Gdańsk Baywatch Weekend! July 8-10

This was my second IAESTE pre-planned weekend and this time I went north to basically the Baltic Coast- Gdańsk, Poland. It was nice to return to an IAESTE weekend and meet up with many of the friends I made a few weeks ago in Wroclaw. The łódź crew keeps growing! Ha there had to be over 20 people from there this weekend! Ha, they claim it is because there is nothing to do in łódź and they all want to get the heck out! ;p But they are a fun group, so I’m glad I got to see them again, since I didn’t know if I would see some of them before our internships ended. 

Old friend from the łódź crew

Unfortunately for Baywatch weekend we didn’t exactly win the lottery for weather. Saturday morning/afternoon when we were at the beach for 3.5 hours it was windy, cloudy, cool, and sometimes even raining. Not exactly the weather that makes me want to sit outside in a bikini…lol Some people in the group though were very brave and decided to go for a swim. Sadly when they came out of the water, many of them said they were so cold they said their limbs were numb. Because it wasn’t exactly warm weather many of them struggled to warm up after swimming. I’m glad I decided to join a group that was simply chilling on the beach and then spent some time in a cafe with some tea to warm me up and pass the time! 

Beach on the not-so-perfect day

After the beach we went back to the dorms for lunch and then left for the city center for “Lost in Gdansk.” This was a team game which reminded me of a mini version of “The Amazing Race.” We had a letter which contained a list of places to visit, a map of where they were, and at each place we met a member of the Local IAESTE Committee that had a group challenge for us. We zipped through the challenges that were given to us, so we had extra time to walk around the Old Town and sightsee now that the weather had improved and the sun broke through the clouds! 

Of course there is a Hard Rock in Gdansk too

Ferris wheel in Gdansk

View of the city

Pano view

One of the perks of a weekend with essentially all engineers was the engineering jokes that ensued. First, our team leader had seriously the best engineering t-shirt ever invented! For anyone who is currently studying engineering or has completed their studies I’m sure you can attest to the validity of these statements! Secondly, one of my friends told me the greatest Aerospace Engineering joke that i’ve heard-“5 professors board a plane, then they learn that their students were responsible for making the aircraft. Immediately 4 of the professors go into panic, trying to leave the plane because they feared the aircraft would crash and they would die if it was indeed made by their students. They turned to the last professor and asked him how he could be so calm? His response,’ I know my students very well. I am confident that this plan will not get off the ground.’” hahaha 

Best.shirt.ever

Like a typical IAESTE weekend, it would not be complete without an excessive amount of partying involved… Apparently the BBQ ended with very drunk individuals that had rough Saturday mornings, but don’t worry there would be Saturday night for a repeat. This time though, the IAESTE committee rented out a student pub for our private event so it was just us in the club. It was a fun time though to dance and go clubbing with a bunch of friends from quite literally all over the world! One thing that will never change though for a Polish party is they all end with the same beginning to the stories—> “things were fine until they brought out the vodka”. haha my friend’s team won the Lost in Gdansk challenge and their gift was a bottle of vodka and sour gummy worms. I originally thought this was an interesting gift, like maybe vodka for those that like to drink and candy for those that don’t. This assumption was incorrect. The vodka they gave was a hard one that literally made you feel like you were on fire from the inside out, so you’d have a gummy worm or two afterwards to help calm your digestive track. haha sorry if I’ve changed your gummy worm association. After a while in the club I had some friends that were looking very tired, so we agreed to “head back early.” Personally, I wouldn’t really consider 2am that early, but when compared to the people not leaving until 5:30 or later, then I guess it was early! 

Good people = good time

Just dancing :) 

Enjoyed having different styles of music. Not being a techno fan, changing back to Spanish music was enjoyable. 

Sunday morning was pretty interesting series of events that were generally not appreciated by most—> 1 the local committee had blow horns and were running through the dorm blowing the horns on each floor, yelling and then blowing horns and knocking on your door until you opened up at 9:30ish because that was the start time for breakfast. That would be all fine if when I left for breakfast a few minutes later, the food was actually there. When I got to the area of breakfast and saw everyone just sitting outside an asked where breakfast was, the response I got was “The diver got drunk last night at the club, so it may be a bit longer for breakfast” My comment was “you mean the driver is still drunk this morning…” You may be thinking I am simply exaggerating things here folks, but I promise you I’m not. If there is one thing that happens at these planned weekends it is parties. I spoke to a handful of people Sunday morning that said they woke up drunk that morning… I think it was worse for the people that I know got drunk on the beach and because of that spent the entire time during Lost in Gdansk taking a nap but still went hard Saturday night. I think its because alcohol is so cheap here though that students can purchase lots of hard liquor, get drunk, and still have enough money to pay for rent and food that they can afford to party hard. 

