Jour 120 - Welcome Indeed to Budapest :|

December 18th, Sunday

The ATM - it's a machine that man has made to make some banking transactions easier.. This wasn't the case when we got to Budapest. So we rode the night bus from Vienna to Budapest and we got to Budapest by 22:30 already! :| We knew we were gonna have trouble with the currency because (1) it's hard to ready forints since no money exchange has Hungary's currency and (2) I don't think people would want to hold on to forints due to its economic instability :| We were indeed in trouble that night! We only had a few minutes to look for an ATM, go back to the train station and ride our long long ride to our hostel :| The metro by the way was gonna close at 23:30! @_@ We got back to the metro station just in the nick of time, with forints in our hands!

When we got the hostel, I was pretty shocked at the hospitality of the receptionist! Er, I think he was being toooo nice! He kept on insisting that he will be there 24/7! The hostel was okay, not up for cleanliness award but I must say if its hospitality we're talking about, this hostel can be one of the nominees!

xx

Jour 119 - Wien Wien

December 17th, Saturday

Day 2 in Vienna and the plan today was to wake up early so that we could go to Schonbrunn - the supposedly Viennese counterpart of Versailles. Funny kwento on the way to Schonbrunn. So we were all in the metro already and I guess we were just still so sleepy that we weren't really paying attention to the stops. And then, Renan looked up and saw that it was our stop already -- so we had to run out the metro :)))) That was a close one!

We didn't have a clue on where the palace was exactly so we ended up walking the long cut :))

Here's Renan freezing to death!

It was actually so cold that day that silly me forgot her earmuffs at the hostel!

It actually got colder that Renan and I decided to head back to the hostel to bulk up!

We got back just in time for our designated timeslot! Oh lucky thing that happened to us - so all paid under the same ticket lady and I'm guessing it was because we were all small and Asian that the lady mistakenly thought we were kiddos! So instead of paying the adult price, we got downgraded to the cheapest ticket! Woohoo! :>

Aside from this, we had a free audio guide :) So the tour was really informative! OMG. I found out that Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI, was Austrian and she was one of the children of Charles VI!!!!! Sad though, we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside :(

On the way back to the hostel, we were skipping and jumping when we experienced hail! Yes, at first we thought it was snow but it was too fast to be snow! :)) I actually have a video documenting our happiness but it's too embarrassing =))

We went back to the hostel to chill and relax and eat (again) before heading to the bus station for our Budapest bus. Oh btw, this is currywurst - Aira, Kwi and Sammy are addicted to this! When Aira and Sam saw this at the supermarket, they bought it right away! I must say, the sauce of this was pretty good. But nothing beats the currywurst we tried directly in Berlin!

xx

Jour 118 - Wien

December 16th, Friday

The next stop of our great Eastern European adventure was Vienna! This is actually a place my dad was telling that I should go to :) As I mentioned earlier in my previous post, we took the bus here :) When we got to the hostel, we were so so happy! The hostel was so clean :D Kudos to Wombats Vienna!!

Modern place indeed :)

After settling in, we wanted to eat lunch! We asked the receptionist for a place that serves authentic Austrian food. She cited a few.. We were so psyched to eat, even though it was raining! But oh gosh. Since our hunger was too strong, we got lost :)) As usual! So... we ended up going inside a cafe!

Oh a little trivia here: did you know that Vienna is known for their coffee? Well I didn't know about that til I saw it in the internet. Apparently, there are so many variations (some are milk-based, some or not). I ordered a Melange - it's half mocha, half heated milk, that has cream on top :) Super goooood! 

Aira and I split an omelet since we weren't really that hungry. 

So after our late lunch, we decided to go sightseeing already!

One tip I have to tell you guys! If you're a tourist, compare prices of transportation. Would it be cheaper to buy single journey tickets, or would a day pass be more sulit? :P We got the day pass cause we wanted to go to a lot of places! We first went to Stephan Platz, another church :)) You know me, I like comparing and seeing the different architectural styles of different cities :P Uh and yeah, we just had to pose like this cause we absolutely love goofing around! :))) Actually, while we were posing like this a lot of people went up to us asking us if we wanted to watch a classical music concert. Aira was soooo tempted to watch, but as I was telling her I didn't enough money for that sort of thing. Plus people who watch concerts like that really dress up well. We were totally not prepared for that! I didn't prepare any fancy piece of clothing in 10-day backpack.

The church was lovely btw! We were going to our next stop when we came across this :))))) Hay nako, too funny!

Here's one of the places where Mozart stayed :) didn't go inside anymore because it was close.

We saw on the side that there a Christmas market! Oh joy! We quickly made a detour here :)

And of course, we found different handicrafts!

After checking out this Christmas market, which was mostly handicrafts, we went to an interactive museum!

Haus der Musik. Aira and I saw good reviews on this museum so we wanted to check it out.

Uh, if I were to rate this museum I'd probably give it a 7. I expected more from it but hey I learned stuff naman so it was okay!

It was pretty cool we were able to watch a classical music concert :> This my friends is a video fyi :)) Pretty cool!

So the museum made sections for each famous composer! It's really Aira who was so enlightened by this museum. She's the one that's into classical music :)

In the end, we had this activity where in we could be the maestro! :) Hihi. I did a very sucky job though that's why this man appeared! HAHAHAHAHA

We went to another Christmas market - for dinner! :)

I wanted to eat this but...

Renan wanted to eat this so I followed him and it was such a fail! </3 there was no custard inside!

We went back to the hostel because

we tried our sachertorte! Uggggggh, super overrated cake I swear. They say it's a really famous cake in Vienna but not everything you hear from people is true! Good thing, we didn't spend so much. The cake was so dry! And toooooo sweet!

xx

Jour 117 - Praha Meets Sandegirl

December 15th, Thursday

So for the second day in Prague, Renan was craving for something non-European. So for lunch we headed to the mall nearest to our hostel. When Renan saw the sushi conveyer belt, he instantly chose Japanese!

So while Renan and Akeem did the buffet, we girls decided to just share dishes together. 

It was okay. But not something I would recommend to let people try. Europe is really not the place to eat Asian food. Uh, duh! Hahaahaha

After lunch, we were game to take the free walking tour but when we got there we found out the tour didn't include the Charles Bridge and the castle so we just did our own tour..

I pretended to be Sandegirl, the group's tour guide! :)))

Our first stop was Charles Bridge!

Me and my fluffy lovely girlies :) <3

I found out that this bridge is infamous for pickpockets! So watch out :)) Just don't act so much like a tourist!

..And then we were on our way to the Prague castle! We walked our way up! It was freezing outside but we didn't feel anything because of our intensive treking!

The view up is just beautiful!

When we got up the castle, we were lucky enough to witness guards switching positions. The life of formality :))

We were walking as fast as we could because we were chasing the sun! We knew that that sunset was gonna be at 16:30. Yes, winter :|

We had a coffee break though :)) It was getting too cold outside that we all wanted to drink hot chocolate. 

And then it started to get dark after our break! :(

Prague was still so beautiful though!

We had an early dinner in the Christmas market because we had to catch our bus to Vienna, which left at 22:00.

xx