So this is my late post-Spring Break entry.

For the first time in my college career(?) I left the City during Spring Break, this time to visit my girlfriend in Paris, where she's studying abroad (because she's super smart and writes essays in French when she's not sciencing in English).

Now, despite the whole growing-up-on-a-ship thing, I'd never actually been to mainland France (Martinique, yes, but that's practically a different country sorta), so going to France made country 55 for me, awesome.

Also awesome: seeing the girlfriend again. Didn't do much tourist stuff in Paris (though we did get a rowboat in Versailles). Lots of baguettes, lots of wine, I blanched at the plate of escargot she ate, a mild bar crawl, saw the Eiffel Tower (and the bridge from Inception!), ate Turkish food, went to a couple free museums, cooked, and so on.

The adventure proper begun last weekend. She skipped a couple days of class and we flew out to Prague, Czech Republic (56 – also, my first landlocked country). Now, Prague, as I found out, is called The City of Spies. Which makes me really regret not bringing my trenchcoat (and talking her into bringing her red dress, which she thought would make us a little Burt Macklin). We did a lot in Prague, and not just taking advantage of $1.50 pints (THEY COME IN [cheap] PINTS). Hummed the Game of Thrones theme while walking through a castle, ate a lot of pub food, saw a lot of history, bought post cards. The tourist schtick.

Only spent two nights in Prague, one being the night we flew in, Friday morning we caught a train to Vienna, Austria (57) where we met up with an old friend of mine. We got food (Vienna lager in Vienna, woo!) and saw the sights, the highlight for me is easily a statue of a man punching a horse.

That evening saw us on a train to Budapest, Hungary (58!) where we spent the night and the next day before flying back to Paris. We did more touristing, drank more pints, ate more local food (dude, Eastern European food is so good), I sent a very immature postcard to my brother, crossed from Pest into Buda and back again, and saw a pretty grand hotel.

In Paris I loaded up on Haribo and Mars Bars before flying back to New York.

So there's my Spring Break, now it's back to classes in a land where there are no cheap pints.