Once breakfast came we did start our day and sightsee around the Old Town in Gdansk. This time they actually did hire a guide or someone that at least knew a lot of the history of the city and landmarks to lead the tour. So we walked around Gdansk and learned a few things along the way :) Unfortunately there was a significant amount of miss-communication about what to do with our luggage and it turned out that we had to be back to the dorm to remove our bags by 2pm, so after our tour we had to head back to get our things. Since my train wasn’t until 7pm, we simply got our bags and then went back to Old Town to have lunch, get some souvenirs, and enjoy the city as again the sun had broken out after the brief rain around 1pm. 

Just so fluffy! 

Flashback to when I was a junior rotarian for the Maple Grove, MN chapter! 

Polish pancakes with salad for lunch

The armory

So I also didn’t pre-book a train back to Warsaw, which meant there was a decent amount of confusion as I was searching for Polish friends from Warsaw that were going to be meeting me at the station to purchase a ticket a board together. The line was absolutely ridiculous though, and we didn’t have time to wait before our train would be at the station. So we boarded anyways, found seats, and then found the ticket inspector to purchase tickets on board. For anyone that knows me, not having great cell service to connect and find my friends, coupled with not having tickets nor knowing that there was an option to buy tickets when you boarded, meant that I was a little bit anxious at the station. Once we got settled on-board though I was finally able to relax which was nice. I’m seriously re-considering my decision to wait to purchase a train ticket for the day of as recommended  now for the following weekend. The one good thing I will say is that I paid about half I did for the ticket to get to Gdansk by paying the day of and using a different company. So we will see what I end up doing next weekend in Krakow. 

Open land- goodbye Gdansk. 

Restful Week? July 4-8

Welcome back to Warsaw! I got back to my dorm by 10:30pm and unfortunately decided to reorganize my life a little after being gone for nine days. Unpacking was not welcomed when every part of you just wants to collapse on your bed and sleep in “your own bed” for the first time in a long time. But, it was good to unpack as I realized the stench of the sweated through clothing…. I guess that’s the price you pay when you visit Budapest in summer where its easily 90F and sunny all day and you decide to walk around outside the whole day (definitely drank > 7L water and another 0.75L of Powerade that day). 

I’m glad I had the foresight to leave clean clothing for work Monday at the dorm and shower at the hostel. I think my coworkers appreciated me being clean after the holiday! Of course though, my first day back to work was Monday morning, July 4. Sadly in Poland the 4th of July is not a national holiday like it is in the states… :( 

This week was one for catching up with family and friends back in the states after having quite limited access to wi-fi for the last nine days. It was a wonderful treat to video chat with people from home. It’s always good to catch up with friends in different cities and especially when abroad. Immersing in the culture is great, but sometimes you need a chance to decompress, return to your comfort zone, and speak to familiar faces from home. It’s a challenge to match work schedules in the states and Poland, but we can make do! 

I also had three conference calls to the states Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings at 3/4am (Poland time). Goodness, even if its a quick 30 minutes or a long 3 hour meeting, they mess with a sleep routine enough to make you tired again the next day. All I can say was it was a blessing when I found out around midnight on Wednesday night that I wouldn’t have to come into the lab until noon Thursday! I can’t say I “caught up” on sleep as I planned to, but at least I did get some sleep that morning vs nothing at all. 

Since this was the first week after my holiday (and my supervisor's research conference), we began working on new studies this week. Now I'm learning how to use two different 3D printers we can use for printing hydrogel/polymer mixtures for our tissue scaffolds. 

The larger, more expensive, and more precise of the 3D bio-printers in the lab. It has temperature controlled chambers for the gel and a temperature controlled bottom plate so we can use temperature dependent mixtures that crosslink based on temperature alone without being exposed to UV light. 

After hours of calibration, we got our first blob (random pattern) of hydrogel/polymer scaffold that was "picture worthy" according to my supervisor. 

The smaller, yet portable Biobot 3D bio-printer. Different bells and whistles on this guy- he can't control the temp, but it does have UV lights that can be used. This allows us to use a gel that requires exposure to UV light to crosslink the scaffold. 

When you aren't achieving the required results and decide to open up Biobot to adjust it's settings--> aka when impromptu engineering gets interesting...  

