We went on a pub crawl, along with dozens of other students, many from Elon which made my night that much better seeing so many familiar faces (especially my AZD girls). The night was a blast.

The next day I saw Taylor off to the train station for her trip to Barcelona, and then I headed back for some more touristy stuff. First headed to Galleria dell'Accademia, the museum that houses Michelangelo's statue of David, as well as other great works of his and many others. I don't care how many pictures you see, the statue of David will take your breath away when you see it in person (No picture, cameras not allowed). After I climbed to the top of the Duomo for this ridiculous view:



The glorious red-tiled roofs of Florence

After I met back up with Chris to hike the tallest natural point in the city, mount Michelangelo...



and then headed to Santa Croce Church...



where you can see this awesome statue of Dante looking down angrily at the people of Florence for once putting him in exhile out of their city in his lifetime, a piece of history every Florentine is still embarrassed about to this day.



Inside I saw and admired the finally burial places for Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. Don't know why I like to see famous graves.

Headed to Madrid after a very fast few days in Florence to meet up with a friend of mine from home. Florence was just a taste of what Italy has to offer and I cant wait to get back (should be near the end of my journey)


- Matt

Location:Florence, Italy

Sensation White

I took a night train out of Amsterdam into Copenhagen. I wonderful 15 hour journey snuggled up tightly with 5 random strangers in a 6 person cabin, with a broken air condition unit and a sweaty guy that looked like an ugly Spock from Star Trek next to me. Luckily, by 6 am most had made their destinations and I got a few hours of sleep sprawled out across the three seats on my side of the cabin. For those that don't know, most night trains have sleeper and couchette cabins, where you can get a pretty good nights sleep for a little bit more of a cost that is always worth it. I had learned this lesson after my first night train and had since made sure to choose the better nights sleep over the cheaper choice for accommodation, but for some reason every sleeper and couchette that weekend was booked...

That reason - people were flocking to Copenhagen for Sensation White.

The "Sensation" parties originally started in 2000 in Amsterdam, but have since spread to almost 20 countries mostly around Europe, hosted primarily in huge arenas in large cities. There are two types of parties - Sensation White, and Black. This one, hosted in Copenhagen this year, was white - and therefore everyone attending had to wear at least 90 percent white clothing .

The idea of the party is great - in a way. So everyone dresses in white, goes to a huge arena where they have great lighting effects and professional DJs from around the world, and everyone has a great time.

But...something about a couple thousand sweaty strangers grinding up against me, dancing around like they're probably on some sort of substance, bouncing along to the same beat over and over again...just doesn't do it for me. I know, I'm so weird.

Still had a great time - slightly tarnished by the annoying crowd of human beings and horrible music, as well as cutting my thumb open trying to slide down a level of stairs without using my feet at the pre game - but yeah, still a great time. Good experience, though I wouldn't go very much out of my way to go again.

The following morning - flight to Florence.


- Matt

Location:Copenhagen, Denmark

Coughy Shops

After Budapest, my next destination was The Netherlands, to the free, somewhat sinful depending on who you ask, and famous city of Amsterdam. Obviously I don't need to tell you about Amsterdam, if you don't know about it then get out from under your rock and google it.

For me, Amsterdam was one of my top destinations in Europe for one reason - you guessed it - the Van Gogh museum. Duh, what were you thinking? Ever since I read Lust for Life by Irving Stone in high school, which may have been the only book I read completely through in those days, I was hooked on the mysterious man and his unique style of Impressionism. Friends of mine (Drew and Alex) had been to Amsterdam on a school trip a couple years ago and had told me it was a must, which only reinforced my desire to see it myself. I arrived in Amsterdam a day before I was to meet up with Brandan and Aaron, the Aussies I had traveled with in Prague and Poland, so I was given a chance to do all that I really wanted to accomplish before they came in case they didn't have the same interests.

First thing I did was rent a bike. Similar to Copenhagen, the amount of bikes in Amsterdam is astonishing. Right when you leave the central train station you are welcomed by the view of a four-story bike garage, packed full of the two-wheeled machines that Europeans love so much.



