My Hungarian Family

The day started at 6am with a coach journey to London. I actually found myself saying 'I must travel this way again'. Keep this in mind when you read the bottom of the blog. I met Laci, Timi and Dori at their hotel in Paddington with a huge bag of goodies, Hungarian sausage in abundance, sour cherry juice, turo rudi to last me until next year, a DVD of szeged, brocheres of Szeged, a box designed by Timi with bath pearls inside. Hungarian lesson number one from Dori, aged 3, the names of each of the animals.

Dori had her first experience on an underground train when we travelled to the British Museum. My Hungarian might not be too good but I can understand 'these seats are bouncy' and 'I really want to sit on that high seat'. What I forgot when being around very young children is that they copy what you do. So as we were going down the escalator holding hands, I stood in front of Dori facing her. Don't do this, what did she want to do? It resulted in us both walking off the escalator backwards, a first for me :)

OUr first stop was the British Museum. I stayed with Dori while Laci and Timi explored. I obviously didn't think about how Dori and I would communicate. The first fun part was finding out why she wouldn't play on the stairs, my translation was that she was missing her mum and dad. However, I had a brain wave, the gift shop. Half an hour of playing with toys, us both counting them in hungarian and then the best game...finding the colouring pencils! I know my colours in Hungarian and so I named them and she found them. Its amazing how you can communicare with a 3 year old who must think you are odd becuase you can't speak properly.

We had lunch in the Plough Inn on Museum Street, an old style pub. Each tried fish, chips and mushy peas washed down with a cider.

The next stop was to Madame Tussauds and an hour's wait. However, the look on all of their faces when they came out meant that it was worth the hour wait. Then it was back to the hotel to pick up presents and to the coach station.

This is where the strange times started. I had to run to the coach station but everything was fine and I sat back for a 2.5 hour journey. Well, until we were 10 minutes from the coach station and then sat on one road out of London for 2 hours. Accident Number one. 15 minutes after passing the accident, we met accident number 2 which happened a few cars in front of us. We sat and sat and sat. At the 4 hour mark people began to start to chat. This progressed onto a back of the coach social group with a communal crossword session. Water was being sent to the back of the coach becuase we had most of the children. Its amazing how in a situation like that humans help each other.

We sat for 7.5 hours. I listened to my seat partners boyfriend problems and we spoke to solutions. I read to them facts from the Szeged brochere and when asked why I seem Hungary obsession, I told them that a lot of my family live in Hungary. We all discussed Hungarian tourist attractions and Hungarian food. Then we shared the Hungarian food! Everybody was so hungry, it felt like I was handing our food parcels. I told them what Toro Rudi is after they ate it :) All loved it and so appreciative. As one lady was about to get her DVD player out to watch the Szeged DVD (I kid you not, the lady was doing a course in Russian and wanted to look at the architecture), the coach moved!

Do not destroy the past

Oh Phil doesn't like getting up at 7.30am but needs must. The aim of the day was to go to the Pergamon Museum and the Topography of Terror. Just before we left we thought to check that they are open on Monday's. Issue number 4, both closed on Monday's. So off we went to see the wall. Luckily the Topography of terror was open. I remember doing the tour in 2001 and it moved me to tears. It goes through the Nuremburg war crime trials, the Holocaust and Gestapo/SS HQ. However, note to self, only ever do this in the summer. I can't believe how cold we were. I only had a small slit between my scarf and hat to look through and still was freezing from the core. We had lunch and then it was time for the off back to Britannia. 6 hours later, I was back in Bristol and taking off layers, it was almost tropical :)

Sliptag and Niptag

Today was freezing and started with a walk to see the statue of Engels and Marx, I saw this last in 2001. We passed Berliner Dom and went to what we thought was the Pergamon Museum. We walked around hte how museum moaning that we hate museum's with pots. Little did we know that we were in the wrong museum!!! We found out when we were leaving, Issue number 2.

We discovered how much we hate gusts of wind when we walked down the Unter den Linden. We lost the feeling in our cheeks within minutes but I found that I lost the feeling in my bottom lip too! We passed Bebelplatz which was where the burning of the books took place. By the time we got to Checkpoint Charlie we were saying niptag every 2 minutes. Phil bought a Russian hat and then it was time for lunch. The good veggie had a Salami sandwich and regained the feeling in the face and legs.

Issue number 3 was when we went to the Jewish Museum, admitadly it was the thing I insisted we do. Unless you are jewish and very very interested in jewish culture, don't go. It was many many many pictures of jewish people and is ina fantastic building, but dull.

