London is calling

Before starting  my work at the casino, I decided to make a little trip in October. Mr. Fashion suggested going to London and I quickly booked the tickets, being happy that I will be able to see a new city and new country!

I didn't want to stay in a hostel, so I texted my Dutch friend as I knew she had friends in London. She gave me contacts of her friend living in Southfields. I contacted her and was set to go.

My journey started with an early wake in the morning, flying to Skavsta airport and waiting there for six hours for my flight to Stansted airport. I forgot that they check passports more thoroughly if you're flying to Britain. But I passsed and I was on my way! I did have a little scare in the airport check as I had a laser pen and I completely forgot about it, so the security stopped me and had to scan my bag a few times till they found it. They let me keep it though.

I had to take a bus to London from Stansted. I reached Victoria station in the evening and I agreed to meet with my host at Leicester square. I checked the map, seemed not that far, started walking...after 15 minutes I realized I'm walking the wrong way. I guess it was because of the cars driving the different direction:it really turned off my orientation capabilities. But finally, I came to the spot being 30 minutes late. I met her roommate and then we took  two buses to their place, where I met another roommate, and since we were quite tired we all went to sleep.

I decided I have to see as much as I can, so I took the free tour of Royal London. The tour was amazing. The tour guide was very energetic and he shared a lot of fun and rich stories.During the tour he mentioned another tour - The Grimm Reaper tour. I just had to go there. After the tour I checked the map - I was next to Big Ben and the tour was supposed to start of the tour was next to Tower of London. So I had four hours before the start, I decided to wander around London through the little streets. And I did. The second tour was amazing - it was about Jack the Ripper and Victorian London. We walked around East End and after it was done I went to Bond street to meet my friend. I haven't seen her more than six months! So I was really excited to see her and since we haven't seen each other such a long time, I ended up spending the night in her place. So that's how I checked out Stratford as well.

Next day I decided I have to see Baker street, and I met my friend at King's Cross station. I couldn't leave without having my picture taken at 9 3/4 platform. I also saw my friend fulfill her life long dream of buying a wand. I have never seen anyone this happy. After that she went to work and I wandered around town for a little bit as my feet were screaming and I couldn't walk a lot. I met Mr. Bond and we walked around. I don't know why, but I couldn't feel my feet pain anymore. My brain also kind of malfunctioned again, but now at least I will always remember that the capital of Australia is Canberra. We had a great time, it was amazing to see him again.

I took my bus to the airport...and even if London wasn't that amazing as I thought it would be (I don't know what I was expecting - wizards on brooms?) I was sad to leave.

Tallinn aka I just want to FeelGood

I had to do an internship for my uni and I ended up spending three months in Tallinn. I thought it would be quite boring time, as I had some acquaintances there, but not friends and the job wasn't as interesting as I thought, not to mention I was the only intern there. I lived in Mustamae, quite away from center, but it seemed ok, like a little getaway when I wanted it. But soon I got bored. Seeing that I have free weekends and I might use some extra money, I decided to look for a job, maybe in a hostel I though. I sent out my CV to some of them and I got a reply from FeelGood hostel. It was quite odd when the owner agreed to meet and discuss details in Shooters as that was the most popular bar in town. But we met, we discussed and agreed to have a trial shift.

I came there quite unsure what I will find and how will I be greeted. But it turned out to be the best thing I could do. I was met at the door by Mr. Fashion, a guy full of charisma and self love and not to mention amazing style. He immediately took me as one of the group, and for that I am very grateful because if he wouldn't have, I wouldn't have had those all night long talks and I wouldn't have my best friend (or babes, or Black Swan) now. He was the one who made me realize that life is only bad when you allow it to pull you down and you should not let that happen. You should walk proud like the diva you are. He certainly was a diva and that was probably what attracted all the girls to him. Later he introduced me to Mr. French and oh boy, if you think about the typical arrogant, stubborn, excellent chef, with a very strong French accent, expert of wines, but damn cute and somehow lovable French person, you are right. It is him. Those two argued all the time like a married couple or sometimes seemed inseparable. Or maybe they were like brothers, you know: can't live with them, can't live without them. There were also two Estonian staff members, who were typical Estonians: blond, not very talkative, but smiling. Of course, there was our Ms. Manager, who was always down to business or party depending what time of the day/night it was. For a short while that was it, I still wasn't very open about myself, I was just hanging around and trying not to bug everyone too much. Later, more staff joined us. Here came the Australians: one was our staff member and the other was almost staff member as he booked for three nights and ended up staying for two months, and everybody was so used to having him around, it was weird to see him go. The parties turned up a notch when Mr. Army arrived. Now that guy was serious about parties and every day was a fun day if he was around.

