DAYDREAM DELUSION

2014

♦Last Minute NYE Outfit Ideas♦

, by Naana Jane

Hungary For Budapest

Our next stop was Budapest, a city I completely fell in love with. It was love at first sight: as our train glided into Hungary I began to see markets, gritty structures, and old cars and immediately knew that I would love this place.

We were welcomed by people running on the train tracks and jumping onto the back of the train in order to get onto it - we could definitely see we were no longer in peaceful little Prague.

Our hostel was much easier to find than in Prague so we quickly dropped off our luggage and went in search of food as we were Hungary (sorry, I had to) after the grueling 7 hour train ride. We found a traditional Hungarian restaurant called 'Paprika' which had outstanding food and friendly waiters.

Paprika

Afterwards, we made our way to the parliament building - an intricate, beautifully crafted structure. We walked along the Danube where you could see the entire city and that's when Budapest completely stole my heart - I couldn't quite capture it on camera but it was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.
Tired from our journey, we walked around the town centre a little before headed back to our hostel for an early night.

Parliament Building

Walking along the river

Exploring the city

The next day we went to a large indoor market called Great Market Hall which ended up being another favorite of mine from our trip to Budapest. I love markets. I feel like it's here that you can catch a glimpse of the true essence of a country's locals. The building itself was absolutely stunning like pretty much all the architecture in Budapest and the inside had a cool, web-like design.

Great Market Hall

We found a nearby Italian-Hungarian restaurant (we encountered Creepy Guy #5 on the way: a man promising Flora a "free kiss") where we ate some warm goulash and delicious Hungarian deserts. Full-bellied and satisfied, we made our way over to Buda where we walked up to the castle. It was stunning up there and I had such a relaxing time spending our last few hours in Budapest strolling around, exploring and taking pictures. On the way down, Flora and I decided to practice our German by translating English songs such as Talk Dirty by Jason Derulo and Wannabe by Spice Girls into German, in fits of giggles the entire time. Needless to say we got quite a few funny looks!

Hungarian Deserts

Exploring Buda

Afterwards we made our way back to our hostel over on Pest and said farewell to the lovely Budapest. We were so worn out the entire time we were in Budapest but I absolutely adore the city - I'll definitely be heading back there.
And so we caught our train back to Vienna. We were fully prepared for a nice long nap but of course we got seated next to a crying baby! Luckily, the journey only took under 3 hours. As much as I loved this trip it felt damn nice to be home!
Living in Central Europe (Vienna) means easy access to lots of other countries and i'm so excited for future travels - my wanderlust is finally beginning to be fulfilled!

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, by Naana Jane

Czech Republic

Czeching Out Prague

So this Easter I made a completely last minute decision to travel to two places i've been wanting to visit with my friend Flora: Prague, Czech Republic and Budapest, Hungary.

The first stop was Prague or Praha as it's called in Czech (side note: wouldn't it make so much sense for all countries and cities to be called the name that they are called in the country's language in every language? e.g. Prague being called Praha in English. Anyway, I digress).

So off we set in the early hours of the morning to catch our train from Vienna to Prague. As we sat in our train carriage I could already feel the artistic/romantic/poetic 'Before Sunrise' and 'Mystery Train' train vibes awaiting me (yes yes, I know, I relate everything in life to films). However, my giddy mood was rudely interrupted by a middle aged man who Flora and I would later refer to as "Creepy Guy #1". He informed us that we were sitting in the seat he had reserved. As we stood up and began to gather our luggage he tried to strike up a conversation by asking us questions like where we were from and where we were going. As we left the carriage he said "You are nice, stay and keep me company." which of course caused us to make an even speedier exit.

Eventually we found another carriage a good distance away from CG#1 and relaxed as our train set off. However, our reveries were once again interrupted when our carriage door flung open. Thinking it was a ticket check, I began to reach for my bag but retracted my hand as it was none other than Creepy Guy #1 - yes, he had searched every carriage of the train to find us. He informed us that he had made a mistake (his seat was not reserved) and that we should go back and join him in his carriage. We politely refused then burst out laughing once he left (I think he heard us - oh well).

