It’s my birthday week…
On Tuesday, Flora and I grabbed lunch at the canteen, which was a quesadilla but poorly executed. I can confirm that one of the first things I will be doing back in the US is going out for a proper Mexican restaurant with chips and salsa and a big margarita! After lunch, we met up with our friend Charlotte to plan this weekend’s excursion…. which is Croatia! We are going to take the bus on Friday and come back on Monday since it is a holiday weekend. After planning, Flora went to class, and I started mentally preparing for my presentation in my Hungarian Language Class. The whole class did presentations on their countries (mine was on my state since the US is too big) and we could only speak in Hungarian. I was the 2nd to go, and I was so relieved for it to be over, and my professor only corrected my pronunciation once! I am going to link the presentation below if anyone wants to check it out! I called Izzy later that night to discuss some final details for our trip to Italy in May!
On Wednesday, I went to my Literature class where we are discussing some Robert Frost pieces. After lunch in the canteen, Flora and I spent the rest of the day sunbathing in the park. It has consistently been in the 70s this week and we are not complaining about the great weather. I went out to Bakelit without Flora, but I was meeting up with our Italian girlies! We had so much fun catching up (it has been a few weeks with everyone traveling to different places). They left earlier in the night, so I visited with some of the Spanish girls and some of the French people. We got a group picture in front of the bar (see below)
On Thursday, Flora and I walked down to the center to grab some lemonades after our lunch in the canteen. I came back to get ready for class early, and Flora ran some last-minute errands in the center. After class, Flora and I went to ALDI for sandwich making materials and some snacks for the park this weekend.
At midnight, Flora hopped up and gave me my birthday gift! She got me 3 square donuts from my favorite donut shop and a photo of us from Vienna. It was so cute, and I felt so much love from someone I have only known for two months! After our little celebration, we slept in and packed to leave for Croatia. We left Friday afternoon on the train to Budapest with our friend Charlotte joining us! After arriving in Budapest, we picked up some chimney cakes (a Hungarian specialty) and walked to the bus station. We had a four hour bus ride to Zagreb, and we got in late enough that we opted to go straight to the hostel check-in and sleep! Throughout the day, I was reminded by how special it is that even though I am turning 22 in another country I am surrounded by people that I have grown close to over the last few months. I wanted to thank everyone that sent birthday wishes from across the pond on here too!
Saturday morning we woke-up early and headed to the Plitvicka lakes park. We spent the whole day out hiking and even enjoyed a little cruise on one of the lakes. I think a joke could be made - a French, Bulgarian, and American packed sandwiches, one with cured hams, one with horse sausage, and one with peanut butter (I’ll let you pick which you think is whose). The entire place was absolutely magical and if Croatia is not on our bucket list of places it definitely should be! We had packed snacks for our hike so we picnicked at the halfway mark of our hike. We traveled back to the city and grabbed dinner in upper Zagreb and reflected on our very long day of being out in nature. We did decide that our nature escape for the weekend was a great surprise compared to city getaways.
We slept in on Sunday morning, and enjoyed a slower paced day. We walked around the city searching for some breakfast, since it was Easter weekend there were not many shops open. However, we did find a place for coffee and cake. After breakfast, we stopped in a church that was singing in English and worshipped on Easter morning. It was unbelievable celebrating my favorite holiday in another country around so many strangers, but still feeling so connected. We continued wandering the streets of Zagreb for a while, before deciding to go over to a park in town. After grabbing some delicious ice cream, we spent a few hours walking around looking at lots of turtles and ducks and just enjoying the park. We got towards the end or our loop, and found a zoo! The tickets were only 4 euros, so we impulsively decided to go through the zoo. We saw all kinds of animals, and I was able to tell them about llamas, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, and bison (ears up!). We ended our day with some dinner and went and bought our souvenirs from a very cute shop. We grabbed ice cream and sat outside to people watch before calling it a night.
On Monday, we traveled back to Budapest in the morning feeling a little say to be leaving. Charlotte’s family is planning on buying a holiday house in Croatia, so we have all decided our first get together post college will be back to Croatia! Meanwhile, we arrived back in Budapest and went and found some brunch. After a few hours, we decided on a train and started our trek back to Debrecen. The weekend was such a nice break to enjoy the outdoors, but reality is closing in with less than a month of classes left!
