Hungary Like the Wolf.

 Wow, how time has flown! I know for the most part I’ve been really good about keeping up with my blog, but I now realize it’s been a month since my trip to Budapest, Hungary, & by request of Anna Lingel, I am finally updating! To be completely honest, as the semester wound down, and I slowly realized that with each post and update, the closer I was to the end of my incredible journey. But ENOUGH of that for now, You’re here to hear about BUDAPEST!

            First of, the reason for this trip was to celebrate Casey’s birthday weekend, and myself, Jules, Shadi, Lauren, & Casey had booked it way back in September. With the discovery of yet another cheap European airline, Wizzair (34 euro round trip!), and the relatively inexpensive city of Budapest, how could we say no?!

            Casey, Shadi, Lauren, and Jules flew out Friday morning, but myself being ever so dedicated to my studies, couldn’t fly out till later that night, because heaven forbid I miss my TWO Friday classes! (And you all think it’s beer drinking and traveling over here don’t ya?) ANYway, that left me to a first in my traveling career: flying solo, internationally, to Hungary of all places! To be completely honest, I was kinda terrified of the whole idea, not knowing what to even expect from a country like Hungary. A short flight and a plane full of Romanians later, I was in Budapest, and met up with the girls, as well as Casey’s friends from home, Lisa (who is studying in Rome, and brought her friend Erin) and John (Studying abroad in the Netherlands, and his friend Justin). To say the least, we had quite the crew.

            (For those of you who aren’t aware, Budapest is pronounced Buda-PESHT, making it easily one of the greatest words on the planet to pronounce.)

            As soon as I had gotten to our hostel, and grabbed a bite to eat, we were on our way out for the night. The hostel we were staying at, Tiger Tim’s, had been recommended to Casey by a friends that had been in Budapest previously. It easily proved to be one of the most amazing hostel experiences I’ve had in Europe. The first night consisted of a bangin’ bar craw to some of the most unique bars I had ever been to.  To say the least, Budapest’s nightlife was awesome, and we spent most of the next day recovering from the previous night’s festivities. 

            However, when we finally nursed those hangovers enough to get out the door, we went to this awesome indoor market near the river, did a little shopping, and ate some awesome Hungarian food!

            Next on the list: BATHS. Budapest is well known for it’s communal baths, ranging from the same sex, nude variety, to the beautifully intricate, almost Roman-esque baths we ended up at.  There were three main outdoor pools that we tested out, a hot one that was like one giant hot tub, a center one that was pretty much a big lap pool, and one that was in between the two, but had this super sweet whirlpool like thing (kinda like those ones you used to make in above ground pools as a kid by swimming/water-walking around the perimeter of the pool as fast as you could). There was even an entire series of indoor pools we didn’t get the chance to explore.  It was some much needed relaxation and recovery from the night before and to prepare us for the night to come… Casey’s birthday night! When we got back to the hostel, Tim the owner, had cooked everyone there a traditional Hungarian meal of some sort of sausage and carrot stew and pasta. Pretty darn good if I do say so myself, and I don’t even eat sausage! I realized that I’ve yet to mention all of the awesome people we met staying at our hostel! Everyone we met was incredibly awesome, and we seemed to mesh together perfectly, even if we were from literally all over the world (Australia, New Zeland, Canada, US, Brazil, ect.)

            So needless to say, we had another wild night for Casey’s birthday, consisting of going to the Hungarian version of a dive bar, and a massive club with a maze of rooms playing all kinds of music.  We didn’t come home till the club closed and the sun was on it’s way up J. By this time, it was Sunday, and Casey, Lauren, and Jules had to fly back to Brussels to make their classes on Monday morning. Luckily, Shadi didn’t have classes till later on Monday, and I don’t have any classes on Monday, so we got to spend an extra day in this beautiful and welcoming city.  That afternoon/evening, Shadi and I went to the terror museum, and on a walking tour of the Jewish quarter. Terror museum you say? What on earth is that? Well, it’s probably one of the most disturbing museums I’ve ever been to.  It illustrated Hungary’s Soviet and Nazi ridden past and the unspeakable things the people of Hungary have experienced throughout the World War 2 era. With the museum leaving a bit of a dark cloud over us, we headed to the walking tour.  It was a 3 hour tour (no, not of the Gilligan variety) of the Jewish community in Budapest. With neither Shadi or I, being Jewish in any sense, it was extremely an interesting look into Jewish culture and the history of it in Budapest. 

