Spring is really here now - hurray!!

The week that passed was pretty event less, and for me (Malin) it hasn’t been such a good week at all. Not only did my allergies kick in, which makes me sneeze all the time and makes me very tired, but also my laptop is freaking out. It started a week ago or so, and now I think I might just dump it in the nearest bin.... It is sooo frustrating when things are not working properly. Anyhow, I have to write everything on the computer at work now, and it does not have the same keyboard settings as the laptop so I get everything wrong all the time. Fortunately the Hungarian language has those weird letters that we have in Swedish, so at least that is not a problem.
I had a break through at work when my project was shown on some big meeting on Friday, however I have still to hear the comments....
Om Saturday I had my Hungarian class again (only 2 classes left now) and then we met up with my friend Romi for some lunch at a tapas restaurant. The food was great, and also the wine. After that Andreas and I went to the nearby National museum for a visit.
On our way home we did some grocery shopping and found everything to make tortillas, except for the bread. Weird, they had taco sauce, taco spices etc but not the bread....
On Sunday we were lazy, did some window shopping and had ice cream in the West End shopping mall, rented a movie and had dinner. Oh and almost forgot to set the clock…..but only almost….
No pictures this time, they will come up later I hope. Can’t be all fun and play every week.
Til next time....xxx

Shortest Week Ever... (Comicbook guy voice)

Probably the shortest week ever... Wednesday was National Holiday so everyone was out in the streets... even yours truly. Flags everywhere and even though the weather forecast predicted it to be at least partly sunny it was still cold as hell. Thank God for Hot wine! It really saved the day... that and the Hungarian bread-roll with sugar and cinnamon on it, which is baked on a wooden stick. But hey.. atleast i got to pet a horse!



Since everything was closed during this holiday we went to the cinema to see what movies were showing. Top of the list was Casanova and Syriana. First we opted for Casanova but to give ourselves more time to eat dinner down at the food court we (Andreas) chose Syriana. Bad idea... should have chosen Casanova. Even though the speech was in English (Hungarians have a bad habit of dubbing everything... probably even MTV if they could have it their way... ) the parts spoken in Arabic had Hungarian subtitles... so me and Malin were left in the dark (no pun intended) about what was really going on. But definitely worth watching again once we get back to Sweden and can get some proper subtitles. And since this has been such a straineous week both me and Malin got some facials done..

On Thursday we both left early from work to get to the train station to catch the train to Sopron. This is not the easiest thing in the world if you are two youngsters who don’t speak fluently Hungarian trying to communicate with people who don’t really care what you are trying to say. Finally we found a compartment with free seats, non smoking and not entirely unlike a sauna. Which turned out to be a compartment in the wrong end of the train since the train splits up into two separate ones about an hour away from Sopron. So we had to move.
Anyway... we finally arrived and were met up with Aniko and Ákos (mother of Monika, and the husband) who had prepared dinner, an apartment for us to stay in over the weekend and two aprons with the Goulash soup recipe on them. After A LOT of wine and a fine dinner they drove us back to the apartment that we’d be staying in, but since me and Malin weren’t ready for bed yet we went to a Sörözö (beer hall) for a night cap.
The day after we went to one of Fresenius’ dialysis centres for a fieldtrip together with Malin’s “boss” from Budapest. Which was interesting in one way and disturbing in another. The fieldtrip was followed by some local sightseeing tour with Aniko, including both a coffee break with the mandatory cake, and lunch. After this we went home and watched a movie until it was late enough for us to have some dinner.
On Saturday morning i had an appointment with a dentist for my irregular check up. The prognosis was more than i had money for but at least now i know what needs to be done once i can afford it, or have my teeth knocked out with a baseball bat. But for our concerned readers i can say that i am not in any pain and nor will i be for a couple of months. I hope. The later part of the day we walked around town but since the weather was still a bit nasty we headed home early for an afternoon nap and movie before we left for a BBQ restaurant, Papa Joe’s. This was probably the only time that the beer will be more expensive than the food. It was quite ironic that even though it was an American country western inspired restaurant the only beer that was close to being American was Corona, which is Mexican. No Miller, No Lite... not even American Budweiser.. but they did have the Czech Budweiser though.
Finally, on Sunday, the weather changed and suddenly we were able to sit and eat our lunch in just our T-shirts... WTF! Why couldn’t it of been like that the whole weekend instead of wind, rain and snow!? It was nice though to see other parts of Hungary than just Budapest. Sopron is small and picturesque (at least the old town) and bears a great and interesting history.

