Seeing a few more sites

Went away this weekend to Pecs, and to the Mohacs festival, which was awesome. Pecs is in southern Hungary, and has alot of Turkish buildings, which is really confusing seeing a mosque being used as a church now. It was so cold there, had slet. And it was supposed to be a balmy 12 degrees not 2. Froze that night as well, it was so cold in the student dorm we stayed in. Some of you would love this, they have bars attached to the dorms. But this leads tot eh place turning intoa dump. The whole place smelt like urine. When I went for a shower, my fl had no hot water, the floor above had poo in the shower and no showercurtains, and all of them had no showerheads so it was more of a tap then a shower.

The Mohacs festival was amazing. Kinda like a gala in NZ but ppl dress up and stuff. Its incredible. The story goes that the villagers had fled cause the winter was so bad. And croatians came and told them that a knight would appear on the night of a storm to end their woes. And  he did, and told them to dress up and wear masks and make as much noise as possible. And to go back to their village and winter would be scared away. And it was, happy ending.  

So these, I would call them sheep demons, walked all around the place, had a parade. Then we could go around the stalls and buy Hungarian food and souvenirs of the day.  The atmosphere was awesome. Sadly I missed the burning of winter (a straw man to meant to depict him) / bonfire cause as per usual in hungary it wasn't running on time. But everything else was awesome. 

Other cool things was ice skating. Went ice skating on Europes oldest and largest rink. The place was great, surrounded by lots of monuments and the city park next door. Also saw a hungarian film. Was a romantic comedy entitled, just sex and nothing else. Good fun. Hungary has definately grown on me. Its nice to see that when an older person gets on the tram the young unquestionally give up their seats. Altho the amount of hunchback ladies due to oestoporosis is very scary. Still not used to the beggars, its so sad seeing them there. And people pee in the streets all the time, more often at night tho, cause in alot of places you have to pay to use the toilet and there are not many toilets to begin with. But there is just something about waking up here, its so different and exciting change. The whole city feels old and its nice.

Bratislava weekend

This weekend was awesome. A group of 8 of us (7 girls, 1 poor Fredrik) went to Bratislava, Slovakia. Was such an amazing place, in town there was Durg castle, which had the national museum with some great exhibits, especially the coin one (of prehistoric coins), and the view from the top tower was awesome. Afterwards, walked around town a bit. The weather was pretty bad, so didn’t to do too much. Dinner was, well, kinda gross. 

Had the local food. Dumplings (not the big asian style ones) with sheep’s cheese (too cheesy) with smoked bacon (see photo). It didn’t really agree with my tummy but I ate half. And had tradition wine. As the saying goes: Slovakia, the only place were you eat sour sheep’s milk and wash it down with wine. I

personally didn't enjoy it, but each to their own.The second day was just as interesting with new sites and sounds. That is right, sounds, birds chirping. Such a lovely change from trams and horns beeping. Bratislava is so much cleaner air and no homeless. Such a nice change from Budapest. Woke up to a lovely bright sunny day. Even got a little sunburned which sucked. Started with part of historic old down town which had a lot of statues that you could be silly with as I did accordingly.

Went out to Devin castle. My first official ruined castle. Was incredible. So much archaeological sites there. The castle had been there since the Bronze Age, and over a thousand years had been added to lots. The photos are amazing. Was also really interesting feeling being in Slovakia and yet looking out from the castle onto Austria. Eniku and had a picnic lunch atop the castle. Back to town, and we finished looking around the old center. Also saw St. Matthews church where 13 Hungarian kings were crowned, during 12-13^th century. Had a very cool protected hole in the floor where they had dug down and exposed some old bones. I got all excited of course. Was just incredible so much history. Was very gutted to leave.