Last Days in Hungary

Our last days were full of excitment to finally be going home, admittedly the pair of us had a twinge of doubt about leaving a country and people we had come round to enjoying.
Our last day in work was great and we were given many, many bottles of Palinka to enjoy on our way back home!
Our last night was spent in iKON where we spent our remaining Florint on a fantastic meal, comprising of pork belly, shrimps, soups, duck and a sorbet to as Jonty says clean our palate!
On our way to the airport (sharing a taxi with a old lady....i dont think that will catch on in the UK) we were pulled over by a angry looking police officer who decide he wanted our passports for checking! After reluctantly handing over our passports and the man agreeing our passports were in fact real - no forgeries from Western Europe! we were on our way home.
Reflecting on it our experience in Hungary was fasinating, we certainely didnt enhance our Hungarian to a generous level but we made many friends and appreciate everything that was done to make our stay enjoyable and productive and we both would certainly recommend the LEONARDO Project.......maybe though for diffent reasons.

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!