6. Thrills, Spills, and Near Death Experiences

23rd September 2013

I'm not a superstitious person, and, fingers crossed, I never will be.  But we had to contend with Friday 13th this month, and my God, it was a stinker.  Nothing too serious thankfully, but a few highlights involve a stubbed toe, a burnt dinner and knocking over an almost-full jar of jalapeno peppers inside the fridge.  Once we got that out of the way, the last couple of weeks have actually been rather pleasant.

There is a funfair in Budapest, which is called Vidampark.  It is extremely old, but it has so much character.  We went a couple of years ago, and having learned that it will close down at the end of September, we didn't want to pass up the opportunity of going once more.

Some of the rides in the park are actually over 100 years old, and it even used to be known as Angolpark (English Park), but I don't know the reason for this unfortunately.  My absolute favourite thing in Vidampark is the old wooden rollercoaster.  

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As luck would have it, this was actually closed for repair this time around (I wonder if it will run again before the park closes) but we were lucky enough to ride it several times the first time we went.  It certainly doesn't have the loops, twists or turns of your modern 'coasters, but what it lacks in scares it makes up for in charm and nostalgia.

There are a few, more modern, thrill rides in the park too.  Me and B both love a nice, scary jaunt every so often, so we of course hopped straight on one of the bigger ones here.  You've probably seen similar ones if you live in England, not particularly scary but good fun.  

Only this is Hungary, so not everything is quite so simple.  It was only after the ride had finished when the terror truly set in, as we looked back at our defeated foe to notice several of the seats in the front row had signs on them, saying 'Nem működik' which translates as 'not working'.  We still went on the other rides which flung us upside down and side to side, we just had a little extra fear in us after that.

I think this ride is the oldest, certainly one of them.  It is more an attraction than a ride to be honest, you sit on a train which is pulled along by a dragon, and it takes you through the story of János, a Hungarian shepherd who falls in love with a girl.  

As he is 'busy' with his girlfriend, he loses sight of his flock, and rather than face the angry villagers, he runs away and joins the Army.  He battles the Turks, and saves the French King's daughter from death.  

The King offers János his daughter as a reward, but he instead chooses to go back home to his girlfriend.  By the time he gets home, his girlfriend is dead, so János goes off on adventures and battles dragons and giants, before stumbling upon the land of the fairies, where of course he finds his newly pixified girlfriend.  A bit weird maybe, but it is a very famous Hungarian story written by Petőfi Sándor.

There is a ferris wheel of course, which the English Health and Safety Board would again have a field day with.  

100 feet high and the carriages are completely open, you could climb out at the top if you wanted to (but why would you?).

This beautiful carousel is also one of the attractions here, thankfully the authorities apparently have decided to let this one live on after the park closes.

Here are a couple of select piccies of some more of the more old school style rides at the park.  This one is the Hungarian version of teacups.  Even with authentic paintings of Big Ben, Tower Bridge on the back of the cars.

This one is my favourite though, very special Harry Potter inspired inflatable slide...

We had a great time at the park, and it truly saddens me that a big part of history from Budapest will soon no longer exist.  Although I can completely understand why, as the park was practically empty, I guess there is no place nowadays for such a traditional funfair.  It has obviously passed it's prime, and maybe one day a more modern counterpart will be built here, but we will miss you Vidampark!

Having waited for over 6 weeks for our dining chairs to arrive, we suddenly went from zero to twelve chairs in less than 24 hours.  B's family own a flat two doors down from us, and having rented it out to a nice, shitzu-owning tattoo artist (really), he decided he didn't want the furniture which was in there, so we had to take it in.  Of course, the minute we took them in, our ordered chairs arrived which meant a nice tally of twelve.  As luck would have it, the day after acquiring the extra chairs, we held up a dinner party for a newly loved-up friend of ours, so we could interrogate the new boyfriend.  They told us they were moving so we offered the chairs to them and they took them a few days later.  Result!

We have noticed a strange occurrence in our flat here.  Almost every day it seems, we get tiny powercuts which only last a fraction of a second.  Of course this isn't really a huge problem to us, but it can be a little annoying if you're watching a movie and everything shuts off, and you have to restart everything.  Well, in the last few days we've come to realise these are not totally random, but happening at exactly 6.08pm every single day.  We have absolutely no idea what is causing this to happen, I guess there must be a master switch for something in the building which is causing it.  I'm pretty certain no one will ever know the reason for it, I wonder if it happens to everyone else in the building?

