The girls have gone home and now it's the turn of Orry and Jonty to experience life in Hungary! Over to you guys....


A while in Debrecen 

So after 10 hours traveling, we arrived at the house. All was in darkness as we rung the bell. A Hungarian voice came over with what I can only assume was hello, so, naturally, I responded and said hello. The receiver immediately slammed down. Orry and I looked at each other hoping this was the right place and not just some random house that the taxi driver had dropped us off at. One very long, awkward minute later the door opened and we were ushered inside. We were shown our rooms and retired for the morning.

At some point on Sunday (we didn't know the official time until 1545 due to the clocks changing) we got up, took a trip or several to Tesco. 4 to be exact...in a day. Got what we needed though. Sunday afternoon we took a venture into a deserted Debrecen. We found the shopping centre, which we only went in because it was warm and had working wifi. We got the code for the wifi at 'home' only for it to break within an hour (not our fault!) the washing machine however, was! (Orry, not me!!) yes the washing machine is f****d! 

Anyway back to the shopping centre, clean and warm. As are the streets really, apart from warm of course. 

Monday morning, pouring rain, 9.30 and right on time Zsuzsanna arrived to take us to work but not before a tour of Debrecen. Then took Orry to work an dropped him off with Valeria, Gabor and Christina. Then Zsuzsanna and I walked to the the Eszak-Alfold Regional Development Agency and introduced me to 'the crew'. Zoltan and Melinda. And we found out that Thursday (Day of the Dead) and Friday are national holidays. Result! But we have to work next saturday to compensate :/ So we are off to Budapest of an extra long weekend. Well that's the first couple of days done and its rather good...and I've found a gym :D

22 degrees of separation

Working life.

I know it's been a while since the last post..and since then we have been on more trips, which I will make sure me and Katie do write up, with pictures...but I wanted to write something about the working side of this Hungarian experience.

Today is my last full day in Debrecen, and my last day at work, when I first heard about this project and how you would be working away for a month, it took a while to convince me this would be a good idea, in my head I was thinking, "why would I want to go to work in a different country when I can just work here?, Why would anyone want to go learn a new job for just a month?". All the questions I could think of can be given one very simple answer "It's once in a lifetime".

This whole month has been an experience I wouldn't want to change, work has been interesting and not too difficult for me to become stressed, my boss is beyond amazing, taking her time to explain everything to me, answering my ignorant questions, helping me translate words, offering to take me round to different places, introducing me to different people, all so I could get a fuller experience. I've grown more confident within myself that even though I may not be able to speak a different language I can still make myself understood and communicate with the people around me.

I am genuinely sad to be leaving a country I never would have visited if it wasn't for this opportunity  Hungary is a vast and beautiful country, with such an intriguing, different history and culture to our own, one that I never would have learnt about.

I know that if in the future I ever get a chance like this again (Which I very much doubt) I wouldn't even think twice about accepting, because if the next experience could be half as good as this one I'd do it.

Budapest baby!!!!!

So finally the moment everyone has been waiting for we hit the capital city of Hungary...with 2 million residents it was a massive leap in culture to what we've been used to from the quietly comfortably populated 200,000 of Debrecen.
First up was the buying a train ticket of a grand total of 4,500 forent, for the boys coming in two weeks time, if you make this trip which I strongly recommend you do...please make sure its the inter city train!! bit more expensive but you have enough leg room for a giraffe and the train only takes less than 3 hours!
From the second we stepped of the train, there was a huge difference from the city life we had been living to the city life of Budapest, cars, people, trams, buses, thousands of burger kings and most importantly an older lady (I'm talking well into her 60 or 70's) whizzing passed us on her scooter. From that moment we fell in love with Budapest.
Katie had brilliantly come prepared with a list of places to visit, directions to the hotel, and metro link information, we thought we pretty much had this...in which did..except for the part where we couldn't find streets signs, we didn't have a map and thanks to 02's network being down, my maps on my phone were no use to us either...we thought "Ahhh information help desk, they'll have a map and could point us in the right direction"....Nope after suffering some of the rudest ladies I think I've encountered in a long while (I'm sorry the sign on the door said open, are we interrupting your chat?!) we manged to get to at least get them to give us a map and point us in the right direction...sadly after walking for nearly an hour it turned out it wasn't the right direction, so we gave up and jumped into a taxi. We arrived at our hotel, then dealt with another amazingly irritated women while she confirmed our booking. (We were defiantly not in Debrecen any more).
After grabbing a bite to eat, and getting our bearings, we scooted off to bed with childish excitment for the next day of exploring.

