The chill in Budapest

Budapest 

Budapest was a completely different place than anywhere else we had been to at that point and it made it all that more interesting and amazing. The buildings that line the busy streets are so beautiful and unique I couldn't help but think that they were someone more than what they were (apartments). It is a very impressive place, to say the least. 

We only spent 3 days in Budapest and much like most of the places that we have been we wished that we had more time. It is enough to see the highlights but enough time to see it all. It was also much colder than we had gotten used to in the southern regions of Europe that we had spent all of our time in up to that point, so we bundled up and started off with the cathedral, then on our way to the chain bridge, the parliament building, the opera house and fishermen's Bastion. All of which were absolutely amazing and made the trip to Budapest worth it 100%. Next we hit the market, when I come back to the U.S. I think markets like this will be what I miss more than anything. It is half spice market half butcher shops, then on the top they sold food and has little shops to buy souvenirs and stuff all of which was hand made and really beautiful. This is actually where I had the best spiced wine I have ever had, I regret not getting a second. However I or course did purchase some Hungarian paprikas, I am so excited to use them! 

So while in Hungary there are 2 things that you expect to do there first party. Budapest is s great place to hit bars and clubs, really great night life. Second would be to visit the bath houses, they are actually really beautiful. It is the therapeutic water that is always hot. If you go during the day you have free range off all the different bath areas with your ticket. However they also do bath parties in Budapest, which is basically a club in one of the bath houses, we went to one of these. It was out side so the hot water made it really steamy, and you had to leave the pool to get a drink so it got a little chilly when you did, but it was pretty awesome. I will say that buy the end of the night most people have coupled off and it does start to feel like a meet market. Luckily we made some friends from Manchester and opted to just hang out with them towards the end of the night. It was a really fun time, and definitely something to do while you are in Budapest. 

The language was so completely different than what we are used to so all I was able to pick up while we were there was how to say thank you, and goodbye. Thank you was really hard to get down so I am proud of that very small accomplishment. 

The food honestly isn't a ton to make note of, other than the spiced wine. We also had langos which is fried dough tops off with toppings and sauces of your choice. We had goulash, which was very nice on the cold days in Hungary, finally we had "chimney cake" this is a street food that is a dessert honestly it tastes good but watching it get made is something that I would recommend, look it up on YouTube. It is pretty cool, but I am too lazy to look it up for you lol 

köszönöm- Thank you 

Our next stop was on to Prague!  

Blue rooftops of Santorini

Santorini 

Greece is one of the most beautiful countries that I could imagine and everywhere we went I expected it to not to live up all the hype, and every time I was wrong. We flew in and landed at night so we didn't get to fully see it until the next morning.

Vin (Andra's Dad) was nice enough to invite me to come them on this trip, which I could not be more grateful for. We had a breathtaking Villa in Fira. It was cliff side with an amazing view from the patio area which is where the hot tub and pool were located. The inside of the villa was built into the mountain side. It had been recently remodeled and everything about it was so far beyond expectations I couldn't believe it. It was called Aura Villa incase anyone is curious. 

Since we were there in March the weather varied from day to day and I managed to get a nice farmers tan from it. (It is finally gone now) but we took advantage of it being spring weather anyways. The first day we spent driving around the island, Amanda (Andra's sister) was actually a very impressive with driving in Greece and I have to give her props for it. Vin relaxed and enjoyed the view from the Villa while Andra, Anna (Amanda's Friend who is studying in Turkey) Amanda and me explored as much as we could with the overcast making it a little chilly. 

The next morning us 4 ladies went on donkey rides which was pretty cool but much briefer than we had expected, but we were the first of the season this year so they took a ton of pictures of us and I think they are up somewhere lol. Luckily the weather worked out great for us this day and it was absolutely beautiful. Since it was a first day with the sunshine we decided to relax and enjoy it while he had an "orange party" consisting of oranges and orange juice. 

We decided to rent four wheelers and it was my favorite way to see the island. There isn't a ton of off road trails but the ones that there are are pretty decent, but you can drive four wheelers on major roads on Greece so it was perfect to get around. We went to the beaches which are all black sand and rock beaches because Santorini is on a volcano. With the exception of one of the beaches red rock. Now being from Utah we have some pretty impressive red rock mountains so I was a little more disappointed with it because of that. It just didn't seem red enough for me lol, but I am biased to Utahs red rock. 

