Mazie

All right peeps, this is a blog post about the two Hungarian foods I tried while in Budapest. They were both delicious, but I’d have to say I enjoyed the Lángos more. I think I just really love warm, squishy bread and it was exactly what I was hoping which was really exciting.

Lángos

• Who: Just me. I’m the only one who got to experience this wonder.
• What: A giant circle of thick fried bread. If you get it served the traditional way, which I did, it comes with sour cream brushed on top of the bread and shredded cheese sprinkled on top of that. The bread is warm and fresh and the sour cream and cheese both go on cold. It was honestly a bit much sour cream for me but I pushed through in order to have the real experience.
• When: Lunch on Friday.
• Where: At a giant indoor market in Budapest, two blocks away from our hostel. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around here and there was so much candy I could’ve eaten and so, so many souvenirs I could’ve bought. I did buy a stuffed animal bunny that I am 100% in love with though!
• Why: Saw it online, looked like something I would be mad at myself for if I didn’t try.

Chimney Cake Apparently I ate this once in Arizona, but I don’t really recall that.

• Who: Me and Gracie both tried it!
• What: A thin-ish dough wrapped around a cone and cooked over open embers to golden brown. Once fully cooked, they immediately roll it in a finisher of your choice (coconut sugar, cinnamon sugar, cocoa, etc) and then fill it with the topping of your choice (basically just nutella or ice cream). I got mine rolled in cinnamon sugar with nutella on the inside, and Gracie did the same but with coconut on the outside. The nutella was more of a coating on the inside of the spiral, but if you order yours with ice cream, they shape it into something resembling a cone. You eat it kind of like a cinnamon roll, unwinding it and tearing off pieces.
• When: After dinner on Friday night.
• Where: At a food truck in a little market.
• Why: I also saw it online and after walking by and smelling countless chimney cake stands all day, I couldn’t leave without one of my own.

This weekend (honestly these last two weeks!) was chock full of adventure! Me and my friends Gracie and Allison embarked on a creative itinerary that took us through Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia in just four days. The weekend started for me at 5:30am on Thursday, when I woke up to shower and catch the 6:30am metro to the 7:00am bus to the 9:25am flight. After some last-minute airport confusion we arrived at our gate and sat down to actually think about what we wanted to do on our trip. We used a style of trip planning that is not really planning at all and is probably more appropriate to call the Google Maps Checklist. All three of us looked up buildings/places that seemed cool and starred them on google maps, and then each morning we planned out what made sense to see that day.

The flight was relatively fine, and I absolutely loved the Budapest airport when we got there! It reminded me a little bit of Iceland: clean and orderly, with simple modern decorations. We took a bus into the city center and went to Fat Mama’s for lunch on a recommendation from one of my classmates who’d visited Budapest a few weekends before. After a little more walking around we checked into our hostel, Maverick Central Market, which we all loved. It was probably a 20 minute walk from the city center, but well worth it: they had free water, a guitar (with one broken string but the thought was there), free luggage storage for the next day, and the room and bathrooms felt very clean and cozy. I put Gracie and Allison down for a quick (by quick I mean two hour-long) nap, and then left to walk around Budapest.

As I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve become more and more like my mom with her (very small) range of acceptable temperatures. If I’m not wearing a sweatshirt and its not at least 70 degrees outside, you’ll probably find me wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket or, more likely, fantasizing about having a fuzzy blanket to wrap myself in. That is to say that I was very brave (or just cheap and not wanting to buy an entire winter coat for a four day trip) facing the rainy Hungarian 35 degrees with my windbreaker and no umbrella. Alas the bravery attempt failed me pretty quickly. I packed an insane amount of layers, so many that if I was wearing them all my backpack would have been empty, but I realized that no matter how many t-shirts you put on you’re still going to be cold. Thankfully I ran into a thrift shop while walking around and found a slightly oversized pink puffer jacket for just 4,172 Forint, or 11 Euros. A few minutes later it was mine and was already serving a double purpose as a rain jacket (although it was admittedly failing at that and definitely just making me colder).

I saw some more sights including a giant market, then returned to the hostel to pick my nappers up for the next leg of our day. We had an hour walk over to the port to meet the boat for our unlimited Prosecco cruise, but we extended the route a little to hit some sights we wanted to see along the way. 9 times out of 10 I love a good walk, but I was honestly dying during this one. It was cold and raining decently hard, I was only wearing a few of my layers (one pair of pants and two shirts), my new puffer jacket had become more of a cold soggy blanket that I had to drag with me, and the umbrella I’d “borrowed” from the hostel (because OF COURSE I decided I wasn’t going to need the beautiful, working rainbow umbrella I’d bought two weekends ago in Portugal) looked like a prank you would play on someone you really hated if they were stuck out in the rain. It had spokes randomly sticking out everywhere and half of the umbrella was sagging under its own weight and kept dumping water on me. By the time we got to the cruise, literally all I cared about was stepping into the cabin of the boat where I could be warm and dry (I eventually got warm-ish, but was never fully dry because wet jeans sadly don’t work like that).

