Rome
Michael came to Bratislava to visit me on Thursday, November 8th and stayed for about a week. Rome is the one place in Europe that I was determined to visit during my time over here. I've always wanted to go, mainly to eat delicious Italian food (pistachio gelato), but also to see the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, etc. There's so much history in Rome & so much that I wanted to see, so I was thrilled that Michael and I got to go together. We got into Rome late on Friday night, checked into our hotel which was beautiful & ate a late dinner at an Italian place a couple blocks from our hotel. I got an awesome gluten-free pizza, we split a bottle of wine & I was in love with Rome already. Saturday we got up relatively early and went down to the Vatican since everything would be closed on Sunday. We went on a guided tour, which I think was definitely the right call. We got to skip the line which was enormous, and I actually learned a lot about the history of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, & St. Peter's Basilica. Seeing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was incredible, we weren't allowed to talk or take pictures inside unfortunately, but it was really beautiful. After going all through the Vatican, we went over to Trevi Fountain, which I was most excited about! I made Michael flip a coin into the fountain with me, not sure if he was quite as excited as I was, but it was really cool & the fountain was even more impressive than I thought it would be. Afterward, we walked through the Pantheon & saw the end of mass inside. Saturday night we went to dinner & then a few bars in the going out area, but stayed at one for awhile to watch American football (typical), but we were both excited to see A&M beat Alabama!
Sunday we went to the Colosseum which Michael was super excited about (he loves Gladiator & made me watch it with him afterward), we did a walking tour through that as well. Afterward we did a tour of Palatine Hill, saw the forum & the few remnants of the Palace. Our tour guides on both were great, very energetic & knowledgeable It rained all day Sunday, but it was still really beautiful walking around Rome. We went around to the shopping streets Sunday afternoon & the Spanish steps. Sunday night we went to this restaurant called The Library & had pretty much the best meal ever. I'd heard about the restaurant before coming to Rome, and was really excited to try it. It's super small & has a very romantic atmosphere. We were served glasses of champagne upon arrival & had a really great meal. On Monday we only had a little bit of time to walk around before we had to get to the airport to come back to Bratislava. Even the Rome airport served gluten-free pasta, so I was loving that. Michael left on Wednesday afternoon so I got to show him around Bratislava a little bit, we saw Skyfall, the new James Bond movie, and I made him try some traditional Slovak food like halusky & goulash. I know he was excited to return to Tex-Mex/American food when he got back!
Outside the Vatican
By Trevi Fountain
The Colosseum
Istanbul
The next weekend, Lu & I went to Istanbul for a 3 day weekend, I know, lot's of vacation from work! We had talked about going to Istanbul since I first came over & had heard really great things about the city. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I was still very surprised! Istanbul is the farthest into Eastern Europe I've traveled & it's so incredibly different culturally from any other place I've been to. The city has a very religious feel to it & most of the residents are Muslim, so multiple times during the day during set prayer times, you'd hear music/prayer through speakers being projected all through the city & portions of sidewalks/public areas would close for prayer. It was really eye opening just how different religion was. What Lu & I didn't realize was how much we were going to stick out both being tall, blonde haired/blue eyed Americans. Most people thought we were Dutch so we got spoken to a lot in German, but we definitely stood out. This happened to work to our advantage though as we got our metro tickets, meals & drinks paid for most of the time, we even got bumped up to first class on our Turkish Air flight so I won't complain! We decided that if we ever need an ego boost, we'll go back to Istanbul!
Three days was really the perfect amount of time to be there, we went through a lot of mosques, the Grand Bazaar & the Spice Bazaar in the main areas & walked/explored a lot the city. When we went into the mosques we had to wear head scarves & take our shoes off so that's why we have the scarves on in the picture below! The Grand Bazaar was like something out of a movie, it was so crowded you could barely move with vendors shouting out deals constantly and trying to get us to come into their store. I think they saw blonde Americans and thought they could rip us off! We met a really nice guy our first day in Istanbul who took it upon himself to show us the city & he helped us haggle in the Bazaar so that helped a lot. We also went to a really fun nightclub on Saturday & then went down by the Bosphorous bridge afterward which connects Europe & Asia for tea (yes, we were really drinking tea!) It was so beautiful down by the water at night with all the lights of the city, I highly recommend Istanbul as a place to visit, just prepare for a little bit of culture shock!
