so yesterday after class my profeseur pulled me aside and told me that she thinks i should skip niveau trois and go straigt to niveau quatre! can you believe it? this is exactly what i need to do so that i can actually get some real credits from this year back at dal instead of essentially wasting my time. fantastique! i think it's going to be dur comme couilles (hard as balls) to catch up and know whats going on, but it should be possible. AND i have fridays off! can it get any better than this??
i had my first day of class in niveau 4 today, and i actually understood everything and was able to participate in conversation and the likes, so i felt good. although it will probably be a different story when it comes to grammaire class! we shall see
after class yesterady i had the extra boost of french confidence that i needed to feel capable to go and argue my way with the bank. pasquel (une vraiment salope) was as pleased as ever to see me and couldn't wait to explain to me that a "credit card" in france is not the same thing as it is in canada, even though it is described the exact same way and you can use it when there is no money on it. apparently its meant to be used seulement in emergencies and to be paid back immediately. if one could pay it back immediatly why would they use their "non-credit card-credit card" why wouldn't they simply just pay for it right away? pasquel had no answers to my genius question and i did not feel like trying to explain that me going away on february break truely was an emergency, because if i had stayed here while all my friends left i would have died. instead i decided to negotiate with her, and tell her that when they pay me back the money they owe me, they might see the money i owe them. so hopefully they continue to take their sweet old time reimbursing me for the things they owe me and in the mean time i can figure out my brilliant plan to come up with all this money before they try to send me to french prision. psssh. piece of cake.
oh and for any of you interested in learning the essential terms in the french language check out this site:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3939944/French-Slangs
(maybe not ideal for you, mum or dad)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
lundi, the day from hell
oh sweet merciful jesus, can i just express my sheer hatred for mondays?
there is no better way (and by better way i obviously mean worse way) to start off the week than with 9am class for THREE hours straight, followed by lunch at the resto u, followed by two hours of civilisation which is quite possibly the dullest class known to man including a bunch of (probably) made up facts to make france seem like its the best. and THEN every second lundi we get to follow this wonderful course load up with ANOTHER two hours of class right after civ, for cour de litterature. probably the worst class known to man. let's just say today (and for the next two classes) we did POETRY, in FRENCH...... could there be anything worse? i don't think so.
though somehow i managed to make it through the day and now i'm a little buzzed after a good old night a chez nous with mes amis. definatly needed and definatly improved the evening
mais je dois changer l'eau de poison rouge maintenant et apres, je pense que je me dois coucher
donc, bonne nuits mes amours and here's hoping tomorrow is better than today!
mad love! biz
there is no better way (and by better way i obviously mean worse way) to start off the week than with 9am class for THREE hours straight, followed by lunch at the resto u, followed by two hours of civilisation which is quite possibly the dullest class known to man including a bunch of (probably) made up facts to make france seem like its the best. and THEN every second lundi we get to follow this wonderful course load up with ANOTHER two hours of class right after civ, for cour de litterature. probably the worst class known to man. let's just say today (and for the next two classes) we did POETRY, in FRENCH...... could there be anything worse? i don't think so.
though somehow i managed to make it through the day and now i'm a little buzzed after a good old night a chez nous with mes amis. definatly needed and definatly improved the evening
mais je dois changer l'eau de poison rouge maintenant et apres, je pense que je me dois coucher
donc, bonne nuits mes amours and here's hoping tomorrow is better than today!
mad love! biz
Sunday, February 21, 2010
first week of second semester
so i had to head to school on friday the 12th to pick up my new schedule and find out what my next semester was going to look like. luckily things don't look to bad at all, and i only have class from 11h-13h on fridays which is all that really matters because this means i can sleep in after our raging thursday nights yet not have to be stuck at school all day long.
the first weekend back was pretty quiet to say the least. having camilla still not back from norway until tuesday things we're pretty dead. and i think i'm still trying to adjust to life without danielle, which is proving just as hard as i had expected it to be. however, there are a shit load of new kids at school and a bunch of people to meet and greet, but nobody can replace.
i think this month has been the absolute poorest i've been to date, which also didn't help with the lively-ness of the weekend. having not really been able to afford to go away on february break in the first place, i now owe le banque bnp my life and soul. so when a bunch of people were taking advantage of the 15euro train to paris i decided to pass it up and have the house to myself for the weekend.
on saturday there was un grand spectacle down my street in celebration of le carnevale (or mardi gras as we know it)
i decided to follow it down to place de la libertation and watch in awe along with all the terrified kids who thought it was some kind of bad trip they were having. this would have been an ideal day if i've ever seen one for trying acid or some kind of psychedelic drug of the sorts.
the pictures don't really do it justice at all, but it really was a pretty cool show.
sunday was valentine's day, so i decided to sleep as long as humanly possible and then hit up the fabulous flunch with some friends for an all you can eat type of lunch. we decided it was only right that i accept to be elias' valentine since he lost his girlfriend earlier in the year and all (please do not feel sorry for him in anyway shape or form). then later that night i met up with a bunch of the girls from school after dinner for some drinks at the sushi bar, osaka, just behind my place (don't worry, i haven't broadened my horizons enough yet to enjoy sushi)
monday morning i relentlessly started classes again, and waking up for 9am class has never been harder knowing that you have to sit there for 3 hours straight learning grammaire and sentence structures and the likes, followed by another two hours of civilisation. monday's are going to be brutal.