            That’s pretty much my Budapest adventure in a nutshell. I had no idea what to expect going into this trip, and came out of it with a new found fascination with Eastern European countries.  I was stunned by the amount of English spoken, as well as the amount of Subways, McDonalds, and Burger Kings.  I did however, FINALLY get mis manos on some MEXICAN FOOD! Hungarian version of Chipotle? Of course I’m down.

            In short, I really think everyone should visit Budapest if they have the chance.  It’s a beautiful city rich with culture and beauty, despite it’s rather dark past. 

Photos you say? Here ya go :

Buildings: photo cred Jules Kane

A little bar hoppin, with some rabbits hanging from the ceiling.

Baths : Photo cred Jules Kane

The river.

Indoor market.

A bridge.

Lisa, Lauren, Casey, Matt, myself, Tim, & Erin.

Portugal: PortuGREAT.

I decided to break up my Fall break posts into countries, as to not compose a single novel of a post! So here we go!


After 6 days in Spain, Katie, Christian and I met up with Katie and Christian's other housemate David in Lisbon Portugal for a few days! As soon as we got off the plane and stepped into the warm sunshine, we knew we were going to love this incredible place! Now for a summary of Lisbon through observations :)

• Our hostel was one of the greatest I've ever been in, Alfama Patio Hostel, located in the Alfama disstrict of Lisbon, the oldest within the city.  The staff was incredible, and had events for us within the city every night, along with free breakfast with crepes EVERY morning! It has a modern eclectic feel, and truly felt like home. If anyone is ever in Lisbon, you MUST check it out: Alfama Patio Hostel
• There was SO much history and culture crammed into the tiny winding streets of Alfama, and Lisbon in general, it was breathtaking and beautiful. 
• Our first night there, we checked out some Fado clubs with our hostel group. Fado is a Portuguese style of Flamenco like music that has so much feeling and beauty, it's incredible. If you get a chance, check out some Fado on Youtube, it's a beautiful thing.
• Boys vs. Girls: Friday, Katie and I had a beach day, our vacation within a vacation if you will, complete with a pitcher of white sangria, seafood, checking out some beautiful surfers, oh and getting our tan on :) all while the boys, Christian & David, went on some sort of hiking/castle exploring adventure on the outskirts of Lisbon. 
• Our second night we went out again with our hostel group to a bar/club with live music.  The band playing was unlike anything I've ever heard, they cover TV and movie themes like Ren & Stimpy, The Godfather, Life of Bryan, & The Muppet Movie! SO much fun!! AND the singer also played the hand saw. Yes, a hand saw, with a bow.
• There was graffiti and urban art all over the city, I found it strangely beautiful, I think because for the most part, it wasn't mindless gang names and tags, but political statements or works of art.  Although sometime it kind of ruined the architectural beauty of some of the older buildings.
• The Modern Art Museum in Lisbon was incredible, and had an Andy Warhol exhibit which I absolutely adored, made it all worth it being the only museum I went to the entire trip!

Now: Lisbon, in pictures!

Beautiful Archway

Alfama <3

Beach day!

White Sangria... By the pitcher!

Posing with the graffiti about Belgium of course!

View from the Hostel Terrace!

Breakfast on the Terrace!

David and a guard on the way to the Modern Art Museum

Lisbon from a church on the hill, and their bridge that's a splitting image of the Golden Gate!

Portugal is another country on my list that I'd love to explore in more detail, so much history and culture!

So I Bought Me a Ticket, Hopped on a Plane to Spain.

So It's been a crazy crazy week since I've returned from fall break in Spain & Portugal, and haven't had the time to update, but NOW the moment you've all been waiting for.

