Budapest

On the 22nd of June, our last international trip took place. We couldn't have chosen any other destination, the city was amaizing as well as the time spent over there. The chosen ones were the same guys that in the trip to Krakow, Jose, Pau, Dastis, Marcos and a server. We flew in the afternoon, something that we weren't used to, but we didn't have many problems, just a delay of one hour with our aircraft. Once we get to the capital of Hungary, we withdrawn florines from the ATM, if I told you that we took out around 25000 florines you could think that we are rich, but if you have a look at the exchange you will understand me and my team for sure ;). On our way to the hostel we had to take a metro, a bus and a tram but we were lucky to meet a britain guy who help us a lot. If you ever see this blog I want to say you thanks ;).

As we were walking about, we realized that the city was completely different to the cities we were used to visit (the most of them from the Baltic or from Scandinavia). It looked like a spanish city, full of people walking around, gipsys trying to read your hand, people selling cds, and, unfortunatelly, like in Spain, poorness.

The recepcionist of the hostel gave us a warm welcome. We filled out some papers and we got our room. As we arrived quite late to the hostel, we didn't have too much time to walk around and visit monuments and places, so, we asked the girl for filling the map with the most characteristic places to visit and we procrastinate our tour for tomorrow. 

What we didn't miss was the acquisition of alcohol for our first "botellón". I know it seemed a dream, but some dreams can come true, as it did. We were allowed to drink on the public, in a centric square around 20 minutes far away walk from our place.

Before hanging out, we went to get dinner. We went to a bar that one of my friend from Granada (from my degree) recommended me (thanks J. Antonio Enríquez García). The bar in question was called "Fricci Papa", and, just as example, I ate chicken fillet with potatoes, plus a pint of beer, plus bread and plus a shot and I paid something like 5.50 euros. It was the paradaise, but unfortunatelly for us, we would get never inside again (because it was closed the next days).

 

Once we were full we went back to the hostel and we took the bottles with us. It was friday night and the square was completely crowded. We met some people and went to what was one of the best clubs that I've been during my Erasmus. It was huge, with several rooms and 2 or 3 floors. You could buy a glass filled with coke, inside this glass there was a smaller glass filled with gigamaister, and everytime you tried to drink coke, inevitably, you had to drink gigamaister, what a torture...

For being the first night, we came back in a separate order and at different hours, trying to measure who was the best party guy. The first to come back was Dastis, after that it was my turn, after my turn was Jose and Pau turn and finally, Marcos delighted us coming back around 10 a.m.

The next morning was hard, especially if you have a guy in your crew who is trying to wake you up in order to go in a sightseeing...  

Next morning, when we got to wake up, we split up the group because we didn't want to miss the entrance to the parlament (the 3rd biggest in the world and one of the more astonishing that you can see in Budapest). So, Pau, Marcos and I left the hotel around 12 a.m. We had a long way until the parlament, so we took the metro. Once we got there, it was a long queue, and when we asked for the entrance they just had German and French lenguage left. We chose French language and the tour started at 3.15 p.m. 

In the meantime we walked about until we arrived to the Chain's bridge. It was huge and imposing, and the best of all was the walk that we had from the parlament to the Chain's bridge, where we bordered the Danubio. 

From the Chain's bridge we took the tram until we reached the Central Market. It was a huge place and as you can imagine, it was full of different products, the most of them for eating. They also had a lot of jewelry and gifts. We got the lunch there. They had a wide variety of food and all of the menus were really tasted, even though they were expensive as well. I have to mention that we got the lunch with our buddies Dastis and Jose, the ones that we left in the hostel ;).

  As we were in a hurry, we left the place quickly in order to arrive on time to the guided tour through the parlament. It was really beautiful inside, the shame was that we didn't understand very well the explanations from the guide...

Once we were done with the tour, we arrived to the hostel as zombies (we were completely exhausted). We had a really comforting nap and we got everything ready to go out this night again and, the most important thing, we got ready to watch the game Spain v.s France. We felt really patriotic supporting our team out of our country ;).

In order to watch the game, we went to a big square, where a big screen was set. We arrived about one hour in advance to take some seats even though in the end it was almost impossible, because it was really crowded. In the end we managed to find some free seats and we watched the game without any problem. We enjoyed a lot watching the game together and seeing how our team was closer to make history.

