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When I think about my experience in Hungary and the things I learned or the opportunities I had one person always comes to mind first. He was the first person I met coming off the plane and one of the last people I saw before I left the country I had called home for five months. Janos truly was the beginning, middle and end of my trip and it couldn’t have happened without him. I’ve written before about my first few days in Budapest but because I didn’t have internet access I don’t think I ever wrote about when I first walked out of the airport and into my adventure. Having never been to Hungary, and only knowing how to say “hello”, “no” and “I love you, many kisses!” in Hungarian I was more than slightly ... read more

The weekend after mom left I had a class trip to Prague. You may not remember this but I had actually been in Prague two weekends before with mom. The main difference, besides the company, was that for the field trip we took the train. This SUCKED. Now I know that I do not like long never-ending train rides. We arrived really late that Thursday. This is actually the same Thursday that mom left on. Everything happened so fast. This is why I am behind on my blogging. Sorry! The first night in Prague a group of us went out exploring a little to find some dinner. It was strange seeing the city at night with a bunch of people from school after having explored it so recently with mom. The next morning we met up ... read more

Hello crew. I am currently on a train in the Czech Republic traveling through a snowy countryside. But I’m not here tonight to tell you about my second trip to Prague, I’m here to tell you about a city called Berlin. After Prague two weekends ago Mom and I headed to Germany to visit the site where it all went down 18 years ago. Berlin as a city is quite the opposite of Prague. Throughout history Prague has lucked out and arrived in this day and age pretty much unscathed by history. Berlin however was basically demolished and as a result the new buildings and architecture reflect a more modern world. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it’s actually a very interesting city to walk around in. Throughout downtown Berlin, where mom and I stayed, ... read more

Last Monday morning I went to Auschwitz. The program had arranged for an English-speaking guide to lead our tour. Driving up to Auschwitz was not exactly what I had expected. Thinking back on what I was expecting is kind of embarrassingly naïve. I guess I thought I would see a bunch of crematorium smoke stacks and beyond that I just pictured…hell. Auschwitz is actually one of three concentration camps located close together, Auschwitz 2 is also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the third camp is Auschwitz 3 or Monowitz. Our tour began at Auschwitz and ended at Birkenau. Monowitz was not included. Auschwitz was originally a polish military camp; this is when the large brick buildings were actually built. When the Nazis took it over they turned it into a prisoners camp where they held Polish prisoners. These ... read more

Okay, I’m back again. So there we were climbing up the face of a castle, freezing to death. My fingers were pretty much just long slender flesh cubes. When I finally got to the top the wind was blowing so hard I thought it would catch me and throw me back off the side. The view however was beautiful. We climbed around on the castle for a while taking windy pictures then we walked back down the easy way. Once back on the bus we headed to yet another little town to walk around for about a half hour. This is where I was able to find a cheap pair of gloves that saved my fingers from further abuse. I also got a traditional-ish Romanian/Hungarian dress. Photo to follow…. That night we went out to a ... read more