Spring Break 2016

My spring break in Europe was only ten days, but it felt like two months.  We wanted to experience as much as we could so we woke up early, walked all day and went to bed when we couldn’t stand any longer. 

            It started with celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland.  Staying here for the holiday gave us one less day to travel around mainland Europe, but we knew we couldn’t say no to the chance to celebrate the most famous Irish holiday in Ireland.  The weather was also amazing.  The sun was shinning bright with only a few, couple minute rain showers throughout the day.  We chose to go to the bigger of the two towns we are located between, so that we could see the larger of the two parades.  The parade lasted for nearly an hour.  The sidewalks were overflowing onto the road for as far down the road as you could see.  Everyone was excited and enjoying the holiday.  After the parade we walked around the streets where street artists were playing different kinds of instruments.

            The following day a group of four of us (Carly, Kellie, Zayne and I) hopped onto a plane and headed to Budapest, Hungary.  Budapest had amazing history and a lost of character.   The currency that Hungary uses is very different from our US dollar.  The exchange rate for US dollar to Hungarian Forint is about 1: 274.  An average meal would cost us between 2,000 and 2,500.  This was nearly as hard to get used to as looking in your wallet and finding a 1,000 forint bill.  One of the highlights of our stay in Budapest was the Terror House.  This building was the headquarters for Hungary when they joined the Axis powers.  The top floors of the building were where the highest ranking officers were housed.  After touring the top floors they take you into the basement where Jewish people were housed and tortured.  Standing in the rooms where these things happened made us all sick to our stomachs.  After this we decided we deserved to relax so we went to the Szecngs to do, the city was beautiful and I could have spent a few more days there just walking the streets.  My favorite activity we did in Vienna was visiting the catacombs under St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  In one room alone is estimated to have nearly 10,000 human skeletons.  The experience cannot be put into words.

            Much too soon, spring break was over and we headed back to Ireland.  When we got back here we only had one month left.  Time is flying by now.