Welcome to the former Soviet Union…

Sunday September 21 (morning)

What a day of traveling. Here I am, 9:24 in the morning and we’ve finally made it to Budapest! But, let’s recount an exciting day of traveling…

First, it was really weird to be leaving Berlin. I actually got a little sad about having to leave my host family and my apartment. But on to the trip…

We left from Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 2:45. Now, none of you have seen the Berlin Hauptbahnhof but its about the size of the Galleria and about 30x nicer. It’s amazing. So anyway, Perry, Dan, Will, Eric, Diana, and I load into our car for the 5 hour ride to Prague. We laughed hysterically the entire 5 hours, especially when Jarrod would pop in for a visit. So anyway, we had a 20 minute stop in Dresden which was really cool because we’ll be going back in a couple of weeks! But anyways, we made it to the Prague Hauptbahnhof and let me just tell you, Todo we aren’t in Kansas anymore. The Prague Hauptbahnhof made you want to lock your luggage, purse, and anything else in sight. With little to NOTHING in the train station Maria (one of IES mentors), Jarrod, Jacob, and I decided that we would go sneak a little peak at Prague and OH MY GOSH it was wonderful! The streets are all cobblestone, the night life is happening, and everywhere you turn there is another GORGEOUS building. Which led us to our first major scare of the excursion. We were watching the time but not where we were walking and every time we saw another beautiful steeple we would walk a couple blocks take a picture and then wander to the next one. And then, all of a sudden we were in the middle of Prague, 30 minutes from our train departure, and completely lost. So we stopped in a restaurant and asked the woman whose 3^rd language was English how to get to the main train station. With her directions we ran to the train station and when we arrived, breathing heavily we realized…this looks nothing like the train station we left from. Well, surprise, surprise. It wasn’t So we got more directions, sprinted, this time to the real train station and made it with less than 10 minutes until departure…what a story!

(Christine and Jaunita on the top perry and I on the middle, and Sarah and Madeline below - and you can't even see those two!)

When we got on the train we realized we had NO room. You can tell from the pictures that there was legitimately just enough room to breathe. We hung out in another car for awhile with the guys and then called it a night and headed to “sleep.” Now, as much as I’m sure Zach would have loved the experience, it was well…very soviet. Every time we stopped you would ram into the wall which was only about 3 inches from your face to begin with…but we survived. Oh yea, and the train conductor jammed the train car doors closed with ladders so the gypsies would come on and take our stuff.

(oh yea, cause now we feel safe...)

But we finally arrived in Budapest at 7:15 this morning. After a short bus ride to the hotel we got out rooms, me and Perry in a DOUBLE!, and then we headed for a breakfast buffet. And I ate my weight in breakfast food! And It was wonderful! We are about to leave for a city tour which is SO exciting and I’m hoping to be able to post this soon!