this moment is the sweetest memory

i just got back from budapest, hungary. i went for the weekend with 3 friends and it was definitely an adventure. we stayed at a hotel on the buda side - the city has two sides, buda and pest, divided by the river - fun fact! we went to the parliament, saw the castle and spent the day walking around the city. i would love to put up pictures but they're on my friends camera - mine was lost/stolen earlier in the week. i'm still hoping it will turn up somehow.

on the pest side there's a memorial to the jews that were shot and fell into the river. it's 60 pairs of empty shoes along the river, made out of iron. it's my favourite memorial i've seen out here. there was also a photo contest earlier in the year and the winners photographs were blown up onto posterboards and displayed in front of the parliament. i could've spent all day there, there were some really great pictures.

vienna has been beautiful otherwise. the weather has been great and we've been spending a lot of time outside. before i went to budapest we went to the donauinsel, or danub island. it's a long, narrow island in the danube river. the next day we lounged at a beach bar before cooking class. they have sand and lounge chairs and it was almost as if i was back in hawaii.

a friend celebrated her birthday last week and we had dinner at a fabulous mexican restaurant and i couldn't have been happier. i am so excited to come back to delicious mexican food and real sour cream, although i will miss schnitzel dearly.

i have a lot of traveling planned for the next two months: linz, brussels, oslo, krakow, milan, and alicante. needless to say, i'll be needing a job the second i come back to vegas, but it's definitely all worth it. i'm thankful my school schedule isn't that intense. i tend to have classes only two or three times a week, and i'm almost done with most of my classes. it's weird that people are already going back to vegas for the summer, because technically i have school until the end of june. but i'm not complaining :]

i've borrowed some books to read from friends and am so incredibly happy to be reading again. i absolutely love getting lost in books and cannot wait to get into bed and read tonight. i've recently finished outlander and it was amazing, i definitely recommend it. it's about a woman who is transported back in time 200 years, into the middle of war in scotland. she struggles with the new life and isn't able to go back to her 'normal' life for months, and then isn't sure if she even wants to. it's a little strange but so captivating. today i started ravens, i like it so far but i'm not that far into it yet.

"we read to know we are not alone"

cs lewis

il bel far niente: the beauty of doing nothing

ain't nothing like the sound of the leaves

when the breeze penetrates these southside trees

leaning up against one, watching the vibe

forgetting all about the stress, thanking god i'm alive

it's so simple, i had to keep the song simple

when i get home i'm gonna open all the windows...

-atmosphere, sunshine

sometimes i'm not sure what to write here, because i'm not really playing tourist every day anymore. even if i was, you can only read so much about museums and churches and palaces before it just gets old. i'm starting to fall more into a comfortable "home" lifestyle here, and i absolutely love it. i cannot express enough how perfect this change of pace is, how much i needed something new in my life.

i went to the movie premiere of pina - dance, dance, otherwise we are lost earlier this week. i didn't know what to expect from it except that it had a lot of really intense dancing. there was (thankfully) very little dialogue - the german subtitles are still too much for me to translate. it was a 3d film about the german choreographer pina bausch, who actually passed away during the making of it. pina turned into a tribute to her, with members of her ensemble dancing in her memory. it was a little strange, but maybe if i knew her work it would've made more sense. here's the trailer:

on wednesday night a family friend had an extra ticket to see marta kubisova in concert here. she's a czech singer who was extremely popular in the 60's, but because the government didn't like her lyrics, she was banned from performing and singing for 20 years. it wasn't until after the velvet revolution that she was allowed to perform again. she still has a beautiful voice and although i'd never heard of her until wednesday night, i'm glad i went.

one of the bars here had a beer pong tournament earlier in the week, tell me that isn't beautiful. i didn't sign up because the thought of drinking beer still makes me want to vomit but some friends were in it and we went to cheer them on. the bar (traveler's shack) was awesome, low key and really fun, although i wasn't sure why one of their bar games was hammering nails into a giant piece of wood. a hammer is one of those items i'd rather not have people hand me when i'm drinking. a fabulous guy dressed in lederhosen made up for that, though. a friend and i ended up getting asked to play a few games to sub in for people who weren't there. we won the first game (against the guys who ended up winning the whole thing!) but since we weren't actually in the tournament it didn't really mean much, but we got bragging rights and that's enough for me. and believe it or not, i somehow managed to choke down two cups of beer for the sake of our team.

the rest of the week was spent laying around in the parks and riding bikes, letting the sun thaw our winter skin. austrian classmates invited us to a bbq on saturday, and we spent the day on the terrance, bathing in sunshine and eating homemade hummus with turkish bread and chicken shishkabobs. we drank white wine spritzers and gin and tonics and saw how beautiful the change from winter to spring is.

i've recently started reading eat, pray, love. it's strange, because i'd been wanting to read it since before the movie came out, but no matter how hard i tried to get a copy back in vegas or hawaii it never seemed to work out. ironic that i finally got a copy while i'm doing my study abroad in europe, but i'm really happy it happened this way. i'm at the part where the main character is trying to learn how to master il bel far niente, the beauty of doing nothing, which is something i struggle with as well. america, you've taught us all to be workaholics and i'm not okay with that.

"...americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wears, but that's not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment...this is the cause of that great sad american stereotype - the over-stressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax."

-eat, pray, love