Saturday, November 29, 2014

They should call it BudaREST (Budapest, Hungary)

Meg:

'Sup guys.

So we woke up in Rome at some CRAZY time like 3:30am to take a night bus and an airline shuttle for our flight around 8ish. We landed in Budapest and made it to our apartment. 

Day1:
Peter opened the door and showed us our paradise. Here is a link to his place on airbnb.com where we stayed: 

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1514947

This was our favorite apartment so far. If you just looked at the link/pictures, you're feeling jealous and you should. It was such a fun place to stay and everyone who goes to Budapest should stay there because it's awesome. Anyway, we dropped our stuff off and he gave us a recommendation for lunch while he finished tidying up the place. Here is a picture of my empty bowl of goulash because the full bowl didn't last long enough to capture. You'll also get a glimpse of our mostly-empty cups of mulled wine (which is just allllllll over Europe right now for the winter season-DEEEEEEE-lish). These we kept full longer because we wanted to savor every sip. mmmmMMMmm


Also, did you notice the fleece blanket on my lap? They had them on every other chair at this place and it was just the coziest! After that meal, we did a little window shopping but retreated back to the fun apartment quickly because it was getting chilly and we didn't pack winter coats! But don't fret! Check out the next day.

Day 2:
You can hate us if you want, but in Budapest we spent most of day 2 watching movies and shopping for winter coats. First of all, we were dead tired and about 4 days from then we were going to start a month of class that we assumed was gonna be pretty grueling (this turned out to be true, so I'm glad we rested). Second, we realized we could finally buy winter coats because we were done flying and had the space/weight! So day 2 we have no pictures because we wandered in and out of shops and malls and then caught up on Gracepoint, watched the new TMNT movie, and both the recent X-Men movies on our new mini projector ($120 on Amazon and the size of a cell phone-SUPER investment Hardins)...our legs felt GOOD.

Day 3:
Super well rested, but still in lazy-days mode, we meandered our way through some Budapest sights. We didn't take the big camera, so this is all you get from Budapest, but DON'T WORRY, we'll be back. This place is gorgeous...




















Vati-can you believe it? (Rome, Italy)

Tom:

After a wonderfully exhausting first day in Rome, we decided to slow down, take it easy, and rest.


Just kidding.


We woke up at 7:00am and started walking.





Try and figure out how this guy is sitting. 20 minutes of staring did not give us the answer.




                           


St. Peter's Square is quite captivating. I've never spun around in circles that many times consecutively (unless I was forced to). I'm still pretty awestruck by it.





And the basilica isn't bad either...













Oh, the Vatican...




Tapestry's from the museum...

                   

Frescoes on the ceilings...


Gallery of maps...






 

Paintings from the contemporary galleries...

And of course...





The Sistine Chapel.


This picture really sums it up - "did we just go to the Sistine Chapel?" 

It is also important to note that I was not supposed to take any pictures of the Sistine Chapel. They have several guards monitoring the crowd, ready to confiscate cameras. So, all of those pictures were taken by my bellybutton. Please don't tell the Pope.