Hello from Hungary

Our apartment house in Sopron

Our 13 hour journey to Hungary was fairly uneventful, except that we didn't sleep for an entire night. We arrived in Vienna, Austria, on Friday mid-morning, rented a car, and found our way to Sopron, Hungary, in about 2 hours. Our instructions were to arrive in town and call a person named Andrea who had arranged for us to stay in an apartment in town. After some time we figured out how to make the call from Rob's iphone in a wifi cafe. Andrea told us to go to 12 Templom utca (Church Street) and ring bell #3. Clara (who heard bell #3) opened the gate and gave us a key to Apt #2. As it turns out, we stayed in a beautiful apartment in what was once a monastery in the center of a quintessential Hungarian village. We "did the town" on Friday night and Saturday morning and established our most important communication tool - the phrase "do you speak English?"

Inside our apartment in Sopron

Downtown Sopron

I didn't bring my cell phone so I have to use this??

Drinking gratis turkish tea

On Saturday afternoon we drove through dozens of little villages on a two lane road to reach Koszeg. One interesting observation we made is that Hungarian houses are built close to the road and have no front doors. They are connected to each other with high fences. What this says about the psychology of the Hungarian people is still a question mark for us. 

Row of houses in Koszeg

Anyway, when we got into the village we were not able to reach our contact for the festival by phone and did not have an address for the festival sight. We were not too concerned since the town is small, but after a few hours of searching and trying to make contact at a hotel on the village square that has wifi we were running out of ideas. Then I remembered that on the festival website there is a photo of the large yellow building where the festival is being held. Rob downloaded the photo, enlarged it on his iphone, and we proceeded to show the photo to some people on the village square until the building was identified and we were given cryptic Hungarian directions to the site.

This is the building we were looking for

 We arrived at the building that we thought was the right place, but no one from our group was to be found anywhere. There were dozens of Belgian scouts on a retreat and a Hungarian wedding going on in a banquet room. We found some sleeping quarters that fit the description of the festival sight so we decided to camp out in the room and continue our search in the morning. Saturday night was a LONG night. We all had jet lag and couldn't sleep, the wedding was going on until 3 am downstairs and we had no idea if we were in the right place. It was quite an adventure!

Village square of Koszeg

Every village square has a church. This is in Koszeg.

On Sunday morning we packed ourselves into the rental car to continue our quest. Greg suggested a final drive around the property. We spied a Dutch license plate on a van parked behind another big building. I knocked on the door and a lady answered in English to say that they were finding the key. When our old friend Heather appeared from behind the door we were overjoyed! They had been on site since Friday but not finding them til Sunday gave us a great story!

This is where we are right now. It's the hotel on the village square with Wifi.

Our next order of business was to shower but towels were not provided with our bedding. So we took a trip to the local SPAR. The only towels for sale were one Spiderman, two Hannah Montana, and two Snow White. No problem except that Rob claimed the Spiderman, leaving Alex with the Hannah Montana. 

The local grocery/dept store

Towels

We're not sleeping very much

We have settled in now, involved in all the activities that I mentioned above, plus making friends with kids and leaders from Iceland, Hungary, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Romania, Canada and the USA. It's going very, very well!! Tonight we are having a memorial service at a church in the village for the two students who drowned in Philadelphia last month. One of the leaders who was on the duck boat is here with us. It will be a somber event for sure.

Rob teaching American football. They loved it!

The festival crowd

Skating with the locals (hey Chris...how's Woodward going?)

Carrie is a celebrity here (this picture was NOT posed...)

We will be involved in the festival until Saturday so I hope to blog again (I never thought I'd be a blogger...). After that we'll be in Budapest and Vienna for sightseeing until Aug 12th.