This week I am going to talk about two of the personal excursions that I have gone on. The two places that I have visited that were not through UNK (besides Dublin during Spring Break) were Budapest, Hungary and London, England. These two trips were about as different as they could possibly have been.

Our trip to Budapest was a mix of highs and lows. First of all, we got to the hostel we had booked and it was…interesting. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, but a little too relaxed for some of us when it came to cleanliness. I do not consider myself to be extremely high maintenance, but I could not sleep in that hostel. About half of us decided we could not handle a whole weekend there, so we went to find a new hostel around 11 pm that night. Luckily we were able to find a pretty nice hotel that was not too expensive. We had a clean bathroom and clean beds, so we were happy. On our way walking around Budapest we noticed quite a few homeless people sleeping on the streets. By far the most I have seen since I got to Europe. The city itself was large, loud, and pretty dirty. After spending most of our time in quiet, clean, safe Olomouc, it was a bit of an adjustment.

The next morning started off on a bad note. A group of us were going to a walking tour, and we stopped at a bakery to get breakfast. While we were in there, a homeless man stole money right out of one of the girls’ hand and ran away with it. It was about $70 when you convert it over to American currency. Luckily, a man who was also in the bakery with us chased him down and made him give back the money. After giving it back and apologizing, the homeless man actually then asked for more money! Needless to say, he did not get any after that stunt. After that snafu, we were able to find the walking tour, and got to see the more pretty and touristy areas of Budapest. We saw the chain bridge, the Matthias Church, the Fisherman’s Bastion, and more. That night we had dinner on a boat that sailed along the Danube River with live music. The second day we visited the Budapest baths, which were basically warm pools, as they were part of the hot springs. We spent the whole day just relaxing.

The Danube River in Budapest

The Matthias Church in Budapest

The Fisherman's Bastion in Budapest

At the baths in Budapest

 London was a very nice city. It was very clean and there was a lot going on. I felt very safe there. However, London was very expensive. We were only there for about two and a half days, and I do not want to think about the amount of money that I spent there. It was a very busy trip. We had multiple things planned and booked, so we were on a bit of a tight schedule at times. We got into London at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday and had to get up to head home at 2:30 in the morning on Monday. It the 72 hours that we were there, we fit in a hop-on hop-off tour around the city (on a double-decker bus of course), took a boat ride down the Thames, rode the London Eye, saw Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theater, went on the Making of Harry Potter tour at the Warner Brothers Studio, and even fit in some souvenir shopping. It was an absolutely awesome weekend, but I was exhausted by the end of it.

Big Ben in London

The London Eye

The Harry Potter Tour

To compare the two, Budapest was a very relaxed and chill city. The trip was spent mostly just doing whatever we felt like doing at the time, and there was not a lot of rushing around. On the other end of the spectrum, London was much nicer and more expensive, but we were constantly on the move from one thing to another, so the trip itself, while amazing, was not a relaxing one. Of course the differences between the two trips had a lot to do with our planning, but I also feel like it reflected the general atmosphere of each city.