OH MY I JUST FIGURED OUT HOW TO PUT PICTURES IN MY POSTS. HOW HAVE I NOT FIGURED THIS OUT BEFORE?? I don't know whether to be excited or sad it took me this long to figure it out. I'm going to go with excited, don't tell me otherwise I don't want to hear it (cough denial cough)

So yeah, check out those bikes. In the background you can kind of make out the multi-story garage. You can't tell too well from this picture, but in Amsterdam it's almost cooler to have a bike that looks like a rundown piece of crap than it is to have a nice, new looking bike. And when I said almost cooler, I mean it is cooler. I liken it to how people act like they don't care about something, or do their hair like they its bed head, or say they don't care about what people think though obviously they do or else they wouldn't tell you that. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Or, its because the crappier your bike looks, the less likely it will be stolen. Also a plausible option. Either way, I didn't want to be riding around with a clunky, bright red bike that said Amsterdam Bike Rentals in a big white circle on the front that screams I'M A TOURIST (you think I was making a hypothetical bike up, but I'm not, I saw dozens of people riding these things). I did my research and found a place that rents bikes that look like a piece of junk, I mean, like a local's bike might look. After having to return my first bike because the brakes didn't work, I got one that was actually pretty good. And I didn't have to stick out as a tourist - mission accomplished.

In the day had by myself, I biked all over the city and did my touristy things. The Van Gogh museum met every expectation I had and more - not only did they have tons of Van Gogh's work, but also the works that inspired him, as well as others that were inspired and transformed by Van Gogh. The museum not only told a story of a man and his work through its vast collection, but also the story of how a huge portion of the Impressionist art movement began and its impact. A must if you ever make it to Amsterdam.

Another must is the Anne Frank house. The house that the little Jewish girl lived in with her family, hiding from Nazis for more than three years, is truly an eye-opener. Walking past the bookcase that covered the secret door to the three hidden rooms where her family lived, and walking around the tiny living area that the Frank family lived in, you have an entirely new respect for what the families in hiding had to go through. The house/museum also opens your eyes to all that the Dutch did in resistance to the German occupation, many risking their lives to help save their Jewish friends. Sad, but a must.

When the guys came the following day, I moved to the hostel they were staying at. It was a street over from the Red Light District. This meant every day and night I was walking past half naked women tapping on their glass windows trying to lure me in. I don't get how people do this. And an unbelievable amount do. I can't look these women in the eyes without thinking about what their life must be like, what diseases they must have, and what kind of person gets into that. But time and time again I saw men going in and out. Normal looking men too, not just the weird ones you expect to be doing it. In fact, my day in the city I got into a conversation with a couple British kids from Wales, and it turned out they were their because it was one of the guy's 18th birthday, and his buddies brought him to Amsterdam for the weekend to celebrate, and "get him a girl". Literally, they said that with a smile, like it was the most obvious thing in the world to do for your eighteenth birthday. When his friend told me this I swear a look of shock, disgust, and amazement flashed across my face all at once before I had a chance to hide it, but the birthday boy didn't notice, and instead gave me one of those "oh yeah I did" looks coupled with an oddly satisfied smile. I threw up in my mouth a little. How is this normal to people?

Sorry, I ranted. I loved Amsterdam. I had an amazing time, met some really interesting people (one of my favorites was this guy from Canada staying in my hostel. Just picture the most stereotypical stoner imaginable - long curly, unkept hair, hippie clothing, and talked like he had one-too-many hits when he was younger and stunted his mental growth, and then a few thousand more hits just to make sure it stuck. But he was also unbelievably nice, and I found myself talking to him on more than one occasion.) Going out with Aaron and Brandan, along with their three friends they were meeting up with in Amsterdam, was always a blast. Probably the best thing we did together was visit the Heineken factory and do what they call The Heineken Experience. Its just a tour of the brewery catered towards the 90 percent of the people on the tour high out of their mind. Kind of cool, but not as exciting if you're not stoned.

I'm actually heading back to the Netherlands soon. After Belgium I'm planning on going to Haarlem, a town just outside of Amsterdam that I wanted to go to but didn't have time. One of the things I took away from my experience in Amsterdam was a respect and love for the Dutch people. Truly the first country to have the right to call themselves truly Free (yes, before America come on), the Dutch have had to stick by their principles over the years, even as more and more tourists flood their streets with the majority of them coming just to flood the coffee shops and Red Light District for a good time, and yet they do it without the snobby attitude that I think they would even deserve. I read that last year, less than 10 percent (I think it was 6) of the Dutch population smoked marijuana even once. Instead, they bike by - tall, beautiful and with impeccably straight posture and continue on with their lives around the tourists. Although I have gained a respect for every type of people around Europe, the Dutch have my greatest respect so far, and I think that is what's guiding me to go back and see a different part of their country. Oh, and my guide book. That too - Rick Steves raves about Haarlem.

