sleeping in!

today i slept until noon and it was absolutely amazing! my alarm went off at 9:45 for breakfast but i said forget that and went back to bed. after waking up, we all got ready by 1 and walked towards the old city area. it was pouring rain and windy, so it was a very entertaining walk, yet miserable. i think my umbrella is the only one that made it the whole way without being destroyed. we stopped at mcdonalds for lunch. i very clearly remembered the mcdonalds from when melanie, dad and i went there years ago so that was fun. it was cool to see a mcdonalds in the middle of such a historic, rustic little main street. nonetheless i was very excited for my fries and chicken nuggets and big diet coke.

after lunch, we walked over to this old hotel to go to this coffee shop. we just took the elevator to the 7th floor and there was this cute little coffee shop that overlooks the whole city! it was so pretty. i got a really yummy hot chocolate and just relaxed with katia, alicia, katy and dan. after that we walked back to the hotel and i read velvet evis for a bit and then took a nap.

tonight, the fields, jen, dan, teri, justin HP, katy, katia, alicia and i went to dinner at the oldest restaurant in europe! it was a dinner and show for mozart's birthday which was today (252 years ago)! the dinner was good- bread and then this lemon cinnamon cream soup. we all agreed that we would never order the soup but it grew on you as you ate it :) i ordered a bottle of water which cost me 6 euros (aka $9), so that was rough but oh well. in between each course a little mini orchestra in old timey costumes played 3 different operas- the magic flute, the marriage of figaro and don giovanni. it was really pretty, the vocalists were amazing too. dinner was chicken, potatoes, veggies and then dessert was really good "half-frozen" honey thing. all really good.

by the end of dinner i was exhausted, we caught a cab home and then teri and i tried to watch the sound of music on tv but it didn't work :( i was pretty much drained by then anyway so i bet i would have fallen asleep anyway. tomorrow will be a relaxing day and i cannot wait!!!!!

the last city tour!

Today we arrived in Salzburg! I got up early to pack up the last few things and then hop on the bus. we were able to leave one suitcase at the hotel in munich (we're going back on wednesday for the last few days of the trip) so i packed up my duffel bag and bookbag with all of my business casual and souveniers that i'm sick of lugging around. i really quickly grabbed breakfast, hauled my suitcase (which felt so easy compared to usually carrying 4 bags) onto the bus and then we were off again. the bus ride was actually really nice. the view of the mountains and everything was gorgeous. pretty much everyone but me slept the whole time and i talked to the fields' for a while about jobs, young life, graduating, etc. it was really fun.

as soon as we got to salzburg we rolled up to the airport. again, it was so nice to only have one bag- the whole unloading process was so much easier! we tried to check into our hotel but it wasn't ready so we were all stuck in this tiny lobby for 45 minutes. it was actually really funny. everyone was in a moderately bad mood (they were all tired/hungover) so people were funny. at noon we had lunch in the hotel restaurant. i think it might have been my favorite meal in europe! first we had all these rolls- they were still warm. AND they had butter!!!!! plus a pitcher of ice water- which was refilled constantly. the next course was a salad which i gave to aubrey. she actually ate her salad, and then mine and dereks. very impressive. NEXT we had "pasta with cheesesauce" which was penne pasta with a really good cheesey cream sauce. excellent. next was the main course: veal cutlet, vegetables, rice, french fries. all incredibly good and refillable. i seriously chowed down. finally desert- ICE CREAM. i ate my ice cream, plus turners, and then turner's second dessert. pretty much everyone else hated the ice cream, including turner so he gave his to me. then a couple minutes later the waiter walked by and thought he didn't have any, so he gave him another ice cream! seirously hilarious. especially considering that about 15 minutes earlier, the waiter had asked if anyone wanted more veal, everyone said no and he still gave turner another piece. seriously he just kept givign turner more food constantly.

after lunch we had to run into our rooms and throw our luggage in. my room is okay- not huge but could be worse. at first when we walked in, the door was blocking the bathroom door and i was seriously worried that we didn't have a bathroom. but alas we found it so all was well.

after checking in, we walked for a few minutes to meet our tour guide for our city tour. it was so nice and sunny out! just beautiful! some people didnt even wear their coats. we saw the gardens where the sound of music was filmed with the kids hanging out of the trees, and where they finished the do-re-mi song. we walked down to the old city and saw the shopping district, a cathedral, mozart's living house and birthhouse. etc. it was really pretty.

eventually it started getting reallllllly cold. christina, michelle, dan, justin HP and i went into a coffee shop (where Mozart spent a lot of time composing) and got hot chocolate to warm up. it was very relaxing. after stopping at a grocery store, we finally made it back to our hotel.

for dinner we went to some random restaurant. katia, alicia, katy, teri, kathleen and i wandered forever to finally find this place and got pizza, what else is new?? katia and alicia were adventurous and got weird things, but i dont have patience for that :)

now i'm just relaxing in the hotel. the internet is only 50 cents so hopefully i'll catch up on the blogging that i've missed... we'll see how that actually works out...

a depressing day...

yay for sleeping in! today i didn't set an alarm and it was AMAZING. i'm pretty sure this is the first time i've done that this entire trip and i freaking loved it. too bad i actually woke up at like 6:30 am, but oh well. it was nice to be able to just go back to sleep.

finally at around 9:45, i decided to be productive. after going to bed before 1 am, the 8+ hours of sleep felt so good! jen and i went to do our laundry. we met this really nice austrailian army guy who we chatted it up with while doing our laundry. the laundry was a very interesting process. you had to put the wash in, then do this spin cycle thing. it was very weird. the dryign was kinda funny too. it was only 60 cents, which i thought was sweet. until i learned that 60 cents only got you 7 minutes of drying. needless to say it was entertaining watching jen, austrailian guy and i walk back and forth to buy little drying tokens for 7 minute increments :)

after finishing our laundry, we rushed back to the hotel to shower and then i ran to burger king for lunch. then we all got on the bus to go to dachau. at first i really didn't feel like being there but it was such a good experience, even though it was so depressing. it was weird to go from constant laughing/fun/etc to such a somber mood.

