¡Hola, Barcelona!

There was no school on All Saint's Day, so Katrina and I decided to spend our long weekend in Barcelona, Spain! We left early on Friday for our 5:00am flight, and made it to Barcelona around noon. We explored a bit after checking into our hostel. That evening, we had paella for dinner (I tried clams!), and we saw a flamenco dancing performance at the Palau de la Música Catalana. There were signs inside the building saying that it wasn't allowed to take pictures, but everyone was taking pictures...especially in the concert hall. How could you not? The stained glass and intriguing architecture is absolutely amazing. I LOVED the show. The music was fun and full of variety, and the dancers could move extremely fast and with passion! Is it too late for me to become a flamenco dancer when I grow up? =) 

On Saturday morning, we had churros de chocolate for breakfast. You take the churros and dip them in the hot chocolate - delicious! We may or may not have had that for breakfast the next day as well... After breakfast, we checked out the Barcelona Cathedral. What a great example of a gothic cathedral! Next, we headed to the Museu de la Xocolata. Our "tickets" were chocolate bars. There was a lot of history about chocolate and how it first came to spain, as well as chocolate sculptures with Spanish, pop culture, and religious themes. Next on the list was the Pablo Picasso Museum. There were a lot of works from Picasso's earlier years, which I had never seen before. There was a whole room on Picasso's experimentation in reproducing "Las Meninas" in his own style. These paintings were more of Picasso's signature style you would think of when picturing his work. As if we hadn't done enough already, we walked to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) and walked around there for a few hours. I didn't understand some of the pieces. It was quite the experience! Then we walked to the Magic Fountain, which is in front of Palau Nacional on Montjuïc. It was amazing what that fountain could do! You could say...almost magical! It was a lot of fun. To wrap up the evening, we got some tapas nearby the fountain for a late dinner.

On Sunday, we started with the Arc de Triomf, and then headed over to see some architecture made by Antoni Gaudí. The first stop was Casa Batlló. Coolest. House. Ever. Some call it the "house of bones" because of the bone-like columns, spine-like banisters, and the design of the front of the house. The house is not only innovative due to its looks, but it is innovative in its heating and cooling system. Very eco-friendly. Our second Gaudí stop was the Sagrada Família, a cathedral in Barcelona that is not even finished being built yet. It is expected to be finished in 2026, after 144 years since the building process began. The exterior is spectacular, but the interior can barely be described with words, it is so amazing. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The columns stretch towards the heavens like enormous plant stems. The stained glass has all of the colors of the rainbow. When Katrina and I first walked inside, we were speechless. I want to go back and see it once it's finished! 

Check out this link to see what it will look when it's finished: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10343792/How-Gaudis-finished-Sagrada-Familia-cathedral-in-Barcelona-will-look.html

I took as many pictures as my memory card would fit this weekend (about 500)...I think you will see why!

 Palau de la Música Catalana

 Paella - delicious!

 Flamenco performance we saw - AMAZING!

 Palau de la Música Catalana concert hall

 Churros de chocolate

 Barcelona Cathedral

 Inside Barcelona Cathedral

 "Up" house at Museu de la Xocolata

 Museum of Modern Art

 Postcard stand sculpture selfie! =P

 Palau Nacional on Montjuïc

 Magic Fountain!!!

Arc de Triomf

 Casa Batlló rooftop

 Casa Batlló ribcage room

 Casa Batlló facade

 Sagrada Família - under construction

Sagrada Família - simply breathtaking.

 Sagrada Família stained glass

 Sagrada Família from the back

Sagrada Família ceiling

Midterms, Midterms, Everywhere

It's time for midterms at BSM. I've already taken one, so I have three more to go. I have my Combinatorics midterm tomorrow morning at 8:15am. Bright and early! My other two are next Wednesday and Thursday. I take the General GRE on Monday...will be furiously studying vocab. words all weekend. The Math GRE went alright last weekend. Not as bad as I had expected! I don't get my score until about 6 weeks from now.