For those of you who didn’t know, NATO conference took place in Warsaw this Friday/Saturday. Thus with all the diplomats from across the world, Warsaw security was crazy starting Thursday. Even when you were nowhere near the actual site of the conference (Football stadium) there were cops out patrolling the sidewalks, streets, etc. This also made some tram lines stop and busses re-routed to avoid the football stadium and the central station area because Obama was staying at the Marriott. Unfortunately I had to find my way to the central train station in order to leave for Gdansk on the 5:30 train on Friday. Thankfully my boss is very flexible and was concerned about me being able to get to the central station and let me leave the office at 3pm in order to make sure I wouldn’t have any problems. 

Hard to tell from the train window (naturally another train blocked the view moments before) but the parking lot around the stadium was packed with media, security, and heavy duty cars presumably for diplomats. 

By the time I got to Gdansk around 9 pm I was so dead from my exhausting week that participating in planned social events (going to the BBQ/party) was the last thing I was up for after checking in for the weekend. I guess you could say my tank was completely empty, so I literally knocked out on my bed (comfier than my Warsaw dorm) and slept for a solid 12 hours! It was marvelous :D 

Making the most of my last hours in Budapest- July 3

Sadly, today was my last day in Budapest which means I have to go back to Warsaw tonight to be ready for work in the morning (when you work in Poland they don’t seem to recognize July 4 as a national holiday anymore…). But I think I managed to get a lot done on my last day in town! For some reason I was up by 8am so I had plenty of time in the morning to cook breakfast, pack and plan some logistics for my UK trip before heading out to start my day. I made my first stop the Great Synagogue (Dohány Street Synagogue) for a tour. 

Great Synagogue with atypical architecture but beautiful inside and out

• The synagogue is 157 years old, built between 1854-59
• There was incorporation of both Jewish and non-Jewish elements due to the fact the lead architects included one Jew and one non-Jew and it was popular at the time to have some assimilation to Christianity. For instance there is a giant organ, the shape of the synagogue is rectangular, and the seating and placement of the bema is much more similar to a basilica than a traditional Jewish synagogue. 
• The synagogue is for the Neolog congregation which is much closer to Orthodox than to Reform views. However, due to the organ, seating structure, and bema placement, Orthodox Jews won’t come here and pray. According to our guide, the only music that is officially accepted by Orthodox Jews in a service is the shofar because that instrument dates back to the beginning. While in the neolog congregation also separates men and women during prayer, it is not in the way accepted by Orthodox Jews. 
• The synagogue is 75m long and has ~3,000 seats. When the synagogue is full-during high holy days mainly- women sit on the second level and men sit on the main floor. During all other services, men sit in the middle of the main floor and women have the seats on the side columns of the main floor. 
• The synagogue is the largest in Europe and one of the largest working ones in the world (one in Jerusalem and two in NYC are larger by capacity).
• Currently there are ~120,000 jews in Hungary and most of them live in Budapest. This is actually less than the ~170,000 Jews in Hungary immediately following the WWII.  
• Around 600,000 Hungarian Jews alone died from the work camps and Holocaust
• Jews place stones next to graves instead of flowers because a stone is permanent and will always be there, never dying. 

So obviously I visited the synagogue on a Sunday and when I was in the synagogue they were actually decorating the huppa for a wedding that afternoon. I’m lucky I went in the morning as this afternoon the synagogue would have been closed for tourism for the wedding. Anyways, what it made me realize is that now I am seriously distraught - Rabbi Cohen, should I try to be married in the Dohány Street Synagogue (Budapest) or The Spanish Synagogue (Prague)? They are both so beautiful! hahaha 

The light fixtures are new, but almost everything else is original condition as it managed to remain intact throughout Nazi occupation. The Germans even used the synagogue as a meeting point and orchestrated plans for the final solution within these walls. 

Full bema view

Beautiful huppa (in progress of being decorated) in front of the ark

Memorial for the Holocaust - stones overflowing next to known victims. 

Weeping Willow Statue in the Memorial Gardens of the Great Synagogue- the names of Hungarian victims are engraved on each of the leaves. Supposedly the willow is also an upside-down menorah, but I don't see it. 

Following the visit to the synagogue I made my way to the Hungarian Parliament because I’ve only actually seen the building from the river at night and not up close yet. I was recommended to go on the Parliament tour, so I was eager to do so. However by midday when I got the ticket office in the Parliament they were completely sold out of English tours for the rest of the dat. So note to anyone else going to Budapest who thinks they may want to do this--> plan ahead and book online. I’ve heard its a good tour and beautiful, but English tours sell out for sure. 