some of the camp had been destroyed by the germans afterward, i guess they were embarrassed about it and wanted to cover it up, but kinda sucks. there was still some stuff left and some of it had been reconstructed. there was a little chunk of train tracks left... weird to think that those trains used to bring in thousands of people. the gate that read "arbeit macht frei" (work makes free) was the original gate that was there when the camp was open. we saw barracks that had been rebuilt to show what they were like. it was insane- some many people sleeping on top of each other in these thigns that looked like they were designed for animals. we also saw the prison where they interogated people, there were these tiny "standing cells" that were so small you couldn't even sit down. they would torture people by hanging them by their arms behind their back. it was just so awful. we also saw where they would line everyone up for hours and hours. there were some cool memorial type things too..

the worst part by far was off to the side of the camp. you had to cross this little bridge over a river and they said that once you crossed that bridge there was 0% chance of survival. we walked into the place where they gassed people. our tour guide explained to us step by step of what happened, it was so creepy to walk through it and be shut in that room. i had chills. finally we saw the ovens. it was just insane. so depressing.

after a somber bus ride back, life seemed to be back to normal (how quickly we forget) and then i went to dinner with aubrey, janine and natalie. we grabbed dinner at some random italian place (again.) i had the best tomato soup EVER. seriously so good. we stopped at this grocery store on the way back and got "ice cream nachos" which were basically like choco tacos! i hadn't had ice cream in so long! we opened them up right as we were walking down the road... pretty ridiculous to eat ice cream in the middle of a freezing cold january night but oh well. totally worth it!

friday night was pretty much about packing, relaxing and sleep :)

business day... i had forgotten what they were like!

this morning we went to the hoffbrau plant! all of the boys were way more interested in this than they had been at any other tour! first we saw where the beer was brewed. there were HUGE metal containers brewing the beer, it was insane. one of the rooms we walked into reeeeeked of beer, so gross. our tour guide (the brew master) only spoke german so we had another guy translate, so that was a little rough and i had no clue what was going on, oh well. we got to see where the beer was bottle and packaged. it looked very similar to coca-cola with the bottles spinning really fast, being capped, then labeled, etc. we saw big kegs being filled and rinsed off. we also got to walk through the storage place where they were just thousands of kegs and boxes of beer, just insane. the tour guide explained to us how long the beer can be held without going bad and how than influences their international expansion, it was pretty interesting. at the end we each got a free 6 pack, so everyone seemed pretty excited about that.

after hoffbrau, we took the bus back to the hotel. dr. fields didn't think it'd be very appropriate to each be carrying a 6 pack of beer into siemen's (our next visit) so we dropped off our beer and then took the bus over to siemen's. we had 2 hours of free time to grab lunch. after wanderign for a while, natalie, janine, aubrey, turner, dan and i found a little place in the main square and got pizza as usual. they served us tap water though so that was a big plus! after that, i broke down and hit up the starbucks. it had been over a month so i felt like i deserved it. i had a white mocha and it was AMAZING. aubrey, natalie, janine and i relaxed there and then left to walk back to siemen's. as we were leaving, we saw all of these rows of people sitting outside a coffee shop. it was weird though- all of the chairs were facign the same way and in the front 2 chairs were really nice and plush looking. we thought something must be going on so aubrey asked a cop who laughed and told us it was just a coffee shop. pretty embarassing i must say.

we made it back to siemen's and had a verrrrrrrrrrrry long lecture. the guy who spoke to us was actually retired from siemen's but just wants to impress upon everyone the importance of international business. it was interesting i guess, but i was having a hard time staying awake after my big lunch (and coffee? i don't know how that worked out). the lecture was 2+ hours and then it turned out we had a tour of this museum type thing! everyone was pretty mad and wanted to get out of there asap. our dinner reservation was moved up to tonight instead of tomorrow, so we had to get ready fast. the fields' paid for cabs so we all rushed back to the hotel to get ready.

tonight we had dinner at hoffbrau! it was a buffet- which was awesome. i had really good pork and potato salad and potatoes and all sorts of things, sooo good. there were dancers and singers and aubrey participated in this bell ringing thing a la miss congeniality. it was such a fun night. we each ordered a beer and they were HUGE- a whole liter! just insane. my favorite part were the pretzels. we ate all of ours at our table, so i got janine to go get one from another table, to which i told her she was my favorite person on the trip. aubrey was not too happy. but yeah, definitely one of the best dinners yet!

last train ride!

this morning i got up at 6 am to get my stuff together to leave for munich on our last train ride! i thought i was late when i got my stuff on the bus at 7:15 (which was when we were supposed to leave) but apparently i was early, because no one was on the bus. we had crazy mahem running around trying to find everyone. dan and joe never woke up, and didn't make it ont he bus until 7:45. needless to say, the fields' were not happy. so that bus ride was rough. as soon as we got to the train station we had to RUN to the train, throw our stuff on and barely made it before the train left. overall a very stressful morning. i was sad because i had to sit with my group. our boys were really lame gettign the stuff on the train too, apparently danielle and i were supposed to load ALL the luggage on the train by ourselves.

after a short nap on the train, i went over to the dining car and got lunch with aubrey, joe and jen. i had risotto and it was so yummy! i was so hungry and it was so good!

the train ride went by pretty fast and then we arrived in munich! our hotel was only 2 blocks from the station so we carried our stuff to the hotel and checked in. me and teri's room is alright- kinda dark but could be worse. this is definitely my least favorite hotel though. i let teri have the double bed and sprawled my stuff all over the single and the couch. i showered really fast to get ready for the city tour.

we met our tour guide and took a bus tour of the city! at first i was so tired that it was hard to pay attention but this tour guide made that impossible. he was so funny- he kept picking people from the group to sorta act like the different people he was talking about. mr. fields was the lion? janine was his wife, dan was some king... it was just funny. he was so animated! he showed us this MASSIVE field where octoberfest is held and a big statue that supposedly the statue of liberty was modeled after.

after that we went to a palace and saw that. it was really pretty and cool because of the way he explained it. we also saw the stable and all of these really pretty carriages. finally we saw the downtown area, the town buildings and wandered around for a few. then it was back to the hotel to get ready for dinner really quick.

