Goodbye Hungary

We got up at 5am to leave. Sophie’s mom packed me some pancakes with Nutella to bring with me and I even got Hungarian chocolate and Nutella! They’re so kind! I hugged them all goodbye and got in the car with my techers and five students.

We met the others at the airport 20 minutes before the luggage drop opened. Our teachers disappeared and had absolutely no information so I was left to tell the others when the drop would open. Me at age 12 would have been a better travel-guide than our teachers. Oh, well. This is where the story's ending guys. And it was wonderful. I've made some friends for life and I've promised to come back. All is well.






-Mari Clémentine

Last Farwell - Hungary

The farwell party took place at a club called Studio 74 not far from Arkad, so we decided to walk. It was a dance studio at the second floor of an old building, at the top of a narrow staircase. We gathered along the walls staring at each other. Everyone was there and everyone had brought food.
   Our dance teacher arrived to teach us Hungarian dances and we all stood, ran and danced in a huge circle. Then, after a lot of sweating, we thought our friends the Norwegian “slå på ring/hit the ring” and had a good laugh.

   After all of this, the mood kind of died. We knew it was our last minutes. For many of us, it was probably the last time we ever got to see each other. Two of the girls left and it was on. We all hugged each other, and lost count of how many had left and who. I hugged a Hungarian guy, but met him again at the bottom of the stairs with the girls. “One more!” we all screamed and hugged again.    
    Before leaving the building John pulled me to the side saying “I have to give you something.” So we went outside to the top of the staircase and he took of his bracelet. “I want you to have this.” And he put it on my arm. “A reminder that I will seriously come looking for you to get it back.” I was touched. So was the others.
    We stood outside hugging and smoking when Sophie's father came to pick us up. I didn’t cry. I know John nearly did. But that night I was thinking of leaving and I got rather sad. I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to leave this beautiful summer country and all their weird tasting food. Nor the pancakes.

(Derp picture, we only filmed that night...)

-Mari Clémentine

30 degrees, Nutella and cards - Hungary at its best

I woke up and felt fine! After the last 30 hours I really needed that even though it’s our last day. Last breakfast. Last busride to school. Last day at school. It was surreal. I didn’t want it to end yet. Of course I was tired, but if I could have just slept for the weekend, I would’ve been fine!   The school was still huge and old, but I loved it and when having our presentation, knowing that it didn’t set a grade, I had fun. For the break they took us to their class to introduce to some non-englsih-speaking guys. It was weird. 

'

We all went to one of the girls after school. They had a huge garden with a tent and fruit trees and benches and so on. It was a hot day. The sun was shining, it was 30 degrees. What was not to love? Oh, the bbq’ing. Haha, Hungarian food is not a favourite and I knew more was waiting at home. When not lying around in the shadow I was playing cards with some Hungariansl. We thought them Norwegian card games such as Idiot and Turn the 8. We ate some cooked meat and potatoes before going off to the mall to get some new shoes.

World’s best mom
I love my host family and with another Norwegian girl in the house things were even better. She was staying in my room and we decided to try on each other’s clothes for tonight’s "Farwell" party. I borrowed her new dress and she borrowed my new skirt from Budapest. Then I asked the family to take a family-picture with me. It turned out really well and I also posed for some with Muffin, the dog.
   We got some summer-grilled-meat for dinner and then, in the memory of me saying “The best thing I know is pancakes with nutella” we got pancakes with nutella! I could barely finish one, but got the other for night-snack later. Oh, I love my life! 


-Mari Clémentine

Hungarian Food - yes or no?

I’m not gonna tell you about the morning. It was time for another school trip to see some caves. I felt so bad, I don’t wanna think about it. We did some sunbathing by a lake and then went to see some mills. Not to interesting, at least not when feeling bad. I went home to my host family to sleep and the others went out to play paintball. Missing out again…

PICTURE

So I can use this to write about something else: The food. In Hungary food is very important and we got to taste a lot of it. Some of it delicious and some of it really horrible. Even worse, they eat a lot and I don’t so it’s been a nail-biting week. “Will-dinner-taste-good?” What’s my tips to you? Try your best! Taste new things and even if you don’t like it, pretend, cause they will be so so happy.

