Debrecen VSC 0 MTK Budapest 2

So Saturday we went to the Stadion Oláh Gábor Út which is the home to Debrecen VSC (Football Club in English). The club has won the Hungarian League 6 times, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. This season is not going as successfully as they may have hoped, the team before the game were languishing in third and have been on a bad run of 3 defeats, so Andreas was hoping for me and Jonty to be lucky talismens for this game - what are we Leprechauns! - Andreas was wrong, we lost a deserved 2 nil! The football it is fair to say reminded us of Sunday League football, however the away crowd was fantastic - 20 people shouting chanting for the entire match certainely quitened the Szivtiprók Ultras Debrecen who fully occupied their seating beneath the score board.

Not exactely Barcelona v Real Madrid

20 away fans - it would have been a nice long drive back to Budapest for them!

No pies before a football game in Hungary - Hot sunflower seeds instead? - oh and it gets messy!

'HAVE IT'

On a trip to the Forum shopping centre, for nothing in particular just for nosey, we turned down a quite and what looked like a deserted street when we came across four rather unpleaseant children kicking some dead pigeons against a wall (i have no idea why there were so many pigeons dead, it might be like culling badgers back in the UK, i am not sure).
Anyhow back in the UK we would have politely asked the young children to have stopped booting this dead pigeon against a wall, but who were we to argue with the Hungarian tradition of kick a bird day, at this point we run towards the poor helpless pigeon's and with a mighty boot leather it against the wall screaming, in John Smith style, 'HAVE IT' - it wont be relieving itself on me again anytime soon!.....

'HAVE IT'

No that was a joke, what we actually did was keep our heads down and carry on walking hoping that these deluded children wouldn't notice we were staring in their direction and throw it at us!

British Impatience!

One of the most annoying aspect of Debrecen is the traffic light system, as you can see from the picture there timed. Basically you stand there and count down to zero and the green man comes on - when they hit three everybody starts moving forward to the edge of the pavement....and BANG there off green man comes on, as you are walking you are keeping your eyes on the numbers which are now in green counting down again hoping you are fast enough to get across before there red again!
After just over two weeks of being here and as typical impatient British people we now (as you would in England) wait until there are no cars coming and cross anyway - instigating the shocked look of the locals at our apparent lack of road safety. There are some customs we can adopt, unfortunately being patient is not one.

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock

Homecooking

Jonty's cooking tastes fantastic!

On the occassions we have not been getting free food, our star chef Jonty has been whipping up some very tasty meals. Apparently he did a year course at college before he decided it wasnt for him, luckily he still  has all the skills to cook!

Free food!

It doesn't look appetising.......but it was FREE!

As we mentioned in a previous post we have not been spending much money on food as we keep being given leftovers from conferences - we have a load of money, are getting free lunches and dinners, i think we both could get used to this!

On our very first visit to Tesco (love that place now), it was not hard to spot the fresh meat and fish area. Poor fish - Jonty is pretty sure there are dead ones at the bottom!
One of these fish will set you back....4 of your finest british pounds! As cheap as chips, or should that be fish and chips? (Yes that was a cheesy joke).

Yum Yum!

This made us giggle!

Sorry but i had to post this, it is the most popular brand of toilet paper in Hungary. We looked bloody stupid in this aisle giggling like we were back in school taking pictures of toilet paper. Safe to say we had been drinking!

IKON

Oh yeh also forgot to post this earlier. On our second night we realised we were 'gazdag' (it means rich/wealthy, thanks Hungarian dictionary!) here so decided to eat out, we had the recommendations that Shaunna and Katie had highlighted previously and also from our little tour with Zsuzsanna (i am sure that's how its spelt). Jonty mentioned that he had seen a nice looking oneas he walked home called IKON - so we decided to try this one. On opening the door to IKON we realised that Orry in his jeans and a jumper, Jonty in chinos and a zip up jacket were undeniably underdressed for this place!
After the waiter showing us to our seats, with a look of distain i must add, we settled down for probably the best meal we have ever had!
Ordering food at this place was simple as the waiters spoke very good English, so we didnt just point at our menu and speak really slow, like we did on our first visit to McDonalds (we managed an entire week until we got to Budapest, where i think it is safe to say we walked into one on every other corner - how could we resist!)

