Romania and Budapest

This past Friday I went on a class trip to the Buda Castle in Budapest. We spent the beginning of the day going through parts of the museum seeing old Hungarian alters from the 1300s. Unfortunately there was no photography allowed but the condition they were in was amazing. It looked as if some had been painted 10 years ago and they ranged from ones that could fit in your living room to ones that could only fit in a cathedral.



The Buda Castle itself is not that old according to Hungarian standards. The museum used to be a palace when the Turkish ruled over Hungary. Walking around the cobble stone streets on top of the hill that is the Buda Castle, you could see many buildings with large bullet holes in the stone or cement from the wars that have taken place in Hungary. It acts as a constant reminder to the people of what they and their country have gone through in the past and some of their stories are amazing.




Getting through Budapest was a bit interesting as you had to stop and pull over every so often as police officers cleared the streets for NATO officials to rush past for the meeting taking place that day.







Saturday morning, bright and early at 5am, I went on a hiking trip with the school to Transylvania. It wasn't the best ride over as I knew absolutely no one else on the trip. After the first two hours of hiking people who could speak a bit of English started to speak with me though. I have a little trouble continuing a conversation in Hungarian still.







Throughout the weekend we went to 5 caves, climbed 4 mountains and rock jumped through 3 or 4 rivers. The first day I even amazed myself with my ability to pick up rock climbing. When you're faced with a 40-foot drop and nothing to hold on to but a chain or metal rope, you'll learn fast. There were a few times my not-so-tall stature just wouldn't cut it to reach each foothold and I had to either lower or raise myself using all upperbody strength and letting my feet slide along the rock.









Though I had a blast, I would be lying if I said I never had a "what am I doing?!" moment. (And I love that kind of stuff!) There were plenty of long falls and very narrow, wet rock ledges to shimmy across over a cliff. I wish I could show you some of the awesome cliffs and ledges we had to climb up or down, but I was more focused on not falling than taking pictures!