Budapest is split up into two sections with the help of the Danube river...one half called Buda, the other half called Pest (Why make it more difficult than it has to be right?!) Buda was first..the Royal Place, Mattias Church and Fisherman's Bastion. So to understand why Budapest is the capital is very easy, quite simply it has a massive hill and rule no.1 of settlement in the ancient times was find a big hill and rule no.2 was be near a river. Sadly to get to the top its a 20 minute steep walk so for the future generations who are beyond lazy, there is a solution...a Victorian cable cart! Thank the lord for mechanical advancements.

For the price of 1500 forint return ticket, what could have been a very strenuous mountain climb (In my eyes, not Katie's) turned into a 3 minute relaxing journey with a fantastic view.

Winner.

Depending on personal preferences we either had perfect timing or just bad luck that once we had reached the top, we got to witness the Hungarian version of what we assume was the changing of the guards of a parliament building. I know us British do this twice a day but I can't help but feel that if we put as much fanfare into it (brass bands, marches/a slight dance routine) the guards would have no time left to be harassed by tourists trying to make them smile. The day up to then was going what I thought perfectly, the palace was gorgeous, weather was sunny, views were stunning...and then everything changed.

I think everything in life had been building up to that moment when Katie spotted the Archery tutorials, my actually dream come true. Now everything was perfect. For a mere 500 forent I got to live out one of my wildest fantasists of pretending I was Robin Hood/Legolas. 

 Katie being awesome.

Though Katie was much better than me, I really think I embodied the whole archer persona (For anyone reading this I also want to learn to do martial arts, shoot a gun, drive a Mclaren F1, learn to play the piano and be Dr Who's companion, if you could make any of these happen, I would be eternally grateful).

So with the hill all explored, we then moved on to rule no.2 of the ancient settlements, the river..we jumped onto a sightseeing boat cruise, which took one hour to take us down the river, round and back up again. We got to see some of the main sights of Budapest with the wind blowing in our hair. Perfect for taking pictures (Katie was a happy bunny).

Day 2 - and on to the Pest half...with the Parliament building, the Great Synagogue and Jewish Museum and St. Stephen's Basilica. I think we'd all agree a very varied cultural day.

 Parliament Building (Remind anyone of the House of Commons???)

St Stephen's Basilica.

So that was Budapest more or less done in a quick whizz tour which in some ways represented how the city life was, with such a large mixture of restaurants, pubs, and thousands of shops, I can honestly say I would come back here anytime. I think without trying you could find something for everyone, even grannies on scooters.

Flat as a (Hortobágy) pancake...

So because i worked on Saturday, i got given a day off in the week in lieu. I checked the weather on the BBC website (because there is nothing that website cannot do!) and it said Tuesday would be the best day of weather, so that is what i went for. I needed something to do on my lonesome because Shaunna was in work (unlucky...) and i didn't want to go to somewhere she would also want to visit, and that was relatively close...so i chose to go to Hortobágy National Park. I knew from work colleagues that there was a visitors centre and a small museum with some history about the place, that there would be wildlife trails to do and that there were craftsmen doing workshops in the traditional ways. So this sounded like a good place to go.

I made the short walk to the bus stop and armed with my Hungarian dictionary attempted buying a ticket for Hortobágy, which thanks to the internet i knew there was a bus leaving on the hour and it was only 45 minutes away. Unfortunately the woman spoke no English, and kept pointing at the buses outside. uh-oh, what on earth is she going on about i thought! So i put in an S.O.S phone call to the office, and they told me that Egér would be the destination of the bus, and that i would buy the ticket on the bus itself. Phew, crisis over! 
So off i went to catch the bus, and as luck would have it there was a guy waiting for the same bus, wearing a rangers uniform for the very place i was heading, so definitely on the right bus! The ranger then asked me if he could sit next to me after hearing i was heading to Hortobágy. I said of course, especially given that he spoke excellent English, yay. He told me lots of stories about Hortobágy, he was a ranger for an area more towards the top of Hungary so he had abit of a journey ahead of him given the size of the park. He told me about all sorts of protected species of animals that are in the park, everything from a eagle, to special Hungarian sheep and cows, and even bug the size of my finger nail. He told me about the activities going on in the visitors centre and even kindly phoned ahead to tell them (or warn them, not quite decided yet) that an English person was on the way. Nice chap he was. I got off the bus after about 40 minutes and it dropped me right off outside the visitors centre, where they had some nice English leaflets waiting for me. I looked at the nature trails, and there was even a little train ride you could take, but unfortunately i wasn't in the right part of the park for that. I decided i would like the crafts stuff more anyway so headed off to the workshops. Unfortunately, it being a Tuesday and kinda out of season the majority of them were not open, but i did see a few. A man making the most intricate dollies and table cloth kind of things with his sewing machine, and a man making clothes that traditional people would of worn. i had a nosey in the rest and saw the pottery workshop, it really was all old school techniques. 

