Super Long Academic Field Trip-Central and Eastern Europe

And now the exciting details of our two week long trip! Well, sorta exciting. At times.
Tuesday: Train to the airport, 2:40 flight to Larnaca (Cyprus!) where the inflight movie was Just My Luck (which was not our luck), then a bus ride to the hotel (as everything's an hour away from everything else on Cyprus, it seems).
Wednesday: Drove to Nicosia (the capital of the Greek part of Cyprus) where we had a seminar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the Cyprus question. According to them, it's the Turks who are mucking things up by having troops over there which aren't needed. And they'd love to have the Turkish Cypriots in the parliament but 2,000 of them (living on the Greek side) can't have 24 seats when all of the Greek Cypriots only have 50 some odd and no, you can't just have them in two seats of their total. Then on to the buffer zone in the Green Line to listen to the UN Development Project people. Ah, middle ground is so nice. Basically, the whole situation is frustrating because no one is willing to give even an inch, much less a mile on anything. And there's no incentive to move forward. After this we went back to Limassol and the hotel and about 6 of us went to this small restaurant for local food-mostly grilled meat. Twas interesting.
Thursday: Northern Cyprus! Officially called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Seminar at the foreign ministry, our speaker was the Political Director! And he was very good at dodging questions. Then on to the Near East University where we were not only shown around the campus by the vice-president, we got an elaborate lunch where we were literally wined and dined, well, without the wine. It was a nice place and all, but the constant photos and videotaping was annoying and a little weird. After that we went to the coast and saw a really old castle then back to Nicosia to cross the border and then back to Limassol.
Friday: Free day! Basically walked around downtown Limassol and got souvenirs then walked back to the hotel along the beach and relaxed for the rest of the day.
Saturday: Or Best Laid Plans day. As it went awry. So, we're all set to fly to Vienna when about an hour before we have to leave for the hotel we find out that one of our number, Marissa, had to go to the hospital in the morning because of severe stomach pains which turned out to be appendicitus and she needs emergency surgery. Now we can't exactly leave her, nor do we want to, so we're in Cyprus until Tuesday, at the earliest as that's the next flight to Brussels. So since we've nothing to do, really, about 20 of us go to see Casino Royale as it's playing at a theater nearby. It wasn't bad. I mean, as a stand alone film it was pretty good but as a Bond film, some of the different elements were off from the rest of the series, which wasn't a huge deal just different. And...they destroyed part of Venice! Blasphemy, that. So, good movie. After that I continued on with about 5 of the others and we had dinner before walking back to the hotel through the tourist district. It was a nice evening with the only damper being Marissa's condition.
Sunday: Group meeting debating the merits of different plans for the rest of the trip. Most of us (all but one really) were on the side of Budapest and Belgrade, as we'd rather take the less expensive option (as opposed to Sarajevo) and see 2 cities instead of just 1 and spend less time on the bus. I then made a stab at productivity which fell flat and relaxed the rest of the day.
Monday: Education! Jerry arranged for us (all but a one who was at the hospital with Marissa) to tour some of the archeological sites on the coast. We went to Kourion, where they have an amphitheater, the birthplace of Aphrodite (cliffs), and a large site where there are tons of mosaics at Pathos.
Tuesday: Finally leaving Cyprus, as Marissa's recovering and a friend of Jerry's is flying in to take care of her until she can fly back to Brussels on Friday. Flight to Vienna where we pick up Alex and Claudia (who because she's from the Dominican Republic had to get visas for specific days and thus had to take the flight on Saturday) and we drive to Budapest.
Wednesday: Free day in Budapest! We went to the market, saw Parliament, Matthias Church, the old palace, St. Stephen's Cathedral, and saw the synagogue. Found an amazing bookstore with a lot of English language books and generally saw most of the city. Long day, very exhausting, but worth it. Had goulash for lunch!
Thursday: Drove to Belgrade, Serbia. Very different place, you can even see bomb damage from the war that hasn't been repaired or torn down. Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel-had turkey but the rest was Serbian. Amazing soup though, just different, all of it.
Friday: Seminar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kosovo can't be independent-it's silly, in their opinion). A literal 3 hour tour of the city, the first hour on the bus where most of us promptly fell asleep then a two hour walking tour of their park and fort. Our tour guide was...interesting. She started the tour off with the national anthem then proceeded to sing traditional songs throughout the walking tour. Creeped most of us out and caused lots of uncomfortable laughter. Horrid jokes too, but an experience nonetheless. Dinner out at a Serbian restaurant where Ryan was very generous and treated all 9 of us. Not sure whether it was because he was the only guy or he was just being sweet, likely both. The girls then went back to the hotel and watched the Thanksgiving through Christmas episodes of Grey's Anatomy from Season 2. A good third of us watch it regularly.
Saturday: Bus to Zagreb, getting in mid-afternoon so we could walk around. Went to the Cathedral, which is pretty nice and walked around the Old Town. All the stores were closed, though, which was very frustrating as things looked pretty inexpensive. Our hotel was great though-right near the center of town with nice rooms and decent tv channels. We actually watched Iron Jawed Angels in Croatia!
Sunday: Lovely drive through Slovenia, Austria, and part of Germany to Ausgburg where we stopped for the night, a midway point in the drive back to Brussels.
Monday: Drove to Brussels and got back in time for dinner.

All in all, a great trip, many new places, but just a little long and we're glad to be back.