we went to this cute italian restaurant. we ordered SO MUCH FOOD. i had tortellini soup, tomato and mozerella, bruschetta, 4 cheese pasta and then some of cara's tiramisu for dessert. janine and aubrey ordered a ton too. it was just insane- we were like starving children. we also sang happy birthday to jen too, that was fun.

tonight we just relaxed in aubrey and natalie's room. their room has a balcony that overlooks some of the other rooms so we threw stuff into other peoples room and entertained ourselves middle school style.

already our last day in vienna! :(

this morning was my favorite company visit- Manner Chocolate!!! we took a bus to the factory and had a short lecture by the CEO of Marketing. it was really interesting. Manner actually has their pink color copyrighted- which is really cool. he talked a lot about the different markets they appeal to, and how they've used their new stores to spread their brand and really associate a certain vibe with manner. as soon as we got to the room, there were plates of chocolate sitting out and then they passed around boxes of different stuff... but there was even more to come!

after the lecture, we put on these white lab coats and hair nets and then set off to explore the plant! it was by the far the best tour of this entire trip. we saw the wafers coming down, cooling, go over our heads and then the hazelnut stuff covered them. then the wafers would be stacked together and come out as this huge thick wafer. our guide picked the whole thing up and we got to break pieces off it to eat! it was seriously like 2 feet wide! it tasted SO good... still hot and fresh. seriously one of the best things i've ever eaten. then we saw the wafers pass along the line, be cut either into strips or round shapes and then be packaged. our guide also took a whole bag off the line and gave that to us too, so we tasted them after they cooled down (still amazing by the way). we also saw the lady's fingers being baked and got to try those. next we saw the tube things with hazelnut in them. they were swirling and beign filled with hazelnut stuff and we got to each pick one right off the conveyer belt. they were still hot! we also got to see the actual chocolate being made. at manner, they start production right with the bean so that their chocolate tastes unique. we saw the beans being roasted and crushed, and got to taste the chocolate before it was refined all the way. we also got to see cookies being baked- their was this HUGE oven and it was so hot in the room.

eventually the tour was over and we went back for questions. we each also got a big bag full of stuff! seriously, best tour ever.

after the tour, we had planned to get lunch at flannagan's, but we were so full from chocolate that we just hit up mcdonalds real quick. then turner, derek and i went to the austrian parliament. we signed up for a group tour but it was just us and one couple so it was pretty much private and it was only 2 euros! we got to see the different chambers where the government people vote, and the old traditional one that they just use for ceremonial things. it was interesting- they can't use that one now because the seats are too small and there isn't any power for laptops and such. pretty cool. we were also in one room that they used for social things and the tour guide told us a lot about the pillars- you could tell which ones were replaced after the city was bombed too, pretty cool. each pillar had marble from a different austrian state.

after the parliament we walked over to the city hall but couldn't find a way to get in. there was this really cool ice skating rink in front but it was wet so it was closed :( after that, we walked in the pouring rain back to the hotel to nap and get ready for dinner.

that night we took a bus outside of vienna to fuhrgassel-huber for dinner. it was this little rustic place and we had our own room! dinner was buffet and SO GOOD. everything was fried! chicken, cheese, cauliflower, mushrooms, potatoes, anything you could think of! i had some really yummy white wine too. they recommended that you mix the wine with the sparkling water and it was so good! after dinner, they came around and sold roses and dan bought one for mrs. fields, it was so funny. they also had 2 musicians who played music, so people got up to dance and it was really funny. overall the night was really fun. after dinner, i picked janine up to carry her out and it was hysterical, overall just a great last night in vienna!

back to business.

this morning we went to a lecture at the Austrian Chamber of commerce. the speaker was actually a canadian, so that was cool because he was easy to understand. he spoke for 2+ hours but it was really good. really interesting stuff about austria, their economy and business culture, etc. it was pretty cool. the last 30 minutes were a little rough, but overall the lecture was pretty good.

after that, we walked as a group over to near our next lecture and then split for lunch. aubrey, michelle, natalie, janine, katia, katy, alicia, kathleen and i all went to some typical austrian type restaurant but it turned out to be one of the best lunches i've ever had. i ordered the chicken basket and this is what it was: chicken fingers, mozerella sticks (just like giacomo's!), onion rings, and potato wedges. !!!!!! i mean seriously what could be better than that. i was seriously in heaven.

after lunch, we met up with the group and then walked over to bosendorfer piano for another company visit. apparently the woman who was goign to give us the lecture was sick, so we had to wait in this random room for like 15 minutes and then some other woman took us into the lecture room. she sorta talked to us for a few minutes, but it was more of mrs. fields asking questions and us sorta listening. glen got up on stage and played the pretty piano for us, so that was nice.

after that we got to go into the showroom and see dozens of gorgeous pianos. it made me want to learn how to play. after that, we got to go into this other room and see some more pianos. this guy showed us this awesome piano that had been fit with this new technology. when you play a song, it records what you play and can play it back. the keys move just how you did! it even does dynamics and everything... so crazy. the guy said that universities use it to teach and such. pretty cool.

after that, we all came back to the hotel. i tried to put my pictures on my usb thing. justin's computer freaking crashed out of nowhere, SO i went to use cara's. i had better luck with hers, but the USB thing keeps saying that its full, which is ridiculous because it has over 1 gb of space left, grrrr.

after that we quickly got changed for dinner and the concert. i wore my blue dress! pretty much everyone got dressed up nice so that was fun. we walked over to dinner and had a really nice dinner. there were 4 courses and we got to pick 3 different things. i had a caesar salad, beef with yummy potatoes and then an amazing dessert. our table was really fun too. apparently there was some drama at the brynn table, but what else is new.

after dinner, we walked over to kursalon for a strauss concert. it was so good! there was an orchestra and singers and dancers. it was really nice to appreciate some nice music.