The view from the bus, Hungary is flat as can be. There are no mountains, no hills and nothing taller than a water tower in sight. (outside of the city obviously) Hence the saying people have told me about in the office.....'Flat as a Hortobágy pancake!'

So there were 3 museums for me to go round, all about the history of the traditional shepherds, farmers and people who used to live and work off the land here. Where the visitors centre was placed was actually a little central kind of town where they would hold livestock fairs etc before heading back out to the great plain to work for several more months. There were lots of items that the Shepherds and horsemen made in their spare time, pipes, wood carvings, clothes and lots of photos of the temporary huts they used to build for both their animals and themselves. I enjoyed learning about all this, especially a story about how they would make very elaborate cloaks...and the story goes that when the came back after working away for months, they would spend a brief amount of time in the town, and if there was a lady they wanted to court they would intentionally leave their cloak outside the house, and if the coat was taken inside by the family, this was a seal of approval and the man would be welcome back the next day. And if the cloak was just left there, then ouch, rejection!

This is one of the cloaks/coat things that would be used as an elaborate "Look at my coat, isn't it awesome. Will you go out with me?"

So i learned all about the old traditions, how they used to tell the hierarchy of farmers through the different hats, how they used to make their own shoes and rope,s and how being a horsemen was the most respected position, and to do that you rode 5 horses at a time standing up on their backs and jumping between one and the other. Sounds like a piece of cake. Apparently there are still a small number of farmers and their families still living in Hortobágy, farming exactly the way their cloak-wearing ancestors used to, and following the old traditions down to a tee....including the multiple horse riding thing. They come out of hiding and do 2 shows a year for the general public, there was one in summer because it was a high season, so i had missed out on that...but the gift shop made up for it. Now anyone that knows me knows how much i love gift shops. I just get excited. So there were lots of handmade things in there that all the craftsmen had obviously made, all kind of impressive embroidery, wooden carvings, leather wallets, jewellery, food and my favourite bit was the pottery. It was awesome, and if only i had a bigger suitcase, everyone i know would of got some kind of vase/cup/plate thing for Christmas! And it was so cheap as well, considering it was handmade and hand painted. I did buy one little vase thing in the hope that it will survive the trip back. 3 of my English pounds, utter bargain! So i enjoyed learning about the traditional history of the park, and the people that used to live there. It is a shame some of the activities are actually far away, and that some of the workshops were closed. But this is out of the busy times so it is understandable. 

I got the bus back easy thanks to the timetable waiting for me in English when i had walked into the visitors centre, and watched the Hungarian world go by on the journey back. Flat as far as the eye can see, which is surreal coming from England because you don't have to go far until you find a hill to walk up! The journey was cheap as it was only 750 Forint (one way), which is about 2 pounds, for a 45 minute journey. We will be using public transport more over the coming weekends, and at those kind of prices, we really don't mind!

Work on a saturday? Not done that for a while...

Firstly i should apologise that i have made the blog out of sync. Shaunna has been telling me for days that i needed to put on my story from work over the weekend, but i got distracted by one thing or another, so bear in mind this happened before the previous post about shaunna’s pondering on the English language. Apologies!

So one of the first things that INNOVA checked with me when i started working here was that i was invited to join them on a workshop happening at Debrecen University, and would i like to join the woman organising it, Brigitta. It was on a Saturday, so would i be ok with that. Of course i was, happy to help and take part and didn’t at all mind it was on a Saturday. So the weekend just gone was the day.....and what a day it turned out to be! 

