Budie, Budie, Budie, Budie, rockin everywhere.

Hey y'all!

So, Budapest.

First things first, the purple team had YET ANOTHER loss on Wednesday. our record is 1-6-1. And now we are to the playoffs. Needless to say, I think this week will be the last for the purple team. It was still a blast and one of the things I will miss the most about Rome.

Now to Budapest. We got in on Thursday night, and I first had to exchange my money, 59 euros, for 13,000 forints. That was cool. Soft currency= cheap stuff! We had a cab ride to our hotel because it is absolutely impossible to figure out Budapest's public transportation by looking on wikitravel. Try it. I dare you. But the cab wasn't that expensive, and it was a lady cab driver! She was funny. I asked her how to say thank you, and she giggled when I said it to her. We were in love.

Our hotel was actually an apartment with a kitchen and balcony! va bene!

On Friday we did the typical Budapest thing and went to the baths. It was an experience. After first successfully getting there on the metro, we had a lovely view of a plethora (this word is in my vocabulary solely because of Aaron) of completely naked, fat, and hairy 80 year old men. The baths were interesting. There were warm and cold ones, people making out, old people, young people. We didn't stay for long, and Dana and Alex wanted to take advantage of the cheap massages, so while they did that, Manak and I went to the swimming pool. They had a neato pool that had jets so it flung you in a circle. I know it sounds dangerous, and it was, but it was fun.

After the baths, we set out exploring Budapest. We went to a few bakeries, some shops, and finally to the Market Hall. They had a two story market with tons of vendors of all sorts of foods and knick knacks. It was cool. I bought a "secret box" and I'm pretty content with it. I also had goulash (completely different from the Minnesotan goulash that I know) and potatoes! My friends all say they don't know how I don't have diabetes because I get a baked good at every store we stop at, not to mention I eat tons of all foods. God must really love me. (In other news, I've lost 3 kgs!) Don't be jealous.

We made use of our kitchen on Friday night by stopping at the grocery store and making our own dinner. We made spaghetti with the most disgusting sauce I've ever had. Dana picked it. Thanks to Alex (who I called Xandra for most of this trip) we had good cheese bread from the bakery. It wasn't a total loss. It was a good night.

On Saturday we got up and watched some America's next top model dubbed in Hungarian. It was so funny. Then we set out to find what Xandra had been raving about the whole weekend, the Chain Bridge. Not a huge disappointment, but not spectacular. oh! I should have mentioned. For those of you who don't know, Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest. Pest is more business-y and Buda is more old-world, hilly and nice. So our hotel was in Pest. And our first glimpse of Buda was from the chain bridge. Buda was by far better than pest. We took the stairs to the top of a large hill. Xandra wanted to take the elevator, but I persisted. We will all have amazingly sculpted behinds when we return.

Buda was cool. It had older buildings, and it felt more european. I liked it a lot. After Buda, we wasted some time at the market until we had to go to the train station to leave.

At the train station, we first had to FIND our train. Uffda. After finding it, we thought we were in the 2nd class part. It was nice! Too nice I guess, because we got kicked out and sent to the REAL second class part. Enter your image of scary Eastern Europe. Not THAT bad, but parts of that second class looked like a Holocaust train. A cute old Hungarian lady let me and Alex sit by her, and her daughter told us where to get off. I love them.

At the airport I heard from 3 hungarians about the Polish plain- incident. Big news there. I wasn't particularly interested at the time.

Hungary was a success. Today Dana and Anna and I went to IKEA! It was a blast. Looks exactly like Ikea twin cities. I got a hotdog and a cinnamon roll. (it took me three tries to spell that: role? roal? rowl?? Italian everywhere is getting to me).

I'm going to get the most out of Rome in these last three weeks. (less than actually!) I miss you all and I can't wait to be home. I really really really want to go to Applebees, so somebody get on that. Thanks.

Shout out to Mary L DeMaria, hottest lady ever!

Love you all

My London, London bridge

Aloha famiglia!

Two weekends ago I went to London! It was a fine trip. I got my first passport stamp!

We stayed at the Green Man Inn, on the upper west side. Leave it to Dana to pick this murder-site of a hotel. It ended up being fine, but I still peed a little when we first saw it. London was fun. The first night we went to Harrod's which is huuuuge. And waay expensive. On Saturday, we were going to go to a free tour of the city, but the english one was canceled so we ended up going to a tour given in Spanish, by our tour guide Juan Carlos ("como el rey de Espana!") He was a funny guy. We did all of the sights on saturday, as we had an early morning flight on sunday. It was fun.

On wednesday we had calcio again, and purple lost, again. I heard a rumor that the purple team is done, so I'm pretty sad about that.

On Thursday I departed for Greeeeece!!
Amazing.

First we had a 4 hour bus from Rome to the port city Ancona. After that we boarded the worst cruise ship EVER. A 14 hour ship from Italy to Greece. Oh joy. I slept on the floor and listened to bros and douchebags holler all night. Once in Greece we still had a 2 hour ferry ride to Corfu, AND another 1 hour bus ride, but after it all, it was sooo worth it.

The first day in Greece, Friday, we rented ATVs and drove up the coast! It was scary to say the least, going up narrow mountain roads, and with other Grecian traffic. We went to a small town called P-something or other. It was so cool! They had three different beaches in the one small town! On the way back to the Pink Palace (where I stayed), we stopped at a random bakery on the side of the road for some baklava and other Greek sweets. It was amazing. The owner asked me if I was related to Al Capone when he found out we were from Chicago.

Friday night was the Pink Palace Toga Partay! We wore STD-ridden togas to the resort's night club. They had fire dancing, plate smashing (one on my head!) and Ouzo drinking. It was a fun night.

On Saturday we rented Kayaks and went exploring on the Ionian sea. We ended up going to a secluded beach and laying around. On the way back I had Dana and I channel our inner Pocahontas to row faster against the waves. At one point when the Ionian was getting a bit frisky with her waves, I slapped the sea with my paddle and said "Bad girl!" This ended up screwing me over because I ended the day with a HORRIBLE sunburn, and spent saturday night and sunday recovering in bed. Oh well. I still had a blast and it was an amazing trip.

Sleeping on the floor of the cruise ship with sunburn was no treat last night, but I did it.

Always nice to be back in Rome after a long weekend away.
Budapest on Thursday!

Ciao ladies.