Debrecen

The Protestant Great Church

Debrecen disappointed us a little bit... Although it is the second largest city in Hungary, actually it's quite small and we did not find that much to see there...or at least there was no "awe" feeling when we were there... except in the museum, perhaps.
Anyway, I will leave here some pictures of the things that I liked the most!




A Hotel in the main avenue...


This one had stained-glass windows, but you cannot really see...and at night the inside light was not enough to admire them properly, but they seemed to be really nice.


The inside of the Church... it was quite strange! it had benches all around, in every direction.



The Déri Museum was a nice surprise. It held a personal collection, and we thought "well, let's take a peek, it shouldn't take that long..."
2 hours later, we were still there! It had a little bit of everything, from egypt to ancient greece and rome, to hungarian art and folklore (oh, I loved these little mugs that were shaped like men and women... I'm definitely going to the flea market to try and find one of these!)...
For me, it was the best part in Debrecen... very inspiring.

ps: oh, Debrecen had traffic lights with count-downs! It was sooooooo annoying to see the seconds going by, waiting for our turn to cross. I wonder if it is a good improvement or a little bit pointless...

Cave Baths

The Cave Baths in Miskolc-Tapolca was one of the best days of our trip!
We did not take any pictures because, well, it was a thermal bath and we love our cameras way too much.
But I really had to share something so that you could have a glimpse of it...
It was definitely worth it, it was different and inspiring. And relaxing... I'm just sorry that on one of the parts the water was a little bit cold... it must be better closer to the summer.

However, that temperature was actually perfect after accidentally finding out there was a water-gymnastics class starting in the exact pool where we were. It was us 3 (Theresa was taking a power nap) and a lot of old people, but I must admit it was fun, lol!


picture found through google image search engine


picture found through google image search engine



The above is a quick drawing in my iPhone, because I did not want to forget the mood, the colours and the reflections of one particular cave/chamber that had these underwater lights changing constantly and this weird thing in the middle with places to seat... and it echoed and augmented the voices a lot... it had a really strange/sci-fi feeling attached to it...

After the cave-baths there was not much to see... we had lunch, walked around the local park, and left to Debrecen!

...to be continued ;)

Hollokö

It was cold, veeeeeery cold, but it was indeed a nice trip!
We started in Hollokö, a very very traditional village in Hungary... but unfortunately it's also a touristic place, which means it practically dies in the Winter. Every museum was closed, we could only walk around the place... However, the feeling of having the area just for us was at the same time spooky and nice. Like an abandoned town.

The three backpackers... it was so funny to watch them put those bags on their backs! And to see them taking them off was also quite entertaining...


Some crooked traditional houses, protected by UNESCO


The church (I love these very enlightening descriptions of photographs...)


hmm... random detail of pots?


... and some company along the way.

Lucky for us, the tourist information office was open and we left there our heavy bags.


I have a cap! and some fairy-like leaves, found on the way :)



Up up up we went until the castle... closed, of course, during winter time... but nearby we found a nice surprise. A quirky open-air theater, stage for our random silliness.






(picture taken by Anja, for obvious reasons ;))



To end the evening (before catching the bus to Miskolc, to sleep there), a nice lunch in a traditional restaurant.



I'll leave you now some pictures of the room in Miskolc... it was a really neat and modern place for students, close to the university. We were truly sorry for only spending there one night! Oh well...






the bathroom, connecting to Theresa's and Juliana's room!

And as soon as I can, I'll post some pictures of the rest of our trip.
Hugs to you all!

I'm going to travel!

Tomorrow I'll have to wake up around 5 a.m.... ouch!
And I'll be back on the 18th! (if everything goes well)

We'll be going to Holloko tomorrow morning because it's a traditional village with traditional people, according to Juliana.
From there, in the evening, we'll go to Miskolc to spend the night and in the next day we'll try the cave-baths in Miskolc-Tapolca.
From there we proceed to Debrecen, take one day there and visit the national reserve of Hortobagy in the next day. Back to Debrecen, we take the train to Deva, in Romenia... we'll be visiting one castle associated with the Dracula, the place where he was held prisoner for 7 years before being deported. The castle is not in Deva, it is in the nearby Hunedoara.
From Deva to Budapest we'll take a night bus and seven hours later (in the early morning of the 18th) we'll be back "home"... exhausted, probably!