More on that later. AmsterDAMN this is a long post. Sorry. I'll end with the picture everyone takes -



Don't know how anyone gets it without a dozen people all over it. Still counts. There's so much more to say about Amsterdam, including the food:



Yum, Herring sandwich. I asked the lady for the most Dutch food she had. That's what I get. Actually kind of good, apart from the sliminess. I've already gone on too much, for more you'll just have to talk to me.

- Matt

Location:Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Time to Catch Up

Ok, ok. I'm sick of being behind. Get ready readers - we've got some catching up to do. Needless to say, as my travels have progressed, I have been having more and more fun, which has cut into my writing time - which is when I do most of my writing. Also, why do people say "needless to say" and then say it anyways? I'm going to try to stop that. No I'm not. I'm in a weird mood.

So anyways, I've finally gotten the kick I needed and am ready to bust out some stories. Put on your metaphorical seat belts, some posts are gonna be flying in the next few days. And yes, I am writing this because upon pressing send, I will be forced to write these posts or else I am officially lazy, whereas now you can only assume it. Here's whats been going on since Budapest - Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Florence, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Paris. So yeah, I'm a bit behind. And this blog isn't called Where Was Matt, so it's due time I catch up. I'm looking forward to the day, hopefully soon, that I can write - I am here, and this is what I'm doing right now. I'm sure you would prefer that too.

So where was I? Right - Amsterdam...



- Matt

Location:Paris, France

Feeling A Bit Hungary

I arrived in Budapest midday. It took me a long time to find my hostel because in the directions hostelworld.com emails you before you arrive in the city, they only gave the address and the not-so-helpful landmarks of a cash exchange store and a restaurant, when they should have just said the door is through the sex shop door. Yes, to get into my hostel I had to walk into a door with a sign for a sex shop, surrounded by two windows full of kinky underwear designs I would never even want to see on models and phallic devices that scream - this guy is a perv if he buys this stuff. But luckily the store was just inside the little courtyard area when you walk in, we didn't actually have to walk through the actual shop.

Luckily when I was pacing back and forth down the street the address claimed to be on, I ran into a friend I had made at my hostel in Prague, who saw my confusion and could only laugh because the same had happened to him, and he led me through the sex shop door to the elevator up to the hostel. The hostel's name is Carpe Noctem Vitae, and the only reason I tell you that is because it kicked ass and if you ever travel to Budapest and are looking for a fun hostel to stay, go there. This was my first "party hostel", a type of hostel that caters more towards younger travelers that are looking for a social experience in their hostel, as they organize things nightly for the travelers such as pub crawls, multi-hostel parties, and other reasons to drink excessively.

My first night was "jäger train" night, where we went to another hostel for a social gathering with multiple hostels, with the climax of the night surrounding a huge table full of glasses half full with red bull with shots of jägermeister carefully balanced on top, then dropped into the glasses with the push of the shots at the end, knocking in the rest dominoes-style. Before the night began they took orders for how many drinks you wanted, and I was tricked into thinking if you did 10 you got a t-shirt and a lot of people do it, so I signed up. But, I was also not thinking about how little time I had to drink them, since the Patriots played that night and I was meeting the manager of the hostel downtown to watch the game in the only bar airing it in the city. Long story short, an hour after the "jäger train" left the station, I was wandering the streets of Budapest by myself, slightly lost and very much intoxicated, taking an hour to find the bar that turned out to be about three blocks away. But I found it, my team won, and hanging out with the manager was fun. Good first night in Budapest.

The next day I went caving. Yeah I know, caving in Budapest? That's what I thought, but damn it was cool. We were given full body jumpers along with helmets with flashlights just like miners wear. Wish I could have brought my camera down because I looked good. No but seriously, sadly I am left with no pictures of the trip, just a pair of mud-stained boots and some fond memories. During the caving I chose to be the caboose of the "cavers", which gave me plenty of chances to wander off on my own for small periods of time and occasionally wait until everyone had left a particular room, then I would turn off my light and experience complete darkness and silence. I know, I'm weird. That night I was too tired to make it out, you don't realize how many muscles you use that you don't normally when you're crawling around on all fours, sometimes squeezing through spaces so tight you become scarily close to developing late-onset and short-term claustrophobia (or at least I did). Slept well that night. Woke up sore. Am I getting old?