I started being more open and trusting people. We would be going to Shooters, to Paar Veini, Studio.With a new staff member, our Don Juan from Mexico, my sister and her friend showed up to have a bit of fun with no supervision. I gave them freedom, we went to see Tallinn, we went to the Patarei Prison (which is very interesting and a must see), we ate elk soup in Draakon, we had a night in the hostel. We ended up having two nights in the hostel as they misread their bus ticket and didn't want to sleep at my place again (because it was very far away from the bus stop and it was super tiny and it didn't have the hostel people) they booked a night in the hostel. I ended up the only one of them sleeping in their booked bed as they were sitting in the common room all night. It was great of her to come here, but her small vacation ended and I had to put her and her friend on the bus (again) and watch them leave.

Patarei prison surgery room

Everything seemed to come into peace again: I would go to the internship at days, I would spend evenings with my friends at the hostel and I would go to sleep in my apartment at night. We would have our staff meetings and decide what do we want to do. I really wanted to do a pub crawl as I knew that there are more good bars than just Shooters. We started out in Shooters, then had a Flaming Jellyfish shot in a bar that was left from Soviet times (really great) then we had a stop at Wolf's Hunt and we proceeded to Noorus. The pub crawl was moving slowly and was quite boring...until the Australians arrived. We had a few shots at Noorus and went to Paar Veini. There we pushed over some tables together and if you know Paar Veini, you know you can get crazy chairs there, so when I saw the swivel chair, I just HAD to sit there. That's where I mostly talked with Mr. Bond (no, he wasn't in the movies, but following his life, he might end up playing Bond soon enough) who seemed like a person who can't really settle down. He metaphorically kicked me in the ass for not sightseeing as he saw more in three days than I have in one and a half month. He was charming, always kept talking, making me smile and laugh (I also made a fool of myself when I said I can speak German and couldn't remember how 3 was in German. Drei).

At this point I met another staff member who became a very good friend of mine. She was also the one I would end up talking to about everything, we had little talk nights, and she was the one who accompanied me to have my first tattoo done. She was also a little crazy like most of us. And she was always there if you need advice, a drink or just to talk everything out.

We had a little mishap with the system as one guest had a different name written, but everything turned out fine. It was a German girl who stayed in our hostel for a month. We became very good friends and roommates on the nights that I would be spending in the hostel. We would go out to party and boy, did we party. Every week we would have a staff party and the party would be so great that on Sunday evening we would still feel quite woozy and thinking that maybe we shouldn't have alcohol related activities next week. This notion would last until Monday night.

For a week I left my friends and went to have holidays with my parents in Hiiumaa. During this time a lot of staff left. But Don Juan was still here, and we had some addition: a Serbian guy, Slovenian girl, two Austrian girls, a German girl and the Polish 10th Doctor (seriously, he had the same hair and attitude). They fitted just right in. The Polish 10th Doctor and I (the companion) quickly became dorky friends always ready to geek out over movies and TV shows.

On the last day for my precious roommate staying in the hostel, something bad happened: her wallet got stolen. She had to call her embassy and make a travel pass quickly as she had a flight in the morning. Everything worked out.