We'll recover for 2/3 days and then follows Pecs and the Lake Balaton.
Uff!

I'll post some pictures when I come back... in the meantime, you can always "google-image" it ;)

See you soon!

Tough to come, tough to go...

We went to a fancy restaurant in João's last day here, in order to spend his last forints (and because it's always nice to go somewhere nicer than burguer king*, once in a while ;))...

*No need to fear Mom, I've actually never been to a burguer king, it's just a matter or speech!

Sorry for the not-so-good quality of the pictures, but they were taken with my brand-new iPhone :D
(shameless advertising?)



I had duck with potatoes in the oven and strawberries with strawberry sauce... delicious! Really exquisite!




A close-up from my dish.
We were the only customers in that restaurant on a wednesday night, so the service was good and fast, of course.



and João with his dish (he thought I was only taking a picture from the plate...) He had veal goulash with some weird-but-oh-so-good potato thingies that were a mix of mashed potatoes and potatoes cut in pieces, all crunched up in what resembled disks, and crunchy on the outside (really hard to describe, lol!)

But actually, this was not his last day here... for the flight in the next morning was canceled due to bad weather in Paris. Curiously enough, he was flying to Geneva and not Paris, but the easyjet plane was coming from Paris to Budapest.
This means he returned to my place and he also had to take money from an ATM, to come by airport shuttle (how ironic! but that dinner was well worth the money, it was delicious!).
This also means he re-booked his first flight to a few days later and that he lost the flight from Geneva to Porto... (later he bought a ticket in TAP, from Geneva to Porto, on Sunday)

But... he also couldn't go on Sunday! The easyjet flight was canceled again (this time the bad weather really was in Switzerland). He asked for the refund and lost the TAP flight (more money down the drain... oh well...).

He left this afternoon, bought a new ticket in TAP, so that he would have a sure connection and not loose money again, and he left from Budapest to Lisbon, and then Lisbon-Porto.

Uff! This was really an expensive trip for him, after all the problems in the begining and now in the end... But at least the time he spent here was really really nice :)
(oh, we visited the parliament! I have to post a few pictures from that, it's a really gorgeous building)

I hope he has a good trip back home!

I miss the snow...

the first picture in the first day of snow... I was so excited, running around the room and trying to take one decent picture from the snow, that I arrived reaaaally late at MOME... I'm glad Anja was also late, because we were going to meet to animate :P

This was how I left Budapest (and my university) before Christmas:


the A building

Now it's sunny but cold... and after having my feet wet from the rain on new year's eve (those boots from deichman are really nice-looking, but quite poor in quality) I bought some real boots in Timberland. Now I'm ready for the bad weather, and although there was a little bit of snow yesterday, it was not enough to cover everything in white...


Still my university... That's the building of the theoretical course.

Happy New Year!

post-post-post midnight celebrations (I forgot to film midnight, I just recorded about 10 minutes after... probably those fireworks are from someone that decided to launch them later?)
You can see João, Theresa and Anja and Tobi. (and their friends around)

We went to Theresa's house for a "warm-up party/get together before midnight/whatever" around 21:30h, and we were chatting until 23h45... there were several german and swiss people, friends from Theresa and Anja's boyfriend (Tobi), so we were actually the only non-speaking german people there!
From there we went to Oktogon square, to celebrate the new year.
There was a big screen with Viva (though I didn't understand very well why... but again, I felt I was in germany and not in Hungary, lol) and at midnight there were a lot of fireworks! It was funny,there were a lot of people with fireworks in their hands, launching them. You could buy them anywhere and just do the party yourself. (Tia Gui, imagine drunk people with noisy fireworks in their hands! scary..) Different (seemed a little bit more chaotic, maybe) but nice.
From there we went to this big party in a disco... I kind of regret having spent those 20€, lol! It was crowded, had music and drinks... but it was not my style at all. The company was, of course, nice...just too many drunk teenagers all around (I'm getting old...).

Hugs and kisses to you all, wishing a very very good 2010!