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March 15, 2016

I’ve now been in London for about 6 weeks! It’s wild for me to think that. I have had o much fun while I’ve been here visiting the sites and being able to spend it with my friends. 

London is insane! It has anything and everything you can imagine. Honestly, my biggest goals are to try as many different foods as I can because they have hundreds upon hundreds of restaurants. They have Thai, Korean, Greek, Hawaiian (never think about that one do ya?), Colombian etc... and that’s the shortest list ever. Not to mention there are also strange styles of restaurants. One of them is called “The Cereal Killer Cafe” and it is EXACTLY what you think it is. It’s a cafe that sells cereals from around the world (if you weren’t thinking that then I’m sorry but it isn’t exactly what you thought)! There is a place called Milk Train where they sell fun flavors of ice cream in a cone but the cone is wrapped in fluffy cotton candy. It’s as delicious as it sounds but also very sticky. Both of my hands were covered in fudge and sugar and it was a total disaster. It was worth it though. 

I’ve visited a variety of museums such as the science museum, the British Museum and Tate Modern Art museum and they are all beautiful. I highly recommend Tate. I have seen the London Eye which Megan, Emma and I accidentally came upon. We were looking for it but my maps app was taking me all around Europe to find it and then we looked to our right at one point and there it was! It was a magical moment for us. We did not go on it because it does take over half an hour to get on and off so we didn’t think it was really worth it. As a disclaimer we have been on a building where we were lucky enough to see London from high up. 

We crossed the Tower Bridge which was amazing! It felt like I was back in Budapest crossing the bridge there. London is massive! It has a million bridges and London Bridge? Not remarkable. It’s the thousandth remake (exaggerating) so it’s just a simple bridge. Tower and Blackfriars are the two very cool ones. 

We got to take a tour of Shakespeare’s London which was also amazing! We got to see where he went as a kid, where he fought Marlow (another playwright) and Marlow died (not by Shakespeare unfortunately). Had Marlow not died he might have been the playwright we study now rather than Shakespeare! 

I have been to Margate which is known for the sea and its artists. It was so pretty even though it was very very gray. The houses were sweet and colorful and much different from what one sees in London. It’s all pastel colors whereas London is very basic blues, white, black and red. London is starting to get more modern as the years go on and more buildings are arising but really the people aren’t very pleased with it. They would like their old London to stay as it is but hey! We can’t always get what we want. I personally enjoy the modern buildings.

I went to Windsor Castle where I took photos inside and I was really not supposed to but I did it anyway! Windsor was so so pretty!! It was extremely cold but it is just now starting to hit into spring over here so I’m very excited to take photos during this time 

Anyway London is going great! It’s beautiful and there is constantly something to do and something to see and something for something. It’s genuinely the European New York except better. I will post photos tomorrow morning because our home stay has very poor wifi and uploading photos is basically impossible. 

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A view of the famous Westertoren in Amsterdam

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My personal favorite picture of 2016. Sunrise on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Since my posting on IG many have done the same in the following days.

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Amsterdam is a magical place

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

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Amsterdam, 03/2011

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Amsterdam, Netherlands by Victorio Nakata

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Amsterdam - Netherlands (by RobinTphoto) 

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January 26, 2017

So here’s the thing with Amsterdam. I was looking over a canal because Amsterdam has a million of them. My phone slipped through my hands and fell straight into the canal. I practically jumped in the canal, practically created a brand new canal with how much a cried over the loss of basically my life. My memory card was full on my camera so all the photos from Budapest and Barcelona and part of Paris came from my phone. 

Now why didn’t I buy a new memory card? I kid you not in that nowhere I went I could find one. I went to their versions of Walmarts/CVS literally any store I went in and tried but somehow Amsterdam had none. They did have a lot of paraphernalia to sell me though. It was insane. I unfortunately was unable to get photos from there. Steph’s memory on her phone was full and her phone photos don’t sync up with google so none of hers were backed up. She couldn’t get any photos taken for me either. 

I am really disappointed in myself in this area because Amsterdam was pretty. Was it anything in comparison to Paris, Budapest or Barcelona? Absolutely not. Amsterdam was just pretty or cute. I can find some on Tumblr probably and reblog them from others for you to see what I mean. All the buildings were the same. It’s pretty similar to San Francisco. Homes that are all very close to one another, lots of windows and it has its own culture. 