 

With Spain in semi finals, we came back to the hostel and we grabbed some bottles to celebrate the victory of our team and the fact that this night was saturday ;). As we were drinking in the park, we met some spanish guys and we joined them to go to the Drinking Island, Clubs Island or whatever you want to call it. It was impressive. An island full of amazing clubs. We got into one which had a pool and a jacuzzi, it was incredible, and we got some fresh baths over there ;). In order to get back to our place, we took a taxi. The driver was a funny american guy, who told us some stories and even allowed me to lift my head out of the car, like in a movie of American Pie. I have to say that in our way back, we were Dastis, Jose and I, we lost Pau and Marcos on the way. When we got off of the car, incredibly we found Pau and Marcos just in front of us in the street. That night we came back to sleep together ;).

Next morning was a little harder to wake up, due to mainly, the accumulated tiredness. But as it was our last day in Budapest, we had to make an effort. We left the hostel for lunch around 2 p.m and we were walking about until we found a new cuisine place...I have to say that the food tasted good, but the size was not as we expected (especially after coming from Fricci Papa). Once we recharged our energies, we bought the drinks for this night, we left it at the hostel and we got ready to go.

This evening we were going to visit the Buda Palace and the Fishermen's Bastion which were in Buda. I take advantage of this moment to explain to those who don't know anything about Budapest that its name comes because it is separated into two different places. Buda and Pest are independents of each other, and they are separated by the river Danubio.

We reached Buda Palace through a bus, because it was far away from our place. As we were approaching to our destination, we started to see really amazing views (Buda Palace was on a hill). Buda Palace was the name of the zone, but there were more buildings over there. As we were kinda in a rush, we couldn't cover the whole place, but we went to the better places that we could. Once we finished with the Buda Palace, we moved to the Fishermen's Bastion, which for me and for the rest of my team, was more beautiful and impressive. Over there you could enjoy magnificient views from almost the whole Pest part. We were facing the parlament and the river Danubio. I think it is a waste of time to keep describing what could you see from there, or how did you feel over there, so, I am going to attach some pictures to allow you solve all these doubts ;).

As I said before we were in a rush, and it was because we had a booking in Széchenyi, or, if you prefer, in the best spa of Budapest. It was marvelous to enjoy of a couple of hours of relax, after 3 days partying and tourism. We paid around 12 euros and we stayed there 2 hours, but you can pay the same and stay there the whole day. We didn't do that because we didn't have enough time. The spa is supossed to be better in winter, when you are under 15 degrees outside but around 35 inside, even though it was a really relaxing experience. The spa was huge. They had two big pools and some saunas in the underground close to the showers. One of the pool was interesting because it made like an eddy, and once you got into the pool, the current was carrying you. I am going to attach some pictures (as usual) and two videos as well, in order to let you guys enjoy kinda as we did ;).

After the relaxing bath, we came back to the hostel to get ready for our last night. It was another incredible night, as the two that we lived before. We finished in the same club (it couldn't be otherwise) and we enjoyed the night a lot. 

I would like to post a video which summarizes and reflects about our last trip and about our Erasmus Experience. I take advantage of this post to say, that a year ago today, the best trip of my life started. I will never forget anyone that I met during my whole year, I will never forget any trip that I took, I will never forget any experience that I lived...

I will never forget ERASMUS IN LINKÖPING!!

Trip to Krakow

On the 28th of March, some chosen ones went to, just to say something remarkable, the city which has the biggest medieval square, Krakow. Those guys were Pau, Dastis, Marcos, Jose, and a server. In the flight were more spanish people, but we five were in a different (and I am sorry) better hostel. I cannot say to much about the other guys, because from my point of view, I met them in this trip; even though I have to admit that after this trip a really loyal friendship was forged ;). 

When we landed at the airport, we were received with 2 beautiful hostess and with a mini orchestra that was playing this amazing song:

After many problems with the money, we managed to get into the bus and our trip started. The hostel, though small, was very welcoming, and later on, we found out that the owner, was such a strange guy with some kind of magic powers that allowed him to be awake the 3 nights we spent over there without resting that all...

As soon as we left the lugages and got ready, we left the place in order to take a free tour. The tour started in the main square (the one that I talked about above) and it covered mainly the whole city center. This enterprise has these kind of tours all over Europe. You are not obliged to pay them even though you can give them some tips in the end. That basically how it works. 

In the main square there was a tower, and at the top of this tower, there is a trumpeter. He plays the same song every day during the whole year. 

This city, apart from the Nazi's invasion, has a lot of story. They preserve a lot of old buildings from the Medieval Age. We moved to a big park beside the city center and from there, going under an arch, we return to the city center again. 

