Countdown

Well here we are in the Czech Republic and that means the end is in sight. We have a lot of class to do here and a lot of preperation for those classes so we'll be spending many a day here in the hotel (hotel, not hostel!). This class involves a lot of field trips and museums and then reaction papers and reading so there won't be much for day trips or sight seeing because on top of that we are both way behind on our independant research. So since we have to be rooted for class anyway it's a chance for us to catch up before we break from the group and go out on our own. Budapest was awesome and what were able to see of Vienna Monday night was very impressive. We're doing a city walk on Saturday morning with a tour guide so we should be able to snap a few photos then but not much before that. Nashledanou!

Heroes Monument, Budapest
Fisherman's Bastion, Budapest
Gellert Hill, Budapest
Fisheman's Bastion and Matthias' Church, Budapest

Hapsburg Palace in Vienna
Chapel at Valhuyand(?) Castle, Budapest

Jesuiterkirche, Vienna
Valhuyand Castle, Budapest

Budapest

This is our 2nd night in Budapest, Hungary. It is a nice city, quite large and has much to see. Today we saw a castle on the hill, the parliament building, churches, and the river. We even met a fellow student from UWRF who is staying in France for the semester. What a small world. We had a bit of trouble on the underground subway today...We bought the tickets and did not see a place to validate them, so we hopped on the train and thought we could stamp them on the rail. Well, this was not the case at all, and once we hopped off, the rail guards were inspecting all tickets. Since ours were not properly stamped, we had to pay a fine of about 20US dollars. Whatever. If that is the worst that happens, then oh well I guess. Tomorrow we will get on the train in the AM for Vienna, Austria for the night. We must be in Prague (Praha) by 6pm Tues.

Bologna
Bologna alley
Castlevecchio (Verona)
Castle Este (Ferrara, IT)

Veronese arena
Roman theater in Verona
Verona
Twins

Hail to thee Slovakia

Since the last post my (B) luggage arrived in Verona, thankfully, we spent a few hours in class, travelled to Milan and flew to Bratislava. We're glad to be here in Eastern Europe and happy to have free wireless internet. How many people do you know who have been to Slovakia? At least two! We arrived a little late in the evening so tomorrow we will check out the town before heading to Budapest. I'm going to be sure to get a Hungary shirt. Here are a few pictures like we know you've been waiting for.

Italia

Castle in Ferrara, Statue in Verona, Cathedral in Ferrara, Roman Arena in Verona

Safe and Sound

Brandon arrived back in Europe safely...His luggage was lost in transit and the airline has not yet found it, so that is not really very cool. He had brought back many supplies that we are running low on, but now those things are MIA... We are in Bologna, Italy right now, for the day. We took the 7am train from Verona and got here at 9, and we thought we should check the status of his bag. We have not seen much of this city yet, but it seems to be nice. It is hazy and seems like it will rain at any moment, but so far we have not gotten drenched. Tomorrow is our last night in Verona, and we have class in the afternoon. On Friday, we take a short flight from Milan, Italy to Bratislava, Slovakia. This weekend we plan to see Budapest and Vienna also. We must be in Prague, Czech Republic on Tues afternoon. On Wednesday we begin a 4 credit class that will most definitely keep us busy!! All for now.

Sunshine

I am having a wonderful time in Verona. It is a lovely city, and it's just the right size for me! Our group received day passes for the sites, and i was able to see many cool things. I saw the home and tomb of Juliet, the Juliet of Romeo and.... I also climbed a bell tower and had a great view of the city! I also walked through a nice castle, but unfortunately many things here are under construction and therefore tourists can only see bits and pieces of the site. There were many nice churches as well. I have really been enjoying the gellatto, Italian icecream, as well!!! As B is still gone I have been hanging out with some other friends, and have learned a new card game! It is called Euchre, and is quite addicting! The weather has been quite lovely as well, and the sunshine is so great! I will day trip to a little village with Mindy and her new fiance Jeremy today, so I must be on my way! Ciao :)

Verona

We arrived safely in Verona, Italy on Tuesday evening. Our weekend was great with many nice sites visited. Yesterday we had no class so we day tripped to Venice, which was really great. The sun was shining and the town was very lovely as well. I was surprised at how busy it was, but this is how it is all the time supposedly. Brandon has left on his journey back to the States. He left at 1pm today, and will return sometime Monday evening, probably a tired guy! All else is going well!