I got to learn the difference between a coffee shop and a coffeeshop. The latter sells drugs. Literally any type you could imagine. It’s incredibly baffling. Then there’s of course the red light district which is EXACTLY how people describe. Windows with red curtains all over/peep shows/banana bars and so on. It’s wild around there. There were a variety of museums for Van Gogh and Anne Frank specifically. People ride around on their bikes all over. 

I wish there was more to Amsterdam than that but considering we were solely in the central areas it’s all very similar. I really wish that I could have spent the extra days in Amsterdam in Barcelona.

I’ll post one final blog later this week about my over al sights and reviews on everything. 

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Barcelona photo link

https://goo.gl/photos/2N6eHY6HfhuwxuzEA

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January 23, 2017

Barcelona was hands down my favorite city. It was the most beautiful place I got to see and it was so warm. I was dealing with temperatures of 5 degree Fahrenheit in Budapest so to arrive at 55 degrees was like a paradise. There were actual palm trees with a beach and people wearing dresses. Honestly Barcelona was stunning and also very easy to figure out. It also turns out this January was a record breaking cold for Europe! We arrived at an adorable apartment which was right in the center of everything. We immediately went out to explore. We were at Porto Veil I believe and there is a huge boardwalk you cross to get to a large mall/aquarium/restaurants. It was pretty modern. From the structure rising above the walk to the mall itself. It was all metal and glass. What I noticed most during all of the two days in Barcelona was that it had its old bits to it but also a very modern area to it. There is a massive building that looks like a bullet which lights up very bright at night. Once you arrive to the small town it is in you are in the most modern area of Barcelona. Many new science buildings, shopping centers and clubs. To enter the club's you needed to go to an elevator at the top floor and then ride down to the bottom area which was parallel to the third beach surrounding Barcelona. Steph and I decided to head off to La Sagrada Familia. Which is the Basilica of Spain and it is massive. They were renovating some of the top of the steeples but otherwise everything was in tact. There was a big detailed front which was all designed by Gaudi who apparently designed a lot of Barcelona. They enjoy representing him through figures of salamanders around the city. It's quite strange. Gaudi created a back with these sculptures that had no faces and I think it's for the people looking to come up with their emotions for the people represented. He was very artistic and modern for his time in architecture. Inside the Basilica there are massive ceilings with stain glass windows surrounding the inside. It's stunning really. Even though Gaudi was very new with his style he kept the gothic interior with the pointed ceilings of a Catholic Church. We also saw the Barcelona version of the Arc de Triomphe. It's very Spanish. The red stone, gold at the top to detail it and the green to add extra color. It was all very beautiful and shows off the Spanish style. There are gardens all around the area of Barcelona but this one had a giant fountain monument. Absolutely stunning. I mean of all the things I had seen in Europe it was my favorite. It could have to do with the fact that there were dog's surrounding me but it really was gorgeous. Over all Barcelona is lovely. There are a multitude of styles being appreciated in the city and I want to go back. I want to see all of it. There are so many theatres surrounding it I might even consider moving. It's just that great of a city.

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January 15, 2017

Here is a link to my Budapest Photos because for some reason the photos are not uploading. 

https://goo.gl/photos/iF1rw956wbzwMgM26

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January 15, 2017

I have had basically no wifi since I landed in Budapest. It has been insane. The photos I will be posting of Budapest are very pretty. The architecture here is gorgeous. It’s very old and very detailed. We were staying at an AirBnB but what we didn’t know was how close we would be to everything. The first day we got up but had no plans. Steph had been to Budapest before so I figured she knew where to go and what to see. I was very wrong. We walked out and saw a very tall, very pointy tip to a building and decided to follow it. We crossed over a main bridge of our side of Budapest. I didn’t know but apparently Budapest is split into two cities. We lived on Pest and the other side of the bridge held Buda. Anyway we continued walking forward and came to this astounding and beautiful building. It had these great carved in shields going around the entirety of it. Two massive lions at the front and I asked Steph what it was. She had no idea. I asked if it was the Parliament and she was like there was no way we lived THAT close to the Parliament. She got onto her trip advisor app and yes, we were standing in front of the Parliament. It was stunning! This building had such incredible detail. After touring the inside it turns out before it was built there was a contest to decide who would be the architect with the best blueprints of the future Parliament in 1883. It took an entire year for the government at that time to decide and they finally came up with their winner who I forget but boy did he do a great job. Inside was also stunning. Entering was a grand staircase with 96 total steps from the front where a group of guards would do a whole show with their swords ever 25 minutes or so. Then turning around we would be inside this massive dome which turns out is a fake one. The real dome was much higher up which you’ll see on the photo of the paper model of the building. All the gold pieces in the Parliament are painted on every so often with 24k gold. Which they happened to be painting on that day. Pretty cool. The way the architect designed this building was to showcase the past rulers and different professions in Budapest. He did this by building a variety of statues which Budapest continues doing throughout the city. There was genuinely so much incredible history to the building of the Parliament and it was so great to learn about it. We continued walking that day and came across a big building. Steph told me it was a church and she wanted me to see it just because all churches in Budapest were very pretty. As we walked in it turned out we were standing within the Budapest Basilica. We didn’t find that out until we walked away and asked someone about it. So another massive monument checked off. Gorgeous just like every church always is.

