Hungary

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Budapest. The city that was 2 different cities: Buda on the west side and Pest on the east side. (There was actually also Óbuda, which was also on the west side, but everyone forgets about that one.) Eventually, the 2/3 cities banded together and made Budapest, the largest and capital city of Hungary.

I decided to finally visit an old friend from when I did my semester abroad in Pforzheim. I didn’t have much time, so I just went for a weekend.

I left work on Friday evening and went to the airport. I arrived a little later in the evenings, and my friend picked me up and we went to his house.

I was pretty tired, so the two of us and my friend’s girlfriend just went out for drinks at a bar nearby. I reviewed one of the beers, which I’ll post about next time.

The beers hit harder than we all anticipated, and we stumbled back to his place later in the night.

The next morning, with groggy thoughts, we woke up and the two of us went out to view Budapest for the day. Continue reading →

Back to London

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Last year, I went to London, where I met up with my family and toured through the UK with a friend. London was so big, though, and the few days there just weren’t enough. In order to see some things we didn’t have time for, I went back for a long weekend earlier this year.

I first flew to London Stansted. It was a late flight, and the plane was delayed, causing me to arrive late in the night. By the time I got through security, the last train for the evening was already gone. I had to take the bus to the city center, but it was still a ways from my hostel. I didn’t feel like braving the underground, so I actually downloaded the Uber app and got a ride to the hostel. It wasn’t necessarily cheap, although not too expensive either, and it worked out pretty well.

It was well after midnight by the time I got into my room, so I just went to bed.

The next morning, I started walking around the town. The first notable place I went to was Hyde Park and just hung out for a bit and read.

The Albert Memorial

Just some neat architecture

I then ended up at the Science Museum, where I spent the majority of the rest of the day. They had an entire spaceship area!

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Prague 2.0

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Along with the many places my friends I went to was Prague. A few of us had already been there, but we hadn’t gone together, so we decided to make a weekend out of it.

Alas, the Friday came, and we flew there. One of our group didn’t actually live in Cologne anymore, so he met us there. The first night was pretty low-key as we were tired. We just went out for dinner and then had some beers at the hostel.

The next morning, we proceeded walking around the city. One of the first things we ran into was one of my favorite things in the city: an escalator!

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The Great Pre-Brexit UK Tour

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A friend and I wanted to backpack through the UK, and we kind of had the funny idea of doing it before Brexit actually took place. The idea was that we would see the UK before Brexit and then come back a few years after Brexit to see if it had turned into a utopia or the next installment of Mad Max.

I had made an open Facebook post indicating my plans, and it so happened that some of my family in the US took me up on the offer. Things worked out so that I would meet up with my family as well as spending some time with my friend as we toured through the UK.

As the time came to leave, I took the overnight bus to London from Cologne.

It’s hard to make out, but this is the train that our bus drove into so it could drive under the English Channel

My dad, stepmom, and two of my brothers flew into London and were already at our air B&B. This is our reunion photo.

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USA Trip

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I had been living in Germany for 3 years by the time this trip rolled around. Other than a short weekend in the USA in conjunction with a business trip, I hadn’t been home for a few years, and it was time to visit.

A friend of mine and I flew out in October, and our first destination was Chicago, where we visited an old friend of mine. Together, we checked out some sites to show my German friend around a bit.

Looking out to Millennium Park from the pavilion

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