One Hundred and First Post!

Our last post was officially our one hundredth, we're in triple figures now baby!

It's been an eventful couple of days really.  Amanda is attempting to finish off her final international law assignment, so when we headed down to Lake Balaton on Wednesday to meet up with Mum and Derek, she was unfortunately forced to spend a lot of Thursday and Friday at the hotel working.  It didn't seem too bad however, as the place where we were staying was right on the lake with a nice terrace on which she could set up her laptop and connect to the wireless internet while the wait staff served her drinks and food.  If I had to choose a location in which to decide whether a foreign despot is protected by sovereign immunity or not, then that would have been the place.  Ah, there is nothing like the soft wind blowing through the trees and the faint sounds of the cuckoo birds calling to each other to weigh up against the guilt that one must feel when writing an essay that expunges a mass murderer.

We arrived at Balaton at around 4pm on Wednesday to find that Mum and Derek had already arrived. I had dropped them off at the train station on Tuesday morning so they could experience the Hungarian rail system.  Which, although there were a few hiccoughs, was relatively painless as far as I could see (i.e. only delayed overall by an hour or so).  We sat down together on the terrace and they told us how they'd hired a car in Budapest and had only just arrived an hour before us.  The rest of the afternoon was mostly lazy with plenty of laptoping, a short walk and much hilarity when we gave Iago a solid shove into the lake.  Although he didn't seem to be so pleased at first, and definitely avoided Amanda (as the instigator of the said sharp shove), Iago quickly entertained himself by chasing some ducklings into the reeds.

On Thursday after breakfast, Mum, Derek and I went on a drive to Szigliget castle, which was not too far away.  I always love wandering around castles, but today it was a touch rainy.   The castle was ordered to be destroyed by the Austrians at some point, so it a bit of a ruin.  Nevertheless, it was recreated by the Hungarians in the modern age with a lot of creative woodwork.  There were a lot of wooden stairs and walkways that helped us make our way throughout the castle.  It was a lot of fun, especially considering the pouring rain.  It really felt like we were trying to attempt a bourjois assault on this ancient ruined bastion in our polycarbonate raincoats and waterproof boots. It was exciting in a removed kind of fashion.

After we had conquered all that Szigilet had to offer us, we headed to Keszthely, which is another small town off Balaton.  There were a number of school groups in the area that seemed  to be visiting the puppet shows and palace.  We had a quick lunch in the main street then made our way to the palace.  I've noticed that all palaces and second rate antique shops look the same.  It might be my complete ignorance of all that is good and classy, but seriously, I can't really tell the difference between a piece of furniture that is behind a red rope and that which is behind a $10 price tag.  I'm sure there are people out there that can tell you the difference, I'm just not one of them. Nevertheless, the tour through the Keszthely was quite good.

We started Friday morning at a slow pace, Amanda had finished the first section of her essay and was onto the second.  After breakfast, we noticed that the weather was a lot more clement so we headed off for Badacsony whereupon we went for a bit of a hike. It was around 4km in all, each step upwards in hope of a view that would give us a panorma of the lake.  Within 200 meters we found a fairly good view, but we continued upwards with an ever increasing optimism.  Unfortunately, the peak was only signified by a broken wooden tower that was only climable by the unwary, of which we were not. 

Regardless, it was a great walk, with a number of interesting surprises along the way.  Once we got back to the hotel, Amanda and I went for a swim with Iago in the lake.  We splashed about for a bit gaining a few scratches from Iago's attempts to hang onto us while we swam.  We had to make a quick retreat however when Iago swam too close to the swans and they took afront.   The swans quickly chased us all out of the lake.

Today was quite sad as we said goodbye to Mum and Derek as they headed off on the next stage of their journey.  It's been really good to have them stay with us, it's been like having a slice of home come to us in Hungary and stay.  I've really missed everyone at home, especially my family so it was quite hard to see Mum go.  I'm sure they'll have a great trip, we'll catch up on skype soon!

- Daniel.