Being the miserable English bastard that I am, B has decided to try and get me to open my heart and enjoy the beauty of a Hungarian Autumn.  I have tried to explain that, being brought up in England, where you get 10 days of Summer and 355 days of grey every year, there is no such thing as Autumn, but she insists so she has made me a checklist of things I have to do this 'season'.

As you can see, we've done a few already, but my heart of stone is yet to be broken, and I am still looking forward to seeing Budapest in Winter and hopefully under at least a sprinkling of snow.  However, I did enjoy a fairly Autumnal walk in the woods this weekend.  I even allowed B to pick a few leaves.  I know, I'm too nice to her...

The last thing I have to tell you about may come as a bit of a surprise to you.  This week, we attended a dance class.  B has always wanted to do this, and I (reluctantly) said I would do it if a suitable class came up.  Well, last week she spotted a voucher for a very cheap, 8 week course in various dances, in a place just 15 minutes walk away from where we live.  I think B was in shock when she asked me and I said yes, all I can say is she caught me on a good day.  What is even more surprising is, I actually quite enjoyed it.  We both did, once the initial embarrassment subsided and we realised we weren't the only completely uncoordinated, totally untalented, arm-flailing n00bs there.  

There was around 45 people in total, so there was never any attention on anyone other than the instructors, and everyone seemed to have a good time.  We quickly came to the conclusion that neither of us have any hand to leg coordination what-so-ever, but it's a beginner's course so who cares, right?  Last week we learned the starting steps of the samba, the foxtrot and even the quickstep.  Next week, no one knows, but I'll be sure to keep you all posted.  It's been a busy couple of weeks, well, busy for someone who's unemployed anyway, so I need a rest now.  Until next time, viszlát!

5. Back to Iskola

7th September 2013

Having just finished my 2 week survivor's guide to Hungarian, I wish I could tell you I can now speak fluently among the natives.  This of course isn't the case, but I do have a slightly larger range of words and I understand more about the basics of the sentence structure.

Hungarian is very different from English.  First off, the alphabet contains a whopping 44 letters, including 14 vowels.  The language is very phonetic though, so once you learn the alphabet it makes reading Hungarian possible at the very least.  It is also a very rhythmic language, the emphasis placed on the first syllable of every word, and most words following the pattern of consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, etc.

The class, for the most part, was fun.  There was around 16 or 17 of us, and 99% of them were American IT students.  They were here for a few months as part of their University degrees back home in the US, and part of their course was this language class.  There was only me and one other person who were not American, a lovely Australian woman called M, who was in Hungary because of her son.  He was at a local football academy training to be the next Magnificent Magyar, or Aussie in his case.  Her husband is Hungarian and they spend a lot of time here in Budapest.  Being the only people in the class over the age of 20, we hit it off and became friends quickly.

It has been a very tiring couple of weeks, I'd forgotten that having to spend all day in a classroom can be quite draining.  To be honest though, I think the course was a little too full on in hindsight, and that lessons for just a few hours a week might be more beneficial for me.  I think time in between lessons is needed for all the information to sink in.  In class, as soon as one topic had been discussed, we were onto the next one without ever looking back.  Now I will take a little breather, then study on my own a little, before signing up for some more, albeit less intensive, classes.

Last weekend, we spent the day and night at B's grandparents place.  They are absolutely lovely and although they don't speak English and I don't speak Hungarian, we can usually make ourselves understood to each other.  B's grandfather took us to the Museum of Agriculture (as seen in the last post), and showed us around their town.  It was a lovely place, with a great history.  He used to be the head teacher of the local high school so it was lovely to see everyone saying hello to him and waving as we walked through the town centre.

After dinner we had a marathon session of Rummi, and then in the morning they took us to their allotment, which they call a telek (parcel).

We spent an hour or two picking the plums, and various other fruits and vegetables, from which they make pálinka, wines, jams, preserves among other things.

Their basement is a thing of beauty, every wall is lined with shelves full of homemade treats.  We sampled quite a few different vintages of pálinka too, it would have been rude not to...

I also had my birthday on Wednesday.  As usual, B made a fuss of me and although I spent the day at school, I had a great day.

