For spring break we decided to do a few days in Prague, Budapest and Vienna. There were 6 of us, 4 girls and 2 guys that went. We flew to Prague first and got in pretty late so we decided to call it a night. The next few days were spent exploring the city exclusively by foot. The city was small enough to just be able to walk wherever we wanted to go. It was very cool because it was much different from the other cities I've seen in terms of its architecture and setup. On one side of the river splitting the city in 2 is the Prague Castle area up on a hill overlooking the city (which is the largest castle area in europe). It holds some fantastic buildings including a huge gothic church that took over 500 years to complete. The church was started in medieval times but was not completed until 1914! From up there you can see the entire city which really is beautiful. To cross the water is the famous Charles Bridge which is exclusively a walking bridge which is lined with statues on both sides. One statue in particular was interesting because there was a legend along with it. King Charles' (of the HRE) wife had been going to confession for quite some time and he was curious about her fidelity so he went to the confessionary and asked him to tell what she had said. He refused as he was binded by the church not to say, so King Charles tied up his hands and threw the confessionary off of the bridge precisely where there is now a statue. Another interesting one is there is a statue with a dog and woman that you're supposed to rub as you pass by. Unfortunately i didnt take the walking tour before we did this so i didn't hear the story and rubbed both of them. Women are supposed to rub the dog for good luck in the near future at "keeping their man with them in the house" and if a man rubs it is supposedly bad luck and you are said to be likely to "impregnate a girl in the next year". Oh well. Also some of the great sites include the large jewish quarter (biggest in Europe) with some fascinating synogagues and a neat cemetary, the astronomical clock in old town square, the dancing building, etc. Also the clubs in Prague were amazing. The best one we went to was one that was 5 floors tall, with each floor playing different genres of music. The first floor was rap/r and b, next was pop, next was techno, next was classic rock, and the top floor was czech and hungarian pop. It was a very interesting experience. In Prague I also found the food to be very good as well. I tried Czech traditional goulash (spelling?) and it was really good. Overall Prague was probably the city that I liked the most on the trip because the whole city was walkable and there was so much to see and do. As for the language, it certainly is a different type of language than french or english or german so it was very hard for me to pick up anything.
Next stop was Vienna, Austria. We took a bus from Prague to Austria and although while in Prague I didnt really feel like I was in the "former communist block", on this drive there were certainly still remnants. Statues of men with machine guns and run down little towns were everywhere in the czech republic. It was very interesting to see actually. We got to vienna around 1 on tuesday and it was amazing because the bus dropped us off right in front of the city hall, which was sooo nice. In front of it was a huge ice skating rink that actually had all sorts of little ice trails running like a maze through the park. Vienna was a much different city than Prague; it looked like many other western cities in its architecture and the general sentiment of the city. We saw all of the major sites such as the shonnebrunn palace, the sigmund freud museum, and the center of the city which holds about 10 different museums. Speaking of the food, this had to be my favorite because we went to this one traditional austrian restaurant and i ordered a weiner schnitzel expecting a small chop but got one that was actually bigger than the already big plate. It was about the size of a frozen pizza in circumference; it was amazing. We also went up to the top of the tallest tower in Vienna to get a great view of the city and it was a beautiful site. From this tower there were also people bungy jumping but I didnt partake in that....
The next stop was Budapest in Hungary, which I enjoyed immensely. The culture was so different than that of any place I had ever been. The city was set up similar to Prague in that a river ran through the middle (in this case the Danube) and on one side lied the castle and historical sites and on the other lied the place where the townspeople would live. I actually didnt know ahead of time that Budapest was at one time two different cities (one Buda and the other Pest) and was combined at some point. Hungary has clear influences of the countries that had occupied them for hundreds of years. This includes the Holy Roman Empire, Germany, and the Soviet Union but it also has a distinct culture of its own. This language was pretty much impossible for me to speak correctly. The formation of the words was very few vowels and many consonants that when put together make a sound that I certainly wouldnt think they would make. A few girls that we met out at a club kept laughing at us for our pronunciation of simple words such as "thank you" which we could just not pronounce right even just trying to mimic them. Here, the architecture was similar in style to Prague. The Parliament building and the castle were great as was fisherman's bastion, hero's square and the city park. Budapest is well known for its spas and baths and there are over 100 different ones. We went to one and it was pretty much the most relaxing thing i've ever done. I'm really glad I decided to do it because at first I was like, what do I need that for? I'd rather just see the city. I also had a friend that is currently studying in Budapest that I met up with and she showed us some of the lesser known things to see and do in Budapest which was nice. While the girls did some shopping, Ardy and me went to two different museums. One being the history of Budapest located in the castle and the other being the history of the Hungarian military. They were very interesting and allowed me to better understand how Budapest became what it is today. I had no idea how tough it has been for the Hungarians constantly being under the rule of others all the way up until 1989. The food here was great because it was really spicy. There is this mix of crushed red pepper and paprika that is used as a condiment for many things and I loved it. the exchange rate was interesting here because it was 172 Hungarian Forents to 1 US dollar so it was normal for us to get a check of 20,000 forents. I found it to be very cool to be holding a 10,000 forent bill even if it was not worth all that much.
Overall I had an unbelievable time on this trip and it was great to see the different nations and hear the different languages. I would definitely recommend all 3 cities but if I had to choose one as a place you "need to see" it would be between Prague and Budapest because Vienna is very similar to cities you'll find in France and Germany and many western nations whereas Prague and Budapest are in fact very different.
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