tuesday marked camilla's LONG overdue return back to dijon. i think i may have died if this girl came back any later. once classes were finished we spent the afternoon veggin' at her place and catching up on everything we'd missed. it seemed like i hadn't seen her since before christmas break, which is just not right.
wednesday was pretty dull with classes and just trying to get my body used to the fact that i actually have SOME responsibilities in my life again.
and then thursday (the big night to go out in dijon) was brought back with a bang when we all congregated chez camilla's (of course) to pre-drink for the long anticipated night. after a litre of wine and a interesting drinking game or two, lauren and i decided we weren't fit for the bar just yet and it would be wise to head to the epicerie du nuit to get another bottle to split. from then on the night obviously proceeded to become hilarious. we met up with everybody else at la salsa (our favorite bar where you can dance ontop of whatever you like, tables, the bar, anything you can find) and it was PACKED. immediately a sign for a good night. i remember dancing the night away and having a grand old time, and apparently i met the love of my life... who may or may not have turned out to be gay? or i might have just been bitter because i was too drunk to convey any kind of romantic conversation in english, let alone french at that point. hahaha a good time was had by all, and then once la salsa closed we continued on to le jamaquie. wisely the bouncers would not let some of us in, which i found hilarious while others were not so pleased, but i took this as a good sign that it was time to head home and walked back to my place with emily.
upon my return chez moi i decided, as i always do, that now would be a fabulous time to call everyone i know back in canada, so that i did. ended up chatting away with emma on the webcam until about 5am when she insisted that i really should probably go to bed. i can only imagine how enjoyable that conversation was for her.
miraculously i still made it to class on friday morning, semi-functioning, but i got by. as soon as i made it home though i slept for the majority of the afternoon attempting to sleep of the headache and hangover. needless to say i did not get up to a whole lot for the rest of the evening.
saturday camilla and i went to monoprix (grocery store) and picked up some stuff to make tacos for lunch (best idea ever.) a chez camilla's we faired our tacos and made some brownies as well. we continued to pass the following 6 or so hours not moving from her couch and watching movies and dave chappelle. perfect day if you ask me really.
today it was GORGEOUS outside (i hope that means spring is on its way) and i decide that it was time to stop being such a lazy slob so i went out into the world and found a bench in the sun where i sat and wrote some postcards and read my book (time traveller's wife, so good!)
now that i've fully caught you all up on my life i guess it's probably time i should take care of mes devoirs..................
i appologize for the gargantuous posts lately, and i promise to do my best to make them much shorter and to the point from now on.
bisous mes amis! x
the first weekend back was pretty quiet to say the least. having camilla still not back from norway until tuesday things we're pretty dead. and i think i'm still trying to adjust to life without danielle, which is proving just as hard as i had expected it to be. however, there are a shit load of new kids at school and a bunch of people to meet and greet, but nobody can replace.
i think this month has been the absolute poorest i've been to date, which also didn't help with the lively-ness of the weekend. having not really been able to afford to go away on february break in the first place, i now owe le banque bnp my life and soul. so when a bunch of people were taking advantage of the 15euro train to paris i decided to pass it up and have the house to myself for the weekend.
on saturday there was un grand spectacle down my street in celebration of le carnevale (or mardi gras as we know it)
i decided to follow it down to place de la libertation and watch in awe along with all the terrified kids who thought it was some kind of bad trip they were having. this would have been an ideal day if i've ever seen one for trying acid or some kind of psychedelic drug of the sorts.
the pictures don't really do it justice at all, but it really was a pretty cool show.
sunday was valentine's day, so i decided to sleep as long as humanly possible and then hit up the fabulous flunch with some friends for an all you can eat type of lunch. we decided it was only right that i accept to be elias' valentine since he lost his girlfriend earlier in the year and all (please do not feel sorry for him in anyway shape or form). then later that night i met up with a bunch of the girls from school after dinner for some drinks at the sushi bar, osaka, just behind my place (don't worry, i haven't broadened my horizons enough yet to enjoy sushi)
monday morning i relentlessly started classes again, and waking up for 9am class has never been harder knowing that you have to sit there for 3 hours straight learning grammaire and sentence structures and the likes, followed by another two hours of civilisation. monday's are going to be brutal.
tuesday marked camilla's LONG overdue return back to dijon. i think i may have died if this girl came back any later. once classes were finished we spent the afternoon veggin' at her place and catching up on everything we'd missed. it seemed like i hadn't seen her since before christmas break, which is just not right.
wednesday was pretty dull with classes and just trying to get my body used to the fact that i actually have SOME responsibilities in my life again.
