So, its been a solid week since my last update, and for that I apologize. I don't want to say I've been "work busy", but I have been busy. Between the different trips, outings, and homework (yes it is still substantial), its become increasingly difficult to find time to reflect on everything. But I'll always make it my goal to catch up on everything I missed.
After Saturday at Hallstatt and the toboggan ride, I was afraid that was going to be hard to beat. And for that weekend, my fears were realized. The Eagle's Nest wasn't as interesting as I had hoped. I mean, I'm the concept was cool to think about, and the documentation center at the base of the mountain displayed mountains of information about Hitler, yet the way our group was presented to everything was not as I had expected. The first thing we did was drive an hour to the base of the Ubersalzbuerg, which is the name of the entire base-like area of hills that surround the Eagle's Nest. On these grounds were dozens of other buildings serving purposes like barrack, tea house, tactical center, cafeterias, etc. It was a sort of pseudo base for Hitler's disposable activities. The Eagle's Nest was the high point of the base located on a mountain tip named after him with a magnificent view of the tallest alps, as the mountain itself is apart of them.
Before we went up to the Nest, we spent 2 long hours walking around the Documentation Center, a museum about everything Hitler and Nazi, while we held little red audio players to our ears, with about 85 different stations of information. We would walk through the center and press the appropriate number for the exhibit we were looking at. It took way to long to get through, but once we got down to the actual bunker, things were more interesting. Talking later in our history class, we discussed how the center was purposefully designed starting a window covered room and slowly working our way down into the darkness of the broken cement bunker, and how that affects our perception. That was cool to think about.
The trip up to the Nest consisted of a bus ride to a large walking tunnel that went deep into the mountain about 200m below the Nest. All 22 of us then boarded an old, brass elevator that took us up to the Nest. Once there we realized the whole place had been turned into a restaurant! The only thing we could really view was the exterior, and walk around the top of the mountain. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVED climbing up and down the different rock passages. It resembled the top of the Haystack actually.
Monday was a full day, kinda of. I had class from 8:30 until 1. After that, Erin, Ranchel, Avery, and I (Nick had class), hiked up the Kapunsenburg, a small mountain right next to the center. Took us about 3 minutes. We passed a gorgeous villa on the way, and when we got to the top, we found a castle. Go figure right? We were really stoked when we saw it because it was sort of hidden in the tress and kind of creeped up on us. Once we explored a little, took a few pictures, and made our way to the other side…. lo and behold, a restaurant. It was still really cool though. Guess thats what they do with they're old building here. The date on the castle was 1500 something.
Monday night was Rosemary's birthday, needless to say, the entire group went out to our so far favorite Irish pub, O'Malley's, and followed that up with a great dancing place. It was a great night. Pictures say the rest.
Tuesday was an ordinary day of classes and hw from 8 until 10:30 (pm) or so. Not much to say there.
Wednesday was Munich. We left at 7, drove 2 hours, and spend the day touring the 1972 Olympic Park, and the BMW headquarters plant. Both were awesome. I was especially excited to see the track where Dave Wottle ran for a Gold in the 800 with his signature come from behind kicks, and where Pre lost to that Norwegian guy.
The BMW plant was incredible. The lobby made us all feel like we were in a space craft. I have never seen a place so high tech in my life. There was small little game exhibits having to do with the technology of their cars, such as a game where you extract hydrogen from water through electrolysis. The tour of the actual plant was almost scary. All I could think about was the movie Terminator, the machines had taken over! Our guide told us the entire plant, that puts our 800 BMW 3 series a day, is 97% automated. It was insane to see the millions of dollars worth of robot arms that seemed to move like humans, picking up and really throwing around the doors, chassis of the largest luxury car maker in the world. No pictures allowed though, can't steal any of their trade secrets!
Thursday was another normal class day. I get to sleep in on thursday until about 10. The schedule switches everyday for the three classes. The time slots are 8:30-10:30, 11-1, and 2-5.
