Milan, Budapest and Madrid

For our third and final travel week my three best girlfriends from my kollegium and I went to Milan, Budapest and Madrid.  Kind of random places to go but we picked based on the flight prices (one was less than 8 euros - hard to pass up)

Day One:

Our flight to Milan left early in the morning so we all met bright (actually still dark) and early to catch the bus to the airport together.  At one point during the flight we looked out the window and saw this...

Just flying over the Swiss Alps

We got into Milan in the early afternoon and spent about an hour or so trying to find our hostel.  We had to take a bus and a metro and then walk.  Gotta love public transportation though

We tend to get lost a lot

When we finally got to our hostel (soaked from the rain and exhausted from all the traveling) we were greeted with a welcome drink.  Obviously, being in Italy, we all got a glass of red wine and signed into the hostel which was great.  I think it's rated one of the best hostels in Europe.  We paid a little more than we did in the other cities to stay there but I think it was definitely worth it in the end.  Each morning we got a free breakfast of eggs, yogurt, cereal, etc. and at night if we bought a drink at their bar (for about 4 euros) we could help ourselves to their dinner buffet.  It was usually homemade pasta and salad which was great.

Anne, Gaby and Sasha enjoying our welcome drink.

We were all starving so we went to the nearest grocery and picked up some snacks (a baguette, mozzarella and pesto - very European of us) and ate it in the "living room" area of our hostel.  Then we relaxed for a little before getting the dinner buffet and resting up for the night.

Day Two:

For our first full day in Milan we began by walking around the Duomo, a very large cathedral and pretty much the only touristy thing to do in Milan.  It was gorgeous both on the inside and the outside but it seems like all cathedrals in Europe are.  

The outside of the Duomo

A woman who I thought was praying but was actually reading a tour book

Milan isn't the biggest touristy city there is, so after visiting the Duomo we just wandered around for a little bit.  Then we wandered around a little bit more before getting our daily snack of mozzarella, baguettes and pesto.  Our nightly routine was pretty much the same every night and we weren't very busy at all in Milan but it was nice to have a different type of touristy experience.  We felt very European just sitting and talking and sipping wine without having anywhere to be or anything to do.  

Day Three:

We started out our third and final day in Milan by heading over to the main square and finding a bull that is supposedly a good luck charm if you spin around on it.  

Spinning around on the bull

Afterwards we went to the big fashion street because Milan is such a fashion capital but of course none of us could afford anything there.  After hitting up an outlet store or two we found a grocery store and stocked up on our nightly snacks, had some of our dinner buffet and went to bed before our early flight the next morning.

Dusk in Milan

Day Four:

Our alarms went off around 4 AM for our flight to Budapest.  It was rough waking up so early but I'm so so glad that we had a full day in Budapest; it was definitely one of my favorite cities that I've visited in Europe so far.  We arrived in Budapest before 10 AM and made it to our hostel (via a bus and metro) sometime before noon.  [By the way, the currency in Budapest is hilarious.  1,000 Hungarian forint is equal to about 4.5 US dollars.  So I was spending thousands of forints left and right and felt like a millionaire but was really spending less than $10.  It was unreal and so fun.]  We only had two days in Budapest so even though we were all exhausted we decided to take advantage of how early we landed by exploring the city a little bit.  Budapest is actually two separate cities connected by a couple big bridges - one side is Buda and the other is Pest.  Our hostel was located on the Pest side so we spent most of the first time exploring that area.  

Exploring Pest

Pest in the foreground - Buda in the background

One of the big bridges connecting Buda and Pest

Anne's twin brother has a friend who's studying abroad in Budapest so he met up with us after our little self-guided tour and showed us a few more monuments and a castle that was gorgeous all lit up at night.

That night Anne's friend Andrew took us to a "ruins bar".  It was really unique I don't even know how to describe it really.  It was super casual with a lot of really cool and random accessories and lights all over the place.  

A picture of the bar that I found online

Day Five:

One of the things that we were most looking forward to in Budapest were the famous baths.  We spent most of Tuesday there.  They had a bunch of hot swimming pools and thermals and saunas.  For about 20 dollars we got a couple hours in the baths and a 20 minute massage (I think that was our first massage for all of us).  I'm so glad we got the chance to do that - it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.

One of the outdoor swimming pools

A thermal - it was almost too hot in there

After we finally dragged ourselves out of the baths and got to see Parliament lit up at night.

Parliament in Budapest

Then we met up with Anne's friend again for a traditional Hungarian dinner.  We ordered a lot of their famous goulash soup and veal tarragon soup.  Between 7 people we split a bunch of orders and the bill turned out to be 750 forint (about 3 bucks) which was great.  

Day Six:

Our flight for Madrid took off around 4, so we had one more morning left to spend in Budapest.  Sasha Jordan and I woke up relatively early and went to the market.  I'm really glad we did - it was a lot of traditional Hungarian food on the ground floor and little souvenir stands on the top floor.  I spent the rest of my forint and then we went back to the hostel to get a train to the airport.

Hungarian market

I'm pretty sure this flight was the one that cost 8 euros and it soon became clear why.  We got to the "gate" which was a tent with a concrete floor and a couple overhead heaters.  And the flight was delayed an hour or so but they never told us this.  They just had us waiting in this cold concrete tent without any information for an hour.  Then we finally boarded the plane and there was no room for anyone's carry on suitcases in the overhead compartments.  So they were shoving suitcases under people's seats and mine got literally kicked into a very tiny space behind the back row of seats.  And throughout the entire flight they tried to sell us everything from calendars to lottery tickets.  But we made it to Madrid safe and sound.  We took a cab to our hostel and all just fell asleep immediately.

Our room wasn't exactly the biggest

Day Seven:

We started our time in Madrid by meeting up with a bunch of our friends from America who are studying abroad there.  They took us to a "fast food" type place that served tapas which is a very Spanish thing.  We all ordered a bunch of little dishes and shared everything.  Our friends took us to do some sight seeing and saw a giant church, palace and the market.

Church

Palace

Traditional (and delicious) paella at the market

After leaving the market we went back and hung out at the hostel for a little before going out later that night.

Day Eight:

This was our last day in Madrid and we started it by going back to the market and actually eating there (we were too full of tapas the day before to eat anything).  We got paella and a really good mango smoothie and our friend Merry got this unbelievably fresh mozzarella.  I've never had anything like it.  It tasted like whipped cream and mozzarella combined - it was weirdly fluffy but so good.  After we left the market we walked over to a really big park area that also has some museums.  The rain held off and it was a really really pretty and huge green area.

We eventually made our way back to our hostel and got ready to go out for the night.  We went to the most famous club in Madrid.  It's seven stories and each story has a different theme to it.  For example, the second floor was karaoke and the third floor was hip hop themed.  It was a lot of fun but because we had such an early flight we ended up just not sleeping and going straight to the airport afterwards.  We got on our flight and made it back to Copenhagen safe and sound.

And now we have less than a month left here before we all go home.  Definitely a lot of mixed emotions but it's been an unbelievable experience so far - so lucky to have had so much time to travel during my time here.