and then thursday (the big night to go out in dijon) was brought back with a bang when we all congregated chez camilla's (of course) to pre-drink for the long anticipated night. after a litre of wine and a interesting drinking game or two, lauren and i decided we weren't fit for the bar just yet and it would be wise to head to the epicerie du nuit to get another bottle to split. from then on the night obviously proceeded to become hilarious. we met up with everybody else at la salsa (our favorite bar where you can dance ontop of whatever you like, tables, the bar, anything you can find) and it was PACKED. immediately a sign for a good night. i remember dancing the night away and having a grand old time, and apparently i met the love of my life... who may or may not have turned out to be gay? or i might have just been bitter because i was too drunk to convey any kind of romantic conversation in english, let alone french at that point. hahaha a good time was had by all, and then once la salsa closed we continued on to le jamaquie. wisely the bouncers would not let some of us in, which i found hilarious while others were not so pleased, but i took this as a good sign that it was time to head home and walked back to my place with emily.
upon my return chez moi i decided, as i always do, that now would be a fabulous time to call everyone i know back in canada, so that i did. ended up chatting away with emma on the webcam until about 5am when she insisted that i really should probably go to bed. i can only imagine how enjoyable that conversation was for her.
miraculously i still made it to class on friday morning, semi-functioning, but i got by. as soon as i made it home though i slept for the majority of the afternoon attempting to sleep of the headache and hangover. needless to say i did not get up to a whole lot for the rest of the evening.
saturday camilla and i went to monoprix (grocery store) and picked up some stuff to make tacos for lunch (best idea ever.) a chez camilla's we faired our tacos and made some brownies as well. we continued to pass the following 6 or so hours not moving from her couch and watching movies and dave chappelle. perfect day if you ask me really.
today it was GORGEOUS outside (i hope that means spring is on its way) and i decide that it was time to stop being such a lazy slob so i went out into the world and found a bench in the sun where i sat and wrote some postcards and read my book (time traveller's wife, so good!)
now that i've fully caught you all up on my life i guess it's probably time i should take care of mes devoirs..................
i appologize for the gargantuous posts lately, and i promise to do my best to make them much shorter and to the point from now on.
bisous mes amis! x
better late than never - spring break, part deux
alright, where did i leave off on the last post....
so i got a few hours of sleep my last night in prague and then woke up at about 5am to realize that my ipod had been on all night long and the battery was now dead as i'm about to board a bus to travel through three countries for 8 hours. delightful. headed to the reception desk to try to give it as much life as i could in 15 minutes before heading out into the cold early morning to go to the bus station.
turns out the bus ride wasn't nearly as bad as i had expected it to be, and i survived sans ipod for the majority of the ride. i got to watch a random sandra bullock's movie that i still have yet to learn the name of, many episodes of friends (amazing) and an episode of mr. bean in french (which needless the say i did not understand). i also slept alot. on the way we stopped in brno, czech republic; bratislava, slovakia; györ, hungary and then finally we arrived in budapest (around 1:00pm). i attempted to be coherant as we came into the cities we stopped in so that i could see as much as possible. but the view from a bus window really does not justify the city in any way at all.
when i got off the bus in budapest (literally in the middle of NOWHERE) i experienced my first dose of culture shock when i realized NOBODY there spoke english, at all. i needed to find a bank machine so i could withdrawal money to buy my metro ticket, but there was no machine to be found and nobody able to help me. i also had my first experience with a scam artist who tried to convince me that if i "just walked down this little alley with him he could get me some money". i'm pretty sure this was the only thing he could say in broken, terrible english and all the flags and red lights went off telling me this is exactly what i should not do. welcome to budapest.
i eventually managed to buy my ticket with my credit card with astronomical service charges but then i was off on the metro to downtown budapest.
as soon as i arrived, i was in love with the city. it was so beautiful. the directions to my hostel were a piece of cake and i found it no problem and checked in and dumped all my stuff. then as per usual, it was time to explore! on my first day wandering i managed to do a pretty good general tour of the city and saw charles bridge,
the parliment buildings,
st. stephen's basilica, the opera house, the first mcdonalds in eastern europe (hello western world take over),
and many little parks and lots of statues and monuments.
that evening it started to snow pretty intensely, and the lady at the front desk of my hostel informed me that they were expecting 20cms that night! i did not let this deter me and continued on with my sight seeing anyway. however after being outside in the cold walking around all day i was literally a popsicle when i returned and was completly beat from my day of traveling. i headed up to my room in the hostel, where i realized i was staying with 2 french guys, a canadian guy (who showed up after i already passed out) and 6 people that didn't speak any english at all. the six people who i can only assume may have been russian (??) decided it would be a great idea to stay in the hostel all night instead of going out and have a party until SIX THIRTY AM. i'm sure you can imagine how much i appreciated this, but its hard to tell people to fuck off in a language they dont understand.
thankfully the russians checked out the next morning and i didn't have to deal with them again. the second day there i took another free walking tour to see what was up with budapest. my tour guide (who's name i couldn't even remember if i had written it down) was a local from budapest and was hilarious. we started off in vörösmarty tér,
headed down váci utca,
checked out kiskiralylany (budapest's little princess - one of the first statues in budapest after the nazi's finally left them as a free country)
walked along the waterfront past charles bridge, up to st. stephen basilica,
down past the university, across the bridge from the pest side to buda to see the "0 km stone"
and then up the 100's of stairs to the top of buda castle. they gave us a sweet tour of the buda castle and the surrounding area and filled us in on lots of history along the way.
