Prague and Budapest

Well, its apparent that I am not very good at writing about my European adventures. I apologize, I swear I'm having fun and educational adventures, I just have a bad habit of procrastinating blog posts, then by the time I begin to write, I have completely forgotten anything worth sharing. But here goes nothing...
Last week was our fall break, something I've never had before, as clearly not enough school districts believe in a midterm break during the year's most beautiful season! As much as I love Paris, I am a little tired of western Europe, so I decided to explore the unknown, and venture off into central Europe. My previous knowledge of Hungary and the Czech Republic was very limited, as is most people's i guess, and was backed by a few classes on the Holocaust and cold war. I also wanted to be less conventional and go somewhere I never thought I'd be able to, and I am so glad I did.
First of all, autumn is by FAR the best season. Heres what we get in Autumn: my birthday, halloween and thanksgiving. Obviously, these are the three best, and most important, days of the year. What I never got growing up in Northern California, was legitimate seasons, and with that comes the changing color of the trees, which was absolutely beautiful in Budapest and Prague. No matter what people tell you, Paris is a dirty city. It is a beautiful city, don't get me wrong, but there is no getting rid of the grim and wear the city has accumulated, and I swear the whole sewage in the streets problem was never really fixed.  Budapest was practically empty, the usual 500 million tourists I am used to in Paris were m.i.a in Budapest, and I liked it. I was fascinated by Budapest's history, for such a small country, they've had an intense history. There is so much damage still visible from the second world war, their 1956 revolution, and the cold war. Unfortunately for me, the Hungarian diet is basically all meat, and really heavily fried stuff too. But their fried dough with sugar cakes were delicious, I think I had one every day I was there.
While in Budapest we took advantage of the free walking tours provided, and went on a general sight seeing one, a specialized jewish tour, and a communist history tour. But even after days of walking around the relatively small city, I wasn't ready to leave Buda or Pest. But I promised myself I would return someday soon!
Our adventure to Prague was a difficult one, we boarded the 8pm night train which was scheduled to arrive at 4:30am. good idea, right? well, after a restless night, who actually can fall asleep on a train?! we finally arrived in Prague, at 4am. We scrambled to get all our stuff together and hop off the train before it continued on its way to Berlin and Warsaw. But then, it was 4am and we were in a train station in a country where we didn't speak a word of the native language and couldn't check into our hostel until 10am. Those were the longest six hours of my life, I can remember trying to name all the Pixar full length films, I was sure there were 13, and we couldn't for the life of us remember the last one. (my bad, I just looked it up and there are only 12 including Cars 2 which we weren't even counting). We then went to list off our top five favorite films. I don't have a definite list but I can assure you that Back to the Future, Big, Beetlejuice and Rear Window are somewhere on there. After all this thought provoking listing going on, it was only 5am and we had another five hours to go. Needless to say, it didn't get much better. The highlight was probably sitting in a 24-7 cafe with a very limited menu, and drinking a milkshake while watching "eighties at 8" and 90's music videos at nine. Finally it was time to check in, and as soon as we paid for our room, we passed out. Two hours later we were up and ready to experience Prague!
For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to visit The Czech Republic: Prague looks like a fairy tale kingdom. The castle on the hill, the Charles Bridge, the clock tower, it is all so OLD and beautiful. The building our hostel was in was built in the 14th century, no big deal just older than the country I was born in. We had an excellent three hour tour of the city, hitting all the major sites and then the next two days were spent exploring on our own, visiting the communist museum and the Mucha museum. Honestly, a week spent anywhere is not enough time. I could have been in both Hungary and Czech Republic for a month and still want more. But atlas, duty calls and I was forced onto an airplane to Paris, woe is me. Now I am back in Paris for another six weeks, which is daunting to think about, as I am so ready to see everything and everyone I left behind, but I don't think I will ever be ready to say goodbye to Paris. Also, I am really not looking forward to returning to normal school life and having to be stuck in Santa Cruz, as much as I love it. But who knows, I will be back, maybe for an extended period of time again, maybe not. Now I just have to try to soak up everything Paris has to offer for the next six weeks, being here for four months was not nearly enough time even though it seems like forever.