On Friday evening, B's parent's cooked me a lovely meal and gave me some nice gifts.  I was touched by their kindness, so thank you to G & E once again, you have really made me feel welcome here.  And thanks to everyone who messaged me, or sent me a card, to say happy birthday.  It means a lot.

At the weekend, we were invited to spend the day, evening and night in one of our friend's holiday houses on the outskirts of the city.  It is quite common among the Hungarians to have these little holiday homes.  I guess the lower price of property here makes it possible.  

We spent the day weeding the garden, playing cards and the evening attempting to cook food over a fire in the garden.  The entertainment was great but I have to say our outdoor cooking skills left a fair bit to be desired.

No ill effects yet from the undercooked meat thankfully...perhaps neutralised by the massively overcooked potatoes.

B and I have also started to run again.  Since my half marathon in March, I have barely been out running at all so it feels good to start up again finally.  One of my goals since deciding to move here is to run the Budapest Marathon next October.  I am in no way fit enough to attempt it this year, but I will give it my best shot to get ready for 2014.  This is a good time to explain the title of this blog actually.  'A Foot in the Duna' is a play on words, as 'fut' is the Hungarian word meaning 'to run'.  So it has an English and Hungarian meaning.

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So far, I've only done a couple of short 3 mile runs around Margitsziget (Margaret Island), but hopefully soon I will get my fitness back and be able to do laps.  When I decided to write this blog, it was intended to be more of a diary of my running just for myself, but now it has become more of a general diary, it seems like a good idea to share it with my family and friends.  And now I am up to date with it, I will attempt to post every few weeks or so.

All in all, after a month in Hungary, I am very happy and feel as if Budapest is treating me kindly.  Of course I miss my family and friends from home a great deal, but I feel like this chapter of my life was meant to be.  Having moved here 9 years to the day after my father died, July 30th, and into a building called Főnix Ház (Phoenix house - my Dad's auction business was called Phoenix Auction Rooms), I can't help but feel that maybe he is keeping a watching eye over us.  I hope we can make you proud of us Dad.

4. Do You Have Electricity?

15th August 2013

When I first told people I was moving to Budapest, I was asked many times questions such as 'will you have internet there?' and even 'do they have electricity?'.  I'm not sure where most people think Hungary is, but I can assure you it is quite a civilised place.  To prove it, I will share a few pictures with you.

The first, is a picture of our water pump:

This is where we get our fresh water supply, and also clean ourselves up in the morning.  Refreshing!

The second picture was taken after I borrowed the family vehicle to get to the shops:

Doesn't look too comfortable, but after the first 6 or 7 miles you really do get used to it.  Here is B at the petrol station:

I am of course joking.  These pictures were taken after a visit to B's grandparents (more about that in the next post).  They live in a town called Mezőkövesd which is a couple of hours from Budapest on the train.  They have a Museum of Agriculture there which is a really fascinating look back at the agricultural history of Hungary.  Fortunately, times have moved on since then.

The first couple of weeks in Hungary have been great.  The weather has been unbelievable, even surpassing 40 degrees at times.  We have spent a lot of time arranging, and rearranging, the new flat.  We still haven't finished everything, but we have all the time in the world to add finishing touches, and we are quite happy with how the flat looks now.

We have a modest one bedroom flat on the 6th floor.  The floors are wooden throughout the living room and bedroom, and we even have a little balcony where we can sit and enjoy a beer, or even dinner, on these warm summer evenings.  Here's a few pictures of the place for you:

This is the living room.  Sorry for the poor quality but it's hard to get a nice one with the sun shining through the window.  That double door opens out onto the balcony, and on the right is our bedroom.  Special guest appearance by Dibby in this one.

Here is the dining area, which joins on to the living room:

We are still waiting for the dining chairs to arrive, but hopefully they will come this week.  Finally, this last picture is of the kitchen:

You can see from the bottom right corner I have been sampling the local breweries' offerings.  It's a beautiful kitchen, and on the right out of shot there is a little door which opens out onto another tiny balcony, where we are currently growing some herbs and plants.

We live in the XIIIth district of Budapest in an area called Újlipótváros.  It is right in the middle of the city, and we love our neighbourhood.  There are a lot of nice restaurants, bars, and more importantly, great ice cream parlours all around us.

