Europe Day 21 - Part Five

It was a bit dismal when we left the Vatican, but  not too bad.

We wandered Saint Peter’s Square for a bit, which is a circle by the by.

End of Day 21 (about time)!

Europe Day 21 - Part Four

So I think I mentioned, but we went to the Vatican for the Sistine Chapel, kind of a must. All the other things are bonuses.

Beyond not realizing how huge the Vatican Museum is in general, there were a lot of painted ceilings I was totally unaware of. To be honest though, partly due to the fact that we knew we didn’t have a lot of time and that we were unprepared for the vastness, we were hitting processing overload. So we wanted to get to the ceiling before were just like “Okay yay another pretty thing.”

That is not it.

But it was on the way there, and I really liked that hallway.

Sistine Chapel! Finally!

Europe Day 21 - Part Three

The Vatican, STILL.

Today will be a bunch of statues! (Then ceilings, then a castle to end the day)

You can see a bit in the background, the transition from Egypt to Greece 8D

Bring on the marble!

Europe Day 21 - Part Two

The Vatican! OMG!

I took a lot of pics, so this is mostly pics and not commentary. Also, it’s just some of the pics 8D

I loved the Egyptian section. We have a very fine Egyptian museum local to me, the Rosicrucian Museum, and I loooove going there. Still, I’ve been many times, so it was lovely to see new things :D

Pics!

Europe Day 21 - Part One

I’ve been avoiding this post! Because we went a lot of places. It’s gotta be split up!

So! After we woke up in the morning, it didn’t smell so bad with the window open all night. But it was super cold :/

I took a super fast shower and off we went! During our post midnight jaunt to get *to* the hostel we’d passed a cafe, so we went there for breakfast. We just had to point at things ‘cause yeah, I don’t know any Italian. I mean, I could have tried my hand with Latin but… can’t think of a way to order orange juice like that 8D;; Actually, we did have orange juice! ‘Cause on the counter there was this thing… and they juice the oranges RIGHT THEN. IT WAS SO GOOD.

Europe Day 20

Oh man, this day. Leaving Budapest day.

Well, we started it by eating or throwing out all the leftovers, and we had a semi early start because checkout was at 12:30, and we wanted to walk around Not With Our Backpacks. I don’t remember if I’d mentioned, but based on e-mail we’d been under the impression that we could leave our backpacks there the entire day, sadly not so. Anyway, the door bell rings. I think for some reason the guy must be WAY early… obviously I am not thinking, ‘cause I open the door. And. It’s not him. It was a handy man who needed access to the balcony to take some measurements, ‘cause he was working next door or something. I thought, well we’re eating, we’re there, it’s just some measurements, I guess that’s okay.

So he takes the measurements, then comes back and tries to explain More Things. In Hungarian. I’m just like “This cannot end well.” Well, I just called the person who was supposed to meet us for the key exchange, and had him talk to the handyman. And he said just let him do whatever he needs to do. But… somehow he didn’t convey to the handyman himself that we were leaving, and it was fine to just.. do whatever. So this poor guy, he’s getting frustrated I have no idea what he’s talking about. Eventually he got us to follow him downstairs to talk to the apartment manager, who speaks English. I told him we were leaving, and gave him the guys phone number, the manager said that was fine, he’ll just explain it again with the new people… so we left. It was just very weird, and sounds super short here, but it was quite a bit of time and the poor handyman was all frustrated, and I was getting flustered ‘cause I thought the phone call settled the whole matter.

ANYWAY.
I’m sure it worked out in the end.

We went to the Great Market.



It was pretty great!

Europe Day 19

This was chill day! In hindsight, I’d rather have swapped this day w/ Monday. But that was poor planning/research on my part, and general schedule constraints.

Anyway, since we fell asleep before we got the new Who episode, we watched it over breakfast. And that was very exciting! Watching Who *in* Europe! So it wasn’t live ON TV exciting, but it was still something :D

So Jey had to leave at one to catch a flight back to Dusseldorf, it had just worked out better for her that way because of lack of direct flights back to Ramstein. And we only had one key so… we just chilled in the apartment, and at one said our sad goodbyes and parted ways ;_;

After that, E & I went to the Great Market! Which was actually very close to Vaci street (I think I did mention, there was a lot of retracing our steps!).

Well it’s closed on Sundays...

Europe Day 18 part Two

So after visiting the Parliament building, we headed to that castle we’d seen on the way back from the bath house the day before.

While we were walking there we passed a restaurant called Sir Lancelot, which was themed and looked like fun, so we decided to have dinner there after the castle :D

View Larger Map

It was sort of awesome we passed the restaurant at all, since we were just meandering from the one place to the other, and it’s on a pretty small, non-busy street.

The rest of the day!

Europe Day 18 part One

Saturday! After breakfast times we started the day by going to Vaci Street, which is basically a shopping street, but was recommended to us by Jey’s coworker. Also souvenir getting is generally a good thing.

We passed a cool, old looking church near there on our way to Elizabeth Bridge.

Lots of pics!

Europe Day 16 pt two & Day 17

Alright! So we took a train from Bratislava, Slovakia, to Budapest, Hungary.

We walked from the train station to the apartment we rented through airbnb and waited there for my sister, who had flown in the same day. So she met us in front, and we were buzzed in by the owner’s father, who was meeting us because the owner was out of town (hence renting the apartment!). The elevator… was broken. So with our backpacks (getting heavier by the day ;_;) we trekked up 7 flights. I started thinking about just abandoning my backpack and buying new things as I went… but we did make it! And of course, he showed us a working elevator (wish he’s told us that on the intercomm…).

So after getting everything sorted, we dumped the bags and went in search of a grocery store for breakfast things.

We passed this! My sewy heart went pitter patter. Closed for the night, I meant to go back but actually never did.

End day 16, bring on day 17!