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

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

Train trouble in Hungary - TRAVELLING ALONE

I hurried back to the train station and found my train, still not changed to a dress. I found my place on the train that was cooking and after much back and forth I got changed to my maxi-dress, I pulled up my magazine and after a while I fell asleep. In Kurd we had to change to a bus as it was construction work on the railway and it was really confusing since no one spoke English and the busses weren’t marked, but magically I managed to get on the right one. Kurd, the small-town where we changed trains were lovely. So lovely I really want to – I need to go back there and write. People were all having these cute little gardens where they grew vegetables and trees with pink flowers and so on. I loved it.

When we arrived in Dono-something we had to get on the train again and also this time it was rather confusing as no one spoke English, but I made it again. The Hungarian scenery is amazing, it’s inspiring. The fields half covered in little lakes. The trees with pink flowers, the little huts the poorest of them lived in. The gardens. It was a whole new world and then suddenly, we arrived in Pécs.

ON TRAVELLING ALONE
Travelling alone in eastern (sorry, people, everything is east for me) Europe I didn't expect much English, neither did I expect much help. So what did I do? I researched. I found out online when the train left for Pécs, how much time I’d have, how to get from the airport to the train station, what I wanted to see in Budapest, if there was luggage storage at the railway station, what metro line to take, where to eat. I had it all figured out in my head and I’m so glad because if not I would have been so lost. If you’re not an experienced traveller I would not recommend it though, then your best choice would probably be to stay at the trainstation and wait for the next train J

-Mari Clémentine