then the tour ended and we were left to explore on our own. i literally spent a good 2 hours after the tour wandering around buda castle and admiring the view. after i wandered back down the other side of the hill
and meandered all around and through the buda side of the city i retraced the steps of the tour and checked out some sights in further detail. i went in to st. stephen's basilica where they actually have st. stephen's amputated hand on display from when he was cannonized like 100's of years ago. by far one of the most creepy and morbid things i've seen in a while. afterwards i wandered as far as my legs could carry me up andrássy út and then back to my hostel again, taking refugee whenever i could to take advantage of a heated building for free. when i made it back to the hostel i met my new roomates (a bunch of british girls) and a bunch of other people. the hostel has a great common room with a big projector screen with 100's of movies to chose from. so we ended up watching jackass before calling it a night.
my third day there it was actually sunny when i woke up, so i had to take advantage of it by heading over the the buda side and climbing up to the top of the citadel, which i like to refer to as "the top of the world". the view was spectacular and i couldn't get enough of it.
i spent a good amount of time up there checking out the fortress and the liberation monument
and the park at the top, but mostly just looking out at the view. the hike up was pretty trecherous, but not quite as scary as the hike back down. after all the snow they had got the trails and stairs were completely covered and had formed luge-like tracks going up and down.
and sporting the practical footwear of chuck taylors this made for an interessting journey to say the least! once i safely managed to make it to the bottom i went to check out the jewish synagogue (the largest in euroasia and the 2nd largest in the world)
as well as the tree of life in commemoration of the victims from the nazi take over. i then hiked across the city to find the train station so i could buy my ticket in advance to get out to the airport (having learned from my mistake before leaving for paris, i have decided its always a good idea to buy in advance). after struggling at the train station to find someone i could communicate with i managed to find a man that spoke french, and quite easily i expressed myself and got what i needed (this and the bus station were the only places i had trouble finding people that could speak english, go figure). i then journey to the other side of the city again to check out heroes square (also known as the millenium monument since it was built in celebration of budapest's 1000th birthday in 1896)
and city park.
in city park you can find the annual skating rink they build (which as a canadian i can say is really nothing to write home about at all, and definatly not worth the grotesque fees they charge to skate on it), the széchenyi-gyógyfürdő (also known as the thermal baths, which again, not really worth the price. after seeing the hotsprings in iceland and how natural they were and surrounded by volcanic tundra the széchenyi thermal baths just looked like an overrated swimming pool filled with really hot water),
and also vajdahunyad castle.
it was the perfect day to wander the park and i got to watch the sunset over heroes square.
while walking back down andrássy út i stopped to see the terror museum (showing the history of the nazi take over)
and check out the inside of the opera house lobby. grabbed some dinner and wandered around downtown for a while, then it was back to the hostel to watch old school and drag me to hell (utterly terrible movie) with my new friends.
the following morning was my last real day in budapest so i did my best to make the most of it. i wandered back to the buda side and saw the famous gellért hotel
where the gellért thermal baths are. hiked half way up the citadel again to check out the view one last time and then headed to the GIANT daily market back on the pest side of town. the market was filled with lots of chili peppers and exotic foods you would never see back home,
and upstairs had traditional hungarian clothing and any souvenir you could possibly imagine.
i wandered back along the waterfront and then got a text from the girls from the cief saying they had arrived in town, so i went and met up with them at their hostel. we went and gathered some groceries so we could make dinner for the night, feasted and then got into the wine. a friend of a friends of a friend of lisa's (viktor), who lives in budapest, came over to show us a good place to go out. after we were all significantly drunk enough we headed out to gödör klub. viktor was buying us all drinks and needless to say the night got beyond sloppy.
since i had to leave to catch my flight at 7am the next day we decided to call it an early night around 12:30 or so. however, when i made it back to my hostel everyone was beyond drunk and there was alcohol everywhere, and i just could not resist the after party!
the night turned out to be hilarious, and apparently i became quite good friends with a british bloke i met. around 6-6:30 we all realized that i had to wake up in an hour to leave and i hadn't even gone to bed yet.... nor had i packed any of my things. so i called it a night, drunkenly packed my stuff as best as i could and passed out. approximately 45 minutes later i was waking up and checking out. fabulous! the rest of the days journey was absolute hell, not only was i severly hungover, but i also managed to get some bug bites on my wrist while i was sleeping. at the time of check out i figured this was no big deal (more on this later on in the post). i grabbed the metro to the train station, the train to budapest airport (where i had to wait a little while as my plane was about an hour delayed) and then when i landed in paris i had to take the metro to downtown paris and kill about 8 hours before my train to dijon. the entire day the bites on my wrist began to swell and swell until my arm had become about twice its normal size. there was nothing i could do and before long it was flaming hot, sore as hell, and starting to ooze some disgusting substance. it was completely gnarly to say the least. however, i managed to spend about 4 hours dragging my ass around le louvre trying to find the exhibit of lists for danielle (which was highly unsuccesful) so instead i wandered through the egyptian section.