During August, I was busy sightseeing, and Tallinn really had what to offer. As a lover of high places, my absolute must see was St. Olaf's church roof and the top of town hall. Then it was the panoramic places. On one of them I saw the sunrise. I explored museums, the KGB one was great, their stories are amazing. Tallinn has beautiful parks where you can go relax, read a book or just go spend time with someone. And the beaches... If there was sun, the staff and guests would end up playing volleyball in Strome beach. I learned the little streets so well, I could go back in the middle of the night (and we ended up doing that quite often). By the way, it wouldn't be a mistake to call Tallinn "Little Australia" as I have never met so many Aussies anywhere as I have met here. We even had a joke at our hostel, that the cycle of Aussies cannot be broken: when one checks out, another MUST check in.

The hostel always created a friendly atmosphere with its staff and events. We had dinners together, we played games, had movie nights. We talked, people opened up and usually people ended up staying for longer than they intended to. And that was great. The staff team really became like a family (with constantly changing members). The summer memories still put a smile on my face.

I tried to do my tasks quickly in my internship and I was eager to talk to interesting travelers at the hostel. August was different than June. I think everything there changed me, I became more open, more eager to explore and I wanted more experience, to see something more, something bigger, something grand. I started searching for something, maybe myself, maybe a goal, maybe a feeling, I can't really say what, but I guess I'll tell you when I find it.

I am very happy that I decided to go to Tallinn and to work in FeelGood Hostel. And yes, this long post is just a small portion of every experience in Tallinn. I have met many amazing people there, and don't you think I forgot any of them. I remember each person who made me smile and made me feel better. When I feel bad, I just remember the summer and those memories power me up with good energy to keep going, to keep searching. After all, as somebody said, "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end".

Some sun in Croatia

Usually students end up totally wasted on Spring Break.

We decided to use out Spring Break for travelling (and end up wasted in other countries, mwahahahaha. Ok, joking, we did NOT end up wasted). So again we met up at the train station (this time it was three Lithuanians and one Dutch) and started our travel. And the journey was quite loooong. We got to see the Balaton lake and at first we were excited, but after an hour we just wanted it to end. Also, we crossed the borders, had to change a train, had a customs check (which I hadn't had in YEARS), then we had to change to a bus as some of the tracks were flooded, then changed to a train again and finally we were there! We walked to our hostel, which was a bit creepy by the way, as our bunk beds didn't have ladders, so you had to skillfully climb on top (good luck going to the bathroom at night), there was a cross like sign on one of the walls and we actually couldn't get in as the doors were faulty and we locked ourselves out, so one of the girls climbed through this little space and opened from inside... We booked another hostel later.

Zagreb is a nice city, but I guess I would have liked it better if it wouldn't have been raining most of the time. We were going according to some guidebook that we took from the hostel and we actually seen a lot. We just went to one museum: the museum of Broken Relationships. That is really something. It's full of emotion, as it has a lot of stuff that people had as symbols from their relationships and then after the relationship ended they gave it to the museum with a few sentences about the love story. We also tried out a fish restaurant there, as Croatia is a country of fish. It was called a Fish and three dots (and no, I don't remember how it is in Croatian), but they were excellent, everything was well prepared and the waiters were really friendly.

We also wanted to see the seaside, so we took a bus to Lovran. During our trip we saw snow and we were a bit afraid that it might be colder than expected (it turned out to be quite warm). Our bus let us out in the center of Lovran and we called our hostel since they promised to pick us up. The minute we got off the bus a group of young students approached us and asked where's the nearest club. Um, hello? We have been here less than 5 minutes! We got a little worried when the hostel owner asked what kind of car we drive and accidentally hung up. We don't have a car! We started thinking scenarios how we are going to find the place when the owner called back and came to pick us up. He drove like crazy and finally when we were sure that we're about to hit something he stopped and let us out. His wife was waiting in the four bed apartment with a TV, balcony, kitchenette, shower, and you know what? We paid 13 euros each for night. It was the best bargain. The wife was surprised that we were four girls, because they were expecting a family. Oh well, we made a joke that me and the Dutch girl are the parents and chose the grand bed. We had a fantastic view from the balcony: we could see the sea, the palm trees and other cities across the bay. It was a bit funny accident with the TV as the owner said "I programmed it just for you" and it turned out to have mostly German channels and more that 10 porn channels. Maybe 20. Thanks.

