Limi

As most places around southern Europe, we had a long (and very warm and summerish) weekend.

On Monday we decided to take a trip to a smaller city, Eger. This is the place where I first made contact with Hungary and the Hungarians. This was back in 1994!!! 1995-1997 I spent maybe a third of my time in Eger. So it was a déjà vu. We stayed in the same hotel as I spent my time during those years. At the time it was a very Eastern Europe looking hotel. Now it was fully renovated and actually nice :-) m especially appreciated the new pool. We strolled around in the very beautiful city and its castle. More correct, the remains of the castle where Hungarians were under siege by the Turkish army for 150 years or so.

In the evening we went to my favorite restaurant. Yes, it was still there. Looked exactly the same, had more or less the same menu, and THE SAME WAITERS!!! They even recognized me. This after 15 years. I must have made an impression at the time. Wonder if it was a good or bad one???

They even placed the Swedish flag on the table. The same old flag they bought when me and my Swedish colleagues started to frequent the place back then.

Even the musician behind the piano was the same. He smiled, and played only Swedish songs all evening. “Kostervalsen”, “Flickorna I Småland” plus dozens of Abba songs.

I almost (ALMOST only) got tears in my eyes. It was such a good feeling to be there again. It seemed that even the prices had remained. We paid 8 000 HUF (28 EUR) for the three of us. Would have been at least 20 000 in Budapest…

We promised the owner and his staff to be back soon again, or at least within some years... :-)

We were back in BP after lunch yesterday again. Decided to try out my inflamed Achilles tendon again. After more than 3 months rest from all kind of training. I still have a daily pain, but I just couldn’t wait any more. As resting doesn’t seem to help, maybe exercising does. Even if it is against doctors order.

Made 6 kilometers on the Margit Island. I got very tired, as it was long time since I had a pulse over 100, and as it was officially 32,9 degrees in the shadow, and absolutely no wind.  Still a good feeling.

We started the 3 of us. Me and M running, and m on her bicycle. However most of the remaining people of the city (those who didn’t go to lake Balaton over the weekend) were roaming the streets and the island. Made it impossible for m to ride her bike in our jogging pace. After a smaller accident M&m gave up…

The final highlight of the weekend we had on our terrace. Grilling and drinking wine all evening long.

I have had worse 1^st of May week-ends in my life :-)))

Here the weekend in pictures;

Sunday pancakes
            
Homework has to be done
            

Grilling
            

Same old rabbit as 15 years ago...
            

City center of Eger
            

View from the castle
            

As in good old times
            

Grapeyard outside Eger. The grapes might end up as Bulls Blood
            

Taken over by a two wheeler on ONE wheel...
            

We have loads of professional beggars here in Budapest. Most of them with their Mercedes around the corner I guess. There are also loads of homeless people, mainly alcoholics, but the most of them look really happy, and all of them are very polite and not scary at all.
We have our favourite homeless guy, who is always standing at his "home" traffic light, asking for money from the motorists. We give him some money every day, and he's always happy and positive.
Today we met a new kind of beggar. A very thin guy who asked us for money in perfect english. He was an older very sad guy dressed in a clean but very very old suit. He was openly crying while asking us for some money for food. He was a former professor at a university, who lost his job due to cut downs. He recently was evicted from his appartment, and now had nowhere to stay, and no income or savings at all. We would gladly given this guy a busload of money, but both me and M were without wallets, as we only were on our way to collect m from school. After a long conversation, and after us have to tell him we had no money at hand, he left us with sobbing and with tears in his eyes. Me and M also had tears in our eyes... :-((
After coming back from school we actually were roaming the streets trying to find him and give the bus load of money we wanted to.
He was nowhere to  find. The only thing we saw was an ambulance picking up someone not alive looking person lying on the street. Maybe it was our professor who just jumped from a roof??? He sure looked capable of it as we saw him last time.
Right now all our vacation trips to luxury resorts seem a little too much. Maybe we should spend some money on the ones who need them more than us??
But I guess tomorrow we have forgotten the guy, and already are off in our minds to the next super duper holiday. Sad but truth....

            

Now we're back again from London. Wasn't easy to get there... We were booked with Hungarian Wizzair, who have a nice and shiny fleet of pretty new Airbuses. New or not. Technical problem can occur, and I do not think any of the passangers would object that the plane was repaired before take-off. But after standing in a bus outside the terminal for one hour, without any explanation, the 180 passangers got pretty upset, some more than other, if you know what I mean... :-) I don't think Wizz is to blame, but the young and inexperienced ground personal. They claimed they didn't know anything. A mad Swede, a madder Britt, and even more upset Japanese tried to make the girls call their boss, or the ramp agent, or someone at Wizz, at least to get to know any information or prognose for departure. They claimed that no one knew, and they had no telephone number, and if they would have a telephone number, no one would know anyway. The effect was that 178 of the 180 passenger were swearing and screaming. NEVER Wizz again was the consensus.
All what Wizz should do is to inform the passengers that there was a problem and they were about to fix it. They could have said 5 or 24 or whatever hours, and everyone would have been maybe not happy, but they would calm down, and THEN been VERY happy for the ONLY two hours delay. Why do they never learn, those carriers?? Kajsa??? Linda???
Anyway, we arrived safely in London, and some very good days with loads of food and wine, shopping, Mamma Mia and Natural Historical Museum, where was a short time exhibition "Inside Animals" just like "Bodies" but with 4 leggers instead of humans.
Soon we'll be heading good old T&G, and tomorrow morning we will watch the qualifying for the Grand Prix in China. Well, at least me and m. M will probably stay in bed and have sweet dreams... :-)

Wonderful Wizz...
            
British easter egg
            
The smallest shower in the world???
            
a Pub???? :-o
            
An inside out elephant
            

            

            
2 professional meat eaters .-)
            



            
After two hours in Londons biggest toy store, m settled for two small plysch animals of the total worth of 7 British Pounds
            
m's other shopping, mine and M's didn't fit into the pictuire...