after about 4 hours i couldn't handle living anymore and just went and sat in gare de lyon for about another 4 hours in the freezing cold (oh man, that bought back some terrible memories). finally it was time for my train and i was heading off on my way back to dijon.
when i arrived home i showed anges my fucked up arm and she seemed terrified (which really helped convince me everything was okay), but since it was already almost 11pm there was not much i could do about it until the morning, so as always after one of my excursions my bed and i become one for an unhealthy amount of time.
first thing the next morning i went to the pharmacy to see if they could give me something for my arm, and she insisted i go to the doctors immediatly. wonderful. headed to the doctors on campus where they do not speak a lick of english (thank god we studied medical terms during first semester!). when i was checking in and the receptionist was taking my information i showed her what my problem was and she immediately ran and got a doctor. when the doctor arrived she immediately went and got THREE other doctors to come and take a look as well. always a good sign right? as this point i'm thinking amputation is going to be necessary. but after they mumble to each other for a while in french and ask me a few questions they decide that all i need are some anitbiotics, to apply some rubbing alcohol and sport a sweet bandage on my arm for the next week. even though i insisted i had no allergies to medication the doctor was extremely concerned that i was going to have an allergic reaction to the antibiotics she prescribed me and insisted that i go back for another visit in the morning. luckily by the next morning it had already started to clear up a bit and wasn't nearly as hideous as the day before and the doctors gave me the all clear and said i should be fine in a week (turns out they were right as its pretty okay now, but i think i might has some nasty scars for a little while, at least i got to keep my arm though!)
anyway, i think this post is long enough, and it is definatly time for me to hit the sheets. i will update on the last week and a half back in mustardville at a later date. for now, i will sleep.
bonne nuit et a la prochaine fois mes amours! vous me manquez!
so i got a few hours of sleep my last night in prague and then woke up at about 5am to realize that my ipod had been on all night long and the battery was now dead as i'm about to board a bus to travel through three countries for 8 hours. delightful. headed to the reception desk to try to give it as much life as i could in 15 minutes before heading out into the cold early morning to go to the bus station.
turns out the bus ride wasn't nearly as bad as i had expected it to be, and i survived sans ipod for the majority of the ride. i got to watch a random sandra bullock's movie that i still have yet to learn the name of, many episodes of friends (amazing) and an episode of mr. bean in french (which needless the say i did not understand). i also slept alot. on the way we stopped in brno, czech republic; bratislava, slovakia; györ, hungary and then finally we arrived in budapest (around 1:00pm). i attempted to be coherant as we came into the cities we stopped in so that i could see as much as possible. but the view from a bus window really does not justify the city in any way at all.
when i got off the bus in budapest (literally in the middle of NOWHERE) i experienced my first dose of culture shock when i realized NOBODY there spoke english, at all. i needed to find a bank machine so i could withdrawal money to buy my metro ticket, but there was no machine to be found and nobody able to help me. i also had my first experience with a scam artist who tried to convince me that if i "just walked down this little alley with him he could get me some money". i'm pretty sure this was the only thing he could say in broken, terrible english and all the flags and red lights went off telling me this is exactly what i should not do. welcome to budapest.
i eventually managed to buy my ticket with my credit card with astronomical service charges but then i was off on the metro to downtown budapest.
as soon as i arrived, i was in love with the city. it was so beautiful. the directions to my hostel were a piece of cake and i found it no problem and checked in and dumped all my stuff. then as per usual, it was time to explore! on my first day wandering i managed to do a pretty good general tour of the city and saw charles bridge,
the parliment buildings,
st. stephen's basilica, the opera house, the first mcdonalds in eastern europe (hello western world take over),
and many little parks and lots of statues and monuments.
that evening it started to snow pretty intensely, and the lady at the front desk of my hostel informed me that they were expecting 20cms that night! i did not let this deter me and continued on with my sight seeing anyway. however after being outside in the cold walking around all day i was literally a popsicle when i returned and was completly beat from my day of traveling. i headed up to my room in the hostel, where i realized i was staying with 2 french guys, a canadian guy (who showed up after i already passed out) and 6 people that didn't speak any english at all. the six people who i can only assume may have been russian (??) decided it would be a great idea to stay in the hostel all night instead of going out and have a party until SIX THIRTY AM. i'm sure you can imagine how much i appreciated this, but its hard to tell people to fuck off in a language they dont understand.
thankfully the russians checked out the next morning and i didn't have to deal with them again. the second day there i took another free walking tour to see what was up with budapest. my tour guide (who's name i couldn't even remember if i had written it down) was a local from budapest and was hilarious. we started off in vörösmarty tér,
headed down váci utca,
checked out kiskiralylany (budapest's little princess - one of the first statues in budapest after the nazi's finally left them as a free country)
walked along the waterfront past charles bridge, up to st. stephen basilica,
down past the university, across the bridge from the pest side to buda to see the "0 km stone"
and then up the 100's of stairs to the top of buda castle. they gave us a sweet tour of the buda castle and the surrounding area and filled us in on lots of history along the way.