It started with a dinner on the Friday night in fact, for the people joining the workshop to meet in the hotel they were staying at as abit of an ice breaker before the conference the next day. So i joined in on that as well, and met the people that would be speaking the next day. I was still abit clueless at this point as to what the process was when these professionals have a conference. This was made clear to me the next day at the university – i finally was able to see a workshop happening and understood what part Brigitta had in this on behalf of Innova, and how it bought all these professors together to see the university, build networks and discuss the latest research and where they should take the next steps. It turns out they were all professors with a health background, 2 from Oxford Uni, 1 from USA, 1 from the Netherlands, 1 from Spain, 1 from Switzerland and 3 from Debrecen Uni itself. All the presentations the professionals made of course went well and truly over my head...but it was good to see it all happening and how Brigitta from Innova, and Marty from the uni had worked together to make this happen. Jobs for the day were giving out name badges at the beginning, sorting registers, directing to different rooms where people were running talks, that kind of thing. Brigitta and Marty had everything under control and the day ran smoothly. The lectures and workshops lasted from 8.30am to 4.30pm with breaks and dinner, but for the professors this was a walk in the park. I was utterly astounded by just how clever these people were, i mean they could talk about the yellow pages and you think it would be the most amazing book available. One of them, Gregg (originally from America who now works at Zurich Uni) had a conversation with me about the Opt in or Opt out policy recently happening with the NHS. He had to explain what this was. He knew 3 Lords in Parliament and I learnt more from this man in 2 days then i have in the past 5 years. He literally knew everything and i thought he was absolutely legendary. All the other professors were also brilliant and i enjoyed talking to each of them about anything (such as the euro, pollution on the environment or Margaret Thatcher) and everything else (Cheese. It appears in ever Hungarian dish i’ve eaten.) 

So i was thrilled when i was also able to go to the evening trip with them. As the conference and professional bit was over, it had been organised (by Brigitta...big kudos) that whoever opted too, could visit Tokaj, the famous wine region of Hungary for a wine tasting session and dinner. There was a coach there that had already been sorted, and off we went on the 2 hour journey. I had a impressive debate with Gregg about Neuro degenerative diseases, and if you see an app in the future to help elderly people use technology for memory aid games etc, that's him. I also had an excellent conversation with an Oxford professor, Laurel, it turns out she was one of the 3 people that made Malibu and Baileys. As in, she actually created the drinks, tested them daily, and now they are on our shelves and in everyday life. Mind boggling.

So the wine tasting, ha. That was excellent. After a tour around the fermenting room to learn the process, through the cellars, and into the bottling room we had a wine tasting thing. Tokaj is all about white wine. I’m certainly no expert, i didn’t know wine had different smells and tastes...just colour, red or white! I just kinda smelt it, drank it, and pulled my face. It was an education! Some of them were actually nice, i can understand why people enjoy the range of flavours and what not. During the wine tasting in this 200 year old cellar the women were sat together and the men on a separate table. Us women shared woman jokes, attempted to say things in Hungarian, laughed immensely, got the giggles and left the men questioning what on earth we were actually drinking that they weren’t. Their confused expressions just led us to more laughter, and so much that Laurel cried and her glasses steamed up and my stomach hurt. Its a woman thing. And wine perhaps.

                                   A whole lotta wine in a whole lotta cellar!

I think the people that worked there liked us (the guy thought we were very entertaining, i can’t imagine why) and let us try one more wine. It was a special wine, and it was worth 500 euro’s. 500!it looked like golden syrup and was by far the sweetest thing my taste buds have ever encountered. Sylvie proclaimed that it would go brilliant with ice cream, which created more laughter from everyone and we agreed it would be the most expensive and best ice cream *cue Jeremy Clarkson voice* in the world.  

                                "Egészségedre! Can we have some ice cream?!"

                                                  (photo credits to Marty!)

So that is the story of my brilliantly random day at work last Saturday! I learnt lots about how Innova can be the middle link to these kind of workshops and the benefits they can have to bring professionals together in an education setting, or even a agriculture setting, or health setting that can bring business and rewards to the people and their countries. Plus, I enjoyed the day lots, and will certainly always have a story to tell!

How important is Monty Python in teaching English?