About 4 hours later, we arrived in Prague. We walked for hours with our luggage trying to find our hostel (incase you were wondering: cobblestone and wheels do not mix). It seemed impossible to find (I joked to Flora that it was probably at the bottom of the ocean) but the locals were super friendly with helping us look for it - one guy stood with us for about 15 minutes and a shop keeper even printed us a map!

Anyway, we finally found our hostel and immediately saw why it had been so hard to find - the door and sign were so tiny as if it was the front door of a leprechaun's house.

We went to a nearby cafe and scarfed down some hamburgers (yes i know, very cultural of us) before setting off to Charles Bridge. On our way there I experienced the most bipolar weather of my life - in the span of 20 minutes or so it went from sunny to hailing (yes, hailing) to sunny to rainy to sunny once again. The weather seemed to clear up just for us once we got to Charles Bridge and I got some pretty good shots.

View from Charles Bridge

Bipolar Czech weather

Afterwards, we set off to the Old Town when it started raining cats and dogs. Desperate for warmth and shelter, we decided to visit a chocolate museum and bought a ticket for a "chocolate demonstration and tasting" - the tasting part was extremely exiting to us. To our great disappointment, we only got to taste one piece of chocolate (we basically paid 4 euro for a piece of chocolate) but it was still interesting learning about the history of chocolate (did you know that a Spanish bishop was murdered for banning chocolate in church?!). They then showed us a video about chocolate distribution - it was one of those crackly, old school educational videos they make you watch in Humanities class in secondary school. Anyway, it was a nice excuse to sit down for a while - both our eyes were closing from the tiring day.

The rain finally stopped so we headed over to the astronomical clock tower in the centre of Old Town which puts on a show of a sorts every hour on the hour.

Astronomical Clock

Desperate for some warmth once again, we found a traditional Czech restaurant called U Dvou Sester and had some wine and goulash soup. It was the cutest most cozy restaurant ever, I fell in love with it. It was a perfect escape from the cold and was also cheap (about 6 euro for a meal)!

U Dvou Sester

Exhausted, we headed back to our hostel (never has a hot shower felt so good!) and crashed. We ended up waking up at about half past 12 the next day and immediately set off in search of some food. We found a restaurant in the old town with a cute menu and good soup - unfortunately those were the only good things about it. The waiter was extremely rude, refusing to give us tap water, ignoring us, and cursing at us when we asked for the wifi password.

Goulash Soup

Cute menu

Unsatisfied with the service, we headed back to our beloved U Dvou Sester for desert. We were welcomed by free tap water and wifi passwords galore.

Desert: Nutella Pancakes

We then walked up to the castle where there was a view of the whole of Prague. We also decided to selfie with one of the guards!

View from the Castle

Selfie with the guard - he's totally smeyesing

Next we walked along the Danube River, my favorite part of the Prague trip. The weather was finally on our side and the bridge offered a panoramic view of Prague. Next to the river were some swans which were so beautiful and much bigger than i'd imagined! Unfortunately my love was unrequited - each time I stepped towards a swan it stepped away and one even pecked me :(

We headed back to Old Town where there was an Easter market with Czech street food and a live band playing traditional Czech music - it was lovely. As we were leaving the Easter market, we stumbled upon Creepy Guy #2 - a man who stopped us to say "Hey ladies, wanna party tonight?" to which we replied "No thank you" and made a hasty exit.

We walked back to our hostel, taking pictures since we'd be leaving Prague in the early morning

That night, we decided to go for a drink as it was our last night in Prague. We found a bar called 'Loca' which we were attracted to because there's a student bar in Vienna called 'Loco' that we go to. It actually looked exactly like a more feminine version of 'Loco'!

Creepy Guy #3 awaited us in Loca - a man asking if we'd like to have shisha with him (#4 was a man lurking outside Loca).

Afterwards we went in search of some food which was tricky to find at 11 pm as all the restaurants seemed to turn into bars after dinner time. Finally we found a nice Italian restaurant where we devoured lasagna (me) and pasta (Flora). Then we were off back to our hostel where we slept for about 3 hours as we had to wake up at 4 am to catch a train to Budapest.