Ramada Resort Budapest Aquaworld

From the chilled time we spent in Prague, it was quite nice to get back into the swing of traveling; i.e. getting confused with trains and powering through with no sleep etc. We had an early train from Prague, so we were able to check into the hostel in Budapest when we got there, which was a nice change. By the time we actually checked in etc, it was quite late so we decided to just chill out there and then go and explore Budapest's nightlife. We planned to go to a traditional ...

... with * look of *stonishment before *sking; "You c*n drink *nd write *t the s*me time?" "Yes, it's e*sy, I hold my pen in one h*nd *nd my beer in the other" I replied s*rc*stic*lly (I c*n *lso **** *nd blink *t the s*me time, th*t's not * p*rticul*rly brilli*nt t*lent either). An Aussie bloke w*lked into the room *nd, judging by the b*g of beer he w*s c*rrying, he h*d the s*me pl*n *s I did. N*tur*lly I've *lre*dy forgotten his n*me but we to*sted ...

... good, the service was ridiculous. We had to wait 2hrs for everyone to get their food! The Americans in the group, used to excellent service due to the tip based pay of waiters in America, were not happy. When we finally got out of there, the waiter was too busy to take our money and told us to leave it on the table. Although this didn't seem the best idea in the world, we were annoyed and just wanted to get out of there.   We went and picked up a few drinks from a ...

Seems the theme of this trip was food. Not that I'm complaining, it was all fabulous. The Congress was good. The lectures were for the most part informative, nothing relevation-level for work, but interesting. The best part of the trip was the networking. It was really rather fun, as I met up with more people there than I can claim to know at conferences in the states! I met almost the whole faculty from my time in ...

... The Hungarian folk show consisted of about 12 musicians and 10 dancers. It was a very entertaining show but what entertained me the most was the interaction I witnessed between the leader of the group (the father) and the child violin soloist (the son). As soon as the boy came out on stage the father's eyes lit up with pride. Although their biological relationship wasn't explicitly stated anywhere, the entire audience could tell by their ...

... fave Aussie Daniel, model Aussie Martin, and quirky Hungarian couple. The place pumped hot American hits from the likes of Gloria Estefan and the BeeGees, much to everyone's delight. Something seemed a little odd, though-and we realized that it was that everyone was staring at us. Daniel and Jenn and I couldn't help but bust out our most fabulous moves, and the stick-like Hungarian peroxide blonds wearing black eye shadow and pleather bustiers stared at us ...

... too late in the day to make it to any of the authentica Hungarian baths, and our feetsies were tired. But we had all this extra Hungary currency to spend wrecklessly before we left for Austria. So we decided to start our own two person pub crawl. Our first pub was in Pest, just a block away from Hungary's parliament buildings. We gulped our beer in record timing, the the place didn't have any food. So on to the next. After 6 or 7 ...

... body look like after 65 years of a diet based on huge quantities of pork fat and fried cheese?"! Shudder again! (Note - this is not to say there is not a lot of delicious Hungarian food, just that it tends to consist of huge portions and not a whole lot of vegies!) We had a rather enjoyable visit to a place called Statue Park, where around 30 old Soviet ...

... in the form of a childhood pet! Hungarian is the most amazingly difficult language. Apparently, it's not related to any other language in Europe, which makes a mystery of where these people come from. They have an entire range of noises that make up the language that I can't even begin to get my head around, let alone my vocal chords. My friend David spent an hour tonight teaching me the different sounds of the alphabet - there are four ...

... a Long Distance Runner (pineapple, lime), surrounded by quirky decoration e.g. chandelier made out of plastic bottles, candles, unusual statues. We were all nearly falling asleep in our chairs so we made our way back the hostel and went straight to sleep. The next morning we awoke feeling much refreshed, packed our bags and checked out of the hostel. Our train to Bratislava was not until the late afternoon, so we had the whole day to ...