I love the architecture of the buildings in Budapest.  They range incredibly, from the drab blocks built in the Socialist era, to magnificent masterpieces such as Parlament (the Parliament building, obviously), and Nyugati train station which was built by Gustave Eiffel.  I still walk around the city gawping with my mouth open at times, it's hard not to act like a tourist.  Hopefully in time, I can walk around with cool indifference just like the locals.

There are many tall buildings here, especially in the city centre you have apartment blocks which are usually 6 or 7 storeys high.  Most apartments have balconies and it seems quite a popular past-time here to decorate the balconies with beautiful arrays of flowers.  Quite often we will be walking along the streets, in the blistering sunshine, when all of a sudden it appears to rain out of the bright blue sky.  Of course, it is just someone watering their floral displays, but it always takes me by surprise when it hits me.

Something else which I love about Hungary is the food.  When I first met B, I was quite a fussy eater I have to say.  I always have been, although I got more adventurous as I got older, there were certain things I just could not bring myself to try.  Being with a Hungarian girl though, you just cannot afford to think this way.  The Hungarians love their food, and they love to feed their guests too, so it would be just rude if you were to refuse to eat something they had spent hours preparing.

Since we've been together, B has slowly knocked most of the fussiness out of me.  But, I was not quite prepared for the first big family meal since we moved.  On the menu - goat.  Now I'd not eaten this before, and I still get palpitations when I am told I am about to eat something new.  What if I don't like it?  Worse still, what if I involuntarily spit it out?  Well, I told myself they eat goat all over the place, and it's probably no different from pork, so the jitters soon went away.  But then, B's uncle took great delight in telling me what the starter would be.  'What's the word for the inside of bones?' he asked me.  
'Errrr...do you mean bone marrow?' I replied.
'Yes, that's the one.  We're having bone marrow on toast.' he said.
Palpitations came back with a vengeance.
I had a good couple of hours to worry about this one as they slowly baked in the oven.  But when the time came to try it, weirdly, I found some courage.  Maybe it was the pálinka.  Or maybe I've just changed.  But anyway, I scraped out some bone marrow onto a piece of toasted bread, and ate it.  And would you believe it, it tasted amazing.  After that, I wasn't worried about the goat any more, and neither should I have been, as that was also delicious. 

Next on the agenda for me is language school.  I have enrolled on a 2 week intensive beginner's course, which I start this week, so hopefully after this I will have a few more words in my vocabulary and a better understanding of the language.  Wish me luck!

3. Goodbye England, Szia Magyarország

30th July 2013

The connection between flights in Frankfurt was a nightmare.  First off, we landed approximately 20 minutes late.  This wouldn't normally bother me, but there was only one hour between the flights, so it was tight.  If you've ever been to Frankfurt airport, you'll know it's pretty huge.  And our plane, due to the lateness of our arrival, had to park roughly 4 miles away from the terminal.  So me and all the other passengers hopped on a bus headed for the terminal.  Once we arrived, I realised I was still miles away from my gate.  So I ran.  For about ten minutes I weaved my way through the busy terminal to make my gate.  By the time I got there, I was literally the last one to hand over my boarding pass.  I've never been the last one at the gate before.  As an English man, it is in my blood to arrive hours early and stand in line with all the other English people who don't realise the rest of the world don't give a toss about queuing.

I had made the flight with minutes to spare.  As I sat down, I realised that there was no way that the cats were going to be on board this plane as well.  I resigned myself to a nervous hour and a half of twiddling my thumbs and the inevitable disappointment and worry of having to find out where in Europe the cats had ended up, once I landed in Budapest.

After we landed, I gathered my things and got off the plane, and headed for the baggage area.  I didn't really know where the cats would be, if they had indeed been put on the plane, so I thought the best thing to do would be to head to claim my luggage and hope that they would be there.  B had phoned the airport a few days prior and they told her they would bring them out to meet me, but my in-built cynicism had already overridden this notion.

I got to the carousel and it wasn't long before colourful chunks of Samsonite were doing their merry dance.  As the people grabbed their belongings and filtered off, I noticed a guy squatting down by the luggage window.  As I looked to see what he was doing, I noticed he was cradling a cat basket.  I immediately went over to him and in my best Englishman-abroad Hungarian I said 'err excuse me, that's my cat'.  He handed the crate over to me and as he did, I realised that the clips which held the thing together were undone.  The reason he'd been hugging it so affectionately wasn't because he'd had suffered a serious case of cuteness overload, but because Dibby could have escaped at any minute.  I managed to fasten the crate back together, but the cat was so traumatised by her first experience of air travel that thankfully, she wasn't going anywhere anyway.

