Then on Friday,Libby and I went back to Vienna one last time to see the Christmas markets there with Lisa, we had such a fun time...it has been so neat to experience Europe at this time of year and to see all the Christmas markets, they are such a huge part of the culture and so much fun! 
We were so sad leaving Vienna and saying goodbye to Lisa...but hopefully one day we can visit again!So then we got back to Budapest by train and I checked out the christmas market by Parliament on my way home, it was pretty awesome, Parliament is definitely one of my favorite sights in Budapest and it was so close to where we lived!
I had finals up until Thursday night so those days were pretty busy and stressful but I discovered that baking and cooking helps relieve my stress haha...and I made lots of yummy concoctions in the mean time...On Thursday night we had our last Bible Study and it was so great, I will really miss everyone there so much but I am just so thankful that I got a chance to do it and I am so excited that it will continue in the future for the other students going over! A group of us girls stayed after and watched home alone and then by the time it was over we realized the public transportation had stopped running, whoops, haha you would think we would be on top of such things by now, we were just having so much fun so we had to walk back...I'm actually really glad we did though even though it was freezing, we were frolicking alongside the river haha and singing christmas carols along with random songs like "Thousand Miles" and some kelly clarkson songs haha....such good memories, by the time I got back I had to pack and clean up some around our place and we had been planning to go see the sunrise at the fishermen's bastion in the morning so I never really got to sleep...I took like a 2 hour nap and then we were on our way to the castle district...
(unfortunately my camera died before the sun actually came up but I'll be able to share pictures with Libby and it was kind of nice just to relax and watch it and not worry about taking pictures...)
Seeing the sunrise was one of my favorite experiences, it was incredible, God really blessed us too because it was our last day and just about every other morning had been foggy and rainy but it was clear and so beautiful! I will never forget it...we brought gummy bears and cookies with us too, haha what a healthy breakfast...well then we were off to school to turn in our keys and everything, it was so sad leaving our directors Dr. Mandy and Margo, they were like our host-moms, they were so sweet and helpful, I hope to see them again someday! After saying goodbye we went to Tesco one last time and did some last minute shopping and then we went to get a kuroskulacs, a turkish honey cake for the last time, we will miss those, they are so good and they make them right there so they're still hot, my favorite is the one with hazlenuts on it! If you ever go to Budapest you cannot leave without trying one of these! Then we got the ever so popular chicken gyro for lunch and we headed back home to continue packing and getting stuff together, at around 4 it started snowing, and the snowflakes were the biggest i have ever seen, we had so much fun running around the streets and trying to catch them in our mouths! So we wanted to hike up Gellert Hill where their lady Liberty is to see the view of the city on our last night! It was incredible and quite an adventure getting there too! 
Then we went to the Christmas market at Vorosmarty ter one last time and I got my last giant pretzel, I will miss those!
It was such a good way to end our stay in Budapest though and I decided I have to return one day, hopefully with some of my family so I can show them around...Budapest really did become like my home away from home and I loved the whole semester, I am so thankful to have had such an experience! Now I am home safely and yesterday i had such a good time seeing family and friends and celebrating my 19th birthday, I missed them all so much and it was such a great day...I'm still getting used to the time adjustment but enjoying my nice soft bed at last, haha, those hungarians like to sleep on rocks...I learned so much though this semester about people, other cultures, myself, life....one thing I do know is I could never live that far away from my family, it would be entirely too hard, I am so blessed to have the family that I do and I'm so glad to be home where they aren't so far away! 
Gaming is a small adorable town in between Salzburg and Vienna and we had such a fun time! There was snow there which was very exciting and it the town was so beautiful, I was amazed at God's marvelous craftsmanship!
We left very earlymorning by train and got there in the afternoon on Thursday...we explored the town right away, it was very cold there but I was so glad I came prepared, I looked a little goofy even walked a little funny with the many many layers I wore haha but it was so worth it! That evening the school had a turkey dinner for us and it was really neat they served us like a restaurant and everything! They turned down the lights and came out with the huge turkey with sparklers sticking out of it, it was very entertaining and yummy : ) but I must say I still very much wished I could have been home for thanksgiving...nothing can compare to being with my family and I missed all the food (like sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie : ) ) but I was very thankful that I ot to go to Gaming and meet such sweet girls, we had a blast! Oh and I forgot to mention all the students and Libby and I were dressed in our Austrian clothes haha-what fun!(dirndles for the girls, lederhosen for the guys...probably spelt that wrong though!)
