Vienna!
In Vienna Katie, Jen, Lisa and I met up with Gwen and explored the wonderful city and its amazing architecture such as:
Out of all of the cities that I visited, Vienna was the prettiest in terms of architecture and it had some amazing museums that we went in. We went to the Modern Art museum one of the first days we were there which was having a special exhibit on Gustav Klimt. In case you don't recognize the name, he painted "The Kiss" which wasn't actually in the museum that we visited (it was somewhere else in the city) but we were able to see more of his paintings including:
At one point in the museum we came across a few paintings of Wolfgang Lake which (as I mentioned before) we went to in Salzburg. The paintings didn't quite capture the beauty of the lake, but they were amazing nonetheless and therefore I took a picture:
I really liked this museum because it wasn't the typical art museum with Raphael, Da Vinci, etc. but at the same time it wasn't a strange modern art museum with a red dot in the middle of a white canvas that is supposed to represent the struggle that people went through during the Cold War and would sell for 67 million dollars (come on people...I could do that-and that's saying something). However, there was a strange part of the museum because outside of it there were stands that sold tickets (or something similar) but looked like some sort of alien things:
At another point in our trip through Vienna we went to the palace and saw the crown jewels. Apparently these jewels are the most beautiful in Europe, and I could definitely see that. We saw a lot of cool jewelry and even the tusk of a narwhal, but one of the coolest things in the museum was a crown that was about a thousand years old:
Oh history...how I love thee! And of course in the gift shop Jen and I had to pose as Ludwig and Ludwisa...well...because we're royalty...duh
While all of those things were amazing, one of the best parts of our trip to Vienna was our trip to the:
Yes...that is correct...the FREUD MUSEUM! As we were all Clarkies at this point (actually the only city where the only people there were Clarkies...well...besides Bratislava) we had to visit the museum of our famous psychologist. We learned about Freud's cocaine addiction, the fact that when he went to Clark the only person he met that he liked was a professor from Harvard, and many other Freudian things. The coolest part of the museum was seeing Freud's actual diploma from Clark:
And also seeing a picture of Freud with G. Stanley Hall (the president of Clark) and Jung, another famous psychologist:
When we saw both of the above things, we (of course) freaked out and it made the entire trip to the museum worth it (ooh and I bought a pen). Anyway, on the last day we were in Vienna we went to gardens in front of yet another palace and wandered around for a while (and of course got our picture taken):
And after that it was time for Gwen and I to split off from the rest of the group and head off to...
Budapest!
Budapest was definitely one of my favorite cities, and not just because of the 200-1 exchange rate (but that did help). Everything was so cheap there and while there was a certain dirtiness to the city, it was also very beautiful. We met Greg at the hostel and so had a group of three, a perfect number to explore the city. We were only there for a couple of days, but we still managed to see a lot of the city on the Pest side (where the hostel was and most of the shopping areas) and the Buda side (where the history was). One of the first things we saw in the city was a beautiful church that was almost all red, green, and gold on the inside:
As soon as we walked in, we were serenaded by a choir who just sang one song, but their voices filled the entire church-wonderful acoustics. Oh and we also saw a preserved hand...no big deal. Anyway, it was a wonderful church and I was very glad that we went in (and then bought postcards afterwards). The next day we explored the Buda side which involved walking across a bridge:
While we were walking on the bridge a girl next to us randomly turned around and asked me "do I know you?". It turned out that we both went to the Harvard Summer School program 5 years ago and somehow she remembered me. It was the weirdest experience that has ever happened to me, and just goes to show what a small world it is. Anyway, we then split off from her and walked around the top of Buda where we saw the gate to the palace:
And had some wonderful views of Parliament across the river:
After that we decided that we wanted to go to a spa (because Budapest is famous for them) so we traveled back across the river to Pest and went swimming! We spent most of our time in the main pool, the saunas and steam rooms, and mineral baths which all felt amazing and only cost about 15 dollars (a ton of forints) to do! It was one of the best decisions I've made on this trip:
The next day Greg and I split off from Gwen and continued on the rest of our trip...the trip was almost over which was really sad...but at the same time I knew that by the time it ended it would be the perfect time to go back to the UK. And there ends part 4.
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