Hello Orsi

  Budapest, Hungary
Monday, August 28, 2006

So unexpectedly we found ourselves heading into Hungary and we knew a Hungarian so it was time to use the jungle phone which had been religiously switching networks every time we crossed a border.

we knew Orsi,

Orsi with the magic pumpkin

an au pair that had worked for Henry and Hester for a couple of years and had often come to join them for summer holidays after that. We had been on a couple of holidays with Orsi to France.

So we rang Hester, who by now had arrived back in England from lake Trasemino, and she called Orsi. Orsi was surprised to learn that we were coming to visit her at all, and when she learned that we were only four hours away on a Sunday morning, surprise turned to shock. We learned later that she had gone off to a Hungarian Tesco and bought English tea and biscuits.

Orsi was very excited and gave us directions on how to find her new house which was about an hour outside Budapest. We had a really nice journey through the Hungarian countryside and villages off the motorway. There were horse and carts in use and often the road only had tarmac on one side, so either you or the oncoming car had to pull into the dirt depending which side had the tarmac.

Orsi had only just got engaged to Toni,

Orsi and Toni

her architect boyfriend, and they had moved out of Budapest and bought this traditional village house which in property parlance had much room for improvement.

Orsi's House

They were making a good go at it, but furniture and fittings were a bit limited. It didn't matter - we were quite happy to stay in the camper. They made us very welcome and Orsi was able to switch into very good English with no problem at all. She works as an EU translator and is horrified how much resource is being used to translate all the EU documents into all the different languages, Hungarian included.


We set off the next morning to Budapest.

Chain Bridge

Orsi had rescheduled her week and wanted to drive into her office with us and show us the way. she sat in the front of the camper and waved like the queen as we went through her village. Toni had let the cat out of the bag saying that they were expecting some English visitors and they had all come to their front gates to see the sight. On the previous day, Orsi's next door neighbour was very anxious that she had missed us before we had even arrived.

Budapest was indeed worth a visit. It has some beautiful buildings

Parliament

and plenty of history.

The Hungarian Crown

We found a campsite and bussed it into town to do some touristy things

Underground in Budapest

before meeting Orsi for lunch and saying our goodbyes. It was great to see her again and we promised to get Henry and Hester to make the trip.

Before leaving Budapest we had to try one of the thermal baths. We managed to find one that happened to be off the tourist trail with not a word in English. we had to play the whole thing by ear. Was it mixed, did we wear any swimming trunks, how did the changing rooms work, how hot was the water etc etc. I can say we muddled through, but still have no idea whether we did the right things. Anyway we didn't get thrown out, and we have not been radiated away so I guess it was a success. It was definitely an experience.

We left Budapest

Old and New

- next planned stop, Bratislava