So after dinner we went to a little Austrian ball where we got to learn some Austrian dances, this was very entertaining haha...and we even did some polka(Grandma would be proud!), This is a video of one of the dances the guys were trying to learn, haha let's just say there were some coordination issues, it was so funny to watch! then after this they played American music and we danced the night away : )...I think one of my favorite parts was when we practiced our mad interpretive dance skills,haha! so then the next day we slept in and relaxed, watched Sweet Home Alabama, sucha classic and played some cards and Skip Bo and of course we were all in the Christmas spirit so we had to listen to lots of Christmas music! Then we went out to dinner and got pizza, I tried the weirdest kind but it seriously was amazing and I will have to try an recreate it...it was called Nicolette and it had turkey bacon and cranberry sauce as topping, so random! Later we watched the movie "White Christmas" and almost made some chocolate chunk cookies haha...they kind of never made it into the oven, raw cookie dough is pretty addicting! So we were up until like 2:30 in the morning and unfortunately we had to leave in the morning by 5:30...man what an experience, so no buses leave that early on saturdays to take us to the station which is about a 45 minute walk away, so off we went in the dark and we got 2 girls to come along with us..but one of them had a torn meniscus and could only limp, what a good sport Amy! So we realized we may not get there on time so first Libby tries to give Amy a piggyback ride, haha that didnt last long and so plan B, Libby and I start power walking and praying and trying to hitch hike(the people in the town are very friendly!)while Amy and Ashley are behind us also trying to hitchhike knowing that would be their only chance of making the train with us...haha so we get there with only a minute or 2 to spare and thank God we see Amy and Ashley there, someone had picked them up, yay! So then we were off again on our way to Salzburg! Haha with our baggys of pesto pasta, cookie dough and oatmeal, haha, don't ask, we had a few train changes and we couldn't get seats on the train from St. Polten to Salzburg so we laid on the floor in the aisles, I imagine it was a very humorous picture...so once we got there we got to explore the city and see some of the Sound of Music sites and the Christmas markets!
we got to see Mozart's house too!
it's hard to see but we found the fountain from the Sound of Music and it inspired Libby and I, we were dancing all around it and in it, haha
The town was so awesome and we had such a good time, oh and I was so excited I had been wanting hot apple cider so badly and they don't have it in Budapest so at one of the stands they were selling "kinderpunsch" (kinder means kid haha and it was one of the only hot nonalcoholic drinks) and it tasted just like hot apple cider! So we went to a church that night and then made our way to dinner at the Augustiner Beaustubl, where the beer is brewed by the monks, and I got a yummy burger...it was pretty cool in there because I felt like I was in a giants home, everything was huge, the clocks and decorations and of course the liters of beer, it was quite an experience...we eventually made it to our hostel later that night and it was so nice, all 4 of us got bunkbeds together and we even got breakfast in the morning! It was so nice to sleep after only an hour or two the night before! So on Sunday our friend Ashley had to return to Gaming : ( but Amy came with us to Innsbruck! I must say I have never experienced something like what I saw in Innsbruck, the alps were all around the city and it was so incredible! 
They had Christmas markets there as well and a kind of fairytale land with all these fairy tale characters set up all around!
Oh man that was interesting, it was like 2 in the morning...and of course I was sick...I can only look back and laugh now(I'm feeling much better!) but Libby and I almost ended up in Zurich because we were confused and thought a train was going to Budapest when it actually was coming from, oh man praise God a man told us this and we made it off the train before it left! So we didn't get back to Budapest until 9 the next morning and we were both very exhausted so we didn't make it to class but it was all very worth it and it was much more fun to sit around and watch It's a Wonderful Life , Charlie Brown's Christmas, and the Grinch(cartoon version) haha I was so excited to find them for free online! Well it won't be long now until I'm home, how crazy! This next weekend is my last in Budapest and we are going to visit the Christmas markets here and make gingerbread houses and watch Christmas movies and maybe even see the Nutcracker ballet, yay! I must say I absolutely love the markets I've seen so far and cant wait to see Viennas the weekend after this one...its such a huge part of the European culture and so worth checking out! Well I miss everyone so much and am so excited to be home for Christmas!