Something I've heard many times since I've been in Hungary is "Oh English people love to discuss the weather" and I feel that they could have only have learnt this from there various English teachers or classes, not that I'm biased but I'd like to think we have many other things to discuss than the rain, yes us English love to have a good moan about the bad hand we were dealt in the weather department but sometimes it's just easier to have a conversation around something so mundane and simple because you know you'll defiantly be understood, but that's not all we have to say right?!
Yesterday I had a conversation with a 12 year old boy named Marti who's parents I work with, they asked me if I wouldn't talking to him because he's never spoken to a native English person before, of course I said this would be no problem. It turns out that after nearly two weeks here now, Marti and I had one of THE most interesting, complex and longest conversation I've had with anyone here so far, Marti is what I can only describe as a child genius in my eyes, he was translating jokes of the top of his head, explaining is love for English novels such as Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter, he'd even read the Eragon series. He wasn't just speaking in English in a certain pattern for example "hello", "how are you?", "I am fine thank you", he was jumping from one subject to another easily, to the point where I didn't know if my English could keep up...but what astounded me most  of all was, he understood sarcasm, and the dry whitty humour of the British, that SO MANY people (including Americans) misunderstand and why was this...he said he loves watching Monty Python films!
Though I have so much admiration for anyone that has learnt a second language (something I still haven't got the hang off after years of trying to give it a go) I was flabbergasted that someone finally understood me! and that I didn't have to be careful about which words I choose, or how to phrase certain sentences.
Which leads me to think, should films such as the carry on...films or maybe even something like Top Gear could be used to teach a more modern sense of the language?

Katie's important lessons after the first week...

So a full week in a Hungarian workplace have now taught me a few things:

•  The Hungarian language has 44 letters, including 14 vowels. It is unlike any other language at all and is the second hardest to learn ever. Hungarian people have told me this.
•  The word for cheers is Egészségére. This looks difficult enough, and my English brain has made the sound like ’eggy-she-reara’ and this is hopefully close enough. It translates as ’to your health’. However,  if you get it wrong you could accidentally say ‘to your arse’.
•  Everyone drinks coffee. Fancy espresso’s and cappuccino’s that I tend to associate with Starbucks. There is a fancy all singing and dancing coffee machine in the office and the first thing that happens in the morning here is a ceremonious worship and a reward of a cappuccino. Proper froffy and with a lovely sprinkle of cinnamon.
•  This cappuccino is therefore delicious and everyone starts and continues the day in a very cheery manner.
•  Through drinking these in the morning I’ve been surprisingly awake before 11am, the usual time when people can start to approach me.
•  People here are not big fans of tea. As in normal, actual…tea. I found green tea, fruit tea and some form of flower and plant varieties, but no bog standard tea bags. This led to a trip to the big Tesco, again, finding the ‘foreign section’…..i.e English stuff….and purchasing me some PG Tips.  I enjoyed my proper English brew immensely. No one took me up on the offer to have one though, until today when Istavan braved it. As I poured the water in his cup I told him he had to prod the tea bag abit, and let it ‘stew for a proper brew’. He gave me a very confused look, and I realised how painfully English I am. I elaborated on what I meant, and then he tried his cup of tea. He said he liked it, result!

                                                 A good ol' English brew! 
                            (with the squiffy Hungarian keyboard in the background)

•  Everyone brings in a very impressive lunch. Some are leftovers of their tea the night before, and some even go to the trouble of making a dish to share with the group.  There are 2 microwaves in the kitchen to cope with the fact all 11 people here will need to warm up their food. Then everyone meets for a proper dinner break in the conference room where they can all sit in a big circle. As a result, everyone is really good friends here – the atmosphere, the laughing and the pictures on the notice board of lots of social events are a testimony to this.
• They think the sandwiches I bring to work are strange and boring, but they are too polite to mention it and just instead give me a share of their stuff instead.
• The nice cleaning lady that comes in every day at about 4 knows about no English, and over the past few days i’ve just generally thanked her when i have seen her, but today we magically had a small conversation. I’d like to say that it was because my Hungarian has come on with practice. Alas, she has learnt some basic English much better than my basic Hungarian and she even ended up teaching me the pronunciation of ’Hogy van’ (how are you) because i can not for the life of me understand how to pronounce it.
•  The weather is massively unpredictable. A couple of days have abit dull and grey (just like home!) and the other night there was the biggest  and most surreal tropical-like-storm i have ever encountered, where the lightening lit up the sky all around us and the rain was bouncing down, but we stood and watched it for a while, without rushing for a jumper. Today, it is warm and glorious sunshine. The air con is on in the office and the next few days are going to be 23-25 degrees....being english we are not used to this and have no summer like clothes at all. This was mostly down to a space issue with the suitcases, but none the less, its boiling and it would be an opportunity for us to experience some form of summer, because there was a distinct lack of one at home! (although i do remember a few warm days whilst i was stuck inside the office, typical)

So tonight we are going out with a few people from my workplace who want to introduce us to the ’real Debrecen’. It’s very nice of them to make the effort after work to take us a few places and show us around, but it is a school night so it won’t be a late one!