One sip was enough to inform myself that I hated Prosecco, but I didn’t hate it as much as other alcohols I’ve tried so I drank a glass and then another glass, really really slowly and mixed with lemonade (the lemonade wasn’t good either). My favorite part was the atmosphere of the boat itself: it was very romantic with dimmed lights, slow tunes playing and roses on the table. Approximately every 1.5 minutes the Prosecco guy would saunter over and top your glass off. We were sitting at one of the best tables and got to see the beautiful lit up Parliament building through the rainy window (the rain kinda destroyed all chances of a good picture) and some other monuments that I don’t remember the names of. For all the romantic, chill vibes, it was obvious they were trying to shove as many people through this tour per night as possible, so after just barely an hour of cruising they kindly requested we leave in the most forceful way possible and we were standing back out on the windy, rainy, cold dock just like we’d started.

Actually it wasn’t just liked we’d started: Gracie and Allison were now under the influence of 6 or 7 glasses of Prosecco, and you could tell. Things stared to get real funny real quick, and we heard some very interesting stories. Gracie and Allison decided that we should probably get dinner before going back to the hostel, and put me in charge of getting us someplace. Definitely a good decision. I shepherded my giggly children back to the main street lined with restaurants, and then had a really hard time finding anywhere that seemed suitable for our group in our current situation. We eventually walked past this little gyro shop that had a slightly separated dining room and no other customers and my companions seemed good with it so we went in. I immediately regretted that decision, as I was a bit sketched out by the inside of the restaurant. I ordered a falafel wrap thing that I also immediately regretted ordering because I realized I wasn’t going to want to eat anything from this place. It ended up being fine because it came with Tzatziki sauce so I wouldn’t have wanted to eat it anyways, so Gracie ate it for me because she loves Tzatziki sauce. Allison got some french fries that made her throw up in the middle of the night (making me think that maybe my sense about that place was wise after all…).

After a very loud dinner during which I’m sure we were annoying the guy working there to death, we Ubered back to our hostel (none of us felt like enduring that horrible freezing cold hour walk again, especially at night) and went to bed. Good night!

Fellow froggers and bloggers, I wish I could muster up the strength to write a blog post right now but alas my eyelids are becoming quite heavy; its not their fault they splurged on some really beautiful sights this weekend.

Tomorrow my inner comedian and I will work to bring you a curated retelling of two of my new favorite stories from today. Call it unlucky or just call it memorable, but I hope to knock even your heaviest eyelids off with this one!

What a wacky but fun day! Once we arrived in the Budapest city center, we went to Fat Mama’s for lunch where I got some delish veggie pasta with Parmesan. Then we walked around and saw some sights and made our way to the hostel to check in as early as we could. We created a Google Maps checklist, you could say, of everything we want to see while we’re here, so we just have to plan the most efficient way to walk between all of our stops. I think it’s a pretty genius way to travel- doesn’t take much forethought or preparation, it’s easy to understand and pick back up the next day, and it ensures you don’t miss anything big.

Gracie and Allison took a little afternoon siesta at the hostel while I walked around some more and thrifted myself this really ugly pink jacket because I was FREEZING. When you’re walking around in rainy 36 degree weather wearing jeans (which are only making you colder because they’re sopping wet) and a thin fall jacket, with no umbrella because you didn’t even think about bringing it, it’s pretty easy to get pretty cold pretty fast. I did bring my hat, which was the only thing I had going for me.

We all left the hostel around 5:30 and accomplished a few more sightseeing stops on the 50 minute walk to the river for our unlimited Prosecco cruise. Coldest walk in recent memory: it was still raining and I’d borrowed an umbrella from the hostel in the hopes of it getting sopping wet again. However, the umbrella was broken and was honestly more of a pain for my ice block fingers to carry around than it was a hep for keeping me dry. Needless to say, we were all wet by the time we got to the cruise, but it was nice and warm (and fancy!) on the boat. I knew this in advance, but I paid $30 to sit on the boat and watch other people enjoy their prosecco as we wound slowly up and down the channel. I managed to drink maybe two glasses when I combined it with lemonade.

I’m getting really tired so have to hurry it up, but afterwords we wandered a bit looking for somewhere for a small dinner that could accommodate some slightly louder and more giggly than usual college kids. We settled on this gyro shop on a big street and proceeded to be super confusing and annoying for the guy working there. Whoops, sorry Gyro guy! After we finished, we endured some drama trying to get a taxi but finally managed to call one on Uber. Unprompted, the driver started narrating his entire life story to us, including how he almost died last year in a motorcycle accident when he ran into a bus, but how that also saved his life because one of his nurses became his girlfriend. He’s a full time driver now while he heals, but soon he’ll be able to go back to school and finish his law degree.

Things were just really, really funny during and after that but we all locked in when we got back to the room to make sure we didn’t wake anyone up.

We just landed in Budapest!! Prague and Bratislava coming up also this weekend! I can already tell I’m going to love Hungary. The airport was clean and orderly and felt very Scandinavian. It’s silly, but I feel like I can gauge tell how much I vibe with a place based on the airport bathrooms 😆.