(this statue is "buda's cock" ... this is actually what they refer to this statue as. its the only statue that the communists made that is still standing in budapest. when they made it the communists said the "hat" ontop is to represent their empire. but the people of budapest left the statue there after the communists left because it reminds them of how blindly stupid the communists were.... because it obviously just looks like a dick hahhahhaha)
(this statue is also at the top of buda castle, and you are supposed to rub the horse's balls to improve your sex life)
then the tour ended and we were left to explore on our own. i literally spent a good 2 hours after the tour wandering around buda castle and admiring the view. after i wandered back down the other side of the hill
and meandered all around and through the buda side of the city i retraced the steps of the tour and checked out some sights in further detail. i went in to st. stephen's basilica where they actually have st. stephen's amputated hand on display from when he was cannonized like 100's of years ago. by far one of the most creepy and morbid things i've seen in a while. afterwards i wandered as far as my legs could carry me up andrássy út and then back to my hostel again, taking refugee whenever i could to take advantage of a heated building for free. when i made it back to the hostel i met my new roomates (a bunch of british girls) and a bunch of other people. the hostel has a great common room with a big projector screen with 100's of movies to chose from. so we ended up watching jackass before calling it a night.
my third day there it was actually sunny when i woke up, so i had to take advantage of it by heading over the the buda side and climbing up to the top of the citadel, which i like to refer to as "the top of the world". the view was spectacular and i couldn't get enough of it.
i spent a good amount of time up there checking out the fortress and the liberation monument
and the park at the top, but mostly just looking out at the view. the hike up was pretty trecherous, but not quite as scary as the hike back down. after all the snow they had got the trails and stairs were completely covered and had formed luge-like tracks going up and down.
and sporting the practical footwear of chuck taylors this made for an interessting journey to say the least! once i safely managed to make it to the bottom i went to check out the jewish synagogue (the largest in euroasia and the 2nd largest in the world)
as well as the tree of life in commemoration of the victims from the nazi take over. i then hiked across the city to find the train station so i could buy my ticket in advance to get out to the airport (having learned from my mistake before leaving for paris, i have decided its always a good idea to buy in advance). after struggling at the train station to find someone i could communicate with i managed to find a man that spoke french, and quite easily i expressed myself and got what i needed (this and the bus station were the only places i had trouble finding people that could speak english, go figure). i then journey to the other side of the city again to check out heroes square (also known as the millenium monument since it was built in celebration of budapest's 1000th birthday in 1896)
and city park.
in city park you can find the annual skating rink they build (which as a canadian i can say is really nothing to write home about at all, and definatly not worth the grotesque fees they charge to skate on it), the széchenyi-gyógyfürdő (also known as the thermal baths, which again, not really worth the price. after seeing the hotsprings in iceland and how natural they were and surrounded by volcanic tundra the széchenyi thermal baths just looked like an overrated swimming pool filled with really hot water),
and also vajdahunyad castle.
it was the perfect day to wander the park and i got to watch the sunset over heroes square.
while walking back down andrássy út i stopped to see the terror museum (showing the history of the nazi take over)
and check out the inside of the opera house lobby. grabbed some dinner and wandered around downtown for a while, then it was back to the hostel to watch old school and drag me to hell (utterly terrible movie) with my new friends.
the following morning was my last real day in budapest so i did my best to make the most of it. i wandered back to the buda side and saw the famous gellért hotel
where the gellért thermal baths are. hiked half way up the citadel again to check out the view one last time and then headed to the GIANT daily market back on the pest side of town. the market was filled with lots of chili peppers and exotic foods you would never see back home,
and upstairs had traditional hungarian clothing and any souvenir you could possibly imagine.
i wandered back along the waterfront and then got a text from the girls from the cief saying they had arrived in town, so i went and met up with them at their hostel. we went and gathered some groceries so we could make dinner for the night, feasted and then got into the wine. a friend of a friends of a friend of lisa's (viktor), who lives in budapest, came over to show us a good place to go out. after we were all significantly drunk enough we headed out to gödör klub. viktor was buying us all drinks and needless to say the night got beyond sloppy.
since i had to leave to catch my flight at 7am the next day we decided to call it an early night around 12:30 or so. however, when i made it back to my hostel everyone was beyond drunk and there was alcohol everywhere, and i just could not resist the after party!
the night turned out to be hilarious, and apparently i became quite good friends with a british bloke i met. around 6-6:30 we all realized that i had to wake up in an hour to leave and i hadn't even gone to bed yet.... nor had i packed any of my things. so i called it a night, drunkenly packed my stuff as best as i could and passed out. approximately 45 minutes later i was waking up and checking out. fabulous! the rest of the days journey was absolute hell, not only was i severly hungover, but i also managed to get some bug bites on my wrist while i was sleeping. at the time of check out i figured this was no big deal (more on this later on in the post). i grabbed the metro to the train station, the train to budapest airport (where i had to wait a little while as my plane was about an hour delayed) and then when i landed in paris i had to take the metro to downtown paris and kill about 8 hours before my train to dijon. the entire day the bites on my wrist began to swell and swell until my arm had become about twice its normal size. there was nothing i could do and before long it was flaming hot, sore as hell, and starting to ooze some disgusting substance. it was completely gnarly to say the least. however, i managed to spend about 4 hours dragging my ass around le louvre trying to find the exhibit of lists for danielle (which was highly unsuccesful) so instead i wandered through the egyptian section.
