Our trip into Hungary went surprisingly well considering we had two flights from different airports in and out of Rome. Not very good planning on our part but sometimes things work out like that. We left Palermo last Saturday morning and arrived in Hungary in the late afternoon. We enjoyed our two weeks 'slumming' it on the beach but we were ready to move on to pastures new.

Hungary airport has an excellent minibus shuttle service that takes you directly to your address in Budapest, we arrived at our overnight stay relatively stress free, but very hungary (oh no not the hungary in Hungary joke already !) so we went exploring for dinner and found a restaurant called Stex that served a wonderful platter of grilled meat and veg that we devoured, followed by a large dessert of gellato (icecream for the uninitiated in the picture). I am ashamed to say I ate the whole dessert myself. YUM!

Sunday 17 July (one week later)

I had planned on updating the blog last week whilst we were staying at our last workaway, however although we had internet the band width was so narrow that we were unable to upload. I managed to upload the above at 4 am in the morning, when it was so hot that I couldn't sleep and everyone was off the internet. Although It still took over 5 minutes.

For the past week we have been enjoying ourselves in Monor at a small hotel with a thermal spa as well as a riding stable and swimming pool. Although I am afraid we didn't have time to go riding as we were there at the invitation of our latest workaway host Angloville, an organisation that organises English-speaking practice for non native English speakers.

We had a great week meeting and speaking to some lovely Hungarian people helping them improve their English and learning a lot about their culture and their country.

The week started when we were collected from Budapest by coach on Sunday morning and taken to the hotel in Monor. We were shown around and introduced to the 10 Hungarian participants and our fellow English speaking workawayers. The timetable for the week consisted of 3 meals a day and conversation sessions from 9.30 to 19.00 with a 1.5 hour break after lunch from 3 to 4.30. The evening meal finished about 8 pm leaving the evening free. It sounds easy just conversing in English but having an hour session with a different person each time does put a strain on the brain!

Everyone was given a free session now and then when we dashed off to the spa to relax. The weather was very hot (about 35 degrees) and it was great to jump into the pool. The rooms didn't have air con so became very warm. Later in the week we had a terrific thunder storm which cooled things down (but not the room).

Food was typical Hungarian cuisine and a bit disappointing, however the hotel was very comfortable and we both enjoyed our week. In fact we enjoyed ourselves so much that we have signed up for another programme in Wroclaw, Poland at the end of August. On Friday, our final day, we said goodbye to our new Hungarian friends and returned to Budapest to start our second week in Hungary. We hope to meet up in the future to see how their English has improved.