By the end of that day we came upon the Budapest Opera House, the Square of Heroes and a castle which had a very long name that I cannot remember. I saw it all at dark, the castle, and it was so pretty. Every area was lit up showing every detail carved into the rock. 

We got to meet with one of Steph’s good friends who lives in Budapest and she told us that every day she goes off to work or just out with her kid she finds something new in each building. Something that causes her to realize that there is so much culture in every corner of Budapest. 

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January 9, 2017

This is the first moment of actual sitting I have had in a few days. I just posted some photos from Paris yesterday but didn't have enough time to create a post with it. I'm on the plane to Budapest and I'll post this once I get wifi. We landed in Paris on January 6th and arrived at the hotel by 7:00. We were exhausted so we ended up just eating a falling asleep. On January 7th though we got up at 8 and started walking by 9. The Parisian style architecture is honestly so stunning. I love everything about the ornate balconies coming from apartments, the old buildings with their detailed carved marble or stone. We arrived at a very pretty museum which I never got to learn the name of but it didn't matter. After that one we walked on to the Eiffel tower which is breath taking. It was my second time getting to see it so I didn't know if I would be as shocked as I was the first time. Turned out that I was. It has so much history to it and it just fits in with all the Parisian style. When it lights up at night and twinkles it's like a fairy tale. We didn't go to the summit of it until the end of the night since I was giving Steph her gift up there which she loved. We decided to brave the metro and it was confusing at first but after a few more trips it got to be easy. We took it to the Louvre Museum. It's huge. It's stunning. The glass pyramids are so much more modern than the actual building itself. That type of juxtaposition worked though. It accentuated all the gorgeous detailing and once inside the pyramid you realized just how big they were. Inside we saw a bunch of art, obviously, but what we were after was the Mona Lisa. The build is built so there are two long aisles and between them is a big square with an open area in the center of the square. I can find a photo of the layout and post it later. Well one aisle of the Louvre is Richelieu and the second Denon. After an hour and a half of trying to find our way to that one painting we somehow made it back to where we started. I was so lost. I asked a guard and they told us that we were in the wrong aisle. We needed to get to Denon. So we found our way back which took twelve centuries or at least felt like it. Found the Mona Lisa, took a photo, looked around a bit more and left. When you read online it takes three days to get through the entire museum they're right. It's so massive. It's impressive beautiful. Just the fact that I was surrounded by so much history was incredible. We walked back to the hotel which is in a very central location. Very pretty and very traditional Parisian style. Close buildings, Cafes all along the sides etc... Paris by night is an entirely different story. It's magnificent and lit up. You see the Eiffel tower from anywhere and all the buildings are glowing. The cafes have twinkling lights or trees kept from Christmas. By the end of the night we had walked 8 miles and 19,000 steps. WOW my feet were gone. They didn't exist and I slept easily. January 8th we slept in and then made our way to the Champs Elysees. Which is gorgeous. Shops all around, restaurants every which end and finally the Arc de Triomphe at the end. The Arc is huge and so detailed. It had names engraved, little details underneath and so much history to it. We walked to the Luxembourg gardens and it was night by that time because we took a detour to the Eiffel tower again. We ate at the cutest restaurant and I finally ate a macaron. Amazing. Now we are on our way to Budapest where we won't get very much wifi so I won't be able to post until we leave on the 13th to Barcelona. P.S. these are all photos from my phone and I have my laptop back in England so I can't post any photos from my camera until I get back. The rest of this post is another personal bit. The second I got to the Manchester airport it was like a sense of relief. I was myself again and very happy and talkative. My appetite came back which felt great. I think I just felt that at Steph's house I had to impress everyone but I don't need to around her. It's been strange and I hope my mood stays the same throughout the rest of this trip and when we land back in Manchester.