Penultimate Travels

This post will cover my last official stint of traveling in Europe. I'm really about ready to be done with this whole blogging thing, so excuse how sloppy this entry may turn out to be.

My two week journey started with a visit to Paris. I stayed with my cousin Daniel, who is the son of my grandmother's cousin, or something like that. I think that's right. My great-great grandfather is his great-grandfather. Anyway, the point is that we're related, and he was nice enough to put me up for the weekend in his apartment (flat? I guess this is still Europe) in downtown Paris. The room in which I was staying had a balcony with this view of the Eiffel Tower:

No zoom was used in the taking of this picture

Daniel and me on his other balcony

I started off my first day (Friday, May 14) with a visit to Les Invalides, a former hospital for soldiers which is now the premiere French military history museum. It was an interesting contrast to the Imperial War Museum in London, if for no other reason than the subtle wording of some of the exhibits. In London, the language of the exhibits was very smug, and even in displays that described some sort of military defeat, the language used still implied a sort of "oh, don't worry, wait until the next exhibit and you'll see how sweet we are" attitude. In Les Invalides, the exhibits describing defeats (which were the majority) used language with more of a "well, we tried really hard, and we just got screwed, but please give us some credit" attitude, and the exhibits regarding victories were more like "OMG FINALLY WE WON ONE!!!!!" Also amusing was the group of teenage Germans that I decided to follow through the museum so that I could observe their reactions. At the beginning, they were really excited and kept laughing at the exhibits. By the time we got to about 1944, they were so disgruntled and moving so quickly that I couldn't keep up with them anymore. I thought about America and giggled on the inside.

What else was cool about Paris? Well, meeting up with Meaghan and Sarah certainly was. Being with them saved me from having to be TOTALLY alone in the most romantic city in the world (which Paris really is, by the way). We did a lot of stereotypically touristy things, like museums and restaurants and more museums and, finally, the Eiffel Tower. Here are some pictures to prove it:

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

Montmartre

Jazz hands outside the Moulin Rouge

Smile, Mona!

On the Eiffel

After Paris was the group trip to Hungary. Our first day there was marked by hangovers (due to the 5 AM train ride and the logic of just staying up and going out all night beforehand) and really awful weather. Day two was much cooler - we went to a random small town in northern Hungary on the Slovakian border, and since we had some time to kill, we crossed the bridge into Slovakia, where beer costs 1 euro for half a liter. Truly the land of milk and honey. I may or may not have drank too much beer before getting on the bus and subsequently peed in an abandoned Soviet swimming pool as soon as we got off. This may or may not be a picture of said pool:

The night concluded with a home cooked Hungarian meal and some Hungarian dancing, which was a lot of fun. The next day involved another stupidly long bus trip to another little town (Pecs, so not that little, and also one of the European Capitals of Culture in 2010) and some marginal weather, but it concluded with an awesome party at the university where we were staying, much of which I don't remember thanks to this guy:

Purchased as a salute to our Commander-in-Chief, the work "Barack" in Hungarian actually means "peach", the particular fruit from which this bottle of Palinka was distilled.

On the last day we went to an excellent museum called the House of Terror and also explored Budapest. It was fun. There are more pictures on Facebook.

After Hungary we made our way to Prague by way of Vienna, and as soon as we got there, we went straight to the fabled five-story club, the largest of its kind in Central Europe. It was awesome. The next day, Jonathan and I took a long walking tour of the city and then joined John Greil in the old town square to watch the International Hockey Championship Game between the Czech Republic and the highly favored Russian team, which went into the game with a 27-game winning streak. The Czechs won 2-1 in an amazing upset which sent the whole city into a frenzy. Despite the short description, Prague was honestly some of the most fun I had in Europe.

Amazing

After Prague came a couple of days in Vienna, which involved a relaxing tour of Schönbrunn Gardens, a night at the Vienna Opera House, and a day of walking around near the Hofburg and eating at Cafe Sacher. See Facebook for more pics, but here's just one of them:

Coming soon will be my wrap-up post, in which I'll share final thoughts about the overall experience!