After walking around the parliament building and being impressed by the architecture and the views to the Buda side, I took the yellow metro line (M1) which is the oldest metro line in continental Europe (2nd oldest if you say Europe and are including London). The line is now a world heritage site and protected landmark in which the stations have been kept in their original condition to preserve what it looked like when it was first constructed, a sort of vortex back in time. I took the line to Heroes' Square and then walked around the Vajdahunyad Castle. Since I had so much of my day left I decided to take the advice of friends and walk the half hour or so back to my hostel taking Andrássy Avenue because this road is famous for having beautiful buildings. 

Metro Line 1 Entrance 

Beautiful tiles at each station

Heroes' square

Vajdahunyad Castle 

Luckily I still had plenty of time in my afternoon before I had to go to the airport, so I had time to take a shower at the hostel; something I’m sure my fellow public transit companions and flight members appreciated! ;) I even had time to decide what I wanted to do with my last unplanned weekend of my summer internship in Europe. I will be in Riga, Latvia. I’m excited to see another Eastern Europe city. This will be the farthest East in Europe that I’ve gone, but I’ve very excited! Like how I met up with IAESTE people in Budapest, I have been connected with the local committee in Riga and friends of IAESTE people, so I’ve made tentative plans to meet them too and sightsee together that weekend :) 

The flight I had back to Warsaw was basically empty! No joke, there was probably 10-15 non-crew members aboard the plane. So I guess I got a really good deal on an almost private jet experience! haha it was wonderful to have two seats to myself and nice leg room. I could totally get used to this! :)  

Sunset from the runway - until next time Budapest.  

Relaxing at the Baths -July 2nd

Today I chose to spend my morning at the Gellert Baths. Budapest is famous for their thermal baths that are suppose to be very therapeutic. So I decided that after my day of a lot of walking and hiking in the heat I would take it easier vs. spending the day in the sun again when it was 90 again. So the Gellert Baths are famous for their architecture of the inside baths. Originally these baths were Turkish baths and they are seriously so beautiful. The baths ranged in temperature from 18C-40C and steam rooms. Then in addition to the multiple indoor baths, they also had an outdoor section filled with more baths, a wave pool, and a sauna. I enjoyed the 36C bath, but literally lasted < 30 seconds in the sauna. Then after a little while outside I found a lawn chair to lay out on and dry off. 

Indoor swimming pool 

Ceiling of Gellert Spa PC: Thaler Tamas 

Spa hallway entrance - seriously not sure how they let me in! PC: Thaler Tamas 

Inside thermal bath

Outdoor wave pool and lounge site

After my morning and afternoon at the baths I had to make my way back to the Pest side to meet up for the alternative walking tour I signed up for due to the rave reviews from staff of my hostel. Unfortunately I either got a very bad guide or this tour is really not very good at all. We went through the Jewish quarters on the tour and learned only a little bit about the progression from pre-war to war ghetto to post and present day state of life in the Jewish quarters for Jews and non-jews. This area became the scene of all alternative life because during the war it was vacated and people moved in for free or extremely cheap rent—> thus a huge wave of young people came including artist and alternative people. Now there are a lot of beautiful murals painted on firewalls with many city permits by mainly two groups of art companies. 

When artwork gets it right ("1 family torn apart by war is too many") 

Art to remember the brave and selfless- A plaque next to it reads:

"Whoever saves a life is considered as if he has saved an entire world" /Talmud/ 

"In memory of those who in 1944 under the leadership of the Swiss Consul Carl Lutz/1895-1975/rescued thousands from National Socialist persecution." 

When art becomes so good that you can't tell what is real and what is just paint. 

I did learn something kind of interesting about the history of the Szimpla ruin pub. Originally it was a furnace factory and five Jewish families lived above the factory (it's locate in the Jewish district so it's not super surprising). After the flats became vacant from their original owners and the factory stopped being of use, the building became one of the many with historical significance and age that was protected by the government from being destroyed. Now the ruined building houses one of Budapest’s most famous of their ruin pubs. The irony in this is that there is still a functional mikveh (religious cleansing bath for Jews) right next to the pub. The inside Szimpla has been decorated by many alternative artists. To be honest I thought it looked a bit like a junk-yard filled with random stuff, but hey modern art I guess… 

Szimpla is the building that may look like a safety hazard to some haha

That night I had made connections with the IAESTE Committee of Budapest and met up with representatives for dinner and drinks. It was nice to go to a traditional Hungarian restaurant (Frici Papa) where the food was very good and very cheap! We also went to a few bars where drinks were all very inexpensive and one of the guys in the group was good friends with the owners of the bar/cafe place we went to watch the Germany-Italy Euro Cup match. Wow, that was definitely an unexpected game in my opinion and it was super long… Oh well, it was a very good match. It gave me plenty of time to talk to and meet IAESTE representatives from Budapest and new interns from a "small town" in China and from none other than Wroclaw, Poland. Its funny that I met someone from Wroclaw because she also works for the IAESTE committee there and the previous weekend I was there for their summer reception! 