Friday we left for Budapest, Hungary. It was really exciting to head to an eastern European country I knew nothing about. Our history teacher offered this trip as a connection to our class through the Terror House in Budapest, depicting the fear through the cold war. It was very interesting, but yet again, too much information at once, with not a whole lot of background. The house itself had been used by the Nazi's and then the Soviets as a headquarters for Hungary, and place of interrogation and execution.
Nick, Rachel, Brent, Avery, Jacob, and I shared a hostel in downtown Budapest. This was our first hostel experience. It was pretty cool. The place was on the third floor of a classic building downtown, near the river. (Not that the floor's in Europe go 0,1,2,3,etc. The first night we tried to check into the second floor (1,2), which was a private apartment. Once we found it, the hostel manager, a young hippie ish guy showed us the whole place and told us about the city. Greg was his name, or so we think. He was a weird fellow, to say the least. Both nights we were there, we had two new people in the two extra beds, both were older couples that didn't talk to us at all, boring. But we did meet a couple guys from Boston, and then two guys from Sweden (Whitney's homeland!) and Norway (Lars' homeland!).
Friday evening, we all ate dinner at this place along a cobblestone street eating at an outside table. We had traditional Hungarian food, which was delicious! They serve a lot of paprika, and goulash. The food and the atmosphere was fantastic. It was sunny and warm the whole weekend. My family- if you guys remember the irish place we ate at in Spain across the street from the cathedral, this was similar. After dinner we walked across a famous bridge there, and up a mountain through a jungle-like trail to the top to see a huge greek-looking monument with epic statues of men beating up dragons, and an elegant woman holding some religious relic out. From the top was the best view of a city yet on this trip. When back down we found a gelato stand, then spent the night dancing at a jazz club near our hostel call Fat Mo's dancing to a live funk band! That city really turned on around 10 pm, it seemed like every person under the age of 30 came outside at that time.
Saturday we all met up to see the Terror House with Dr. K and the Eifler's and Dr. Bailey (the Scottish ethics prof). After the tour, we all split off for lunch, some market time, and then the Thermal Baths! There are over 50 thermal springs in Hungary, and the largest 5 are in Budapest and are utilized as public thermal baths. We spent a few hours wading around the sulfur deposit heated pools. They looked the same as a resort swimming pool, but were heated like hot tubs with the natural heat deposits.
That night we ate dinner at the same place, haha but all ordered different meals (expect Nick). We then search around for a long time trying to find this roof top bar place we had heard about…and after an hour of walking and navigating, we found it. At the top, we ran into some English guys at the beginning of their bachelor party. This was one of the best parts of the trip so far. We spent a good two or three hours talking to these guys. I have never had so much fun talking about sports, politics, and general shooting the shit was people before. They were hilarious, more than willing to talk and hangout, and just generally awesome people. The accents helped. I talked to two guys named Andy and Woody mostly. It was awesome.
After wards, we went back to Fat Mo's again for another hour of dancing, then went to bed back at the hostel. The hostel cost each of us about 16 euro total for both nights, including breakfast. It was a really cool place. Oh! That's the other part of Hungary I wanted to talk about, the money. One US dollar is equal to about 230 Forins. When we got cash out, we would withdraw about 20,000 of this currency. So it was fun trying to calculate that in our heads to figure out prices. The best way for us to get around was the subway. The system was very similar to London's underground, and was the 2nd built in the world, after London.
Sunday morning (this morning), we woke up, and headed to the train station for our 9am train. We were all talking about how crazy it is that 48 hours ago, we were intimidated, and knew nothing of this country, and now we feel like we cold navigate Budapest like we lived there. Another thing that has been on my mind is how I have begun to really miss home. I have been basically fine thus far, but this weekend for whatever reason, I am missing my mom, her cooking, dad and Lauren a lot right now, and don't even get me started on Whitney. It is fantastic to travel with friends and have this much fun, but sometimes you just want to share these huge experiences with your closest. The train ride is almost 6 hours back. I'm back on it now, with 5 to go. Time to catch up on some sleep.
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It's now 5:30 and I am back in the dorm. I am just now realizing that we really don't have any down time here at the program it seems like, and I didn't realize how much I need it. Better go get some. Adios.
