In Vienna, my favorite site was the State Library - it was like the library out of Beauty and the Beast. I want one one day. We also saw the royal burial vault. It was really cool to see the coffins holding people I learned about in AP Euro. Also in Vienna, saw Schoneberg Palace - the Hapsburgs summer home. It was beautiful of course, accompanied by gardens that led to a beautiful view atop a hill. And on our first night in Vienna, we took the train to a village named Modling for dinner. It was picturesque and we could actually see stars outside of an old church lit up against the night.
In Budapest, our hotel was on the Danube and our room had a river view - we could see the palace, several bridges, and several monuments atop a hill from our window (amazing!) Budapest is beautiful at night. In fact, I like Budapest at night more than I do during the day. Our first night there was one of my favorites of the whole trip. We walked to the other side of the river to go exploring and ended up climbing the winding paths leading to the monuments on the big hill that we saw. Despite being in a city, the air felt fresh and calm. As an added bonus, we saw several cats chilling out along the path on our ascent. There were also a bunch of perfect look-outs on the way up. It was so beautiful, the city lights, the air, I could have stayed there all night.
The next day we toured the Hungarian Parliament building and then went to a really cool bar in the evening. The following day we walked around some more, exploring the palace area, and went to a night club called Alcatraz (it was in fact decorated like a prison). All in all, Budapest was fun. There food was too deep-fried (worse than American food!), but it was the cheapest so far.
So from Budapest we returned to Vienna. We toured the largest underground lake in Europe, which used to be a mine and then was used by the Nazis to build jet planes in 1944. We spent the night in a village staying with Taylor's "Aunt" (who was an exchange student living with his mother when they were in high school) and her twenty-something son and daughter. They cooked us a traditional Austrian dinner (red cabbage, dumplings, yumminess in general) finished off with ice cream covered in freshly whipped cream and raspberries. And they had a cat and a wood-burning stove (a god-send after standing in freezing cold snow waiting for a bus) - it was one of the best night's sleep I had in two weeks. They also gave us the traditional Austrian breakfast - breads, toast, rolls, ham, and cheese. It was WONDERFUL.
Then it was onto the train for what became a 16 hour trip home. We had a layover in Frankfurt because the earlier train had sold out. Frankfurt didn't seem to have very much and only had free wifi if you had a T-mobil phone, even at Starbucks! And then we started freaking out a little because the sign said that our train was cancelled. Turns out they just had to put us on a different train and then transfer at a station along the way. So we made it back to Paris and then back to Cergy around 12:30. Safe and Sound. And Tired.
I'm really glad I went on the trip - I will remember it for the rest of my life.
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