Sunday 30 September 2012

A pilgrimage for a sandwich...

So today we decided to take a trip to the train station...have a look on the departure board and see where we ended up. Which was Romania. At the time we thought it was a good idea, we'd already googled a few certain places just over the border of Hungary, so we thought we knew what we were letting ourselves in for....oh no no. How wrong we were! Buying the ticket was cheap and easy enough thanks to the lady at the desk and her basic English. And it was only the equivilant of a tenner for a return, that's into a different country and everything! Can you imagine just hopping on the train to France for a tenner?! Anyway, this was lovely and all, but what we failed to realise was that we were boarding a local 'stops-at-every station' kinda train and it took 3 hours to get there. It looked like an easy enough distance on the map! Honest!
So we finally arrive in Oredean...Romaina...an it's an hour ahead timewise, so that left us little time before the train back to Debrecen. So all we did was go get us some food. It's officially the longest journey we've ever undertaken for a ham and tomato sandwich. And shaunna doesn't like tomatoes. Or Romania for that matter. It was full of people who stared at us, and we probably upset them just with our general english presence. We attempted food at a pizzeria, but it didn't sell pizza's...or food...we could only come to the conclusion pizzeria in Romanian actually mean 'bar'. So we settled for a some crisp form the shop, but these weren't just any crisp, these were Hazlenut crisps. Yep, Hazlenut crisps. And for me, sausage crisp. As such, we didn't like Romanian food. We just walked back to the train station, found a random sandwich shop, and waited for the train. This was the best bit about the day. It was one of those mega old train's where you get a private compartment with the chairs facing each other...think Sherlock Holmes travelling on the train in the Victorian ages! You could have the window down and stick your head out like a dog- I enjoyed this immensely. And got a full whack of Romanion air in my face. Enjoyed watching the world go by, the rural areas of Hungary and Romania are just flat and have little shacks for homes where the people farm their land. Big culture shock to see how the other half live - they don't have much but they look like they live a peaceful and content life away from the big city centres of hustle and bustle.
After having our passport checked several times over by armed police, we were back in Hungary and very hungry...so off to the number one bistro we went. Number one because it's the only one! We had such good food there on our first night and thought we would give it another go. We will probably be on first name terms with the waiters by the time we come home!
So to round up, we did go to a whole other country for the day. And that's a new flag I can collect. Winner! And whilst we did not enjoy it, the train station at Debrecen and the trains themselves make us willing and excited to hop on another train to somewhere. Budapest next weekend. As long as its not Serbia, I think we'll be fine.
So the weekend's fun is over, because we have our first Monday morning to deal with tomorrow...dum dum duuuuum!!! We'll let you know what mischief we can get up to in a Hungarian workplace. Since my whole office couldn't get any of the computers to have English Microsoft word the other day, it should be very interesting!!!

Saturday 29 September 2012

Day 2 - So this is Debrecan?

"I can't wait to go exploring" 
We woke up this morning full of childish excitement to finally explore the city we'll be calling home for month, it turns out the second biggest city is small enough to actually notice the same people throughout the day...a big culture shock from manchester, where people are crushing into you left right and centre. The streets are longer, wider and cleaner and actually even with the language barrier very easy to manoeuvre, if you can follow a straight line you've pretty much got it covered!
So first attraction of the day was the famous big yellow church, even the pope visited once...we know this as we took the tour! Though everything was in Hungarian, we tried to piece together what we could. Next up was the million, tiny, wooden steps to the top of the tower to see the best views all across Debrecan! Though we genuinely thought at times we could fall and plummet to our death at any second, it was defiantly worth it, they weren't joking when they said Hungary is the flattest country in Europe, you could easily see for miles, and with clear blue sky's it was picture perfect (if only we could work out how to post pictures we'd prove it) and all this for 350f (that's right £1!!!)
After recovering our breaths and slowing our heartbeats down, we were put to shame by many over 70's who were waiting patiently for us blunder past...our next challenge was working out how to get the tram to go visit the university. Jo had already warned us that she couldn't work it out so it was one of the first questions we asked Zophia, for the boys going after us, you buy them from newsagents, so after Katie using her spectacular "English in a foreign country" impression we bought tram tickets to the end of the city for a meer 280f....I'm fairly sure that's cheaper than a child's single on the buses at home.
After a really quick and pleasant trip on the tram and a small mishap with getting off a little earlier than needed (we did get to see a huge cement tower, what was that for?! And a small trip to the hospital that was bigger than Tameside) we did make it to the university, after witnessing our second wedding of the day, eating a rather spicey hot dog, we watched the fountains infront of what I could only describe as a smaller version of "Buckingham palace" (maybe we both would have stuck it out at university if it looked like that). It truly was beautiful and totally free to have a nosey round.