- It is safe to assume that we will be back to IKON on our last night in Debrecen!

Well that’s another week gone and we are now halfway through our placement here in Hungary (Wooo! Its been a lot harder than our blog suggests).
Last week was the renewable energy peer review for the Eszak-Alfold region. Attending would be peers from Sweden (There English is probably better than both of ours put together), Romania (Ask me to take another picture of you and i will shove the camera.....), Bulgaria (there is nothing like stumbling into a review 2 hours late is there), Greece (he wanted to have an input on the financial side of it - woooo, lets concentrate on your own country first fella) and Holland (Peter the cigar smoking ex-banker - we will miss you! Luckily Jonty's accent of him is brilliant, so we will get by). Are main jobs were basicaly to help make sure everything ran smoothly and to take notes - Jonty is now finding out that maybe he should have listened more during the long list of presentations in broken Enlish!

Presentations, Presentations, Presentations!

The site visit/s taking their toil!

It was actually quite interesting, not to mention that there was free lunch every day and enough left over to take home and have for tea #cheapweek and Thursday night was the traditional Hungarian meal. It was set on a old farm and we were welcomed by a whip cracking Hungarian farmer (i thing he was a farmer as we were on a farm?!?). 
We discovered the delights of traditional Hungarian home brew Palinka - Egeszsegedre! Apparently its medicine by the spoon but poison by the glass…We can agree with that one hahaa. The food was awesome though, first it was like a flatbread with a yoghurt and bacon pieces, sounds horrible but after a couple of Palinka's it was bloody gorgeous. Then it was soup with pork, potato, carrots, peas and sour cream, then it was duck with red cabbage and roasted veg and in true style we got to eat with our figures!!!. For dessert there were different pastries filled with different things, jam, cream, custard etc.
After everybody had drunk and ate their body weight, we all had a go at cracking a whip, to nobodies suprise Orry sucked - Jonty managed to get a noise off the whip! The best though was Orry's boss Gabor, after a litre of Palinka and god knows how many bottles of wine he was like a mad man cracking this whip here there and everywhere!

Oh, there was....what we would call noise, they called music - pretty cool outfits though!

Palinka!

Orry you forgot to SMILE!

Our favorite Ex-Banker lording it up over his....Sheep?!?

We learnt a lot throughout last week during the peer review but we learnt more that Orry's boss is the coolest, not only did he offer to import him cigarettes, cheap football tickets, let him have Friday afternoon and Saturday off work but he also (possibly in his drunken state) offered to take all the blokes to a lapdance club! Yes Orry's boss wanted all the blokes from the delgation to go to a lapdance club! 
This i think is where we will have to leave the story......................

Budapest

After a 3 hour train ride - sorry girls but it was not as comfortable as you made out :) we arrived in a rainy Budapest, stopped off in McDonalds for the free wifi (or wee fee as the hungarians say) and to check directions. Luckily the hotel was only a 30 minute walk in the rain to the hotel!

The next day (Friday) weather was beautiful and warm in the morning, decided to explore, we had all the tourist attractions booklets, but decided like true brits to leave them and see where we ended up!

Citadel - we should have been warned about the up hill struggle to get to the top! Beautiful views of Buda and Pest, (Jonty had a go on archery. He's no Robin Hood!)

Catching British, Australian and American accents walking about - unlike Debrecen. 

Visited the Royal Palace, polished off with our now customary Espresso.

Visited Heroes Square/Park, we were unsure (should have taken our tourist booklets!

Saturday - we agreed on the train that were going to find a bar and do nothing but drink and watch the football. United followed by Chelsea followed by City. We made some new friends in the bar from down south and after Orry went back to the hotel, not too well, I went with my new friends to hooters :D I'll say no more.

Sunday was just a lazy day of recovery back in Debrecen. Me and Orry will be working together this week at a conference for renewable energy. Potential to learn something...