Once I'd made sure Dibby was safe, the guy handed Cosmo over.  I then noticed that the handle on his crate had been completely snapped off.  God knows what the baggage handlers had done with these cats, but they'd obviously been tossed around a fair bit.

I was very angry at this.  I had been assured in London that the animals are 'treated like royalty' and that no harm would come to them.  But they were alive, and here, so I decided just to make sure they were secure and get on with it.  After all, it's not like I could make my complaint clear in my pigeon Hungarian.

So I turned round to collect my luggage and realised that everyone else had gone.  There were a few lone Samsonite stragglers still doing the rounds but they obviously didn't belong to anyone in Budapest.  But not my case.  Oh dear.  I don't own a lot of clothes, but my entire wardrobe was in there.

I headed off, with the moggies, to the lost baggage department.  They spoke English fortunately, and I filled in a couple of forms.  They assured me that my bag was most likely on a later flight as there are several a day coming from Frankfurt.  Frankfurtly, I didn't care anymore.  I had the cats, albeit completely in shock, and we'd made it.

I got through customs/security without one single question about whether the animals had the correct paperwork or not.  We'd spent hundreds of pounds making sure we were legal, but it seems the Hungarian authorities really didn't care.  I doubt it would be the same if we were returning them to England.

Finally, I got through to landside and was reunited with B.  Never have I felt such relief in my life, all the worry of the past few days just melted away instantly.  B's dad had come with her so we got in the car, and headed off to our new home.  Later that evening, much later, we got a call from the airport to say they had my case, and they even brought it to our door.  Everything was starting to work out...

The next 4 or 5 days however, some of that worry returned.  The cats were not enjoying their new home as much as we were.  Both of them found hiding places the minute we let them out, and that's were they stayed.  They wouldn't eat, they wouldn't drink, and even more disturbingly, they hadn't used the bathroom for days.  Slowly however, they recovered from their trauma, and they started to drink a little, and nibble a bit, and finally, met with rapturous cheering and applause from both of us, we began to hear the familiar scratching noises of a cat using a litter tray.  I've never cheered a cat poop before, and probably won't ever again, but we knew things would be ok after that.

The cats have settled now, and even seem to enjoy their new home.  They have new places to hide, new furniture to destroy and nice wooden floors to slide about on.  Now that they've calmed down, we can finally concentrate on getting ourselves settled in.  What will life be like here?  Will I find a job ever?  Will I be able to get my head around this bizarre language?

2. Plan B

3rd July 2013

So, obviously, that didn't quite work out as I had hoped.

A few months ago, when we first decided to move, I phoned my mortgage provider and asked them if I am allowed to rent my property to students.  'No problem' the guy said.  'You can rent it out to anyone you like.  It's your property.  You just need to fill in a form when you do it, and it'll be fine.'

Well that was pretty clear, so we started the preparations for Operation 'Turn-Our-Home-Into-A-Student-Dosshouse'.  We started scouring eBay, freecycle, and all the local charity shops for acceptable, cheap furniture.  Each room requires a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a chair, a chest of drawers, a life-size cardboard cut out of Eamonn Holmes and a set of at least 5 standard orange traffic cones.  OK, so I made those last two up, it's not like I'm bitter about this or anything...

We spent weeks (I say we, I mean B) looking for furniture.  To be fair, B did an amazing job and she found practically everything those finickity women from the Uni demanded we obtain for their precious, oh-so-delicate students.  All we needed was a couple more bits.

'This would be a good time to sort out that paperwork' I thought to myself.  So during another one of my super exciting days at work, I phoned the mortgage company once again.

'Yes I need to get a form to rent out my property please' I said.
'That's no problem sir, but we have changed things slightly recently.  Can I just ask, you won't be renting the property out to students or DSS will you?'.

Hmm.  I could actually taste my heart when it jumped into my throat.

'Erm...actually, yes, I want to rent it to students.  I phoned a couple of months ago, and I was told this was absolutely no problem.'
'I'm afraid you've been misinformed sir, we can't let you do that as the property wouldn't be insurable for us.'

