They came around and served breakfast - some kind of little muffin, yogurt, and a sandwich with cheese and ham (which, of course, I didn’t eat), and also served tea and coffee. There was so much cloud cover that it looked like we were flying over the arctic rather than the Atlantic Ocean (as well as frost on the window), and there was SO much turbulence once we started flying lower through all of that cloud to prepare for landing!
The Vienna airport was huge, but I was quite proud of myself for figuring out where to go! The plane to Budapest was one of those small ones where you get onto it outside via the stairs of the plane. The view from my window was the propeller.
After landing in Budapest a shuttle bus took us from the plane to the baggage claim. While waiting for my red suitcase with the pink hula girl tag I had those few moments of worry that perhaps my suitcase didn’t make it with me from Winnipeg to Toronto to Vienna and then to Budapest, but then it appeared and I had a final sigh of relief that everything had gone well throughout my travels!
I exited the baggage claim to find a huge line-up of people holding signs. Right away I saw a little 6 year old boy holding one that said “OM Hungary”. He was with his dad (Atilla) who works for OM Hungary all year round and his little sister (3 years old). We drove from Budapest to Erd in a tiny little white car with the OM logo - the drive took about 45 minutes, as traffic was quite backed up. The scenery didn’t look that different from Canadian prairie scenery (with the exception of some different kinds of greenery) until we got into Erd. The OM Training Centre is on a huge hill, and the view from the training centre is more hills with houses decorating them. I felt like a dork being so fascinated with hills, but when all you ever see is flat land right to the horizon, seeing a very hilly landscape dotted with homes is quite exciting.
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| OM Training Center Hungary |
I arrived at OM just in time to head out for lunch with Jill (another OM Hungary worker) and some of the team from the English camp that will be going on at the same time. We went to a little restaurant where everyone had Goulash and I had onion soup (which was really good!). My stomach was bothering me all day, so I thought a light lunch would be best! After that Jill and Anna (a teacher from Taiwan) went to the airport to meet another family coming in, while myself and a family from Calgary (Michelle, Phil and their children Stella (11), Emily (6) and Sabastian (12)) and I went to the park. Michelle and I chatted while Phil and the kids played. Then we went to an ice cream place and, after some trickiness trying to order Hungarian-named ice cream from Hungarian-speaking people, had some really delicious ice cream!
Once we got back to the training center, I laid down for about an hour. My bedroom has 4 bunk beds (8 beds altogether). I’m on a top bunk. When I got up it was almost time for dinner. We just waited a bit for the other team members to arrive. A new family came, from England (Vicki - a religions teacher in a private school, her husband David, and their two children Meaghan and Hannah), as well as a girl from Australia (Roweena). We all ate dinner together (dinner at OM is make-your-own sandwich from whatever is in the fridge) and then played a get to know you game (although by then we already knew each other pretty well!). After that we headed outside and set up a ping-pong table. There were many a great matches (although I lost every time I played which, I have to admit, was against one of the children every time).
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| Ping Pong Fun! :) |
During the evening another girl from Finland arrived (Alma and her daughter Elsa) as well as a girl from Ohio (Allegria). Allegria will be working at the arts camp with me, while all the rest of my new friends will be leaving on Sunday for another area of Hungary for the English camp. I think it will be strange having just the two of us here in this big place!
Once it got too dark to play ping pong we all headed inside and got ready for bed. There is no air conditioning in Hungary, so it was quite hot in our room (especially with 7 of us in there!). But I fell asleep quickly and stayed asleep until 6:30 this morning (Day 3).
One interesting thing about Hungary is that practically everyone (at least in Erd, anyway) has a dog! But the dogs are more outside pets than inside - used as guard dogs for the yard. So all day and all night long you are constantly hearing dogs barking throughout the hills.
Here's the link to see more pictures!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musiclover81/sets/72157630679123418/
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