Our adventure begins on the afternoon of Saturday, October 30th when Katie, Christian & I hopped on a plane to Barcelona. When we finally arrived in Barcelona around midnight, gotten lost when we got on a train instead of a metro, miraculously found a metro station in the outskirts of Barcelona, and made it to the hostel, we had little energy to do anything except find a restaurant and grab a Bocadillo Tortilla Espanola and a pitcher of Sangria, which you will see, was a re occuring theme on our trip.
 I realize that even if I tried to summarize my time in Barcelona, and Spain in general, I'd still have written a novel. So, with that said, I will revert to my style of stating various observations I mad during my time in Spain, begining with

BARCELONA:

• Catalan- mixture of Spanish and French spoken in the northern region of Spain, threw me off a bit. BUT having the opportunity to speak Spanish again was phenomenal. 
• Our hostel was awesome, clean, fun, and an awesome location! Not to mention we had some crazy Greek men as our roommates who were huge fans of Katie and I, but Christian, not so much hahah.
• Halloween in a country other than the US was an adventure, we ended up going to a club on the beach called Opium that was having a Halloween theme. Pretty sure 3/4 of the people there were Americans. Still fun none the less!
• The Gaudi architecture around the city of Barcelona was breathtaking, and has now become an obsession of mine. Christian and I decided we could wander around the park he designed for days at a time, like a secret garden of sorts. The man was a genius.
• La Rambla: The main street in Barcelona, where you can find anything and everything. TONS of shopping, and it's always busy. Tons of vendor stalls selling everything from flowers and newspapers, to pets, like birds, turtles, bunnies, and even chipmunks!
• The huge open air market was unlike anything I've ever seen, like a farmers market on steroids, more fruit, produce, nuts, seafood, meat, and other goods than you could ever imagine!

Now for a photo montage of Barcelona:

Some sort of parade we stumbled across!

View of Barcelona from the Gaudi park :)

One of Gaudi's gorgeous creations.

Some delicious fruit at the open air market.

Got my fruit fix :)

Next up: MADRID!

• First off, no where near enough time in this beautiful city.
• SO much history, so little time to absorb it all, which is why a 3 hour walking tour was a phenomenal way to get a taste of the city. And our enthusiastic British Tour guide had a sweet mustache going on. 
• The shops there had more Big Lebowski shirts than I've seen anywhere else.. The Dude abides.
• I'm now a HUGE supporter of free walking tours. 
• Madrid night life is off the chain, I had SO much fun!
• Tapas could very well be one of God's greatest gift to man, right behind Sangria and Tortilla Espanola. 
• I could very well spend eternity in Madrid, and I'm SO sad I didn't make it to any of the museums!

Madrid in photos:

Christian pretending to be inbred King Carlos on our tour with our fun tour guide with an outrageous moustache!

Katie Christian and I in front of a statue of a bear eating berries off of a tree that make it drunk, also on the flag of Spain.

Christian & I in Plaza Mayor!

So, this post does not even come CLOSE to conveying my love and fascination with the beautifuly amazing country of Spain. I will be back later in life to explore more of the country for a longer period of time, who knows, maybe even teach a little English for a year or so so I can live there :)

Baby Baby it's a Wild World.

So, in the past week, I've had more small world encounters than I have in my entire stay in Belgium, and I really felt the need to share.

It all started in the Canary Islands when I met some people at a local bar, and we started talking.  We did the whole "where are you from?" game and find out they're from Switzerland.  When I said that I was from California, one of the guys goes "oh I have family in San Francisco" so of course, I ask where in SF.  Apparently they live in a city next to Palo Alto where I work, and he knew a lot of the San Jose and San Francisco suburbs. SO RANDOM.

SECOND small world encounter was at this super sweet club this past wednesday (no class on thursday this week so of course I went out!) It went a little something like this:

Random Guy: Hey where are you from?
Me: Oh I'm from Los Angeles
Random Guy: Really? Where in Los Angeles? I have cousins in Burbank.
Me: No way? I live right by Burbank!
...Random Guy: GLENDALE?!
Me: Why yes, actually..
Random Guy: Okay, I bet you know what ethnicity I am then!
Me: Uhh Armenian?
Random Guy: YES! You probably know a lot of Armenians huh? What are the most common names? Armen and Vahae?
Me: uh yes?
Random Guy: And all the Armenians guys drive BMWs and smoke cigarettes (pronounced see-guh-rettes)?

 We then continued to discuss KROQ's "Brow Down" video and other various Glendale related things.  

FINALLY, I was at the VeCo talent show last night, and my history professor (the Ecuadorian Barbie one) was there so I started chatting with her.  She asked if I was a study abroad and where I was from, so of course I told her Los Angeles.  Come to find out she lived in Los Angeles for a short period of time, and being from "LA"myself I asked where in LA she lived. GLENDALE. Of all the places in the world, my professor who is originally from Ecuador, and has lived in Belgium for 15 years, lived in Glendale, CA.