when i arrived home i showed anges my fucked up arm and she seemed terrified (which really helped convince me everything was okay), but since it was already almost 11pm there was not much i could do about it until the morning, so as always after one of my excursions my bed and i become one for an unhealthy amount of time.
first thing the next morning i went to the pharmacy to see if they could give me something for my arm, and she insisted i go to the doctors immediatly. wonderful. headed to the doctors on campus where they do not speak a lick of english (thank god we studied medical terms during first semester!). when i was checking in and the receptionist was taking my information i showed her what my problem was and she immediately ran and got a doctor. when the doctor arrived she immediately went and got THREE other doctors to come and take a look as well. always a good sign right? as this point i'm thinking amputation is going to be necessary. but after they mumble to each other for a while in french and ask me a few questions they decide that all i need are some anitbiotics, to apply some rubbing alcohol and sport a sweet bandage on my arm for the next week. even though i insisted i had no allergies to medication the doctor was extremely concerned that i was going to have an allergic reaction to the antibiotics she prescribed me and insisted that i go back for another visit in the morning. luckily by the next morning it had already started to clear up a bit and wasn't nearly as hideous as the day before and the doctors gave me the all clear and said i should be fine in a week (turns out they were right as its pretty okay now, but i think i might has some nasty scars for a little while, at least i got to keep my arm though!)
anyway, i think this post is long enough, and it is definatly time for me to hit the sheets. i will update on the last week and a half back in mustardville at a later date. for now, i will sleep.
bonne nuit et a la prochaine fois mes amours! vous me manquez!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
happy valentine's day - my gift to you, my spring break re-cap!
so i managed to travel to eastern europe and back safe and sound, without too many bumps in the road along the way. but since my computer is such a giant piece of merde i'm still unable to upload any of my pictures from my trip. donc, a) this is going to be a picture-less post, and b) i am probably going to forget half of the things i did and saw while i was gone, since at this point it all still seems like a whirlwind that's hard to believe actually just happened. but i will do my best to make this as inclusive as possible.
well i managed to start off the trip with a pretty decent sized fuckup, as i always do. but its getting to the point now where i feel that the anticipated catastrophe at the beginning is just a sign that the rest of the trip can only be amazing. for some unknown reason i decided to leave booking my train tickets to and from paris to the absolute last day before i left, and not even in the morning, but 2:00 in the afternoon. so then when i found out that the morning train to get me there was sold out and i had no choice but to take the 8pm train that evening it was a frantic rush to pack ALL of my stuff, shower, find a hostel in paris, attempt to teach myself the essential phrases in czech and hungarian (two insanely FUCKED up languages might i add), eat, and get my ass to le gare. needless to say i managed somehow and was off on the tgv to paris. by the time i arrived it was too late to really do anything so i just headed to my hostel and bunkered down for the night. i could see the eiffel tower from my hostel and i realized that after 5 months of living in this country it still hasn't sunk in that i can just jump on a train for 1.5 hours and there i can stand, at the bottom of the tour d'eiffel.
woke up early and attempted to shower, but i'm pretty sure the water was literally turning to ice as it came out, so i decided to pass. grabbed some breakfast and headed off the the metro to get my ass to porte maillot stop and catch the shuttle bus out to beauvais airport. my flight was slightly delayed (as they always seem to be from beauvais airport) but nothing substantial, and before long i was touching town in praha, czech republic!
from the airport i grabbed a shuttle to prague city center and then was on the hunt to find my hostel, travellers hostel.
once i had checked in sans problems i was out and about to explore what the city had to offer. even with my trusty map in hand i found it slightly difficult to get my bearings straight, and in attempt to find some sights i eventually realized i was actually at the complete opposite end of the town and nowhere near where i wanted to be. luckily prague isn't the biggest place, and i was able to walk absolutely everywhere. after spending the majority of my first day wandering around the "new town" i felt a little let down with prague, everything seemed so commercialized, and every gorgeous building i would see would just turn out to be another shopping mall.
the next morning i decided it would be a good time to take the free walking tour and see what was really out there.
usually i'm not a fan of guided tours in any way, shape or form, but this was actually awesome. i learned all about the depressing history of prague and how they manage to overcome their hardtimes after the communist invasion and become the city the are today. i also learned all the major points on the map to really help me be able to navigate myself around a lot easier. i spent the following two days walking for about 10 hours straight a day, taking in as much as i could. seeing everything including old town square with the astronomical clock (the world's oldest clock still working with its original mechanical parts),
the gorgeous national museum,
the john lennon wall,
karlův most, also known as charles bridge (which was sadly half under construction during my visit), the famous fred and ginger dancing building,
the jewish town (and the 12 layered jewish cemetery......), so many churches (which apparently the czech no longer care about since the communists ruined their religious lives, so now they just used them all for "laserbeam shows or concerts"), incredible architecture, and my favorite place of all: prague castle (one of the biggest castles in the world).