We've checked the map, and pretty much ticked all boxes for what we can do in Debrecan, thank god for wi-fi at our accommodation, as I'm writing this Katie's in the process of finding what mischief we can get up to further a field! I think working out the train station will be our next challenge...


Oh and by the way for unhealthy people like me...20 cigarettes are only 850f...that's right, more or less £3! It's only our second day and I've already decided I'm never coming home :)

Friday 28 September 2012

Day one in the Debrecen house

So we arrived in Debrecen in the dead of night, everyone was asleep as we drove through the city to our accomodation, arriving to a locked front door and some confusion if we were really at the right place. We were let inside and into a courtyard with rooms surrounding which was pretty even in the dark. After a chat with the owner and finding little welcome packs in our respective rooms, we went  to sleep pretty much straight away, ready for the day ahead.
Waking up in our rooms, we were able to take in our surroundings a little more, I have the nicer room which has a double bed and exposed brick work, because I'm older, and shaunna's room is bright orange and she has a personal alarm clock in the form of people outside catching the bus to work and chatting fast in Hungarian. At least she will never be late for work!
We like our accomodation, it is a family run business and everyone we have met here has been warm and friendly, including the little dog Fidl.
Thankfully, we were being picked up and shown the way to work by the lovely Zofia and Suzannah, who gave us a little tour round the main points of Debrecen along the way. Big yellow church and old buildings, but more on this later, we had work to go to!
After going our seperate ways to our different workplaces, we met up later to discuss how we had got on. We were both very nervous about going to a new work place, especially speaking a different language and being clueless on what kind of things we would be doing! We did get some literature on the companies in our welcome pack, so we had something to go on which we wanted to build on throughout the day. We need not have worried however, because the people in our workplaces speak good English, and are all friendly and very smiley! Apparently, because we speak English as a first language we will come in useful for checking documents and reports and what not, which is what I did for the next few hours. On the other hand, Shaunna's boss decided that because of our late night, the fact it was Friday and even better with it being a sunny day, she met her work colleagues and was given the rest of the day off. To 'explore her surroundings'. Needless to say Shaunna now likes her boss and is not even slightly nervous about showing up on Monday morning.
Also , on my winning side was the fact that hungarian's finish at half 2 on a Friday. Result.
So a trip to tesco followed, with us being bewildered by the prices of everything. Added was the fact there are live fish swimming around in a tank. We can't imagine that they are like winning a goldfish at the fair. That would be one big plastic bag!
One of the main things noticed when shopping is how expensive everything is...280 florint for a bottle of coke?! But actually that's less than a pound. With 350 florint to the pound we realised we feel like we've won the Euro millions! Finally!
Upon this we decided to venture out and see how we could splash the cash on a nice meal...we ended up with 5 star quality food, including dessert, that was cheaper than Nando's. And had us talking in a Marks and Spencers advert voice. Another result!
So to round up our first day in Hungary, we've had brilliant food, become millionaire's and worked completed our first day at work, not bad for 24 hours!

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Hungary Group 1 are go!

Hi, I am the coordinator of the LEONARDO programme in Tameside, Greater Manchester. So far we have sent 6 lucky young apprentices off on their adventures to Spain (see our blog http://valladolidleonardo.blogspot.co.uk/) .

Next up we have 4 apprentices travelling to Hungary in 2 groups over October and November 2012. Follow their escapades as they explore what it's like to live and work in Debrecen, Hungary for 4 weeks each!

First up it Katie and Shaunna.....