The walk continued until we arrived to another park, which had a building where the Pope "Juan Pablo 2nd" usually stopped by when he went to Krakow. Unfortunatelly, some people gave up with the tour because "they were tired"...

 

The tour finished in a huge castle over a hill. There was a wall and in a corner the wall turned in a darker colour. This was due to the amount of times that it was touched by people, and it was touched by people because the wall was supposed to give to the one who touched it, some kind of "chakra" (Long live to Naruto). We came down from the hill and we said goodbye to the tour guide in front of the last "cultural" theme from this day, the dragon's statue. P.S: It threw fire every 5 minutes.

 

Once the tour was done we looked for a place to eat, and we found a really good typical Polish one. We got back to the hostel in order to get the strength back with a nap and after buying some drinks we let the night start. Of course, even we were in Krakow or wherever, we could not miss the Barça's game. We went to a really awesome place. It was lively in the Medieval Era. You could ask for a dish called "the knight's feast" or something like that, and it was basically a really long table where you were eating and the where offering like Medieval food in its own style. Of course, we did not ask for this dish because it was supposed to be for 15 people. But, we went to a really wide place, where they set up a projector screem and if it wasn't because Barça didn't win, it would have been the best game in my life. Here you have some pics of the food, it was not the kinght's feast, but it was really tasty and it was worthy as well.

We played some really awesome games to get warm such as "Fish and Bottle", "Looking fixedly to the wall while you drink" and so on...

This night the city center was not too much crowded, even though we got a really good time. 

Due to some complaints from the members of the crew I am not allowed to write another post just to describe the night. I will just say that someone got an unforgettable present for the rest of (here you have a clue) HIS life, someone lost his jacket with his camera and his flight ticket and after (like in The Hangover I) checking his pockets and finding out where was the place where we were this night, could get everything back, and also, we got some problems cleaning up the room...


On the second day it was a hard challenge to wake up, and even more after the problems that we found as I said above. Anyhow even I am still trying to realize how could we found the jacket, camera and so on, we finally got ready to start with our second day in Krakow. We plan to find out the timetables of Auswitch in the central station, and at the same time, get something for our breakfast/lunch. After that, we were supossed to go to another free tour, this time it will show us the Jewish neighborhood and the ghettos. As I am writing, that was the plan, but some of my visionary friends decided that it was a matter of life or death to go to buy the alcohol for the night once we finish our lunch, go back to the hostel, and go to the meeting point. As you can imagine, they were still drunk, so the group (I don't count myself on it), decided to do that, and, the result was that we arrived late to the meeting point, and, of course, no one was there waiting for us...
We tried to reach the Jewish neighborhood by ourselves, and we achieved that, but once we were there, we didn't know, what exactly we should have a look at, and where exactly we should we go. After walking around without any sense we found one of these tour guides around the city (in this case around the Jewish neighborhood) by car. After negotiating with the guy we got a really good price and we took this tour. The translation to spanish was not the best, the car was not a Mercedes, but we manage to have a good time and more or less understand everything. We covered the whole Jewish neighborhood and finally, we stopped by the Guetto. 

Thanks to the guy and his instructions, we had a walk around the Guetto and we could arrive as well at the Schindler's factory. Unfortunatelly, we couldn't get inside because they were closing, so we just took some pictures at the entrance, but at least, we can say that we were there ;). In our way back the fate wanted to show us that during the whole-by-ourselves-tour we were really closed to the real tour. After a few minutes walking, we found the people lead by the free tour girl. We took advantage of this fortuitous meet and we heard the girl talking about the piece of wall that still remained showing where the Guetto was.

With the tour done, and with the legs tired we needed a beer. We came back to the city center and we were moving from different bars in order to try to find the best one. There was a really cool one but it was completely full, so we couldn't stay. In the end, we found some place which was like a cave. We tried to get a 5 litters tub of beer, but after many discussions, we didn't get it. Jose and Dastis came back to the hostel and Pau, Marcos and I went to a different place. This one appeared on the list that the guy of our first free tour gave us. I don't remember the name, but it was like a mix between the 60s and 90s of the URSS. The place was really good set and lively. In the basement they were playing music and the place of the musician was a van. There was a van inside the bar, yes. Unfortunatelly I don't have pictures to show you from this place, but if you have the chance to go to Krakow, you should stop by.


After grabing some beers and chill in different places, it was time to get dinner. We found a really good pizzeria. It could be something like "Il Gondoliere" in Granada. Really good lively, good treatment and, the half of the price compared with the place in Granada, but it didn't mean that the size of the pizza was the half than the one that you can get in Granada...