sunday in vienna

this morning i was up WAY too early to go to mass where the vienna boy's choir sings. i came downstairs to the lobby at 8:15 and just saw the fields. i assumed everyone else was bailing on the early mass to sleep, but was shocked when 15 people came pouring out of the breakfast room 2 minutes later. i was very impressed, i won't doubt everyone anymore :)

so we took the tram/bus/thing over to the church. then we had to buy tickets! yes, buy tickets to go to church... only the catholic church would do this. anyway, the first lady tried to sell us tickets for $45 so we laughed and kept walking. when we got to the ticket place the lady told us the cheapest tickets were 4 euros so we quickly jumped on that of course. it wasn't until after we got our tickets and read where it said "no view, listening only" that we realized why we were only paying 5 euros!

after walking up (and down) about 10 flights of stairs, we finally made it to our little cubby room where our seats are. we were in this balcony type room, except the window to the balcony was so small. i seriously didn't even know if the service was taking place to the left or right of where i was. so weird. at least we had a video feed thing! the mass was in german and latin so i had no clue what was going on, but it was still interesting. the choir sounded SO good, just insane. i (along with cara, joey, derek, and tons of others) was still falling asleep, but oh well.

afterwards, we took a group picture and then got a picture with one of the little boys! it was so cute- 8 year old austrian celebrity boy :) after our early morning, we grabbed lunch at mcdonalds and then of course all went back to the hotel to crash.

at 1 pm, the whole group met to go to schonnbrunn palace. we took the subway for a bit and then unloaded in front of this pretty yellow castle! it was huge! not necessarily gorgeous from the outside, but big. we each got an audio guide to listen to while we walked around the castle. it was nice to be able to listen to a guide on your own. sometimes at our tours its hard to follow or even hear when you are with 26 other people, so it was nice to be able to spread out. the castle was really cool, and the tour gave us lots of history about the austrian empire and history.

after the tour, we hung out in the yard for a bit and then went to get coffee! some people skipped the tour so we had extra money left over. the fields' took us to this little cafe place and i got hot chocolate and chocolate mousse. so yummy!

after our little snack, everyone went their separate ways. everyone that had gone to the treasury the day before had really enjoyed it so i decided to do that. apparently we had no idea where we were going so it took us a while to actually find it, but it was worth it. we decided to get the audio guide again and that was worth it. all of the different items had a number so you could just type the number in if you wanted to hear anything about that item- very nice to be self paced. the stuff in the treasury was really cool- from jewels to clothes to crowns to some catholic stuff. supposedly this one relic held the nail that was in jesus' right hand. i'm not sure i believe that but it was cool nonetheless. there was also this ivory figure thing that was jesus and the other 2 guys on the cross. it was supposed to be a creative representation. it was cool, but hard to explain without the picture.

after about 2 hours of the treasury, we were fried and hungry, so we split for dinner. lots of people went for sushi so i of course passed on that for some pizza. turner gave us directions to some pizza place that everyone loved so we set out to find that. eventually, derek, michelle and i just found some other pizza place but it was so good! the waitress brought us an entire jug of tap water! it seriously made my day. michelle and i split a cheese pizza and a spinach and ricotta pizza- SO perfect.

after that it was 7:30 so we came back to relax.

tonight we're going to go to flannagan's restaurant to watch the football game! dr. fields made a reservation for 15 of us so it should be really fun. i'm excited for some american vibes...

first full day in vienna!

today, i had just gotten out of the shower at 9:30 to be ready to go to Schonnbrunn at 10 when i got a call from the fields' saying that we were going to go tomorrow since it was raining :( i was a little sad because i would have slept in if i had known that in advance, but thats okay because it was probably better for me to get up and be productive.

so we went downstairs and grabbed breakfast (they had crispy bacon! and bread with nutella! seriously thats all i need to start my day off well) and then tried to get organized. we decided to make our way to the market to wander around. janine, natalie, derek, dan, joe and i took a very scenic route, but eventually made it. poor turner was stuck going to the hospital for his knee.

the market was cool i guess. i'm not big into flea market type deals but it was a good experience. the people were selling some of the randomest stuff ever. eventually we stopped at a little stand and i got pizza of course. then we found a grocery store and stocked up on some fanta, water and other essentials. trying to find shampoo, deodorant, etc was a very interesting adventure.

we took all of our groceries back to the hotel, regrouped and headed towards the modern shopping area. luckily the rain had cleared up so it was a much nicer day. the shops were so pretty, just the whole road seemed so nice and classy. natalie and i ended up getting split up from the rest of the group so we hit up our girly stores. i bought another flash drive to store my ridiculous amount of pictures. my camera is pretty much full and we're only halfway done so thats a problem! after shopping, we came back to the hotel to just relax, nap, unpack, etc.

for dinner, janine, natalie and i tried to go back to the restaurant we went to last night. apparently the massive plate of ribs wasn't enough for me. unfortunately they were all full. its so weird- he didn't really give us the option of waiting, it was more like- we're full, sorry. so different than in the US. after our dissapointment, we wandered around the town for a while and finally settled on some italian type restaurant. i ordered pizza (obviously) and the girls ordered pasta. about 10 minutes after we ordered, the waitress told us that it was going to take a long time because she was all by herself. well she wasn't lying because it took almost an hour to get our food! so crazy. my pizza was pretty much a microwave pizza but oh well.

i don't feel like i did much today, but it was still nice to just relax and decompress from all the constant travel...

back to german and the euro...

today it was on to vienna! i got up crazy early to pack and then ran down to get on the bus. we took a bus to the train station and then took the train from budapest to vienna. its so crazy, when i left prague i felt like we had been there forever but today i felt like i had just gotten to budapest and then we were leaving! so sad. two weeks from today is our last night in europe. im having tons of fun but i miss delaware and think ill be ready to get back to normal life.

so we got on train and it was insane moving all the luggage on. aubrey and i had a crazy system. she would throw the bags on and drag in and then move into a little room and id throw it in our room. the train was cool- it had all these little rooms that had 6 seats in each. me, alicia, natalie, aubrey, janine and derek all totally crashed and slept the whole way there. well after our vicious boston- new york fight. at one point i laid down on the ground in the train because i was so exhausted. what an adventure. when we got to the station we had another insane time getting all of our crap off the train. us girls totally killed it and got all the bags off so fast.

one girl from our trip is paying 3 boys $20 each to carry her stuff. so hysterical.

as soon as we got to vienna, we checked into our hotel. our hotel- sofitel, is all crazy nice and american feeling. then we went on a tour. it was nice to get to see the city but everyone was exhausted, so it was slightly hard to stay awake. i definitely only got 3 hours of sleep last night.

on our tour we saw belvederes summer castle. it was pretty. we also wandered around the downtown shopping area. then, we also saw the st. stephens church. all very nice.

finally, we went to dinner at -----------------------. i ordered the mozerella and tomato and then the ribs and the waitress looked at me like i was nuts. when my MASSIVE plate of ribs came out, i understood. i seriously ate maybe 20% of them. but dinner was really fun. joe and justin killed their ribs.

alright time to unpack.

