Happy belated Halloween!

Two weekends ago IES had a trip to Dresden. I originally wasn’t signed up for it, but one of the girls who was ended up spending the weekend with her parents, so I was able to slip in.

Dresden is the capital of the Free State of Saxony. It’s located near the Czech boarder, about 1.5-2 hours south of Berlin by train, which is how we got there. Our Dresden schedule was pretty much to have tons of free time to explore the city and see it’s incredibly large collection of collections. So many museums and such around.

Every October since 2004, Berlin has had this crazy idea to light up a bunch of it’s famous monuments for a week or two. It’s called the Festival of Lights and I was lucky enough to be here when it happened!
Berlin lights up about 70 different monuments around the city, including the Brandenburger Tor, the Fernsehturm, and the Berlin Cathedral. One Thursday a few of us went out to see the sights. Being that there are around 70 sites, it’s easy to say we didn’t get to every single one, but we got to the main ones plus some others, so I think it was a good night.

We arrived in Krakow early. Around 7am. We were tired, some not so well rested, but still excited. I mean, we were in Poland. How could you not be excited about it? We were up early enough to see the sunrise from the train. The day started off with breakfast and a walking tour of the city. It was nice to not be on a bus for once in order to get a tour. Bus tours get old quick.

The train to Budapest was no problem, in fact I barely remember being on it. Maybe I fell asleep. That’s highly likely. I love sleeping and we were up and moving by 8am. We arrived in Budapest at about 1pm.
I immediately felt the shock that I did when I traveled over the summer: I was yet again in a country in which I knew almost none of the language. It’s thrilling, but also a little scary. This time around it wasn’t as intimidating because we were in a group with a guide.

We met early in the morning to begin our travels around Europe. We had to be at the airport by about 6:30 am, which, naturally we weren’t. Here’s an important tip to remember: Alt Tegel U-Bahn station is not the same as the Tegel Airport. You need to take a bus to get to the airport. I made that mistake, but fixed it quickly enough. It’s ridiculous that I even made the mistake in the first place because we were told a few times not to got there, so I clearly wasn’t listening. Some weren’t as lucky as I was and just barely made it to the group in time.

Well, it’s not technically Halloween anymore, but it’s All Saints’ Day, which is much more significant in Europe. It means a day off of school! Halloween is celebrated here, but not nearly as much as it is in the United States. It has been growing in popularity over the past decade though. Last night, I saw both kids and adults in costume, and it really reminded me of home.

Come Sunday, I’ll be embarking on two full weeks of travel. I’m spending the first week with my entire IES group in Paris, and the second week will be split between London and Budapest with friends.

As thrilled as I am to explore these new cities, I can help but think about how much I’m going to miss Berlin during my short time away. Over the past couple months, this city has become a home to me. It’s certainly a different sort of home than how I regard my “real” home (Indianapolis!), but still a home, none-the-less.

After our odyssey from Munich last month, Louisa and I returned to Siena groggy and exhausted. Our legs led us down Banca di Sopra, trudging in a traveler’s stupor. As we clambered into the Piazza I realized how odd it was that we had yet to run into someone we knew. As I began to air this observation to Louisa, she exclaimed “Hey, look it’s Billy!” This is what I love about Siena. A trio for lunch morphs into a table for six. A moment by the fountain transforms into a group nap in the piazza. Friends are everywhere.

Welcome back! Here is part 2 of my Golden Week Adventures. Happy Valley is really the only other major place that I went during the break. The rest of my week consisted of lots of sleeping/eating/relaxing; really taking in the time to soak in the city (or that’s what I’d like to believe haha). Now onto Happy Valley:

The Park