German Castles

Today we visited two amazing castles about 2 hours from Munich. One of them is quite famous as it was the site for the Movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" back in the day! They are filled with interesting history and lots of Amazing artifacts inside, and we had a blast touring them! The most famous is up on a large mountain that takes 35 minutes by foot to reach! The climb was worth it, though, and going down was a piece of cake! It snowed on and off for much of the day, but by the early afternoon the sun came out and we had great views of both castles!

We ran into a man with a WI sweatshirt on, and spoke to him and learned that he is a UW professor, here on business. We also met a young man who recently graduated from a university in Texas, and he hung out with us for a good portion of the day.

The plan for tomorrow is to hit up Salzburg, Austria in the day and perhaps take the night train into Italy after that. H does not enjoy night trains that well, but we will see what happens. The main thing is that we must be in Verona on the afternoon of Tuesday.

We will get photos on here as soon as B gets his new computer, which will be in less than a week! He leaves Europe on Fri and will return Monday evening.

Munchen

We have made it to Munich, Germany. We awoke at 6am today and got to the train by 8am, and by 12.30 we had arrived in Munich with no problems. This is our first travel weekend where we have run into no major problems!! YAY for that. We checked into our hostel and quickly boarded a train bound for Dauchau. We toured the old concentration camp from WWII, and it was quite moving, to say the least. They have a very nice tribute to all those who suffered, and it puts all the petty things you are thinking about into perspective. After a 20 minute train ride, we were back in Munich and grabbed some dinner to eat at the hostel. We are laying low tonight as we have a big day planned for tomorrow, which includes visiting some castles.
Yesterday was another awesome day for us, as we made our way into the Swiss Alps just outside of Lucerne. We took a 45 minute boat ride on the lake, and then boarded a mountain train. Our friend Mindy was with and claimed to be afraid of heights, but she didn't act any more worried that I (H) did!!! ;) The ride up to Mount Rigi (6000Ft) was just georgous, as the sun came out and shone on the lake and the snow-covered peaks!! By the time we were on top, though, the fog had moved in and the wind was horrendous! Ice chunks were flying and we got back on the train promptly!! We then took a cable car the rest of the way back down, which was so great! It was a little crowded so we didn't get many photos, but the experience was great! After returning to the city of Lucerne on the boat, we showed Mindy around as we had been there 2 days prior and she had not yet been. After a quick pit-stop in Zurich, we returned to Freiburg at about 9pm! It's funny, Freiburg has been our nicest hostel thus far, and we were there the least amount of time!! Oh well!
We will be staying in Munich for 2 nights, and then perhaps 2 in Venice, Italy, before meeting with our school group on Tues. in Verona. We have lots of stuff that B will be taking back to the states in a week when he returns for his best friends wedding, and it is a pain to carry around for extended periods of time! Hope everyone is doing well and we really appreciate your nice emails!!!

Quicky

Today was a day of rest and homework. Tomorrow we try and get to the top of the Alps near Lucerne. Mount Pilatus, I believe, is the tallest mountain in eastern Switzerland and accessible by cable cars. This weekend we'll make base in Munich and explore Dachau, Innsbruck and hopefully Neuchwanstein and other Bavarian schlosses (castles). If we can we'll get some pictures on but we're kind of working with a dilapitated computer for now.

Monday we caught up on work and walked through Freiburg a little. I (B) was able to use an external keyboard to get all of my work from my laptop but many programs do not work anymore. The culprit has agreed to reimburse me so I ordered a new computer to pick up when I return in two weeks for Kurt's wedding. Today we travelled to Luzern and Zurich, Switzerland. Both were nice but we agreed that Lucerne was nicer. Now we have to plan the weekend for free travel and arrival in Verona on Tuesday.