"put your hands up. put your hands up for detroit"

free day in budapest!

after a much needed sleep in morning, i ventured off to explore budapest on our free (and last) day in budapest. after hitting up a very yummy pizza hut lunch, turner, derek, dan, joe and i took the bus over to buda. we saw the matthias church. it was so pretty. it was cool because it was so different from the saint stephens basicalla that we saw the day before. after that, we met aubrey, janine, natalie and her dad at the hungarian house of wines for wine tasting. OH MAN. that was an adventure. there were over 50 different types of wine to try! we each got a little glass to keep and these yummy crackers and a little book. i skipped ALL the red wines and some of the white. lets just say everyone was having a good time. this woman came over to us at one point and said "i dont know how long youve been here, but you are being really loud." ew. but then it turned out she was some ESPN reporter and all the boys were excited about that.

somehow we took the bus back to our hotel. i took a bit of a nap but then had to get up to go to dinner and folk dancing! it was so much fun! probably one of the best nights so far. the bus ride was verrryyy entertaining. gabby kept talking to us about who knows what. then we started wandering around in these crazy woods. im shocked we made it out alive. as soon as we walked in the gates they gave us these little green porecelen men things with polinka or whatever its called. so we all had to take a shot of that. except that its impossible to take a shot out of it because its crazy shaped and doesnt pour out. i seriously almost spit the whole thing up.

then we walked in and had an awesome dinner! they served the food family style. we had goulash soup- and i actually reallzy liked it. they just put these huge like cauldron on our table and we all scooped it out. then for the main course we had all these different kinds of meat and amazing mashed potatoes. YUM. they also served us a red and white wine. the guy poured it out of these really cool glass things. it was like this big glass thing with a tube coming out and he would shoot it out and then stop it with his finger, really cool. i didnt drink any of the wine so everyone at my table was excited to take it. dessert was awesome too- chocolate sponge cake stuff with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. yummmmm.

after dinner there was this cool folk dancing show! really funny. they pulled turner and joe up on stage and made them dance and it was freaking hilarious. they blindfolded both of them, had them drink a glass of wine and like dance in between bottles. eventually the dancers all went into the crowd and made peolpe dance. it turned into a big dance party, including mr and mrs fields doing the chicken dance. overall it was a hysterical evening. after we got back to the hotel, we changed and went back to morrisons 2.

another long day and tomorrow we are moving on to vienna! budapest went by so fast...

"look left, look left!"

this morning we went to electrolux. first we had a lecture by this HR guy. i didn't really like the lecture- he basically just talked about boring details about electrolux which i don't feel like i learn anything from, oh well. then we had a tour. we saw vaccuum cleaners and refridgerators. i think we were all just burned out at this point because it was really hard to pay attention. it was kinda cool seeign tons of appliances going through the line but it got old pretty fast.

finally it was time for lunch! we were all starving and bored so it was awesome to have lunch! we had a buffet at electrolux- chicken paprika and gnochi of course, rice and chicken, etc. it was pretty good. they also had the same dessert they have everywhere in budapest too- sponge cake stuff with chocolate and whipped cream, pretty good. turner almost took my eye out when he pried the lid off his diet coke with a knife and the lid smacked the side of my face, it was really funny. we also looked at pictures of jen and michelle and mrs. fields was pretty amused.

after lunch we took the bus back to budapest. we had the rest of the day free so everyone went their separate ways to do different things. aubrey, turner, dan, joe, derek and i went to st. stephen's cathedral to look around and see the mummified hand. the cathedral was SO pretty, it just felt like a real church and what i would expect a catholic church to be like. the hand thing was pretty creepy, but i guess its cool. after that, aubrey and dan went back and then rest of went to see the art museum. we took a whole bunch of random subways (2 of them totally unecessary apparently) and finally ended up at the museum. we walked up to the front and saw a tiny sign saying the museum would be closed on wednesday the 16th, which of course was today. we were pretty sad but decided to just roam around the city and explore. we walked over to this little pond and saw some ducks that were pretty cute. we almost went ice skating but got too overwhelmed with not understanding the language and shoes and etc so we gave up and kept walking. after walking aimlessly for about 2 hours, we headed back towards the hotel. all of our friends were gone at wine tasting, so the rest of us split up for dinner. turner and i walked down to this little strip where there were tons of restaurants and went to a little random place for dinner. i ordered pasta and was dissapointed but oh well. we also got milkshakes! mine had chunks of ice in it, kinda weird.

tonight, natalie's cousin who lives in budapest is going to take us out so that should be fun!

several boring company visits.

today was up and down. we took the bus to GE to tour the lighting plant. the lecture was kinda rough and boring and so was the tour. luckily lunch was pretty good. we went to the same place we went yesterday and i had awesome chicken from the grill. its sad that whether or not i like my day is dependent on the food i eat.

after lunch we went to zwach. this was so much fun! zwack produces unicum- a hungarian liquor that they all love. we listned to a short but interesitng lecture and then watched a video about the history of unicum. next we went on a tour and saw the museum. it was really interesting. upstairs of the museum wsa a collection of mini bottles- over 15,000 little bottles of alcohol. so crazy!

after all the informative stuff, we had a tasting! we sat at these little tables with 3 different shot glasses in front of us. we tried unicum, unicum next (which is made for the younger generation) and then polinka. i HATED the unicum, the next was tolerable and actually enjoyed the polinka. it just tasted like peach schnapps or something. but the unicum tasted like freaking nasty herbs and stuff. ugh seriously so gross. then we went to the gift shop. some of the boys bought shirts that said "i cannot resist a round thing", oh boys.

