Villa Blogpost April 2024
April was the month during which I traveled the most so far. It was basically going from one trip to another. I’m not going to give such a detailed run-down as my trip in March because it would be a book, not a blog, but there are still some amazing memories and “landmarks” that I would like to share here.
Getting home from the solo trip to the sea, basically the next day I was already on my way to Krakow, Poland to catch up with my friends Alicia and Javier, who went one day before me. I’ve visited Poland before and I hated it, but that was a different city and four years ago, so I wanted to give it another try. Plus it was Easter weekend, which is a big deal over there. Overall it was a pretty city with very rich history and I can’t recommend the free guided tours enough - especially through Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter. The smells and looks of the Easter market on the main square really gave me Hungarian flashbacks, but in the end, this was again the reason why I wasn’t amazed by the place so much; everything is basically the same as my home country.
The thing about the 49-Euro German Ticket is when you have it, you feel like you are absolutely obliged to travel. We almost went on a day-trip to Magdeburg once lol. But in April I had it, and so did most of my friends, so the weekends were really fun. We went to Potsdam and Dresden which are both perfect for a one-day excursion, to check out the gorgeous Sanssouci Castle - almost lost my phone there, as it fell out of my pocket on a park trail - or enjoy an even more gorgeous French Taco® in the Dresden-Neustadt area.
These were followed by the second volunteer seminar, which is something that every ESC volunteer gets to go on during their stay in Germany. The first one I had in Weimar in November, and this second one in Halle. The venue was super great, outside of the city in a forest area. From the 20 participants around 12 of us were from Leipzig, and there were also people from Berlin, who we already met in the first seminar so the group chemistry was super nice. My highlight of the seminar was making tiramisu with Noemi and Aya, who are both from Italy!! It turned out delish in the end, but we had to restart once, because that jar in the kitchen, that was labeled ‘Sugar’, actually contained salt. I was very dissatisfied with the trainers in this seminar, one of them couldn’t have cared less, and the other one was a self-proclaimed magician - actually not self-proclaimed because he’s doing the course now to get a certification.
The final destination - in every sense - of April was Hamburg. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for about 4 months and visualizing everything that will happen there. This was the venue of the Marathon race that we signed up to with my friend Bohdan back in December. I was really proud of myself for sticking to the training plan and doing 50-60 kilometers of running week after week during the German winter. The race took place on Sunday, we arrived in Hamburg on Friday and spent the following 2 days calorie-loading with beers and döners, which is extremely important before a big race like this, and it’s also good for you! I have to say it instantly became my fav city in Germany, I recommend to everyone to go to the St. Pauli area. After getting two nights of amazing rest in the six-bed hostel room, Sunday morning we finally lined up and ran 42 kilometers on a scenic route through various districts of Hamburg. It was really really challenging, especially the second half, so I’m not going to say it was easy but I honestly felt like it was a celebration of all the training that we’ve put in before to get there. I was chugging everything that they were handing out, like cola, Red Bull and energy gels to get me through it though, and in the last kilometers I still got overtaken by a guy who was juggling while running. But I finished! And so did Bohdan! Traveling home with the medals in our necks, we talked about how it was such a relief to be done with it. I’m sure that we will do another one at some point, but right now we are content regarding physical challenges.
I was ruthless to my wallet this month, so the following blog post probably won’t contain so many travel experiences but I have zero regrets. It was truly one of the most memorable and fulfilling months of my ESC so far.