Tunnel vision set in at this point, I could feel my whole world fading to grey.  I tried arguing, but I was met with a brick wall to bang my head against.  They told me I needed to inform them exactly who I intend to rent it out to, wait several weeks for them to decide if they deemed them worthy, and if they did, then hand over a fairly large sum of money for the privilege of daring to rent out my property to someone else.

All I could think of now was exactly how I could break the news to B that actually, all her hard work had been in vain, and worse still, I might not actually be able to move on the 30th July.

Now, I would consider myself an extremely lucky bugger most of the time.  I've never had to look hard for work, rarely have I struggled to find the money to feed myself and heat my home, and the love of my life moved in next door.  I would call that pretty damned lucky.  But now I was cursing my luck.  Or rather my inadequate planning skills.  No, let's say my luck.

At the weekend, B and I had use of a hire car, as we had to take care of some things.  We'd taken care of a few errands and B could see something was on my mind, so I summoned up all my courage to tell her the bad news.  Needless to say, she was pretty devastated.  All that hard work, wiped out with one phone call.  There were some tears, from both of us, and for the next few hours things were pretty tense.  We discussed our options, and seemingly it looked like we would have to rent out through an agent, or sell up.  We were running out of time and options.  I needed time to think about it, but we didn't have time on our side.

The next day, Sunday, we'd been invited up to see my Auntie L, Uncle M and Grandmother in the small village where they live.  When we arrived, my cousin K was there with her boyfriend G.  My auntie said she had an announcement to make.  It turned out it was an annoucement on behalf of my cousin, she was pregnant.  Ever the opportunist, instead of saying the usual congratulations I pounced and asked her if she needed a bigger place to live.  They'd had some problems with their current flat and it seemed like a good time to ask.  She said that they might, and we arranged for them to come around with my Auntie L to have a look at the place.  I warned her that it was a bit of a state due to various work being done and the excess furniture we no longer needed.

They came up to see us in the week, and as luck would have it (I told you) they loved the place.  We discussed a lot of things, potential rent, what work still needed doing, etc, and told K & G to have a night or two to think on it.  A couple of days later, and I got a text to say that they still loved it, they wanted to rent it from us and they couldn't wait to do it.

Pure relief flooded through my blood.  Sure, we still needed to do a hell of a lot, but now it looked like at least it was possible I could make my flight on 30th July.

In the next couple of weeks, we pressed on and in a whirlwind of activity, the work commenced.  The shower got re-tiled, the bath re-paneled, the roof was mended, stairway re-carpeted and a few last minute touches of paint applied.  We sold a few of the excess furniture supplies, and gave some away free.  Things were looking good.  We even had sorted out most of the paperwork and passports for the cats to travel with me.

A week before my flight, B set off to Hungary to prepare our new home in Budapest for my arrival, but more importantly, the cats.  We knew it would be a stressful time for them so we wanted to make sure it was as cat friendly as possible when they arrived.  So this left me on my own with a week to go, to clear out the last of the rubbish and make any final touches to the place to get it ready for my cousin.

Now, let's get this straight.  When you look around your flat or house, it's probably quite organised, things are tidy (ish) and everything is in it's place.  But when you decide to move to another country, you start to question what you actually need, what is actually precious enough for you to take with you, and what, frankly, is crap you don't need.

We had a lot of crap.

I started to panic, how the hell was I gonna clear this place out?  Every time I turned my head, I discovered a new corner, a new shelf, a new drawer with a load more stuff to sort through.  So I formulated a plan.  In a nutshell, it was this: if it's not packed by now, it goes in the bin.  With huge help from my mate J getting a sofa, armchair and double bed down two flights of stairs (thanks J, lifesaver) and from my mum (thanks Mum, you were amazing), we set about clearing the crap pile.  Bags and bags and bags of the stuff.  I estimate that we probably cleared out 30+ binbags of rubbish in the few days before I left, along with odd bits of unwanted furniture, pictures and knick-knacks.  Three trips to the dump, and with a day and a half to go, the place was practically ready.

I still can't believe it.

The next 36 hours were a flurry of cleaning activity.  Now I am not saying it was perfect when we left (sorry K & G) but my Mum and I got the place looking pretty good.  Amazing how much you can get done when you don't have a bed or a sofa to sit on.  And I have to say once again, a huge, huge thank you to Mum.  I could not have done it without you, I owe you a massive birthday present when we see you in October.