We set out to have a walk in the morning and go to Opatija as well with a bus. Our hostel was 20 minutes away from the center so we walked along the roads which had palm trees. We went by the sea, enjoying the sun. When we took the bus we had no idea where we had to get off and also we had trouble understanding the tickets, but we reached Opatija where we also walked around and had lunch. The buildings in Opatija looked more expensive so we guessed it was more for upper class tourists while Lovran looked like a small friendly town welcoming everyone. It was so relaxing. We just sat on benches or on piers just looking at the sea. It was see-though, you could see every pebble on the bottom. In Opatija there was also a star walk with all famous Croatians. I didn't know everybody, but I was pretty excited to find Tesla's star. We couldn't leave before trying the cream cake. And oh dear...don't eat that on a full stomach. It's so good that you will hate yourself for finishing it. Oh and one more thing: people in Lovran, especially in tourist shops know how to speak Dutch. That was a bit of a surprise.

But our vacation came to an end and we got on a bus to Zagreb, spent the night there and next morning got on a bus to Budapest.

Austria and Slovakia

First of all, the planning of this trip was very fast. One night a few girls gathered at our place and we decided that hey, we don't have anything what to do on the weekend, let's go to a trip! We checked train prices, they seemed reasonable, booked our hostel in Vienna and agreed to meet on the morning of the trip.

It was a bit weird for us that a return ticket was cheaper than one way, but in the end it was for the best. We went to our train and we actually had our own little compartment, so some of us were trying to sleep, some of us were enjoying the view and some were listening to music or just lost in thoughts. We reached Slovakia, Bratislava to be exact and bought our tickets for Vienna to go there on the evening and since we had a fair amount of time, we checked out Bratislava (that was the plan after all). Bratislava actually looked quite...dead and empty. It looked like we were in an intro of a movie about a post-apocalyptic world. But soon we reached the old town and we saw people (yay!). We had a coffee and then we climbed to the castle. I can tell, I was expecting a bit more from the inside exhibition, but I guess not much was left after the fire. We also stopped at the info center where we asked a pretty receptionist what we should check out. We went into some church because "it ain't a trip if you didn't go into a church" as one girl said. Mostly we just walked around the old town. Before the train we decided to go to a bar and have a proper shot of traditional Slovakian drink. I am not kidding, we actually went into the bar and went sort of like Bender style: Hi, hello, excuse me, what is your cheapest, strongest, most national drink? Five of those, please.

In the evening we went for the train and headed to Vienna. There we bought a metro card for 24 hours and went to the center to find our hostel (we were staying in Hi Hostel, I recommend it for sure, we loved it!). After we unpacked out bags in our room (there was 5 of us, so we got a room just for us!) we decided to head back into town and look around and have a beer. We wandered the streets, had a curry sausage, had our beers and went back to the hostel. Next morning we checked out (tip: you don't need to take a towel, if you're sleeping in a hostel, you can just use the sheets, they wash them anyways after you use it), and went to the center. We went to Sisi museum (take the audio guide - totally worth it!), climbed st. Stephan's church tower (great view) and got stopped by awesomely dressed guys who were inviting us to a Mozart concert that night and asking us not to go. We practiced our German, which was not that bad actually. Of course, we couldn't leave Vienna without eating schnitzel and strudel, so we had a lunch stop and later a coffee-strudel stop right before our train back.

When we got to Bratislava again we saw that our train to Budapest was late. We had to wait two or three hours, can't remember for sure, so we bought some snacks for the ride, we took a group photo and finallyyyyy our train was there. I think the waiting made us a liiiittle bit crazy. Why do I say that? Well, we found a little room in the train again and...We put all of our drinks and snacks on the little table and then we heard something rattling. There was the sales person passing by: he just looked at our snack table, smiled and passed. And did we just let it slide? Well, guess who started shouting to the guy "Waaait! We would like to get some chocolate frogs, please!!". *raises hand* We also were hitting on every guy who happened to pass by, we put all our jackets on one of the seats and called the pile our imaginary friend "Jacket de Balaton" (try saying it as French as you can), we were singing, the Dutch girls knew a song about the train, we were walking through the train trying to rap and sing...It was mental. But it was hell of a fun. And I would do it again in a heart beat.