This week, my roommates and I have gotten fed up with being in our apartment, so we've ventured out to study at other locations.

Irene and I went to the Cat Cafe! We had been to a different one before, but that one only had three cats. The one we went to this week had 15 or so!! It was great. We just sat there, drinking our tea, figuring out our homework, and occasionally taking a break to pet cats.

Olivia and I went to Paprika to study, which is a restaurant by our apartment. It was the first restaurant we went to in Budapest when we got here. Such a cute place! (great gulyas, too!!)

There were no classes yesterday, since it was a Hungarian national holiday. It was a memorial day for the 1956 Revolution against the Soviets. There were people everywhere downtown...there were lots of demonstrations going on. I ended up watching the movie Saving Face with some friends, walking around, and doing some homework, of course. It was absolutely gorgeous out all day!! It felt like summer again!

Tonight, Irene and I went to the Grand Market to get a pumpkin, since Irene is going to make pumpkin lattes for when we watch Coraline with friends tomorrow. This may or may not have been a way for us to put off studying for Combinatorics...but we eventually studied! 

 Cute cat that curled up next to us

 Cat Cafe!!!

 Inside Paprika, a restaurant by my apartment

 Silly smiling pickled things

 Love the Grand Market! So colorful.

Beautiful evening in Budapest!

Guten tag, München!

This post will contain mostly pictures, because I am taking the Math GRE tomorrow morning at 8:30am, and I need to go to bed soon. This is my way to calm down before trying to sleep. So nervous! It will be nice to get it over with, though. Then a week from Monday, I take the General GRE, which will hopefully be refreshing compared to the Math GRE...

I went to Munich last weekend! I never thought I would go to Germany for some reason, but I went, and I absolutely loved it!! The leaves on the trees were changing color, and we mostly lucked out on the weather (just a little chilly and rainy on Saturday morning). 

We took the night train to get there. It took about 9 hours. I didn't sleep very well, but had a large coffee in the morning after we got to Munich. It was nice walking around the city so early in the morning (arrived between 6 and 7) when no one else was. 

We explored the Deutsches Museum when it opened. It was fantastic. So many interesting exhibits there. We could've stayed there the whole day, but we got hungry for lunch (and also had other things to see!). We walked through the English Gardens while trying to find lunch. The fall colors were beautiful! I had trouble picking out something to eat at the restaurant we found, because the whole menu was in German. I finally looked up at the specials menu and saw "spaetzle" and ordered that, since I knew I liked spaetzle (doughy noodles). It came with beef stuffed with a pickle and saur kraut, with some veggies on the side. The sauce reminded me of my grandma's stew. Best. Meal. So. Far. I was sad when I couldn't finish it all!

After lunch, we explored Marienplatz and got to see the Glockenspiel! (We didn't realize it was the Glockenspiel until later that night, though!) We ended the night at the Hofbräuhaus, where we tried the house beer. The atmosphere was really fun! Live music, people singing, people wearing lederhosen. 

On Sunday, most of us decided to go to Dachau, which was a concentration camp. It lasted throughout the war. It took us 2-3 hours to get there (the train we needed wasn't running in the normal spot, so we had issues), but once we got there, it was a worthwhile experience. I learned a lot. It was a beautiful day that day. I wish that we had gotten there earlier so I could've seen more of it. 

That night, our last night, we just explored the city and waited until it was time to board the train back to Budapest. I hope I get to go back to Munich some day! Loved it. Well, I guess I wrote more than I thought I would...goodnight! Update on the GRE to come...

 A view of the St. Paul Cathedral

 Metro = awesome!

Crossing the bridge to get to the Deutsches Museum (left)

The Deutsches Museum - the Math Cabinet was popular!

 View from the roof at the Deutsches Museum

 Great view of lots of important buildings in Munich!