This def set me over the edge with small worldness.  My mind is blown how ridiculously small this world can be.

Mas Picturas De Lanzarote

My friends are awesome photographers, so here are some of there pictures from this past weekend.  Enjoy!

Adventuring in the National Park.

Laura, me, Jules, Mary, & Casey. Last night out in Famara :(

Me, Mary, Casey: right before we hit the surf!

My sand castle!

Hangin out on our roof! Laura, me, Brendan, Jules, Mary, Casey.

Beach right before sunset <3

La Vida es Mejor en Famara y en Espanol.

The weekend trip my friends and I have been talking about and looking forward to for months has finally come, and come to pass.  It hasn't even sunk in that I just spent 4 days in paradise with an incredible group of people. I'll start with a little background on how this trip came to be. Will, one of the many friends I've made here, is an avid surfer and was looking into places in Europe to surf, and discovered the island of Lanzarote, part of the Canary Islands that are a territory of Spain. He didn't have to ask me twice if I wanted to take a weekend trip to this little slice of heaven for a weekend of surfing, sun, & speaking Spanish. We ended up getting a group of seven people including Will and myself together.  Our journey began on Wenesday night in a way, because the seven of us split up between Jules' and Will's houses for the night (or what turned out to be a few hours after some drinks at the Old Oak) because the airport shuttle was picking us up at 4 A.M. Thursday morning for our 7 A.M. flight from Brussels to Lanzarote. After a delirious shuttle ride, making our way through the airport, and through a 3.5 hour plane ride, we finally arrived in Lanzarote in the early afternoon. As you might pick up throughout this post, we really had no sense of time this weekend, and no need for it. No watches, clocks, or cell phones needed, although it took us entire day to even figure out we thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was, and what time it was because our phones did not pick up the hour time difference when we switched time zones.
We were lucky enough to be staying in what the locals call the Bungalows in a sleepy little surf town by the name of Famara. We rented 2 neighboring 2 bedroom bungalows with absolutely INCREDIBLE views.

The bungalow Jules, Mary, Casey & I shared.

The view of the sunset from our bungalow.

As soon as we got to the airport, we were picked up by Sergio, who ended up being one of the coolest people I have run across in a long time.  He is the owner of the surf shop Zoopark Famara that we took an all day surf lesson from.  From the airport, Sergio took us to the bungalows to drop our stuff off, then straight to Zoopark to pick up our boards, wetsuits, and jump right into our 4 hour day lesson! I can tell you the last time I was on a surfboard was when I was in Jr High probably, so needless to say it was an adventure to begin with, but I ended up doing extremely well and catching a number of waves, and falling even more in love with the ocean than I already am.

Sergio & his incredible surfshop Zoopark

Surfin safari.

So after a day of traveling, surfing, and sun, running on 3 hours of sleep, we were EXHAUSTED, yet we went home, showered up, and went our to one of the local bars for some BBQ, drinks, and laughs with some of the locals.

Brendan, Laura, Mary, Jules, Will & Casey, after a day of surfing :)

Tropical: beer of the Canary Islands. & some drinking & relaxing on our patio before we went into town.

Gorgeous sunset from our patio.

After yet another night of a few hours of sleep, we awoke the next morning a little groggy from the fun the night before and our adventure on our trek home from the bar in town. We used Friday as our recovery day, lounging on the beach, swimming, and Casey, Jules, & Will rented surfboards for the day & did a little more surfing! It was just what we all needed, and gave us the chance to soak in the beauty of this amazing desert island paradise. 

Bikinis & beach hair.

Yet again, that night we went into town to the second of 2 bars in the town of Famara. After another loooong night of drinking and making tons of new friends, we headed back home around 5 a.m. At this point, I don't know how I was a functioning individual. Saturday, Isabel who worked for the company we rented the bungalows from, let us borrow her car to drive out to the volcanic national park on the island.  After accidentally driving past the "park" twice, and trying to find a gas station before we ran out of gas, we made it.  It was a beautiful place, that reminded me of a mix between Kona, Hawaii, and the volcanoes off of 395 on the way to Mammoth. The contrast of colors between the volcanic rocks, the lichen growing on them, and the blue of the sky was breathtaking.  Casey, Jules, Laura, Mary & I sat in the middle of a field of volcanic rocks for an hour and a half taking in the view and talking about life. 