Exploring Hungary

During my Erasmus, Budapest was not the only city I saw in Hungary.

First trip we took was to Holloko (I might have misspelled that as Hungarian city names sometimes seem as somebody just threw random letters and named the city like that. I'm pretty sure the names mean something in Hungarian but when I don't speak that language, I'm just saying how it seems to me. No offence, Hungarians). But before we stopped in some natural museum which they called "another Pompeii" as some little volcano erupted and covered everything in that area. I'm not really sure as we got the shortened version of the tour (because of the whole group we were only 5 non-Hungarian speakers, so we didn't get a lot of attention from the tour guide. He would quickly explain what we can see and tell us that we can go "migrate" around). But it was still cool because we saw what animals existed before the eruption and we got to climb this little route over trees (we had safety lines of course). And Holloko was like a live Hungarian culture museum: the houses were like they used to be, we saw people in national Hungarian clothes, we ate langos. It was nice. And later we climbed to a castle from which you could see Slovakia.

Szentendre

This is a little town, very peaceful, very calm. We had a one afternoon trip. Mostly we just walked around, there's a marzipan museum, all year working Christmas museum and all these little shops and cafes. Just a small chill town.

Godollo

We just wanted to see that as Queen and empress Sisi (or Elizabeth or Erzsebet) was living there. We found not only her palace and a nice park around it, but also the World Peace Gong!

Esztergom

This city is completely on the border of Slovakia and Hungary, and yes, it has the biggest church, but I think mostly people go there to take pictures on the border and brag that they walked to Slovakia and back (like we did). Actually it was also just after my mentor's birthday so we had a little sit down with cake. (that's my mentor on the right in the picture!)

Bear zoo

The name basically says the point. But the cool thing is you can feed the bears with a huge spoon! You can feed them apples, they love honey...and you can see the little cubs as well! Adooorable! But if you're going there, prepare for a long walk from the train station and back. We did it in a quite hot day. Ouch.

What happens in Budapest...

Yes, I ended up spending four months in none other but Hungary, and not just any place in Hungary, but capital: Budapest. How did I choose this place? Well, it's in the middle of East Europe, so I thought I might as well travel during my Erasmus (and I did!) and I heard the wine is cheap there (and it is!).

My trip started as I and another girl (who had the same name as mine, by the way) started going by bus towards Budapest. Yes, we were going by bus and it took us around 24 hours to get there. I am very thankful for my roommate that she didn't end up yelling at me, because I wasn't very good company on the bus: I ended up sleeping most time. We arrived to the bus station where we got a taxi to our place. We had another girl living with us, she was from Belarus: a tiny girl, working in Budapest (she came to study and ended up living there), but she was really passionate about tidiness and health. Now I'm not such a tidy person, so we clashed there a little bit, but everything worked out fine. We lived in a quite cold apartment and on the ground floor so we didn't get much sunlight and we had a little hunch that our neighbors belonged in mafia because they were always discussing business and turn quiet every time we would walk by and only resume talking once we were inside our apartment. It was also a bit weird that everything that was on the ground floor (or first floor as we call it in my country, but apparently in Hungary like in some other countries the first floor is the ground floor and the second floor is the first floor and that would mix us up a lot) had bars on it.

We lived quite close to Oktogon (maybe 5-7minutes walking from it) and really close to Yellow line metro (which is the oldest metro in Budapest). We were studying in Budapest College of Communication and Business (BKF) where we found a different studying culture: students were laid back, didn't care if they're late to class and lecturers didn't really care as well. We had Macroeconomics, Market Research (this lecture seemed interesting at first, but it got soooo boring), Between East and West (turned out to be very interesting as we were discussing the differences between East and West Europe and how they appeared and whether Central Europe exists and where it is and what are its characteristics), Intercultural communication through Film (we had a guy who was a movie interpretation expert so he was practically leading the class together with the lecturer), Hungarian language (I really enjoyed learning it, but since I'm not using it anymore I remember just a few words. The lecturer was really fun, teaching us slowly but effectively) and Intercultural Business culture (here we got a lot of training how to deal with different cultures and nations).

