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).