we went back to the hotel, relaxed for a bit and then went to dinner as a group at some place. the dinner was so much fun. we sat at this crazy long table and had like chicken fingers and fries basically. i was in need of a good meal. these gypsy guys played music for us and everyone had a really good time.

later that night we went to this place apparently where old people go- old man´s music pub. ha.

budapest yo.

so on saturday, we got up crazy early and left prague :( we took our bus to the train station and rode the train for 8 HOURS to budapest. the train wasn't too terrible- it was a little stressful getting all of the bags onto the train really fast but we could spread out and relax. i tried to sleep but couldn't find a comfortable way to sit so that didn't really happen.

as soon as we got off the train we had to rush to get on the bus and check into our hotel. i swear my luggage is getting heavier by the day. carrying all of my crap to the bus seemed like an eternity. but we got on the bus and drove to the hotel. i wasn't too impressed with the city at first. it seemed like our hotel was in the ghetto. no one was on the streets or anything.

as soon as we got to the hotel we had to change crazy fast for dinner at the hotel. it was a set menu, we had salad (with gross "americky" dressing), this crazy turkey stuffed with weird things and then nasty apple and cranberry strudel. oh well, the mashed potatoes were good :) we checked into our rooms and got situated. the rooms in this hotel are wayyyyy bigger than the ones we had in prague so its nice to be able to spread out again. the only thing that sucks about this hotel is that we have the typical cards for keys. i was getting used to prague and being able to just leave the door open and turn in the key every time we left. now you have to knock and have peolpe let you in their rooms. plus i liked the openness of the other hotel- i could hear all of the floors and what was going on. oh well though, at least now i have room to walk in my room!

yesterday we were up for our tour! it didn't rain so that was exciting! i was beginning to think that all of our tours were goign to be nasty and rainy but this one was nice. we took a bus up to the top of the city and saw these really cool statues. we also saw the matthias church and the parliament building. budapest is actually divided into two sides- buda and pest, separated by hte danube river. our hotel is in pest and buda is more residential. we got out and took some fun pictures on these statues. it was a little scary to get down but thats okay.

after our tour we had free time for the rest of the day. i took a shower (the bathrooms have surround sound so it was the best shower i've ever taken) and then met up with some peolpe to eat lunch at subway (yum, meatball subs!). then a lot of us went to the terror musuem. it was all about communism and hitler and the history of hungary. i had no idea about how rough hungary has had it for pretty much their entire history. i feel like we learn a lot about hitler and what he did in germany, but i didn't know all this about stalin and the awful stuff here. it was really sad. we saw torture chambers and it was just awful. the only thing that sucked about the museum was that most of it wasn't in english, so we had to read these papers in each room. it was educational, but by the end we were burned out.

we all came back to the hotel and then went out to dinner. we went to this pizza place and had VERY cheesy pizza. some people were upset with the lack of tomato sauce but i thought it was yummy. then people requested extra sauce to find out that the sauce was rotten. so they were glad that they didn't have sauce :) it was a good time.

last night i just relaxed, checked my email, hung out for a bit with different people. it was nice to just relax.

today we had a big class day. we had a lecture at the ___________. this professor who had immigrated to the US from hungary when he was younger spoke to us about their history. it was interesting. it was cool because it really built on what i learned at the museum. he talked a lot about the culture here- people are so negative and have such a bad outlook on life because for hundreds of years they have been controlled by other people. i'm beginning to really appreciate the opportunities we have in america. the idea that we control our own destiny is actualy good, i can't imagine feeling so sad about the future.

after the lecture we had lunch at this really yummy grill. food is so important to me :)

then we got back on the bus and went to the coca-cola factory. we went on a tour and saw the bottling. it was so crazy, just thousands of bottles getting filled, sealed, labeled and packaged. we also had a really good lecture by the president of marketing. i feel like i learned more in that lecture than i did in many entire semesters put together. they have these really cool coca cola festivals and stuff here, just so cool. they have a beach resort where people come to hang out and its a huge deal.

right now everyone is at the baths but i didn't feel well so i stayed in. its nice to be by myself for a little bit. tomorrow is another long business day so i need some energy!

last day in prague :(

i love prague. friday was our last day there. that morning we went to the skoda factory. tons of people here drive skoda cars. until a few months ago i didn't even know what skoda cars were so it was cool to see the factory. we watched this really boring movie about the cars. they showed the changes that have occurred over the years. from bikes to modern cars. we also walked around the museum a little and saw different models.

then we went to the factory. it was insane! there were cars just travelling down the path and tons of peolpe around them moving so fast to put the pieces together. i felt kinda awkward because we were just staring at the people while they did their jobs. czech people are funny. i've seen a lot of rat tails and mullets, so weird.

then we had lunch at the skoda welcome center. there was this whole chicken-beef controversy. it was really funny. i got the chicken so i was happy :)

then we took the bus back to the hotel. i went shopping with cara and jocelyn and bought this really nice blazer. i had to rush back to the hotel because i had to get ready for the orchestra! the fields', cara, christina, teri, dan and i all went to the prague royal orchestra. it was SO nice. seriously the building was just gorgeous and the music was so amazing. i could have sat there forever just in peace listening to the music. totally worth the $35.

i'm going to miss prague :(

today we went to the crystal factory! it was really cool. they reach into these big things with sicks and pull out blazing hot crystal. then they blow air into the tubes to stretch it out, squeeze it into molds, etc. the women can use the molds and carry it into the coolers but only men are allowed to do the blowing part and they all smoke and drink the whole time. supposedly beer keeps you hydrated, ha. also, its crazy hot in there so they were all shirtless! apparently in the summer it can be like 130 degrees in there, totally insane. next the crystal goes into a room where lines are drawn to set up the pattern. next the pieces go into this room where the designs are carved in. there were tons of peolpe in lines with crazy wheel things carving away. our tour guide said that the dust is 24% lead! no one was wearing gloves or even a mask... she said they werent required to and it was their choice. its so unsafe, just nuts.

after shopping in the crystal factory, we headed back to prague. i got lunch at Fridays. BAD CALL. i got a freaking burger and it was $20. oh well. then cara and i went shopping at this place called vera moda and i got really good deals. that pretty much made my day.