Snowy Sunday

It has been snowing constantly in Freiburg since about Friday, and we were starting to think it would never end! It did cease sometime last night, although I do believe that at least a foot has accumulated over the weekend. We did not let the snow hinder our travel plans, and today we visited Switzerland. Our friend Mindy came with and the 3 of us had a delightful time! We left the hostel at 8.30AM, and as of now, 21.15, we have not yet made it back to the hostel!! It has been one busy day!
We took the first train to Bern, Switzerland, which gets its name from the fact the founder of the town wanted to name the city after the first animal which he killed on the land, which happened to be a BEAR! They have bear pits in the center of the city where we saw 3 bears playing around and eating any food the tourists would feed them. They even did a few tricks, they do know how to work the crowd! We also climbed to the top of the Munster in Bern, which was between 400 and 500 steps one way. The view was amazing, of course, and the sun even came out!
We were on our way back to the hostel at about 3.30, when our train had a layover in Basel, Switzerland. All of us decided that since we were there, we might as well tour the town a bit! Luckily, there was a winter festival going on around the town and the streets were filled with locals drinking and laughing and eating brats!! It was great, and it was great to see this festival. The only downfall: the streets were not really plowed at all, and the snow got packed down and turned to ice, so everyone was slipping and sliding everywhere! Luckily none of us fell, but we saw too many spills to count.
We ended our evening with Swiss chocolate on the train back to Frieburg, and thought we should swing into the internet cafe since we were here. Luckily Brandon and I have no class tomorrow, so we plan on getting lots of homework completed!

Cuckoo For Clocks

Today we had no class, so a group of 6 of us got on the train and went about 50 minutes southeast, where we visited a town called Titisee. This place has many nice clocks and there are 4 major shops to visit. Three of the four carry the same brand of clock, and charge the same price, but we looked in all of them just to be sure! Everyone in the party ended up buying at least one, and ours is quite nice! It has already been shipped for us, and will arrive in 6 to 8 weeks. B did snap a photo b4 we left the shop, and maybe we can get it on the computer sometime soon!
It has been snowing heavily all day long, and the trains were delayed as well. The snow is so beautiful, especially since we do not have to drive in it! The roads are quite sloppy, but luckily we have water-resistant boots and have avoided major sock-drenching!
Tomorrow we may visit Bern, Switzerland. Otherwise for the rest of our evening we will hang out and B wants to visit the beer garden next to the hostel, as it has quite tasty Authentic German food that he cannot get enough of!! The beer is also home-brewed, and he enjoys that as well.

Technical Difficulties

Well, we've hit a big snag... Last night B was being nice and let one of his roomies charge something from his computer, usually he puts it away as soon as he is done with it, but since it needed a few hours to charge, he left it out while a few of us went to out for a bit. When he got back, it was not working, and he found out this morn that someone spilled some liquid on it!!!! We took it to a computer repair shop here, but since it is a Dell, no one has the correct parts and they said you must send it to Dell. Well, this isn't really an option for us, so we are basically in deep water now... We have been doing many of our assignments on the computer, and have many important things on there! The guy said all the data is safe, but will cost at least 100 dollars to extract it. We are quite sad about this and am very bummed as well.... (This may mean the end of pics on our website as well).
Other than that, things are well. We had a class fieldtrip today, and learned many interesting tidbits about Freiburg. The man who spoke with the group is a native and shared many interesting things with us. We then hiked up a hill, but it has been snowy and rainy here and a few people biffed it while coming down! One girl who had khakis on slid down on her bum and was covered in mud! She only injured her pride a bit though.
Tomorrow we have no class obligations and are planning on visiting a city where we can pick out a ku-ku clock, as B's mom and brother have agreed that that would make a nice wedding gift! A few of our classmates have also expressed interest in coming, so we may make it a group thing!

Freiburg

We have made it safely to Freiburg, Germany. Our hostel is .5 mile away from the nearest tram stop, and the town is about 3 miles away. No worries, because we have tickets to use the tram to get us into town. This is a much smaller and quieter place, much unlike London and Paris! It is a great place, and we have been exploring once already. We cannot get internet at the hostel, so not sure when we will next post pictures, but we did find a relatively cheap place to surf in town. We are actually waiting for our laundry to finish washing, as there are no machines at this hostel. It is fairly funny because about half of the group waited to do their laundry in this city, and now there are no machines on site so we will all have to haul our things into the city! This week we have had class from 9 to noon, and luckily the hostel provides lunch as well as the other two meals, so that is quite convenient. Tomorrow, Friday, we will be going on a field trip with a friend of our professors who grew up in this town, so we will get all of the inside details!
Nothing too terribly exciting to report for now, I am getting over a cold that B had over the weekend, the one that everyone in the group has had at some point over our time here. This weekend we have no school plans so we are hoping to visit Bern, Switzerland, and perhaps Basel as well. Gutentag!