This last picture is from the old Ghetto...
Anyway... we are on the train back to Budapest now and apparently it is going to be at least above the 0 mark the whole week. So at least that is good news.. Spring might finally be here!! It is true what they say – there is no place like home (in this case Budapest since that is the closest we have right now).

Another week.. Another blog... = )

(As we can not keep away from each others writing this is a mumble rumble from us both)

The weekend in Sweden was as eventful as I could expect it to be... Met celebrities, friends and fans. I didn’t have to sign any autographs this time but I was sure to get 4 from Elijah Wood. (Got the plaque for my Sting (TM) signed... yay!)

Anyway... the pictures from the weekend can be seen in the gallery. Back to Budapest...!!

On Tuesday we went up to the Castle Hill for some real sightseeing. We saw the Fisherman’s Bastille (we were able to go on top now before the tourist season), the St Matthias Church (the inside as well, which was beautiful, and had a museum where you could see a mummified hand and a skull of some important bishop), and the Castle (where no royalty has ever lived. See definition of irony.) We had some roasted chestnuts and the sun was shining merrily. Went into the Hungarian National Gallery, but were too hungry to stay and see it all.



We had lunch next to the statue of the horse whose balls students touch for good luck. The statue is grey and green but the balls are shiny as polished gold. After lunch we headed down into the grottos beneath the and labyrinths beneath the streets for some after lunch excitement... and as it turned out a underground wine well, a big head and erotic art.



On our way back home we did some shopping in “our” market hall. Among other things we bought some wine a lady sold in plastic flasks from big tanks. All we have to do is to go back to the same shop and get a refill for no money at all, well... hardly anyway. We rushed home to prepare dinner for our guests Monika and Kristian whom we had invited after their delicious meal. They came, we had a great dinner, enjoyed each others company and served a surprise for Kristian. As a desert we had Swedish “delicato bollar” which he is very fond of. For Monika we had Swedish candy and salty liquorish (Monika grew up in Sweden).

On Friday Malin stayed home from work to do some work on her essay, and the laundry.... Malin met up with Andreas in the city to go shopping. In the evening we went to The Darkness to eat dinner and yet another idea for a restaurant in Sweden took form. (The first idea came from Sir Lancelot) The place served good Bloody Marys and good food as well, however it was not so scary after all. It was quite funny when Andreas first tried to pay the 8000Ft check with a 1000Ft bill, and then changed it to a 2000Ft bill and 3 1000Ft bills. Malin had to rescue the situation by paying with a 10 000ft bill, and leaving Andreas ashamed for the rest of the evening while trying to figure out where the heck he had spent all of his money!??!

On our way back we decided to take a drink at some bar but didn’t find any good ones so instead we decided to rent a movie. It was however not as easy as we thought. First you had to get a card (and pay for it) then you had to charge this card, then order the movie in a “ATM for movies” and then put your card in a different slot and retrieve your movie. They had 24 hours service but when Andreas wanted to return the movie within a 12 hour (there are several to choose from) limit the machine refused to accept the card. So, annoyed and disappointed he went home again to see me off for my Hungarian class. (Pictures coming later.. forgot to transfer them to the laptop... D'OH!)

On Saturday Malin had her Hungarian course as usual so I was left at home to do some chores. I scrubbed the stove, mopped the kitchen floor and waxed the dolphin.... At lunch time we went to see the inside of the parliament. Since it was only 3 pm when the tour was over we decided to go to the Terror Museum. Many of you might think, as I did, that this was a wax cabinet of some sorts with some medieval torture tools.... I was wrong. The Museum was much more terrifying than that. It presented a quite real imagery of the terror Hungary suffered while it was occupied by the two most unforgiving dictatorships in our century: Hitler with the Nazi Arrow Cross Army and Stalin with his Communist Red Army. Both had their headquarters in the very same building and used the same brutal methods to control the population, with Terror. Inside the house there are two monuments commemorating those who where captured, tortured and killed. One is a wall at the entrance with all the victims’ faces with a T-64 Tank at its base and the second is a room with all the names cut out in sheet metal. The impact is far more real and hard hitting than any other museum i’ve been to. You leave it feeling empty and futile. As we walked home neither of us felt like cooking se we sat down at a restaurant and had some pizza. Feeling a bit better after getting some food in our stomachs we walked home. As we walked home the alcoholic in me wanted to have some coffee and liqueur so we started to look for a liqueur shop that was still open. Luckily we found one so we went inside and bought some Marzipan Liqueur. Safe and sound back home i made myself some coffee and marzipan liquor and crept under the sheets and watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire.