In the Blue Mosque
View from our hotel restaurant
In front of the Hagia Sophia
Prague
So November really has been the month of visitors! My brother David came to visit me for a little over a week, he got in on Thanksgiving which was nice for me to have family around since I couldn't go back to Austin. Instead of doing the normal Turkey American Thanksgiving, I took David out to a traditional Slovak duck dinner which consists of roasted duck, potato pancakes & braised cabbage. I think he really liked everything except the cabbage so I consider it successful! On Friday afternoon we got on a train to Prague, it was about a 3 1/2 hour ride so we got to spend lots of quality time together-mainly watching Big Love which I'm now addicted to. We got into Prague around 8:30, went to our hotel which was super nice & then went out to a traditional Czech bar. The bar we went to was crazy, we were trying to get food but they were only serving bar snacks so our dinner ended up being sausage, cheese & bread (for David). It was really packed, loud & everyone seems to bring their dogs to the bar with them in Prague? But nevertheless, we had a good time & David got to try out some of the local beer.
The next day we went to the main square to see the clock tower & meet up with our walking tour group. Our tour guide was Australian and did a really good job the entire 2 1/2 hours we were with him. We walked all around Prague, learned about the history & saw a lot of the landmarks. Afterward, David & I went on a mission to find Strahov Monastery & their famous brewery. It took us a little while to find it, but we managed to go by the palace on the way which was good. The brewery was really fun, pretty crazy that a monastery has a brewery! Afterward, we went back to Old Town & met up with our second tour group of the day for a ghost tour of Prague. This was something I was really excited about since I love ghost stories & Prague is one of the most haunted cities in the world. However, the tour itself was pretty corny so it wasn't quite what I expected, but I think David & I had a good time making fun of it so it all worked out. Afterward we headed to "The Pub" which is a bar in Prague that has the beer taps on the table so you pour out your own beer. They project how many liters each table has drank on a screen at the front of the bar so it's supposed to be a competition between tables. Needless to say, we had a great time & made new friends!
David & I by Charles Bridge
Old Town Square of Prague
David at the monastery brewery
Budapest
David & I headed out from Prague early on Sunday afternoon. We had a shuttle to drive us from Prague to Budapest which was super nice & saved us about 2 hours on a train. Sunday night we got on tripadvisor and found a great restaurant about 10 mins away from our hotel. We liked it so much we actually went back on Monday night if that tells you anything! After dinner we walked around beautiful Christmas markets that were open in the town center & just explored the city a little bit. Monday we joined another free walking tour and did a 2 1/2 hour tour through Budapest, crossing Chain Bridge to go into Buda. I found out when I first got to Bratislava that Budapest is actually two different cities-Buda & Pest, so there's a fun fact for you! The walking tour was great, we got a really good orientation to the city and got to see a lot of the landmarks.
Monday afternoon we went to the baths, which everyone told us we had to do. The baths are really famous in Hungary and are supposed to have healing powers, not sure if that part's true but we had a good time. The place we went had 3 different outdoor pools, and then 30 different pools/steam rooms/saunas inside the building. You're supposed to go into each for a set amount of time & they all are at different temperatures, have different scents, etc. It was a really cool experience & we got some good people watching in as well! Monday night we went to a Ruins Bar in the Jewish district of Budapest. We had heard about the place from one of David's friends & it was a very interesting and fun bar. There are a bunch of "Ruins Bars" in Budapest which are old abandoned buildings that were left to decay after World War II which have been converted into bars. They're really funky & artsy on the inside with all sorts of decorations on the walls and they play some crazy music videos to entertain as well. On Tuesday we walked to the Grand Market which is a huge indoor market full of stands to buy food, souvenirs etc. It was really cool to walk through, but we had to hurry to get on our train back to Bratislava. I was so glad David came to visit, hopefully he had a good time & enjoyed Bratislava (as well as Prague and Budapest!)
David & I in front of St. Stephen's
Loved this
At the Christmas markets in Budapest
Man at Work statue in Bratislava
So fun to read about your fun adventures! It looks like November was an amazing travelling month for you guys. Keep up the blogging, it's fun to read! :)
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