So that was that.  Ready to go.  And then it hit me.  I am moving to Hungary.  Moving to another country.  Moving to a place where I don't speak the language, where I don't have a job, and where I don't have any contacts.  By the time my Auntie L arrived to take us all to the airport, I was pretty anxious and fair to say, not on my top form.  I think I barely said anything on the ride to the airport, the stress of the move and transporting two live animals was getting to me.

The airline had informed me that when transporting animals, you MUST get to check in 3 hours before your departure time.  Fair enough, I thought, it will take time to process everything.  We got to the desk and they promptly informed me that there wasn't anyone to deal with it now, and we would have to wait until one hour before the flight before we can get them checked in.  Great!  I had a feeling this wasn't going to go well.  Thankfully Mum and Auntie L were still there with me, and said they would stay with me until they were sure I could get the hairy little bastards on board.  So we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  To me, it seemed like an eternity.  I already wanted this day to be over, and it wasn't even 8am.

Finally the time came, and we got in line, waited a bit more, and eventually, got the critters a space in the hold.  I then had to take them to a special security zone to have them scanned, just to make sure I wasn't smuggling heroine or cocaine via the medium of catbum.  I got the all clear and finally, it was time for me to say goodbye to Mum and Auntie L.  I had been so caught up in the moving, and moreso making sure the cats were ok, that I hadn't really thought about what it would be like to say goodbye to Mum.  I don't mind telling you that, all of a sudden, I was fighting back the tears.  I gave her a big hug, a kiss, and said goodbye.

It wasn't like I was moving to the other side of the world, only Europe, but at that moment it felt like I wouldn't see her again for a long time.  I went through to wait for my gate, and I couldn't stop myself from crying.  I'm not one for public displays of emotion usually, but I couldn't control myself.  I was walking through one of the busiest airports in the world with tears streaming down my face.  B called me, but I could barely talk, so I managed to tell her I was ok, and I was about to get on the plane, and I would see her soon.

Boarding time came, and I got my seat.  Now all I could think about was if the cats would survive the journey.  We even had a connecting flight in Frankfurt to make, so I was trusting the airline to make sure they got on board that second flight too.

The engines fired up, I felt that familiar push as we sped up for take off, and then, finally, I was no longer on British soil.

1. A Small Introduction

25th June 2013

Three years ago, I was 29 years old, single, living alone in my flat in Eastbourne.  A town I was born in, grew up in and have resided in.  Forever.

Then, I turned 30, and my life has never been the same.  About a month after my birthday, I met my new next door neighbour, B.  A sweet Hungarian girl who had come to Eastbourne to finish her Master's Degree.  I had no idea just how different my life was about to become...

You can pretty much guess what happened next.  We fell in love.  And our journey over the next two and a half years have led us to this point, as we box up our lives and ready ourselves for chapter 2: Life in Budapest.

There are two main reasons why we have decided to move to Hungary.  The first, is that B misses her family a great deal.  Hungarian families are very close usually, and it has been very hard for B to be away for such a long time.  She came to England to study for her Master's degree, and once we got together that is where she has stayed, barring a few visits home.

The second reason is my job.  I hate it.  I am so bored of it, the monotony, the spreadsheets, the same old tired conversations about stock levels.  It's just so boring.  So it gave me great pleasure to hand my notice in a couple of weeks ago, and I am counting down the weeks, days, minutes and seconds until I can get out of that tin prison.

We have decided that we will rent our flat in England to University students, as we are right around the corner from the local Uni.  Also, this way, we can convert the living room into a third bedroom and maxmise the rent money coming in.  There are quite a few things we need to do, they have surprisingly high standards apparently, according to the Uni.  I personally would be happy as long as they had a hob to warm up their Heinz beans on and a plug socket for the playstation, but apparently they require such luxuries as a working shower, tables, chairs etc so we're gonna need to do some work..

It has been a stressful couple of months, as you might expect, but we are at least close to being ready.  Most things that could have gone wrong have done so, but we hope that we've got the bad luck out of the way and only sunshine and positivity will be in our future.  Erm, yeah...

As of this moment, we currently need to do the following before we leave:

- Fix the leaky roof
- Retile the bathroom
- Put in a new sink
- More packing
- Recarpet the stairs
- Paint
- Clean

..and we have just over 5 weeks to do this.  Whatever happens, we will be living in Budapest by the 1st August.  God knows why we left it so late, but this is our style and we'll be damned if we're gonna change now.  Watch this space...