Long time no update...

Sorry it's been so long since I updated this thing. I've been swamped with work ever since we got back from our last field trip two weeks ago. Last week, I had two midterms. One of them was completely insane and asked questions that you would only know if you had ample background in the material, meaning EU relations with the Muslim World. Hopefully it didn't go too badly, though. I studied a lot and can only hope for the best. My other midterm was for my Civilizational Identities class, and it wasn't bad at all, but it still required a lot of work. This upcoming week I have a midterm and a presentation on Wednesday. Kate is also coming to visit Freiburg for a few days, starting late on Tuesday night until we leave for Amsterdam on Thursday evening. I'm running around trying to study and really just freaking out my housing situation for next semester and trying to resolve that before I can relax for a long weekend.
Anyway, going back a few weeks...
On February 22, we went skiing in the Alps. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately the way in which it was set up required a lot more cross country like skiing than anyone would ever want on regular skis. The next day, my back and arms were incredibly sore, while the muscles that were supposed to hurt were completely fine. It was overall a really nice day, though. The picture above is of Erica, Natalie and myself at the end of the day and the other is obviously me in the middle of the Alps.
That Sunday, we left for Budapest. The transportation situation was terrible all around Eastern Europe and it started that day. We got on a bus at 6 am for a flight that was supposed to leave Stuttgart around 11. The flight didn't end up leaving until 3 because of technical difficulties. Thanks, Easy Jet! It was, however, the fastest flight of my life. I maintain that we just teleported from Germany to Hungary, because I fell asleep the minute I sat down and didn't feel the take off or the apparently very brutal landing. Can't complain about that!
We arrived in Budapest and went on a boat tour, pictured above. This was really the only time that we got to see both the Buda and the Pest sides of the city. We had meetings in the Hungarian Parliament, though, which was really cool. The speakers were incredibly pessimistic about Hungary's future. The picture above is me and Jessica (another girl from Naperville!) in front of the parliament. The whole city was gorgeous, but everyone all over the city just seemed incredibly depressed all the time. It's like there's something engraved in the Hungarian psyche or something.
On Tuesday, we left for Krakow. We left in the afternoon and stopped for dinner in Slovakia. Note to self: Never try to find anything to eat in Slovakia EVER again. Boiled potatoes for dinner? Sweet. We got back on the bus and within an hour, it broke down. We were stranded in the parking lot of a closed grocery store in the middle of nowhere in Slovakia for FOUR hours. It was freezing outside and they let the exhaust go onto the bus, so we all felt incredibly sick by the time our backup bus came. We finally arrived in Krakow around 3am. At least now I can say that
I've been to Slovakia, though...
Krakow was a really nice city. It just felt homey. The city wasn't very destroyed in WWII, so there is a lot of medieval architecture throughout the city. There's also a really neat market in the middle of the city square. Everything was really cheap and that's where a ton of souvenirs are coming from. I met up with John, a friend from Beloit. We had Indian food and he showed me around the city a little. It was really great to sit down and talk to someone from Beloit and talk about people that we both know.
On Thursday morning, we left for Prague. On the way, we stopped at Auschwitz, which had the same impact on me as Dachau did a few years ago. Our tour guide was eager to tell us everything that she knows about the Holocaust, particularly in Auschwitz of course. It was really interesting and incredibly depressing, of course.
After a nine hour bus ride, we finally arrived in Prague. We immediately looked for a place to eat. Jamie (the other vegan) and I decided to go to a vegetarian restaurant. A bunch of friends came with us and we absolutely fell in love with the place. Dad, when we go to Prague, we're eating there at least once. Absolutely amazing. We ended up going back there two more times to eat. mmm...

Prague, like Krakow, was left untouched by WWII and remains gorgeous as a result. We had a lot of free time in Prague, which was incredible because we actually got to go to all of the places that we wanted to. Unfortunately, the day we wanted to go to the castle, it was closed. We did walk up to the top of an observation tower and we did walk all the way up to the castle and take some cool pictures seen above, though.
The past weekend we traveled some more. I went with five friends to Munich. Unfortunately, all of these girls are in the other travel group so I didn't get to go to Eastern Europe with them. Munich was a lot of fun, though. I don't have any pictures because I haven't uploaded them onto my computer yet, but I basically saw the same things that I saw when I was there before. On Saturday, it was absolutely gorgeous out. We climbed up to Neuschwanstein and took gorgeous pictures. That basically took all day. We came back and went to an Indian restaurant and it was absolutely delicious. Mom, we're definitely going there because it was amazing!
Well, that's enough for now. Props to anyone who read that whole thing! I'll update again when I get back from Amsterdam and hopefully I won't wait as long that time.