Hungary for more....

I'm very excited to announce my successful arrival in Hungary and to celebrate this wonderous fact I have taken a solemn vow. Of vow of courage and valour. I've vowed to never tire of making the Hungary/hungry joke and to persist in doing so even when all other possible purpose has been obliterated by gross mis- and over-use.

Fun / Nice things that have happened to me so far (in a bulletted list form to celebrate my new status as teacher in training) :

• Met a nice Hungarian girl at the baggage carousel at Budapest Airport who spoke no english but fluent french, who offered to take me in her parents car to where I was staying, and gave me her number so I could "meet her friends and go for a drink" while I'm here. Sweet.
• Met a classful of what seem like really nice, reasonable people on my first day as a trainee EFL teacher.
• Queued for 3/4 of an hour to buy toothpaste and ibuprofen in a drugstore (ah, eastern Europe!)
• Tried to get directions to said drugstore by someone who spoke not a word of english, and got nowhere until she used the internationally recognised magic word "Burger King" to describe where it was.
• Randomly asked a group of Hungarians where an english boy could go to get a little conversation and maybe drink a little red wine and got offered 2 tickets on the tram for free as the girl said the place you buy them was closed. Ace!
• Agreed a flat-share scenario with a nice english girl called Hazel who's from Shropshire (no, I've never heard of it either. England apparently...). This is because we both requested shared flats but both got given single flats. You do the math....
• Learned Malay.

So there it is. The full list of all that's happened to me since I got to Budapest to do my 4 week CELTA (Cambridge Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults), returning to France a gladder and a wiser man with a certificate round my neck to prove it.


The only downside to this cushy scenario is that my exciting 'new' for which read 'shit' phone won't send calls or texts to anything but Hungarian numbers. The only Hungarian I know is the girl I met at the airport and she has a french SIM card. Shit.

I'll just have to seriously apply myself to making some Hungary friends. So, come on feet, off I go into the Magyar night (look it up) to find some people I can spend 100 Hungarian Florints (HUF) on texting for the rest of the month.

Hurray!

Well it's off I go to sunny Hungary...

Eugh! So much to say and so little life left in which to say it.

A summary then (not a habit of mine, keeping things brief, but I'll do what I can):

New Year's Eve which threatened to be such a lonely disastrous affair turned into an absolute delight: I took the decision to get out of my appartement and onto the streets of Toulouse to try and find my fortune, or at least someone to celebrate with. Found a top bar, made friends with the barman, got hopelessly drunk on free drinks and chatted to pretty much everyone in the place. We completely missed midnight and the countdown and all that. We were simply having too much fun. Top stuff.

So Hungary. What's that all about I hear you ask....

My parents being the wonderful examples of human beings that they are have paid for me to go and do a TEFL course (teaching english to foreign adult learners for those who don't know) and the cheapest one is in Hungary so I depart tomorrow. It's going to be Toulouse-Paris by train and Paris-Budapest carried by eastern europe's first low-cost airline. 10 years ago this description of an airline would have struck fear into the hearts of those hearing it, but time's have changed. The EU's expanding and the website for the company looks posh, so I'm not worried.

This means four weeks of speaking, and teaching english, in foreign (france no longer counts) climates and something fun and constructive to do upon my return.

Yay!

So I'm happy, all's good. Hope you can say the same for yourself in this new and exciting-sounding year, whoever and wherever you may be, dear reader.

See you on the other side of the iron curtain (not sure about this historical reference. someone surely will correct any inexactitude)

Rob