After being completely full, we returned to the hostel, took a shower and got ready to start another Krakowian night. We stayed in the room drinking and playing some amazing games like the ones that I described above. It was a rainy night, but it didn't stop us. The whole spanish group was splitted and I finished with Pau and Marcos in the club that more times we visited there, "Carpe Diem 2". It was not too much crowded, and that's why Pau and I decided to leave and as we couldn't find Marcos, we left without him. We were working around the main square, trying to find a better place to stay over. After the search, the fate wanted us to meet the rest of the spanish group, and we finished all together in the same club (whose name I don't remember).

Next morning, with more or less troubles, we woke up relatively early in the morning in order to visit the concentration camps "Auswitch" and "Birkenau". The camps were far away from Krakow city, but they were even further by train. It seemed it was going at the same speed than a pedestrian...After the tedious trip, we arrived to our destination on time. From the central station we asked for a taxi and we arrived to our first stop, Auswitch. It was impressive before getting inside the amount of people who were waiting over there. People from every corner around the world. As we wanted to understand everything properly without any doubt, we took the guided tour in Spanish. Once we started with the tour, the first thing that we saw was the entrance to the concentration camp, with the next expression "Arbeit match frei", which comes from the German and means something like "Work makes free"...

When you see this just in the very beginning, you can imagine what kind of things are waiting for you inside... We were walking around to the concentration camp, the leader was explaining to us the meaning of the different building that you could see over there as well as any kind of data that you could find when you got inside the buildings. I don't want to be an encyclopedia, and furthermore nowadays anyone can go to wikipedia and find some good things over there. I would attach some pictures instead, and I would say that when you are in these kind of places, you can realise what really matters and what does not in your life. Sometimes we are overwhelmed with problems that we think are the worst that could have happened to us, but when you see how the world has been suffering, or the ideas that some people have had as the time went by you can get a completely different idea of your world's perspective. Although it can be very impressive and some people finish this tour almost shocked I would really advise you to come here if you have the chance.

The next and the last stop was the biggest concentration camp over there, Birkenau. Unlike Auswitch, where the main point was to keep people working, in this camp, the main point was the extermination. They had the railway stopping by the gas chambers. They didn't want to waste time transporting prisioners, so they decided to spend as minimum time as they can killing people. If the first camp was impresive, I would say that this one was even more. It was huge, and they had 2 or 3 gas chambers which were able to kill thousands of people per day. We got inside to the places were the prisioners slept. The had to slept 3 or 4 in the same "bed", if it can be called bed...It was a piece of wood, like a door...When it was raining, as they didn't have any floor, the ground became mud. It was impressive to me, but the most was the punishment that they had for them...There was one which was called "the room of being stand up". They enclose 4 people in a square of one square meter. After 12 hours of work, they had to "sleep" in this one square meter, all together. Try to imagine the situation...4 people in one square meter, the whole night stand up, after having been 12 hours working... 

As I did before, I am going to attach some pictures, and I don't need to tell you again what you feel when you are in these kind of places.

Once again, as we did the last days, we came back to the hostel and we got ready to let the dogs out. I do not know if I am going to have any complaint or claim (as it happens in bars), but, as far as I am the guy who is writting this blog, I thing I have enough permissions to attach this video. This goes for you all, grandmotherfuckers.

P.S: I'm sorry for the quality of the video, but I couldn't find a better way to upload it. Anyway, what really matters here is the audio, not the image ;)

Maybe it was just because it was our last night in Krakow and someone wanted to give us a present, but we arrived to a really awesome club. We were dancing, and breaking ourselves, as usual, and as usual, we had some problems, so we have to left the club sonner than expected, but in the end, everybody came back to Sweden alive. 

I hope you had enjoyed with this post. Sorry for the delay, but I have been quite busy sharing my love with the great people that I have met in Sweden as far as we were leaving the country forever, or, who knows, maybe we will come back again ;).

Before leaving, I want to make a remark. After this trip, and amazing and unforgettable bond emerged between a server and two girls, whose names are Belén & Águeda. I am sorry for not having met before, but as a great guy says, "Palace's things go slow". It was as well a help to the creation of the Wolf Pack, this group that too many joys and good times gave us during our last 2 months in Sweden.

Thanks you all for everything, we will keep in touch for sure. 

C u all in the next post, "Budapest".

Hugs and kisses for anyone who follows this blog ;)