we had to rush back to get to a lecture at CERGE. it is some sort of universitz. the girl gave us a good lecture about the czech republic and their economic conditions. it was a good match with the lecture from the morning about investments in the czech republic. its crazy how much the history ties into business and the economy. the building was insane too- it looked like a classroom from harry potter. a lot of movies have been filmed there- one of the bourne movies i think.

that night some peolpe went to the black light theater but i passed and i heard that was a good call so that made me happy. we ended up going back to the pizza colloseum and i even got the same thing, so good.

that night i went back to the beer factory with some people. it was nice to just chill and relax.

very good day.

today we went to czech invest. the lecture was prety interesting. the most entertaining part of it was how all of the bozs were drooling over the woman who gave hte lecture. personallz i didnt think she was that attractive but whatev. they were seriouslz flirting and saying ridiculous stuff, so funny. luckily her lecture was only about 45 minutes long and then we had a free day!

i came back to the hotel, changed out of the "bus cas", sprayed my boots to waterproof them (it was raining) and then headed out with some peolpe. we walked and got lunch at this little vendor- square pizza, pretty yummy. basically we just wandered around the city, walked over the charles bridge, saw a guy playing a one man band thing. oh and we went to the lenin wall. it was so funny. only because it was prety dissapointing. basically its just a wall with grafiti. im not sure what i thought it would be, but more than that. it was fun though, took some pictures, etc.

kathleen and i went to an internet cafe and then i took a nap. poor kathleen wasnt feeling well so we just relaxed for a bit. for dinner ew went to this place called the pizzy colloseum. SO GOOD. basically just normal italian food. i had this really good vodka fettucine with chicken and cara and i split awesome bruschetta. seriously it was a little pricey, but totally worth it to have good food.

that night i just relaxed with everyone until midnight and then crashed. i cant handle not going to bed at a decent hour every night.

long day.

first of all, i apologize in advance because the y and z are backwards on this kezboard. see? ugh. i´m trying.

Today is Tuesday. After getting up crazy early, we loaded the bus to Black and Decker. Mrs. Fields had a student a while back who works for black and decker in maryland, so he and another colleague, came to Prague to show us around! i think they were doing other things too, but they planned it to meet up with us so it was fun. very nice having peolpe who spoke perfect english and who could give us an american approach too.

ralph and the other guy whose name i cant remember rode the bus with us to Usti. the plant was in Usti- a little town about an hour out of prague. after arriving at the plant, ian, the plant manager talked to us about his plant. im pretty much in love with ian. hes from scotland and has an amazing accent. he moved to usti to run the plant and he does a sweet job- the usti plant is pretty much the most successful b & d plant out there. anyway, his lecture was really good. hes a great operations guy so it was helpful for me to hear it. i left the room thinking hmmm maybe i could do this with my life. but THEN we went on the tour. it was just so boring. slightly interesting because it applied to things i had learned in class, but overall i just dont care about screwdrivers and hammers. the tour was kinda cool though. darren got to use this massive hammer to put a hole in concrete so that was funny.

after that we had lunch at b & d. it was very overwhelming and very czech. eventually this guy told us how to say french fries and then life was good. after lunch we went back upstairs to listen to ralph and the other guy tell us about b & d and basically try to convince us to work for them. it sounds like a good company but you have to be willing to move a lot and i donät think im down with that.

after a long bus ride back, i crashed. the black and decker guys wanted to take us all out for a drink so we went to this place called the beer factory. it was cool- they had taps right on the table and it kept track of how much beer you poured and then just charged for however much it was. kinda cool. some of us decided to just stay for dinner- bad idea. i got the fajitas. or "fah ji tas" as the waiter said it. they were gross and expensive and i was sad. oh well.

we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while and then went back to the beer factory that night. good times all around.

hello prague.

so today was our first full day in prague! we had a tour of the city this morning. our tour guide tatiana, split us up so my group went with some other lady who was funny too. we started out taking the streetcar up to this castle. it was really pretty. there was still lots of snow on the ground so it was so pretty. we also saw this awesome church. there were tons of tours going on and people everywhere. at this point it started raining and was so nasty and cold and miserable again. at least this time i remembered my umbrella so that was nice.

out in front of the castle were guards in these little dog house things (kinda like you would think in london) so we took some fun pictures with them. we also saw the changing of the guard. all of a sudden all this crazy music started playing and soldiers started marching down the road. they did all of these crazy maneuvers and switched up lines. at this point it was so nasty and cold out that we stopped into this little cafe and got the best hot chocolate ever. seriously so yummy, and pretty cheap too.

we kept going on our tour. we had to walk down all these crazy ice covered steps. poor aubrey fell and got all wet. we walked around old town by all the shops and stuff. it was really cute. there was a nice road with tons of really nice shops like dolce & gabana. too bad i'm too poor to shop there.

after the tour i came back and crashed and then showered and we went on a dinner cruise. it was sweet- we had the whole boat to ourselves. we got dressed up and ate dinner while we cruised down the river. the food was pretty gross- it was all salty and just nasty. but it was nice to just hang out and relax. we could go on top of the boat and see the city all lit up, except that it was insanely cold. every so often the boat would stop in the locks so they could raise the water level so that was kinda cool.


oh and last night was really fun. everyone went to this cute place called double trouble and it was so much fun. i like hanging out with everyone, hopefully that will continue for the whole trip but we'll see.

"its really good. you should try it"

so last night we went to champion sports bar to watch football! pretty much everyone went and it was cool to see american TV and relax. the redskins lost, everyone was sad and i bet my dad was sad too.

today we got up crazy early and got on a bus to prague! i felt like we were only in frankfurt for such a short time but its exciting to be in a new city! driving into prague, i didn't like it at all. it seemed so dreary and gross. there was snow on the ground though! it must have just snowed yesterday because little kids were out sledding around.

after arriving, we checked into our hotel- Hotel Meran. DEFINITELY a step down from the hessischer hof. our room is SO small. i miss the 5 star bathrobes and warm towels. oh well. i'm not planning on spending a ton of time in the room. tonight we all went to dinner at Marie Teresie. our dinner was SO funny. we had a 500 korona limit so we all ordered tons of food. i split garlic toast and potato pancakes with derek for an apetizer- BAD IDEA. the garlic toast was like coated in garlic stuff and the potato pancakes were seriously like NOT potatoes. our table laughed so hard. aubrey and i were laughing so hard that we were seriously crying. everyone had to try the yummy ham filled pancakes. SO SO gross. oh well :)

alright time to go shower and try to unpack my little midget room...