Toured the city the next day. Walked along the Danube river, snapping some pictures of the chain bridge for my mom (she has her students do a project on bridges for her geometry class, and this one is commonly used for its unique chain-like structure). The city of Budapest is surprisingly clean and modern, one of the coziest cities I've been to so far. I could have walked around for hours. Well, I did walk around for hours. I eventually made it to St. Stephen's Basilica, a Neoclassic styled church at the end of a large square (St. Stephen's Square - duh, I just looked it up). Built for and named after Hungary's first Christian King and eventual patron saint of the basilica, the inside of the church is massive and beautiful, and yet simple. The coolest part - in a back room that you wouldn't know about unless you're a dork like me and wikipedia'd the church on your phone when you were going in, there lies Hungarian Catholicism's holiest relic - St. Stephen's right hand. No seriously. Story has it that when they decided to make the King a saint they had to exhume the body. When they did so, they found his right hand to be almost entirely intact, even though it should have been well along its process of decomposing, like the rest of him. Instead, they decided it was a miracle and cut up the hand/arm into three pieces and sent it all over the country/nearby world for all to see. Eventually, the fist was kept in Budapest, where it is celebrated inside this little cabinet thing, where tourists pay the equivalence of a couple dollars into a little slot to have a light turn on over the blackened creepy little thing for two minutes to give you enough time to take a blurry picture and feel a little sick. What a way to honor the man. That night- pub crawl.

The following day I went to the Turkish baths along with a few friends from the hostel. These things get a lot of hype in Budapest and I guess I can see why, but maybe its just not my thing. The complex is huge, with a dozen or more pools, saunas, steam rooms, places to get a massage (which sadly were all booked), and locker rooms full of naked old men. We spent a good 4-5 hours there, soaking in the warm waters, especially the outdoor one with an interesting statue of a woman getting an odd amount of pleasure from a swan/goose thing stretching its neck up and biting a certain part of her chest. At one point another guy and I tried to see how long we could last in the hottest sauna there, marked to be 85-90 degrees Celsius. I lasted 5 minutes. Actually, maybe not even that. I couldn't breathe it was so hot. My hair felt like fire. Who enjoys that?? When I went to change after, I went to my locker to find my section completely empty. I left for thirty seconds to return my towel, and came back to 5 completely naked men surrounding my locker in a perfect semi-circle. Where did they come from and how did they get naked so fast? Look I have no problem with locker room nudity, but if you saw these hairy hungarian dudes scrubbing between their cheeks with tiny towels, you would have left the room and given them their privacy too.

Ok, that's enough. Went back to the hostel to get my things and head to the train station to catch my first of two longggg trains on the way back across Europe - where to? Amsterdam!


- Matt

Location:Budapest, Hungary

Slovakia, Not Slovenia

Seriously, who goes to Slovakia?

Answer- this guy.

I was on my way to Budapest, coming from Poland when I figured, why not? I mean, Prague was so great and Czech used to be part of the same country with Slovakia (Czechoslovakia, come on people) so I have to assume it is at least somewhat as cool as Prague...

I booked two nights stay in a hostel right by the Bratislava central station, a funky/weird/I-still-cant-decide-if-it-was-cool-or-creepy kind of place with a scary, horror-movie theme to it, especially in the pub in the basement, (including a glass table supported by an old white bathtub painted to look like it was splattered in someone blood (I hope it was a painted). I arrived at 6am from my night train and unfortunately couldn't check in until 1 so I spent a few hours in the basement by myself wasting away the morning on the internet surrounded by these creepy things.

When time finally came I checked in and headed to the city center to take a free walking tour. The tour was nice, I learned some stuff. And then I went back to the train station and booked a train for the next day, then cancelled my second night at the hostel.

Bratislava is a great place...for a day. DEFINITELY GO TO BRATISLAVA...if you want to say you've been to Bratislava. Other than that, don't bother.

Next stop, Budapest!


- Matt

Location:Bratislava, Slovakia