Today's treasure was the 'Story of Berlin', a fantastic museum showing the complete history of Berlin from origin to present day. The first visit was to the nuclear bunker for the 3rd world war that would hold 20,000 people when at that time, there were 2 million people in Berlin. It was on a first come first served basis. What I wanted to know is how much warning are you given???? It was just bizarre. If you came into contact with radiation you were given a shower, not a special shower, just a shower. After 14 days there will be buses waiting outside to take the occupants to a safe place. What went through my mind was 'who drives the bus'? Are all buses immune to radiation? Phil suggested that in case of nuclear attack, people should get on these buses! Bus for china, bus for outer mongolia leaving in 5 minutes/

When Phil is on a mission, nothing can stop him so we had a 40 minute walked in a freezing wind to get to a Bavarian resturant where no english was understood so I did what I do best, be quiet and leave it to Phil to speak. Beetroot soup and horseradish dumplings to start, then Ratatouie and apfel strudel, yummy.

Bad Vegetarian

Phil at 4am is not a pretty sight, especially when we went to bed at 1am. I kind of booked a 6am flight from Luton to Berlin without thinking that the Underground does not run at that time so Taxi it was. Not only a taxi, but a taxi whose driver wanted to talk all of the way. Phil and I are sleep experts and practised our sleeping while keeping the head perfectly straight. What was the first thing Phil said when he got in the taxi...did I have enough money to cover the cab. Little did I think that he had forgotten his wallet, but he did. Issue number 1.

As we landed in Berlin, I wondered when the cloud was going to stop becuase we hit the runway while still in the cloud. I was very wrong, it was snow!!!!! What was a nice treat is that the S bahn to central Berlin had heated seats so we were freezing but the bottom was cosy.

We couldn't check in to the appartment so went on a bus tour where the first site was the Erotik museum, I will leave you to guess what it includes. We found more 'easy' things, easy internet cafe and easy money. At Brandenbergen Tor we played in the snow and threw girlie snow balls underarm.

We were very very tired at this point and slept for a couple of hours in the appartment. Before this I went shopping, never again will I go on my own. We walked to dinner and invented the word 'sliptag' and 'niptag'. We ate at a French restaurant and I tried l'escargot for the first time. There weren't any veggie options on the menu and phil's justification of me eating meat was that the french wouldn't serve bad food. So I had duck for main course. I know, I'm a bad veggie.

How you know you experienced the 90's

I never send forwards but the following is hilarious -

10p Mr Frosty Ice Pops on long summer days!
Gordon the Gopher! Edd the duck!! Wilson the Butler beating up Edd the duck!
You owned or longed for an Adidas three stripe tracksuit
Girls thought Blue Mascara was cool!
The Racoons! ( Cyril Sneer, nuff said)
You owned a pair of Nike Air Max, and wore them to death (probably the black ones with the pink tick)
Mr Motivator (What ever happened to him?)
Running on the spot dancing! (or 'The ESCALATOR!!' )
You wore leggings/cycling/bermuda shorts, with long t shirts
You owned a Bennetton, NafNaf, Sweater Shop jumper or waistcoat
Girls owned scrunchies in an array of colours and tacky headbands with their names written on in thick glitter
You had a pen pal
You could only watch the Simpson's on sky
On a Saturday afternoon you watched Catchphrase, Gladiators, Generation Game, Noels House Party and then Casualty
You taped the Pepsi Chartshow on radio one and tired in vain to pause the tape before the annoying guy (Dr Fox) talked and ruined the whole thing.
A grey Fruit of the Loom jumper was a must have
Puffa jackets, spliffy jeans and global hypercolour t shirts
You used the line "it's a free country" every day
Impulse body spray for girls
Hooch Alcoholic Lemonade (where's it gone?!)
'Don't forget your toothbrush', 'TFI' and Big Breakfast with Chris Evans
You had at least one troll
You know the dance to Macarena and Saturday Night. You also tried to scat like Scatman John! Bi bat ba ba da bo...
You watched Byker Grove 'ha ha ha whatcha laughin at!' (the theme song ending), used to say "Why-eye Spoogy" and saw PJ get shot in the eye with a paintball! ("I cannae seeeee Duncan!!!")
PJ and Duncan not Ant and Dec! Dodgy Pop Not Dodgy Presenting!
Shellsuits & bumbags!
Home and Away was a prime time ITV programe watched by millions
Fruit salads and black jacks!
Strike it lucky on a sunday night with Michael Barrymore when he was straight & married
Chain letters
You religiously watched Saved by the Bell on a Saturday morning!
CK one (probably the fake one from the market)
Going Live, then Live and Kicking was the place to be on a Saturday Morning - you know you remember the number 081 811 8181
You knew every word to the theme tune from Fresh Prince of Bel Air
You collected Premier League / the latest Disney film Stickers and did swoops at playtime
You wore Kickers and wallaby's with the tags hanging from them
You thought saying - "I know you are, you said you are but what am I" to every cuss that that came your way was cool
When you used to run away from something and shout ' leg iiiiiitt'
Dont push me, push a push pop!!
The Fun House with Pat Sharp's dodgy mullet and with the twins Melanie and Martina!
Sega megadrives and the SNES were the height of gaming cool. Super Mario vs Sonic battles would rage in the playgrounds. Also :- Mortal Komat, Streetfighter II, Earthworm Jim and Streets of Rage were the 'in' games.
Every body knows...Badger loves MASHED POTATO!!