Budapest on foot- July 1st

Friday I enjoyed one of the best walking tours yet. Our guide Regi was just so warm, nice, funny, and knowledgable that the tour was wonderful. Here are some fun facts from my tour-

• St. Peter’s Basilica is 96m because Budapest celebrates their millennial anniversary of the settlement of Magyars in the region in 1896. It is one of the two tallest buildings in Budapest with the other being of the same height- the Hungarian Parliament Building, symbolically representing church and state of same importance and nothing in city can be built taller than these buildings. 
• No priests are buried in the basilica, but a famous Hungarian football player and manager (Ferenc Puskas) was buried under the dome of the basilica in 2006. 
• Rubrik’s Cube is a Hungarian invention, invented by none other than Ernö Rubik

We also got a Hungarian Language lesson during our tour:

To say Hello= “Cya”

To say goodbye = “hello”

To say thank you = “crosi” (my best shot at phenetic spelling here)

To say cheers= Egészségére thankfully there is a short version—> but I don't recall it

Thus if you hear someone on the phone end a call with: “Ok hello, ok poszit” = goodbye, kiss on the cheek

Our guide told us some of these odd things about the language as she said it makes very little sense, but I laughed when I read this article, hope you enjoy it too! 

Tiny parliament in the background

View across the river from the tour

Continuing the trend of meeting either interesting people to talk to or spend the day with I met someone on this tour too. This time I met a young woman originally from a Pune, India but now lives in San Fransisco, California. Surprise surprise, she is also in the tech-scene and works as an electrical engineer. It was fun to talk with her because we could talk about things in the states, engineering, California (my brother is actually currently living in SF too), and India things. Oddly enough, she thinks I’ve seen more of India then she has and she was born and lived there through finishing her undergraduate degree before coming to NY for her masters. It’s definitely been fun to have learned a lot about the culture and religions of India through my SWE Overseas experience because I have been able to connect with more travelers this way. Last weekend too when I was in Wroclaw with fellow trainees I met a group of 5 or so originally from India and they were amazed about how many places I saw and what all I knew about India. They even gave me a list of “must-see Indian movies.” haha But the friend I met in Budapest was also a solo-traveler, so we spent the day together exploring the Buda side of town (where the castle district is and all the sights). Essentially the whole Buda side is on a hill, but the nature and beauty makes the hiking worth it! According to our tour guide all the sights and history is on the Buda side and all the things to do (night-life, etc. ) are on the Pest side of the city. 

We started our post-tour by going across the bridge to the Pest side of town in order to go the famous Great Market Hall for lunch and souvenirs. It was really a cute part of town and the entire lower level was devoted to what was like a farmers market filled with people selling fresh meat, cheese, breads, vegetables, and fruit. The second level had so many souvenir shots and lots of venders selling hand knitted table clothes and things, additionally there were lunch/dinner stands that we got food from. Buying food and things in Budapest is probably one of the most disorienting things though because of the exchange rate- 1 Hungarian Florent= 0.0035 USD or roughly 286 HUH = 1 USD. 

Our main hike was up to Gellert Hill to see the Liberty Statue that honestly looks like a bottle opener from a far (my friend mentioned this and then I couldn’t stop seeing that vs the lady holding a leaf). But the view over the Danube river was beautiful and I enjoyed just chilling up there and watching as the sun started to come down. On the same hill is the Citadella and beautiful gardens behind it. 

First thing when climbing something tall- fun picture with the view :D 

Budapest - Danube River

The view is always better as a Michigan Wolverine :) 

Enjoying the sunsetting from this beautiful garden

That night I decided to stay at the hostel vs going out seeing as I didn’t get back to the hostel until 8pm. It was a beautiful thing when 8:30 rolled around and the hostel suddenly became silent as all the drinking games stopped and everyone going out left. As I cooked dinner, I met “Fizzy” from the staff. She was from Maine and we talked for a bit about Budapest and things to do. I thought it was funny when she told me it was nice to hear there are people who actually do productive things when visiting Budapest. Sad thing, is this wasn’t the last staff person to comment and be impressed by the fact I actually did more than go out at night while here. Many travelers from the hostel I met even admitted to the fact that their entire time in Budapest has basically been night-life as the mornings were too rough to do much and the afternoons were preparing for the next night…not really why I came to Budapest, so it seems like whatever your scene you can find things to do here.