"we met here- at o'reilly's!"

last night we went to an irish pub called O'Reilly's. it was realllllly fun. there was karoake and we had a little room pretty much all to ourselves too. we ran into these guys from Marist College. They had actually been at the ECB right after us too. pretty crazy. we also met a really funny girl who was from frankfurt, marrying an American. they met at oreilly's a year before. she had on bunny ears with a veil. very entertaing.

my favorite quote of the night: "i'm not stupid" "you're wearing 2 coats."

i'm having so much more fun than i thought i would!

today we took a bus to heidelberg. it was really cute, BUT pouring down rain. seriously so nasty. we climbed up this crazy hill to get to the castle. we took a tour around the outside of the castle amd the courtyards. inside the castle was crazy- there were these HUGE things of wine. apparently the people had to pay their taxes in wine. so they collected all the wine and mixed it together (red, white, all in these big things) and then people got paid in wine too. kinda crazy. we saw some cool churches and the university in heidelberg. about 100,000 people live there- but 30% are students.

after the tour, we had some time to walk around. i had lunch at hard rock cafe (so nasty.) with cara, jocelyn and brynn. finally we were back on the bus (taking a nap) to be out of the nasty cold rain.

after another nap and shower, we had dinner at the hessicher hof restaurant (our hotel.) it was SO freaking nice. it was a 3 course dinner with two different wines to go with the different courses. i had a really nice relaxing dinner with mrs. fields, derek, katy, jen and alicia. it was good to just be calm :)

i think tonight we are going to go watch american football! yay!

a very financial day.

After going to bed at 8, today i woke up at 1 am and was 100% awake. i was really annoyed. after laying there for an hour, i fell back asleep... giving me a total of almost 12 hours of sleep! amazing. i think i'm pretty much over the jet lag.

today we put on our business suits and went to the ECB- European Central Bank. after dr. fields got us slightly lost, we made it there. we had to go through crazy security, it was insane. then we had a lecture in this awesome room. it was a really cool boardroom type place and we each had our own microphones and stuff. they also gave us coffee and cookies and stuff, pretty sweet. i really liked the lecture. the speaker made it really interactive and i learned so much about the Euro and the European Union. i feel like i learned more about finance and economics at the lecture than in my entire finance clas at delaware.

after the lecture, we split up for lunch. i went to the bull & bear restaurant with teri, katia and alicia. i had a really yummy thin pizza, so good. i kept seeing starbucks but i'm fighting the urge. i'm determined to not drink starbucks until i'm back in america. too bad i keep drinking straight up coffee instead, oh well. i guess at some point i had to start the coffee addiction like everyone else.

after lunch we met back at the bull & bear (statues, not restaurant) and then went inside to the Deutche Boerse. our speaker was so cute, he could hardly speak english and i felt really bad for him. he told us it was his first lecture in english. then his powerpoint broke too. sooo the lecture wasn't great, but i learned some about the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and how it works. they have a physical floor like in NY, but also have a computer program too. we got to watch the computer thing and it was pretty cool.

i tried to get money out at an ATM and it said "unable to process this transaction at this time." i got a little worried but eventually found another ATM that worked. yay.

after that we had some free time. we walked back to the hotel, bought some postcards and then i took a nice long nap. for dinner we went to this really good pizza place. they sold individual pizzas for like 3 euros- too bad the drink cost almost as much. it was funny though- this tiny pizza place way off the beaten path, they rushed out and it was funny. people would just sit at tables with other people too. very entertaining.

US AIR flight 700

finally in Germany! Wednesday, after finishing my packing in the morning, my dad drove me to the philly airport! we got there so early and then stood around waiting at the ticket desk for like 2 hours. finally we checked in, i said goodbye to my dad and then off we went to the terminal! after another sitting around for a few hours, we finally boarded the plane. the ride wasn't terrible though. we had little TV's in the back of our seats so i watched 2.75 movies on the way there. (btw, nanny diaries is officially one of my favorite movies ever.)

at midnight our time/6 am thursday Frankfurt time, we landed! i couldn't sleep at all on the plane so i was getting tired at this point. we took a bus to our hotel and checked in... the hotel is SO NICE! seriously like 5 stars. my room is freaking massive- we have 2 huge bathrooms and bathrobes and towels and slippers, seriously freaking awesome.

after checking in and showering, we each got 20 euros to go find breakfast. teri (my roommate) and i found a little coffee shop but i was too overwhelmed to get anything so i didn't eat :( at 10, we got back on the bus for a bus tour of frankfurt! i'm not terribly impressed with the city- its very modern and financialish, kinda just like being in nyc or something.

our tour guide showed us all around the city- the Main river and all of the important financial buildings. we went on top of the Main tower and could see the entire city. it was SO cold and windy! but besides that it was nice :) next, we went to the old city and saw a museum. there were models of Frankfurt before and after WWII. during the war, the city was bombed and 80% of it was demolished. the models showed just how torn up the city was. since the bombings, there has been a lot of debate over how to reconstruct the city. some want to keep it like it used to be while others want to make it more modern. it was really pretty and felt closer to what i expected a city in germany to be like.

after the tour, we all went to Wagner's Bierstube for lunch. i had an awesome steak and homefries! it was seriously so good. we tried apfelwein and i wasn't too impressed, it just tasted like watered down wine.

at 4, we had a lecture from the consulate. i was so freaking tired, i couldn't stay awake. at this point i had been awake for 30 hours and was so beyond ready to sleep. the lecture was alright, but i felt bad because i was falling asleep. oh well.

next, teri and i wandered around a little bit to find a phone card, hung out with jen and katy in their room and finally crashed at 8 pm. i was so tired, 8 was the absolute latest i could stay up! overall, it was a good yet overwhelming first day in frankfurt.