Casey & Laura

Gorgeous.

After we made it back to Famara, we hit the beach till the sun went down. Then it was back to the bungalows to get ready and go out into town again for our last night in paradise. Needless to say, it was another long night, out till 4, and good times were had by all!
Waking up the next morning was surreal, I could not believe we had just spent 3 days in the most beautiful and relaxing place I have ever been.  I can easily say it was the first time I had lost myself completely in the beauty of the views, the ocean, the beach, the people, the language, the rugged terrain, and good company.  I have never been more sure of my love for the Spanish language, and find myself now thinking in Spanish again. The 7 of us who went on this trip have joked about dropping out of school here in Brussels, moving to Famara, buying a bungalow, opening  a bar, and a chain of ATMs, because oddly enough, there are ZERO ATMs in the town of Famara.

So I leave you with this:
La vida es mejor en las playas de Famara, y en Espanol.
Life is better in the beaches of Famara, and in Spanish.

After my trip to Spain & Portugal in a few weeks, I might never return to a non Spanish speaking country again...

That's Amore!

I have just returned from a FABULOUS weekend trip to Bologna, Italy! There's an awesome airline in Europe called Ryan Air, where you can get some smokin' deals on cheap flights. So, I got a round trip flight from Brussels to Bologna for 20 euro. My travel companion was once again the ever so lovely Mary McDaniel, and we set of on our adventure on Saturday morning, and after almost not making it to the airport (we couldn't find the bus that took us to the airport) we eventually made it to the airport to make it through security and visa checks to sit in the terminal for an hour before we boarded our flight. On the upside, I've decided that European airports are BY FAR the BEST places to people watch. Highlight: A couple dressed in all purple. Yes. Husband and wife both in pants, shirts, and sweaters of varying shades of purple. Also spotted: a man wearing his wrap around sunglasses inside, with a navy and brown argyle sweater and metallic gold track style Reeboks. I love Europe.

ANYway, we arrived in Bologna a little after 4:30, leaving us the evening to explore the city! We had gotten a smokin' deal on a room at the Best Western in Bologna, considering Hostels in Bologna were almost non-existent, and it was awesome.

Keepin' it classy at the Best Western!

That night we got some awesome pizza that reminded me a lot of La Canada Imports pizza, but of course, being in Italy, was exponentially more delicious :) We followed the pizza up with some amazingly delicious gelato. I of course had to try the pistachio and chocolate to start with!

Mmmm Gelato!!

We then explored a bit of the city to see what Bologna nightlife was all about.  The oldest university in the world is the University of Bologna, so of course we had to check out the college bar scene! But not before, of course, going back to the hotel to get ready with a bottle of Italian wine!

Pretty fountain next to some ruins withing the city.

Bottle of vino and a fountain!

After a fabulous night out on the town, and watching some crazy Italians order and take some of the craziest shots I've ever seen, we headed back to the hotel and called it a night. Sunday was our day of adventuring through the city to see what we could discover. The sun was shining, the sky was a brilliant blue, and the atmosphere of Italy alone made the day incredibly beautiful.

Beautiful fountain in a square in the center of the city.

Some sort of ceremony/parade we stumbled across.

Myself in a rather large doorway, and my purchase of the weekend :)

Narrow & beautiful streets.

Some more ruins!

Sunday night we decided that we has pizza, we had wine, we had gelato (twice by this point), it was time to fin some pasta for dinner! The place we ended up at was precious, and SO delicious. We wanted to take pictures of our food, buttttt people were looking at us funny to begin with, so we decided against it! Mary ordered some good old fashioned Spaghetti, and said it was by far some of the best she's ever had. I on the other hand, went for the spinach and ricotta tortelloni, with a Gorgonzola and walnut cream sauce. Words cannot describe the flavors. I'm still in awe of the explosion of flavor that was that pasta. And naturally, we followed dinner up with some more gelato. Good thing I didn't end up studying, because I'm sure I'd be fatter than I am living in Brussels!

Bologna was an amazing experience, to say the least. I get so frustrated that I can't share these experiences with people I know would enjoy/get so much out of them. I know for a fact both of my parents would have been in heaven, between the art, the food, and the people. And as far as my brother goes, we'd just have to give him a bottle of Limocello and send him on his way :)

Next blog update: Canary Islands summary! (I know, my life is rough)