Our Erasmus started out with a get to know weekend where we had some games and drinks and of course dances. Our group was not that big: around 30 international students from Netherlands (9 were from here, so yes, I got to know Dutch culture quite well), Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Turkey, Moldova, Bulgaria, and us from Lithuania. But there were also some people from Finland and of course a lot of people from Hungary (hey, it's their country). Next day we had a race all over Budapest to get to know it better. So we had these checkpoints and tasks, we split into teams and started going. We quickly checked most things but later we came back to check it again.

Now, if I would start talking about all the things that I visited and liked there, this post would be endless, so I will try to put my experience here as laconically as I can.

People: Hungarians are very friendly and quite laid back, don't get angry if they are late. Being there we learned that "on time" you can be late around 15min, but if it's a party you can be late two hours and nobody will get angry. I found great friends, not to mention my awesome roommate with whom I shared everything and I am thankful that she didn't run away from my weirdness. I became great friends with my mentor who has a lot of talent: she can draw, she quickly learns languages, she can cook, she makes great henna tattoos, she can craft things out of wood and not to mention that she is a very warm person and we still keep in touch. I found like-minded people with who we made Sherlock, Avengers nights (and those nights not only had good movies but also greaaaat food. And we said we WILL find out what happened in Budapest, but we failed in that mission. damn it!). And of course, I became friends with my Erasmus family, who were always around, with whom we celebrated birthdays and Easter. We had movie nights at our place, lots of home parties that I loved so much (because like I said, I'm not a club girl and in a home party you can actually have a conversation, drink and dance if you want to), and we traveled together (next posts are about trips). There was a bit of drama sometimes, but that kept us interested in what's going on, but overall I can't say it was a very wild bunch, but I loved it none the less.

The places: it is incredible to be able to go have a walk next to Danube, next to great castles, next to where great kings and queens lived. The bridges there are amazing. The hills are amazing (and alive with the sound of music). We would go jogging in Margaret island (I don't jog, so I would go rollerblading) which had a little zoo (birds and deer). We would go sit in the evening at Deak Ferenc ter. We lived near Hero square and the park, so at some evenings we would go sit by the pond, listen to frogs, look at the ducks and see bats in the sky. The basilica that you can climb on top and view most Budapest. The Buda side - the more quiet and more for parents and serious people, the Pest side - the center, the place to party, the place where tourists and students gather. I also found the comic book shop (and sent comics for my sister every now and then) and the first time I came in there I felt like in the movies as the guys stopped ruffling through the piles of comics and stared at me like I was from another universe. Also, you should check out the second hand markets: there you can get not only antiques, but actually pretty cool stuff for reasonable price.

The bars: Morrison's 2 and Szimpla Kert. That's all you need to check out. Gooo. You won't regret it.

The food: if you are a veggie fan, you won't like Hungary. They like their food with a lot of meat. They are famous for goulash, which is very yummy. Another things you should try: langos (huge pancake with sour cream, garlic and cheese), kurtos kalacs or chimney cake (super yummy sweet thing). The best ones are usually next to St. Peter's basilica.

Drinks: WINE. That baby is so cheap, some nights if we didn't have anything what to do (or we would be super lazy to do anything), we would just run to our corner store and get some wine and cheese. Seriously, wine is from 1 euro. And it's good! And the next drink is Palinka. It's hard to explain it, but I guess the closest thing to it is schnaps? Well, you can have it plain or fruit flavour and it's reaaally good.

Fun facts: Hungarians start counting from the thumb (thumb - 1, thumb and index finger - 2. Was quite confusing at first). They have two words for red (voros and piros - I just remember that red hair is voros and if a ball is red it's piros, don't ask me why). They have the same word for he and she. On Sundays most of the shops don't work. They usually say their surname first and only then their name.

So yeah, it was amazing four months in there. And I'm not done talking about them, cause I said that I had some trips. I will talk about them in my next posts. Bur for Budapest I would like to say Thank You! It's been great!