HIKING!!!

Hi all,
Sorry about the long break from posts! I usually try to give some sort of update each week, but between midterms and my adventures traveling I didn't have a chance to write anything last weekend. I'll do my best to make up for that with an extra-big set of pictures and stories for y'all to enjoy right now. :)

The week before last was not particularly noteworthy--I was embroiled in my midterms and didn't have many opportunities to get out. Fortunately, my midterms went much better than I expected them to, so all of my frantic last-minute studying paid off! It's a huge relief to be done with them, and the lighter homework load (no assignments given out during midterms) mean that this week has been a good break for me. It wasn't all work though: on the weekend I had another "jam jam" session with the other musically inclined BSM folks, and on the 30th I went to a Halloween party hosted by the different programs sharing the BSM building. The jam jam was as amazing as the last time we did it. I love singing with people! I led a couple sea shanties again, but other people also taught the group some folk songs and we did some karaoke-type singing as well. The Halloween party was very loud and not really my thing, but it did give me an excuse to dress up and I'm grateful for that. As most of you probably know, I LOVE dressing up any chance I get and usually spring for elaborate costumes. I don't have the supplies to make a proper costume here, but I threw together the clothes I had on hand to make a fun outfit at least. It was a good time.

Once I finished my main midterms last week, I got to go hiking in Poland with my friend Grace!!! We went to Zakopane, a small tourist town that's within walking distance of the Tatra Mountains, which lie on the border between Poland and Slovakia and form a large national park in both countries. I'll do my best to recount our whole journey from the start. Around 23:30 on Halloween, I went to one of the Budapest bus stations and caught an overnight bus headed north towards Kraków. I was supposed to get off in the city of Myślenice around 6:00 Friday morning, but somehow the bus arrived there are 4:20 and I almost missed the stop! Fortunately I realized we were in the right place even though the time was wrong and managed to get off, but then I had to wait around three hours for the next bus. Almost everything in the area was closed, but I and the two other travelers on my route were able to find one convenience store where we could hole up out of the cold (it was below freezing out). I got to watch the sunrise though, which was beautiful. At 7:30 or so the bus to Zakopane arrived with Grace already on board, so we had a joyful reunion and passed the 90 minutes ride admiring the countryside and chatting with each other. We made it to our hotel around 9:30 AM, pulled ourselves together a bit, and started making a plan for the day.

We barely did any advance planning beyond booking a hotel for the weekend, so we decided to just walk up the street into the national park and see what trails we could find. After about an hour of walking, we made it into the park proper and found some beautiful trails leading up through the mountains to the peak of Giewont, which is one of the more popular hiking destinations in the park. The trails were beautiful--usually narrow trails of stones winding through forests and plains until they got onto the rocky slopes of the mountains themselves. It was a bit over a two hour hike to the top of Giewont, and we went about two thirds of the way up before deciding to turn around. Daylight savings had already occurred (it's a week earlier in Europe than in the U.S.), so the sun set around 16:30 and we only had a little bit of daylight left. We used it to explore a random other trail that we found on the way to Giewont, which wound across a valley and up a neighboring mountainside. As the light faded we walked back out of the park and visited a traditional Polish restaurant on the way back to our hotel, where we feasted on soup, pierogies, and fried cheese. Polish food is sadly not very vegetarian-friendly, so I wasn't able to try some of the options, but everything I did have was delicious. When we got back to the hotel, Grace and I opted for a quiet, relaxing evening. We each introduced each other to something that we know and like already--she showed me The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which I loved, and then we both listened to an Enya album from my childhood and briefly transcended. It was a good time. I had also brought one túró rudi of every flavor currently available (there are like 8 different kinds--it's like Oreos in the U.S.) and we tried them all over the course of the weekend.

On Saturday morning we wanted to capitalize on the daylight as much as possible, so we caught the earliest bus to a different region of the park and were hiking by 9:15. Our plan was to go to a pretty, not-too-touristy area of the park up in the mountains called Five Lakes, but unfortunately the most accessible trail to get up there was closed due to a recent landslide. We walked to Morskie Oko ("Eye of the Sea") instead, which is a beautiful mountain lake and the most popular tourist destination in the region. The trail to it is less rugged and more crowded as a result, but the views were still spectacular and we were able to do some good people-watching as well. We also explored various smaller trails running up the mountains we were walking between, finding incredible vistas everywhere we turned. We had a picnic lunch at one lookout we found, and tried singing mountain music together in a few other secluded spots. Grace taught me how to whistle (badly) through my hands, and we generally had a great day. The morning started out sunny, but by the afternoon clouds had rolled in to shroud the mountaintops, which was spectacular to watch. We stayed out hiking until dark and caught the penultimate bus back to Zakopane, where we had a very nice dinner of mushroom soup before retiring to our room. We had another quiet night--I called home to chat, and then we played video games together and talked before going to sleep.

We woke up around 6:45 on Sunday to squeeze in one last short hike before our check-out time at 11:00, and it may have been the best one of all! We found another small trail and followed it as far as we could without having any idea where it was going, and WOW. There were high winds around the mountainsides, along with fog and light rain, and everything we saw looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. There were red leaves on the ground, yellow grasses swaying in the wind, green pines all around, and amazing rock edifices everywhere we turned. It was as beautiful as anything I've ever seen, and there were points where we just had to stop and laugh with wonder at it all. I lack the photography skills to capture what it was like, but it was absolutely indescribable. We returned to our room just in time to check out and passed the last hour or so before our bus exploring the local bakeries. The bus trip to Budapest was uneventful, and when we got back we worked together to whip up a túró pasta dish with the ingredients I had on hand at my apartment. The night was uneventful, and then we got up early the next morning so I could see Grace off on her bus back to Vienna. It was a lovely weekend.

The last week, in comparison, has not been too eventful. My classes have been fairly laid back, with a lighter homework load while we recover from the stress of midterms. I'm using my time today to replenish my pantry, cook, and get a jump-start on my homework for next week. Looking forward, I'm hoping to keep myself more organized with my work while also finding a couple more opportunities to travel and enjoying the friendships that I'm starting to form in Budapest. All in all, things are looking up around here! I'll put up another post with a bunch of pictures as soon as possible. Cheers!