Europe II.

For about four months from the 18th of January to the 22nd of May 2016, I was studying at University College Dublin in Ireland. During that time, I experienced the "college experience" for the first time, lived by myself for the first time, met so many new people, made so many friends, continued travelling around Europe and learnt a lot about who I was.

For this post, I'm going to write about all the non-Ireland places I travelled to during that time. 

Netherlands

One of the first things Myky and I did when we arrived in Dublin was book our flights to Amsterdam to meet up with Tom and Bri. We were there from the 12th-14th February. Seeing Tom again for the first time in a month was the best thing ever. It was so nice to have a familiar face around again after being thrown into a new environment at UCD. 

My first time in Amsterdam was not as amazing as I hoped it'd be though. I did revisit it at the end of exchange and will post about that in another post. After my second trip, Amsterdam quickly became one of my favourite cities!

Belgium 

Myky and I made friends with three Canadian girls at UCD and our first weekend trip together was to Belgium from the 26th to 28th of February, which was also my birthday weekend! We based ourselves in Brussels and took day trips out to Brugge and Ghent. For my birthday breakfast, we went to Maison Dandoy to eat their famous Belgian waffles which were amazing!! Belgium definitely lived up to the title of the country of waffles, fries, beer and chocolate. 

France

The following weekend, Myky, Mel, Aly and I headed over to Strasbourg to catch Oh Wonder's gig. We really wanted to see them in Dublin but their show was sold out and the only available gig on a weekend was in Strasbourg. Mel, Myky and Aly were there from the 3rd to the 5th of March but I had a Friday morning prac which meant I was only there for the 4th-5th. 

We ended up meeting Oh Wonder and they added our names to the guestlist for their Dublin show (which we did end up going to for free!!). Halfway through their show, I yelled out for them to come to Australia and some other person in the crowd yelled out "no come to Canada." Funnily enough, at the end of the show, we actually met them! They were a group of two Americans and two Canadians who were on exchange in Lyon, France and we spent the rest of the night with them. 

For our mid-semester Easter holidays, Myky, Mel, Tiff, Amy and I began our central Europe trip to Hungary, Austria and Czech Republic. We flew into Bratislava, Slovakia and bussed to Budapest in Hungary since it was cheaper than flying direct to Hungary. We spent about an hour in Bratislava and I seriously regret not staying a night there since I've only heard good things about it. 

Hungary

Budapest was seriously so amazing and definitely one of my favourite places in Europe. We managed to visit all the major attractions thanks to our (seriously not worth it and way overpriced) hop on/hop off bus ticket that our Airbnb host coaxed us into buying... never again. Budapest is also home to one of the world's best known thermal baths. We went to Szechenyi thermal baths, which is the biggest one in Budapest. Would 10/10 recommend to anyone visiting. We were there when it was quite cold and it was still the best thing ever. A must-try food is beef goulash which is quite a popular dish over there. 

Austria

On our last day in Budapest, we booked a bus to take us to Vienna, Austria where we spent the next three days of our holiday. It was actually so sad though cause Tiff got pickpocketed and lost her passport and all her documents and so her and Amy had to stay in Vienna while the rest of us headed to Prague. It put quite a damper on the mood but in the end it all got sorted out and we did manage to sneak in a trip to Schonbrunn Palace, Hundertwasserhaus and Beethoven's grave. We also tried the Vienna's famous Sachertorte at the famous Sacher cafe after waiting in line for about an hour... The experience was probably one of the most underwhelming things ever cause the cake was very very average HAHA. 

Czech Republic

After leaving Tiff and Amy in Vienna, Myky, Mel and I boarded a bus to Prague, Czech Republic for the last leg of our trip. We spent a lot of our time there in Old Town Prague, exploring the markets, visiting the major attractions and soaking up the vibes and culture there. It was the most touristy of the places we travelled to during that holiday but with good reason! Although crowded with tourists, Prague still has very strong Eastern European vibes which was probably what I loved most about it. It actually kind of reminded me a bit of Russia. 

England

During my revision week, Mel and I headed off to London for five or so days. I'd originally planned to do a solo trip to either Vienna or Rome but flights to London were so much cheaper (like 30 euro as opposed to 300 euro return trip!!!) I wish I could have fallen in love with London the way I thought I would but apart from the novelty of seeing world-famous attractions, there wasn't much else that I loved. I can definitely see why other people would fall in love with it but the vibes just didn't appeal to me very much :(

That pretty much sums up all of my weekend trips outside of Ireland. I do have a few more posts about my travels in Europe including one about places I went to in Ireland, my exchange and the trip I took after my exchange!