-Mari Clémentine

We found their weed and Palinka - Hungary

Today we started of rather later at the mayor’s office, climbing the city hall’s clock tower and looking down at the city of Pécs. Then we went to school, but working with our project tasks but my group went missing so I spent most of the day sitting in the sun talking to people walking in and out. After school we went to Arkad (the mall) for some quick shopping before we went to the botanical garden to watch some trees.

Our guide at the botanical garden was wearing a tank top, leg-long jeans and a necklace. His hair was halflong and his eyes hidden behind shades. No wonder we all soon figured out what he was smoking. Best comment of the day came from a Hungarian boy:
Guide: “And this is our highest greenhouse.”
Student: “They call it that because that’s where they keep all the weed.”
    It was more hot than interesting and we always found ourselves falling behind causing a bunch of dry, botanical garden jokes from our guide that made people giggle.

Not gonna tell you much about the evening, except the fact that I don't remember to much and it involved Palinka, something most of us will never drink again. I was told it was great fun though. House parties...

-Mari Clémentine

Castles, Spas and holes in the ground - Hungary

We got an early morning today, getting ready to go on a trip to Lake Balaton, only 4 hours of driving in the heat away! Hurra! Okey, we actually had a lot of fun.

In a hole in the ground…
First stop was in a summer village an hour from our actual destination, here we were to go deep down into a cave and row (!) through it. It all seemed to be fine until we all had to bow down and push forward with our hands, sharing a boat with two girls that was no problem, but the guys behind us had some greater problems and they nearly crashed into the walls a lot of time causing a lot of screaming and laughing. Eventually, we made it back and got out a bit more claustrophobic than before.

Castle on a cloud
Next stop: The castle. They didn’t tell us, but we soon found out as we had to climb all the way up. Walking side by side with one of the guys I couldn’t have had a much better climb, but it still was long and warm and I snapped after air when I got to the top. The view was stunning though and I would have liked to stay there some more, but as always, we had to go on.


Thermal Spa
We finally got to the thermal spa that also was a bit disappointing as the water was only 1m high, but it was still good. We were splashing around and sitting outside in the hot water. The two norwegian guys were also acting all gay (as usual, everyone here think they are) and got a lot of horrible looks from the old people around the pool. That’s when we all joined together in one big hug and started floating around.  It was great fun. You have no idea.


-Mari Clémentine

Ice-Cream Fight and Wars - Hungary

After school we went out shopping for like 30 minutes before going treasure hunting, something none of the Norwegians really wanted to so we all started walking very slowly and talking about running away, but in the end we all made it to the meet-up point with some pissed Hungarians. Pissed because we didn’t want to go.

Eventually we went treasure hunting, but by then my body was craving chicken nuggets so much I had to get some, so I asked the other to wait, while Emma and I ran to McDonalds to buy nuggets (Which coasted only 3 euro!) and when we got out they were gone.
     We eventually found the other Norwegians laying in the street. The Hungarians had left them when they had said they wanted to wait for us. So we now had a cold front between the countries. Great. We didn’t care much though. We went sunbathing and as more and more people showed up we got tired and went to the ice-cream shop.

While walking back to Arkad for shopping two of my friends started a water fight that at the center and the best ice-cream shop in Pecs ended up with John throwing ice-cream at me and me throwing back. It was fun, but all the people at the café gave us horrible looks. Then I hit his hat and he got mad for a second or two before drenching me in water and hugging me. I love that guy.

All the Norwegian girls really wanted to go out and drink that evening, but the Hungarians didn’t want to. Story’s not ending here. We went anyways. Our poor Hungarians just had to follow. So we sat down and drank pina colada and sex on the beach, weirdly enough discussing religion when they said: “We have to leave in 20 minutes!!”  Oh well.. we had spaghetti for dinner. I love my life.

-Mari Clémentine