I took a little photoshoot at the Barcelona airport while I was waiting for my friends to get there :)

And I figured I’d include the view from the window of the plane… I glanced over and gasped when I noticed those mountains 😍

Hashtag sitting in the coolest hostel ever in Morocco trying to do my homework one hour before its due because everyone forgot it’s Sunday but my fingers are too frozen to type and my classmates are throwing up all around me.

Hehehehe at least I’m in Morocco.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!! I absolutely must go to bed, but wanted to send something on this holiday that I love so very much!

I love you all and eat some chocolate cuz I haven’t had ANY 😱. A valentines not to be forgotten, that’s for sure!

OMG WHAT THE HECK I’M IN AFRICA NEW CONTINENT UNLOCKED THIS IS SO COOL HOW HAVE I LIVED TWENTY YEARS AND NEVER BEEN HERE.

Hey loyal readers! Sup from Morocco!!! I’m here until Sunday and am ready to soak in every last drop (literally and figuratively- it was raining pretty hard today). Today we flew in (can’t seem to escape windy, bumpy flights) met our Morocco Exchange program leaders who are all super nice, rode camels on the beach, got a tour of a small Medina (city/town), exchanged Euros for Moroccan Durham, tried some traditional breads with cheese, took a 3 hour bus ride into Rabat, the capital of Morocco, and met the host families we will be staying with for the next two nights! Our host family is a mom and dad with two daughters who I would guess are 15 and 22, maybe? I could be very wrong. They are all so nice and welcoming and have told us innumerable times to make ourselves at home :). We learned about Moroccan culture throughout the day from our program guides, but there is nothing more real than actually staying in someone’s home. It’s things like being instructed on how to use a squatty potty and told that you won’t use silverware at dinner that really got to me. Then there’s the language aspect: I don’t know a single word of Arabic, and it’s not like Catalan where you can kind of piece it together if the words look similar to Spanish. It’s crazy how impactful it was to look at street signs and store names and just be so completely lost. At dinner, our host mom and host sister mainly spoke to one another in Arabic, which left me feeling unsure if I should interrupt to ask a silly question in English or just smile and laugh along. I can’t even put into words how cool and different it all was and how hard I was resistigg geeking out about every tiny little thing, trying to remind myself that this is just another version of mundane, everyday life. Before I zonk out for the night (I’ll attach a picture of our room), I have to say just how good the food our host mom made was. If I only had one word to describe it I would say: flavorful. She made homemade bread (actually everything was completely homemade) with a veggie/eggplant dip, and these roasted curried potatoes with chicken; those chicken and potatoes were some of the most flavorful I’ve ever tasted.

When school is canceled due to the weather 🤷‍♀️ (Me enjoying the Wind Day)

Tomorrow we have a Wind Day. There will be no school, no activities that aren’t completely necessary, and no absolutely no fun. Just kidding. But only about the no fun.

You might say: Huh, that sounds like a snow day… Just with wind. And you would be exactly right!

Although Mazie the Meteorologist says y’all are making a big deal out of a little breezy blustery wind, Weather App the more professional meteorologist argues back with a solid rebuttal, claiming a Severe Coastal Event Warning, Severe Wind Warning, and pleasant breezes up to 50mph.

Although I may not sound it, I am delighted that the Wind chose tomorrow to strike- I was really starting to question how I was going to catch up on six assignments, an ungodly number of pages of reading, two job applications, and packing for Morocco in the 0 free hours I had tomorrow. Well thank you, Wind, for saving my life: by vastly improving the quality of the assignments I will be turning in tomorrow when I would’ve been at my internship and by ensuring that I will not become a wind-flattened pancake on the sidewalk tomorrow (although that may still happen… there’s gonna have to be some pretty serious wind for me not to leave the house).

I don’t like to speak for other people, but I feel that my brother Tyler would also be delighted in this news. How often is it that you get a Wind Day on your birthday? Granted it’s a little less cool than snow (literally and figuratively).. and he’ll still have to go to school… but at least now he can stride confidently into Edina High School knowing that the Catalonians in Spain are taking the day off in celebration of him. If a lot of wind means sound travels farther, he might even hear us singing happy birthday on the breeze and think: If insanity starts to set in when you turn 16, I wonder the state I’ll be in at 60?

There’s actually another birthday tomorrow that might be just a bit more important for Spain, but certainly not for Meteorologist Mazie. It’s St. Eulalia’s day, the Patron Saint of Barcelona and martyr against Roman authorities. Legend holds that the 13 year old girl was beaten in 13 different ways before they managed to kill her- that’s true grit right there. St. Eulalia’s day is celebrated every year at this time to recognize her bravery and defiance and remember the values of faith and justice that her story surfaces. I am fairly certain this year will be the first combined St. Eu-Wind-lia’s Day, but there’s gotta be a first time for everything! Although strong wind and activities like stacking humans and playing with fire- what many Catalán traditions entail- is probably not the best combo. Maybe celebrations will have to happen on Friday the 13th… funny how that happens. As long as we don’t have another Wind Day.

I encourage you all, even if its just in spirit, to get out there tomorrow (probably leaning on spirit for this too unless you’ve been wanting to explore life as a flattened sidewalk pancake) and enjoy you’re Wind Day!