Prague, Vienna, and Budapest!!!

On the 25th of March I left on my class trip. Our first stop was Prague, Czech Republic (the city of a thousand towers, I think that's the nickname). We started traveling at 5 in the morning and didn't get to Prague until 1 pm. Instead of going directly to the hotel to get settled, we went on a walk around the city with a local guide for 4 hours. I wasn't able to understand a word the guide said, but I liked the buildings too much to care. Prague is absolutely beautiful! Every building, whether it's a monument or a normal apartment building, is decorated and colorful. I loved it! We got to go across the famous King Charles Bridge and it was liking stepping into a fairytale!
After we ate at KFC, we went to the hotel. There were some problems with the deciding who to room with, but in the end we got every thing figured out.

The next day (friday) we went to the royal palace. This guard only moved his eyes. It was great! Well the palace was actually a huge area with a ton of important buildings inside the gates. We saw the cathedral, the old palace, and I can't remember what else. The best part about these 4 hours was that there were no guides! We got to go on our own and explore! I first went with my girl friends but all they wanted to do was sit down and take pictures of themselves so I switched groups and went with my friend Silvia and some boys from our class. Lots better.
Later that day we had some more free time to go shopping. I went with some different girls from my class and we had a good time. Basically, I love Prague!
On Saturday we went with our guides to a little town two hours away from Prague called Karlovy Vary. It used to be a very famous town where well-known people like Beethoven would go for vacations. On the bus over the guides talked for the whole two hours and no one was listening! It was unbearable! Then when we got there, they talked some more about the city. Apparently it's really famous for this fountain. The fountain brings fresh drinking water from the ground at really high temperatures. The the famous thing to do is buy a cup and fill it with the water from the fountain. Interesting, I know.

So in Karlovy Vary I went with some friends to an authentic Czech restaurant when we had some free time. My friend Alberto wanted to try real Czech food and I thought it was a good idea so I chose the most traditional plate there was on the menu. After about 10 minutes, this came out. Looks yummy! Ha! It was the grossest thing ever! There was a tiny bit of meat and the rest was this really weird sauce that had a bit of everything (lemon, strawberry jam, mushrooms, etc.) The bread in the bottom righthand corner was the type of dough the chinese use to make dumplings, so basically that means that they had no flavor. Mine kept getting covered in the nasty sauce. We all ended up blaming Alberto afterwords, but the experience was fun despite the food.

That night we went back to Prague. The teachers caught some kids in a grocery store and so during dinner they inspected all the rooms to see if they could find any alcohol. But the kids in my class are smarter than the teachers when it comes to alcohol. They ended up hiding all the bottles in the roof of the bathroom right before dinner. Genius right? Well after dinner they drank and drank and drank some more. It wasn't so good. What surprises me the most is that the teachers only caught one girl! For some reason they think that she drank alone and got drunk alone! Who would do that? They caught her because at 1 in the morning she decided to take a shower and she was yelling and dancing and singing and jumping when she fell and a teacher heard her. All the teachers did to her was call her parents and I'm sure her parents don't even care that much! Well that girl and another girl (who happened to be in my room) got so drunk that they spent the night throwing up and then they couldn't remember anything the next morning. I don't know if any of the this story made sense so sorry. It's late and I'm tired. I just had to tell you that the craziest night was saturday night (the last night in Prague).

So the next day we left Prague and went to visit Vienna. After five long hours in the bus (everyone was sleeping so it wasn't too bad and I had two seats to myself) we arrived in Vienna. Our bus driver picked up a local guide and we stayed in the bus and went around the city. This picture is of Queen Cici's palace and it was taken from inside the bus (pretty good, right?). When we got off the bus we went to another palace with the guide for 45 min. and then we had a half an hour to eat.

During the half hour I saw this man. You can find this type of person anywhere in Europe, but I liked the ones in Vienna! Instead of playing a musical instrument or dancing, these people dress up and stand like statues to try to earn money. It's pretty funny. So that was the end of the two hours in Vienna. We then hopped on the bus and drove for four more hours until we arrived in Budapest!

Last stop was Budapest! We got there Sunday afternoon (March 28th) and we spent the first night in Hero's square. Apparently after what happened the night before, our teachers wanted to get us tired to we ended up walking for 2 hours! When we got back to the hotel it was midnight and we all went straight to bed.
The next morning we went with a guide around the city(surprised? Ya, I was too). Our first stop was Hero's square! Wahoo!!! Ha, the guide explained the history of Budapest and all the different heroes and it was actually pretty interesting. At least we were only there for 20 minutes! This picture is of the parlament building (probably the most famous building in Budapest). It was gorgeous! When I become a famous politition I will one day visit this building again and then I'll show all of you the inside, but for right now, this is all I got. Sorry!
This picture is of a famous cathedral, but I don't remember the name. Actually, it's not the most famous or the most important, but I liked the roof so to me it was the coolest. It was also next to this really pretty castle on the Buda side of Budapest and we could see basically all of Pest from the castle windows (see picture above).
Well the rest of that day we spent shopping. A few of us tried to go to the Opera House but it was too late in the day, so instead we went to the San Esteban Cathedral (I think that's how you spell it). That night our teachers took us on another walk to get us tired, but this time we went to a couple of bars. It was ok.
The next morning we went to Hero's Square, again. This time we stayed for 3 hours doing nothing! It was our last day and we were all mad about that, but what could we do? So after three hours in the hot sun we hopped on the bus and went back to Vienna to fly home.

On the flight home I sat by my friend Marina. It was her second time on a plane (her first time was the flight to Prague) so she was really scared and I had to hold her hand. Ha! She cracks me up! Once we were in the air she was fine and we spent all three hours talking! I think if you took really closely at the picture you can see how red our eyes were from lack of sleep!
Overall the trip was a lot of fun! Despite the one night in Prague everyone behaved well and had a good time. I loved Prague the most and one day I'll go back, but I won't try czech food ever again!