11.12.05
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:59 am by Administrator
So concerts here are awesome. I went to my third concert at the Palace of the Arts last night and it was fabulous. We saw the Gypsy orchestra playing and it was great. I think the dulcimers they have here might be my new favorite instrument. There’s just such an amazing variety to the sound that people can get out of them. But gypsy music is neat. It’s almost more like jazz in a way than western art music. There seems to be a much greater emphasis on individual expression and less on group cohesion and unity. That’s not to say it’s a disorganized mess of sound but there’s not really the sense of “one big instrument” that you can get with a traditional orchestra. Thursday night I went to see some Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. That was quite powerful. It was performed by the national philharmonic orchestra with the national choir and a children’s choir. And almost the best of all of it is that being a student every concert only costs $1!
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11.08.05
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:27 am by Administrator
So, I just don’t even know what to say about Bled. It was probably the most picturesque place I’ve ever been in my life. I felt like I was stepping into a fairy tale. It was unbelievably beautiful! So Bled is a city on a lake with a really old castle on top of a steep rocky cliff, with a massive church on an island in the lake, and in the background you see the Alps. It was just incredible. I pretty much just walked around in the hills around Bled for a couple of days, but it was just so fabulously peaceful and relaxing. On the way back to Budapest. I stopped in Zagreb for a few hours. People have told me Zagreb isn’t that nice but I thought it was a really pleasant, almost academic town. I walked through the city market and the university and just a swell time. And now I’m back in Budapest.
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11.03.05
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:04 pm by Administrator
Soo, last week, class, etc. People left on Friday and Saturday to go do exciting things, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do and wanted a few days to unwind. This ended up being a good thing because Saturday night I finally got a chance to meet up with the family from Menomonie who work for the State department. Their house is AMAZING!! It’s like a museum. It’s ON Buda hill, a mostly pedestrian-only area that encompasses the castle, Matyas Templom and lots of other old historic buildings. It’s at least 200-300 years old and was probably owned by some kind of Hapsburg nobility because it’s got the lion everywhere. There’s an incredible view of the city, too. On sunday night I went to see the Cleveland orchestra play.. for a DOLLAR!! That was cool. There are some amazing student discounts over here. But that was an absolutely fabulous concert. Other than that, I pretty much sat around and did nothing Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Tuesday I got motivated, decided to go somewhere, picked Slovenia, and now I’m in Slovenia. Slovenia is Absolutely amazing though. The train ride over here was absolutely phenomenal! We were just at the foothills of the alps, but it was just magnificent. Ljubljana is a wonderful city. The downtown is small enough to manage but big enough to stay exciting. The river runs right through the downtown, with both sides being a large pedestrian only area. It’s beautiful at night! I’ll try to put up some pictures. Tomorrow I go to Bled.
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