We’ve been here a whole week now and have settled in abit more, learnt lots of things in and out of work, been enjoying ourselves, and are still trying to learn some Hungarian!

The difference between Debrecan and Romania!

 The main square, is so beautiful with a mix of Soviet Union cement buildings (which you should defiantly not mention to the Hungarians) and the older Hungarian buildings.

This is from our one hour trip into Romania....

Day 6 - Last night we committed a sin...

...We couldn't help ourselves I personally think we did very well to stay away for as long as we did...we went to McDonald's !! But honestly before you judge whose idea was it to put our accommodation literally around the corner from McDonald's?!  We're two young English girls who at home used to have McDonald Friday EVERY Friday sometimes even on a Wednesday! So  day 5, after walking passed it three or four times a day, we deserved medals from staying away from temptation for so long, that is almost a week! It was quite humorous to see the Hungarian staff give us that half smirk of "typical English, ordering a Big Mac with LARGE fries". Yeah that's right! 
So I've started work now, today will be 3rd real day and i've got to say I am starting to really get into this whole thing! Yesterday I only worked in the morning as I was lucky enough to be offered an Hungarian lesson from the fabulous Eseter, who did what I can only describe as a mirecle, my poor French teachers struggled for five years to teach me any form of French and still to this day I can barely string a sentence together (always much preferred to practice my farmer accent) I was scared and nervous that she would think I was stupid or that I was being rude because I couldn't pronounce the words,, but it was the complete opposite, she took her time and we started right from the beginning, back to the alphabet and how different accents make difference sounds! And I can semi-confidently string the odd sentence together, asking for the bill, asking for certain things of the menu, my informal hellos and goodbyes! I actually think with a bit more time I might be brave enough to try actually speaking to a native! (ahhhhh). But it's not my Hungarian that impresses people, it's actually my English! Today I was asked by some colleagues if I would have a chat with their son, so he could practice with the best (I have been doing this for 21 years now!) and I also went into a school today and was asked a million and one questions from the children, as there english teacher actually leanrt english in hungary and has never been to England? So she wanted to hear how I pronounce certain words, and some more casual sayings! No-one speaks the queens English anymore "one finds it rather old fashioned, if I do say so myself". they wanted to know what my name was, what my favourite film was, how old I was and lots of other questions (I'd just like to say johnny depp is NOT my favourite actor, I panicked!) 
So far I am having such and interesting time, I feel like I've already learnt so much my head might explode at any second! 

Now for this weekend, I need some plans, if anyone has any suggestions that would be great! Katie is working late on Friday and all day Saturday, I have no friends! Is it really sad if I go to the zoo by myself?! Or should I take a big trip?! I need someone to make a decision for me times running out....

Hi ho hi ho, it's off to work we go...

So we survived the Monday morning today!! Work was good, we met lots of nice people and set about doing some tasks we had been given. I was given more translating of English stuff, and an email reminder to about 200 people for a conference they are attending in Brussels next week! Sounds like fancy stuff! Shaunna finally found out what her company does...which is all about teaching the average person about European laws and teaching them about Europe in general. Even now she is telling me facts she has learnt, and I'm multi tasking by listening yet typing at the same time...

Something we did have to get our heads around today is the Hungarian office keyboard. Everything is in different places, and it turns out its infuriating when you're fingers are used to going to the same place! There are 3 different O's and 3 U's in hungarian language, something to do with the sounds they make, but let me tell you it creates havoc on a keyboard! Everythings is squished to make way for this surge of extra vowels and whilst it seems pointless I am ranting about this it really is very annoying after the first ten times!!

So no exciting stories to tell today unfortuntnatly, work is work and work is work! But it was nice to chat to new people, and listening to everyone matter away in Hungarian is just surreal! I've been asked to work this Saturday on a workshop at the university, somehow ending up with a wine tasting event! You know, as you do. Who said work was all work and no play?!

We've actually stayed in tonight and cooked our own tea...all from the English section of tesco's! We're alive to tell the tale, and it's a miracle!!

University fit for a king or two...

Here's the University of Debrecan...I suppose you could say the Oxford of Hungary...even a nice little rainbow!!!

Clear blue skies

Just one view from way up in high in the tower....