you had to hike up about 120 steps to get to prague castle but once you got to the top the view was definatly worth it. the castle itself was also really cool as it pretty much includes every architectural style of the last millennium because it has been continuously added to throughout the years/decades (although unfortunatly now, a lot of parts of the castle are used as museums, restaurants or other tourist traps... it was still beautiful).
i met a cool couple from outside chicago at my hostel and we felt it necessary to hit up the bar upstairs as they had cheap cheap beers, four kinds of absinth, and every third tequila shot was free; so it didn't seem like something that could be missed. a good time was had by all, but it was a shame that the kareokee machine was out of order, i think that would have taken things to another level. on my last night in prague i met up with a bunch of girls from the cief (that's the name of my school in france, for those of you who are unaware) and we grabbed some dinner together and i took them on a quick walk of the city to show them some of my favorite spots. then it was back to the hostel to pack up my stuff and get a few hours of shut eye before i was off to catch the bus to budapest!
that's all for now, i have the joy of starting second semester bright and early tomorrow, so i will finish this post later. hopefully by then my computer will fuck off and co-operate with me, and i'll be able to throw in some pictures here and there. stayed tuned, budapest and the return to dijon to come! biz x
well i managed to start off the trip with a pretty decent sized fuckup, as i always do. but its getting to the point now where i feel that the anticipated catastrophe at the beginning is just a sign that the rest of the trip can only be amazing. for some unknown reason i decided to leave booking my train tickets to and from paris to the absolute last day before i left, and not even in the morning, but 2:00 in the afternoon. so then when i found out that the morning train to get me there was sold out and i had no choice but to take the 8pm train that evening it was a frantic rush to pack ALL of my stuff, shower, find a hostel in paris, attempt to teach myself the essential phrases in czech and hungarian (two insanely FUCKED up languages might i add), eat, and get my ass to le gare. needless to say i managed somehow and was off on the tgv to paris. by the time i arrived it was too late to really do anything so i just headed to my hostel and bunkered down for the night. i could see the eiffel tower from my hostel and i realized that after 5 months of living in this country it still hasn't sunk in that i can just jump on a train for 1.5 hours and there i can stand, at the bottom of the tour d'eiffel.
woke up early and attempted to shower, but i'm pretty sure the water was literally turning to ice as it came out, so i decided to pass. grabbed some breakfast and headed off the the metro to get my ass to porte maillot stop and catch the shuttle bus out to beauvais airport. my flight was slightly delayed (as they always seem to be from beauvais airport) but nothing substantial, and before long i was touching town in praha, czech republic!
from the airport i grabbed a shuttle to prague city center and then was on the hunt to find my hostel, travellers hostel.
once i had checked in sans problems i was out and about to explore what the city had to offer. even with my trusty map in hand i found it slightly difficult to get my bearings straight, and in attempt to find some sights i eventually realized i was actually at the complete opposite end of the town and nowhere near where i wanted to be. luckily prague isn't the biggest place, and i was able to walk absolutely everywhere. after spending the majority of my first day wandering around the "new town" i felt a little let down with prague, everything seemed so commercialized, and every gorgeous building i would see would just turn out to be another shopping mall.
the next morning i decided it would be a good time to take the free walking tour and see what was really out there.
usually i'm not a fan of guided tours in any way, shape or form, but this was actually awesome. i learned all about the depressing history of prague and how they manage to overcome their hardtimes after the communist invasion and become the city the are today. i also learned all the major points on the map to really help me be able to navigate myself around a lot easier. i spent the following two days walking for about 10 hours straight a day, taking in as much as i could. seeing everything including old town square with the astronomical clock (the world's oldest clock still working with its original mechanical parts),
the gorgeous national museum,
the john lennon wall,
karlův most, also known as charles bridge (which was sadly half under construction during my visit), the famous fred and ginger dancing building,
the jewish town (and the 12 layered jewish cemetery......), so many churches (which apparently the czech no longer care about since the communists ruined their religious lives, so now they just used them all for "laserbeam shows or concerts"), incredible architecture, and my favorite place of all: prague castle (one of the biggest castles in the world).
you had to hike up about 120 steps to get to prague castle but once you got to the top the view was definatly worth it. the castle itself was also really cool as it pretty much includes every architectural style of the last millennium because it has been continuously added to throughout the years/decades (although unfortunatly now, a lot of parts of the castle are used as museums, restaurants or other tourist traps... it was still beautiful).
i met a cool couple from outside chicago at my hostel and we felt it necessary to hit up the bar upstairs as they had cheap cheap beers, four kinds of absinth, and every third tequila shot was free; so it didn't seem like something that could be missed. a good time was had by all, but it was a shame that the kareokee machine was out of order, i think that would have taken things to another level. on my last night in prague i met up with a bunch of girls from the cief (that's the name of my school in france, for those of you who are unaware) and we grabbed some dinner together and i took them on a quick walk of the city to show them some of my favorite spots. then it was back to the hostel to pack up my stuff and get a few hours of shut eye before i was off to catch the bus to budapest!
that's all for now, i have the joy of starting second semester bright and early tomorrow, so i will finish this post later. hopefully by then my computer will fuck off and co-operate with me, and i'll be able to throw in some pictures here and there. stayed tuned, budapest and the return to dijon to come! biz x
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