I was very grateful that Andra's Dad invited me to join them in Santorini and I completely enjoyed every moment of it. 

From Santorini to the mainland we took a 9 hour overnight ferry then, our next step was Budapest! 

Milan is not for us "free spirits"

Milano 

I am getting increasingly worse at blogging and I am very sorry. So I am going to keep out short stays short and sweet so that I can at least get to everywhere that we have been and I can try and catch up on all my posts. 

Our final stop in Italy was Milan. We were only there for 1 night on your way to Italy. We stayed in the Milan Chinatown area, which was interesting but Milan is not a city for cheap backpackers and so we found the cheapest spot and stayed there. 

We took a train from Venice to Milan and right away coming into the train station Milan is impressive. The station was very beautiful and it has the most security I have seen in a train station. We went to see the cathedral which was with the trip to Milan by its self it really is a very impressive place. I never cease to be amazed by every cathedral that we see. Everyone is different and so uniquely beautiful, Milan's was no different.  

Of course when you are in Milan you have to do some shopping so that is exactly what we did. We walked around until we found an affordable place to shop, which in Milan takes a lot of walking around, but we managed and got some good finds. 

One thing that I did not really like about Milan is you really have to plan ahead in order to see the highlights there. Since no where else we have ever been in like this we didn't know and when we got there we realized if you wanted to go see The Last Supper painting we had to have tickets 2 weeks in advance the same with the Van Gough exhibit so we missed both of those things.

Since Milan is so expensive and we couldn't really afford to go out to eat there the food made us both a little sad cause we had fallen in love with Italian food. Even more since we had such amazing hosts who were great cooks, settling on our last night in Italy was disappointing. 

We had such an amazing time in Italy and were really sad to leave when it came time to do so. In the time that we were there I was able to pick up on enough Italian to get around and I am happy to say that I have retained it enough to watch an Italian movie and understand it. The more time I spend in other countries learning different languages the more I wish I could stay somewhere long enough to become fluent, but I will just have to practice in my own time 😃

Our next stop was heading back to Greece to see Andra's Dad and Sister 

The bridges in Venice

 For Venice we had hosts, so technically we were in Veneto which is about an hour train ride into the heart of Venice. Our hosts in Veneto were amazing people. We drank wine together talked and learned so much Italian that it is now messing with my Spanish since they are so similar, but I could not be happier to have learned as much as I did. Our hosts had children in Canada who were doing workaway as well so they had a little different perspective on it. They really were amazingly sweet people and I am so happy that we had the opportunity to stay with them. One thing that I have learned from staying in smaller towns in Europe is that small town courtesy isn't exclusive in the US, everyone is so much nicer in small town than big cities so it's nice to stay in small towns cause everyone wants to show you more of the culture, and one of my favorite things about Italians is even if you don't speak the language and they don't speak English they still want to talk to you get to know you as much as possible and invite you in for a drink or food, it is so sweet to meet people who want to talk to you so bad. It makes me want to know much more Italian. Needless to say I am very happy that we got to stay in Veneto with our amazing hosts. 

We decided to spend the Sunday that we were there in Venice. Let's just say Venice is made up entirely of bridge. After about half the day we decided to start counting all the bridges that we crossed, but the time we were on the train headed back to Veneto we counted 24, which was only about half of what we crossed. While we were there we saw the boats from a different perspective as well. We decided to take a gondola ride, cause when you are in Venice I feel like that is a must. It was very cool I was happy that our "captain" (I'll call it that cause I have no real clue) was one of the very few wearing the proper clothing, it made Andra and me both very happy. We did a little shopping and saw the port but honestly Andra and me bother were total scatter brains this day so we decided not to pay for tourist stuff cause we wouldn't be able to really focus on much of anything while we were in there anyways. So we went and saw the chapel since it was free, our main goal was to find carnival masks while we were there cause they are beautiful and Venice goes big for Carnival. 

Venice is such a totally unique place getting lost in Venice is one of the best things that we did. Just wondering the beautiful and unique streets is worth a visit here by its self.

Between our experiences in Veneto and the beauty of Venice this was a place that I will simply never forget. We only had one more stop left in Italy, Milano.