On Sunday we had decided to go to a science museum (a touch and experience kind of museum). However, the queue was too long and the wind too cold so we went to the mall Mammoth for some shopping instead. After shopping, lunch and some ice cream we went back to the museum. We decided to go only to one of the museums (there are two: one for younger kids and one for older kids). Now we started to get disappointed: the Flight simulator was fully booked, the Mars tour was fully booked, the psychological test booths were full and the touch screens in the Future Café didn’t work, Andreas had a hole in his sock and we both had blister on our feet from all the walking this weekend, and on top of it all most texts were in Hungarian! We did try some of the experiments and at least had some fun, but then it was suddenly half past five and our blood sugar was plummeting uncontrollably to the bottom. We made a quick stop at the grocery store for some breakfast before we headed home to make dinner. Then we both tried the mysterious wine bought at the market hall and the marzipan liquor. Mmmmm have to buy a bottle to take home to Sweden (Malin)!

Then, another week starts and we only have to look forward to next weekend when we go to Sopron to visit Aniko (one of our mentors) and to see the views of the picturesque town. Oh, and on Wednesday it is the National Holiday, so we will have the day of to stroll around the city and watch all the Hungarians celebrate their day of freedom.

Stay tuned... (more pictures will be added later.. )

Gräsänka för en helg...

The week went on as usual, working more or less 5 hours a day, which is a luxury for students only. No spring weather in sight (until Friday when I refused to wear my winter coat anymore and put my sunglasses on in the morning). On Wednesday we went shopping for some things for Andreas to take home with him, some bottles of wine and other things. We also found some nice clothes for Andreas but none for me :(. We were not in the mood to wait for a pizza to cook in the oven so we had dinner at TGI Friday’s in the West End mall, not as good as I had imagined but at least it was food. The beer however was excellent! Happy, we strolled home and Andreas started packing for his trip.

On Thursday I realised there are two new employees at the company, they felt as lost as I do so we had a little chat about that during lunch break.
The person I am working with in my project is very busy taking over someone else’s work and having vacation time at the same time so I am pretty much on my own most of the time, which is fine except I need to make sure I am on the right track….O well next week maybe. Gives me time to work on my essay instead. It’s easy to forget that part of LIA when having other things to do.

After a day of Terrible Homesickness on Thursday when Andreas left for Sweden my weekend actually was very nice. On Friday I meet up with Monika at Liszt Ferenc tér for a coffee. We ended up at Kharma, which has an interior design of Indonesian/Indian style, eating a delicious chocolate banana cake. On Saturday I had my Hungarian course which was quite funny this time. The group is getting more and more open as we learn more about each other. There are three other girls in the group, all three from South America.

As we walked to one of the Brazilian girls’ home (she is married to a Hungarian) nearby the school we tried to communicate in Hungarian, English, Portuguese and Spanish which was ok really, considering we all know just one of the above languages each…. (and the small amount of Hungarian word we learnt in class). Nem ertem (I don’t understand) and nem tudom (I don’t know) might be the most important phrases we learnt so far.

I walked home admiring the view from the Margaret Bridge on my way. Although the weather was boring and the rain clouds were hanging heavy over my head it was nice to walk home, thinking about the night out with Romi. The restaurant I wanted to go to on Saturday evening was full, so I reserved a table at the Club Verne, which we have passed a couple of times in the city looking curiously at the diver costume outside and the machinery look-a-like door. From the beginning it looked like we were going o be four people, but it ended up being just me, Romi and her boyfriend, which is not bad at all.

The place looks great except for one thing, brick walls in a submarine? I don’t get it. Anyhow, as I waited outside for the others I meet some new friends, a Hungarian rock band that had come for the karaoke night. They sang to me right there and then in the street, in both American and Hungarian. Unfortunately me never made it to the karaoke night because Romi’s boyfriend had the flu and they lest around eleven. I was really in a party mood but what to do. The food was good, the beer even better and we had plenty of laughs. Hassan (the boyfriend) is a Lebanese diplomat here in Hungary and had some funny stories to tell us.



I took a cab home, since the metro and trams stop running after eleven. There are night busses though, but taxi is cheap enough to keep me from trying to find them.

Woke up Sunday morning and what do I see – snow! Again! Why o why? I had plans to do some sightseeing today, but I guess I have to go shopping instead.
Ah, new shoes. All I need now is for the snow to melt. My friend Romi comes from Pragh and she is going there for the last weekend of April – and she has two seats in the car reserved for two very special Swedes. I only hope Andreas will come with me to see this supposedly beautiful and must-see city that I did not have the chance to go to last year.