We visited tons of beautiful churches too...
Our train ride to Vienna was only like 4 hours- it was so beautiful because we passed through a lot of land and the trees were changing colors, once we got there we went to our hotel, the Carlton Opera, doesn't that just sound fancy? haha well it was very nice and Vienna was like a dream, it all seemed so unreal because the city was like perfect, it was very clean and people were very friendly, (I think they cloned Mozart, haha, because he was all over the city and this one was on his cell phone!) 
I guess in Budapest their history really has affected the city today, they've only been their own country for 17 years now and there seems to be a lot more poverty and homeless...In Vienna things were very expensive though compared to Budapest because they use the euro, it made me very grateful when we got back to Budapest! Walking around the city at night was so fun, the first night we went to a restaurant and Libby and I tried sauerkraut and schnitzel and this french toast dessert thing, it was amazing! Shops seem to close fairly early in the city though so we decided to go church hopping because they were all still open, it was so neat to be in them at night when it was so peaceful and empty, some were just lit with little candles, but the whole time I had to keep pinching myself because it felt so much like a dream...the desserts and chocolate in Vienna were one of the best experiences, haha I will definitely have to bring some of the chocolate home! We visited lots of neat places too like the Schonbrunn palace and gardens, we got a tour of it and it was massive, I can not imagine living in a place that big! we also went to this neat art museum where we got to see lots of italian paintings and we even saw some of Rembrandts paintings! 
Well I am so excited to be going back to Vienna tomorrow morning, we leave for our 3 hour train ride and we get to stay with Lisa, my sisters friend, and her husband Christian, can't wait to finally meet them! I am definitely looking forward to relaxing some too, it's been a stressful week so I think this will be a nice little vacation! We had another bible study tonight and I just feel so blessed, God always provides, I am so thankful to have found a church and be able to fellowship with other believers, its definitely encouraging...Lately figuring out my next semester and scheduling and all that has kind of been overwhelming but I know that God is directing my paths and it will all work out, my lovely momma reminded me of the verse Psalm 32:8 which I've been meditating on, such a great truth to remember...well I am off to finish packing and then get some rest before my trip tomorrow, yay! 
After that we all decided to bake some homemade Hungarian "thumbprint" cookies and by this time it was about midnight...they turned out amazing and they were so simple to make, instead of using jelly for all of them we used different kinds of chocolate so this made them even better(I will have to make these for everyone at Christmas!), then after enjoying quite a few and reminiscing of christmas and holiday pastimes we watched "Singing in the Rain"...well atleast I did, some of us fell asleep ; ) haha...what a night though! On Friday we went to St. Stephen's Basilica, which is this huge cathedral built over the course of half a century and completed in 1905...and we got to see the mummified right hand of St. Stephen that was brought there by the Hapsburg empress in 1771 after being discovered in a Bosnian monastery...it was interesting, the cathedral was huge though and the structure inside was so intricately detailed...
We then decided to venture off to one of the other malls, Mammut(which literally means mammoth!) and they even have mammoth statues around it, haha...and we looked aound for a good bit but couldn't explore the entire thing because it was 7 floors! Later we went out and ended up dancing to music like "celebration" "can't touch this" and "stayin' alive" haha, good times! Today Amanda, Didi, Libby, and I decided to go to the Budapest zoo! I loved seeing all the animals, and Libby and I decided we want to share a farm later in life, and mom I still want to herd goats! 
The zoo also had a petting zoo with horses, goats, roosters, geese, sheep, and this funny wooly pig...haha I had to get a picture of him...
On the way back we got one of the common street treats of Budapest, called Kurtoskalacs or chimney cakes, it was very tasty and it happens to be the oldest Hungarian pastry and it was influenced by the Turkish...it was originally made by wrapping the dough around chimney pipes, so the actual pastry is like a hollow shape, yum! 
I'm kind of feeling a little under the weather though so I'm going to rest tonight and have lots of tea and vitamin c, hopefully I'll feel refreshed tomorrow!