 English Gardens

 Best meal I've had so far - beef stuffed with a pickle and saur kraut, with spaetzle!

 Rathaus - saw the Glockenspiel in action!

 Marienplatz

 Rathaus/Glockenspiel at night

Cheers! At the Hofbräuhaus.

 Dachau - view of entrance building

Frauenkirche

Buda Castle District Adventures

Last weekend, my roommate and I were experiencing a minor case of cabin fever from being stuck in our apartment doing homework. So, on Sunday, we decided to take the afternoon off from studying to explore Buda, which is on the other side of the Danube from us. We took the metro to get there, and then started wandering around. We found a mall right off of the metro stop and checked it out, but decided to explore more outside since it was such a nice day. I pointed out a street sign that had a picture of a structure and a person with an arrow pointing up where there were stairs. It looked interesting, so we climbed up the 7 or so flights of stairs. Once we got to the top, we realized that we had found the Castle District! We wandered around there, finding the remains of an old church, a walking street with a beautiful view of the city, a museum, and finally, the castle. There was a woman selling hot mulled wine, but we left her stand as soon as we heard the price per glass...2000 HUF, which is about $10! We figured it was because the castle was a tourist destination. After looking at the castle for awhile, we went outside of the walls of the Castle District and found a beautiful pathway filled with greenery. 

We had seen a sign for the Labyrinth, which was built in the caves under the Castle District, and was used as a cellar, dungeon, and fallout shelter in the past. At the beginning of the dimly lit labyrinth, there were lots of mannequins depicting an opera that takes place in Budapest. Music from the opera was playing, which had somewhat of a creepy vibe. There were also parts of columns from hundreds of years ago. I think the oldest one we saw was from the 1300s. In some parts, there was hymnal music playing, which seemed fitting. Once we got through the opera section, there was a section focused on Dracula. This was definitely the creepier section. Apparently Dracula (the real person) was in love with King Matthias' sister, but Matthias ended up arresting him and had him held and tortured in the Labyrinth. I got freaked out when I heard other people walking by us once in the Dracula section...oops! I am more easily scared than my roommate!! 

We had a great day. I will definitely have to get back over to Buda to explore more!

 Buda Castle

 Pathway around the Castle District

 Creepy mannequins in the Labyrinth, depicting a scene in an opera

 Me in the creepier part of the Labyrinth! Notice the fog..

 Anything creepy jump out at you in this photo other than the coffin? No? Look in the background...

 View of the city along the walls of the Castle District

A view of the Buda Castle

Flowers in the Park

Today was a good day! I officially registered for my classes. I'm taking Theory of Computing, Probability, Combinatorics, and Topology. So far I like Theory of Computing the best. My other classes are going pretty well, though.

After my class and a bit of lunch, I decided to do some homework in the park. I went for a nice stroll and sat in the yard near all of the gorgeous flower beds (including multiple varieties of basil, so they smell good, too!). After finishing up my homework, I walked down to Heroes' Square, where I asked around and found out the difference between the two art museums on each side of it. One is contemporary, and the other is more classical. I'll be going to both of them next month, since the 3rd Saturday is free for students under age 26! Hopefully they will count me as a student. We were specifically told not to buy the student metro passes, because we don't go to school in Hungary in the long term so we could get a fine for having the student pass, but maybe we'll be able to get in for free art seeing day. =) On my walk, I tried to find these billboard-esque signs that had been on display, but they were taken down, unfortunately. They had seemed like they were designed by artists rather than just advertisements, so I had wanted to check them out. Oh well!

This weekend, I plan to explore Buda more! ...and also catch up on my topology homework. 

Loving my time in Budapest!!

 Flowers in City Park!

Sculpture in City Park - supposed to look like a mountain from this view maybe?

More flowers

Love these!

 Aaand...more flowers. =) I liked the pink one in the middle!

 City Park

Theory of Computing homework in the park!