Hungarian misadventure

Last weekend we went to Hungary, despite me having a feeling something will be off with the trip. I don’t know why; either I am psychic, which I highly doubt or I am just that good at all that “The Secret” stuff, where I can make my thoughts materialize. Sadly, it only seems to be working with the bad stuff, because I try thinking: “more money, more money, just some money” and it’s not really happening.

lake balatonBut back to Hungary, or perhaps not, because at this point I am fairly certain this country will not see me again. OK, maybe I am overreacting because it wasn’t all bad. There was a silver lining to our cloud. Our first day was beautiful. The sun was shining, the Balaton lake was just a perfect place for the kids to play with the sand and run around after sitting in the car for a few hours. Later on we enjoyed a nice dinner and spent the night in Heviz, famous for its thermal lake. But the swimming in the lake, where the temperature never drops below 22 degrees Celsius, is not recommended for kids. So, we just enjoyed the views. Still, the area offers a lot of activities and sights to keep your whole family busy for a few days.20131101_084059But we had different plans as in the morning we headed to Budapest via Keszthely, where we stopped to enjoy the Festetics Palace. Budapest is and amazingly beautiful city. We explored both sides, walked on the banks of the Danube river, climbed the Buda Castle and finished the day swimming in one of the largest water theme parks in Europe, Aquaworld Budapest.

20131101_135439Now the fun starts. It was past six o’clock when we headed out of the capital towards our hotel. I was in charge of booking the accommodation and I found what seemed a charming horse farm, 25 kilometers south of the city. Well, we got the town stated on the booking confirmation, yet there was no sign of the farm. I finally managed to find someone who spoke a bit of English to point us in the right direction. We left the main road and started driving down an unlit dirt road full of holes. There were no signs of houses, no sign of people, cars… Hubby was already hashing up the worst case scenarios of us being cut into little pieces. I was still trying to imagine perfect Hungarian hosts welcoming us into their home. The road finally came to an end and we saw the farm. But the whole complex, of two houses and what seemed as stables was almost completely dark. There was light perhaps in two windows all together. Hubby was ready to call it quits and I wasn’t so sure about the whole deal either.

We walked over to the first building. I was holding Tesa and she clanged to me as if her life depended on it and trust me at that point it looked like it might. Stela was holding hubby’s hand, utterly confused and quiet.  I knocked on the door but nobody answered, as I descended the stairs I heared someone opening the door and as I rushed back it was already closed again. Strange. I knocked again. A young man opened and looked at me, as if I was a bit off. This was beyond weird.  I still gave it a go, happy to have finally found someone to talk to at all. I explained what we are doing there and I saw he was completely baffled and uninterested. I showed him the email on my phone and he gestured me to go upstairs and without a second thought slammed the door shut. I exchanged anxious looks with hubbs and headed in that direction. As we walked the stairs there were countless stray cats, a dog sitting atop and it was all very foreboding. It looked pretty worn out and dirty. But it was dark and I have a livid imagination. I was losing all the positive attitude as I knocked again. I didn’t know anymore whether I should wish for someone to open up or I wish we could just get the hell out of there. With two small kids I wasn’t yet ready to call it quits. We circled the main house and through the windows below I could see a room in the basement. It had four beds one next to another and I can’t describe the thoughts that were racing through my mind. I was thinking we had just stumbled upon one of the worst scenes from a horror movie, I was ready to see patches of blood, someone tied up, murder weapons, etc. But there was only a young man sitting on one of those beds. I went and tried to find the door to the basement to see if he could perhaps be of more help and he was.

Well, he called the owner of the property who thankfully spoke English and explained that he wasn’t expecting us. Didn’t even know we made a reservation. So, we were thankfully of the hook. We left.

But at almost eight in the evening with two small kids, we faced an issue of where to sleep. It was too long to drive all the way home and we were tired. We sat in the car, got our mobile phones out and found a new place. We drove for another fifteen minutes and the girls were surprisingly good, probably because I handed over some food and they were busy eating. We decided to now try a hotel, no farms, B&B’s or any of that stuff. But it turned out that the hotel we chose was a small family owned establishment with only eight rooms and when we got there it was closed.  Bummer. I then spotted a notice saying they don’t have a reception but you can call them and inquire. So, I did and the owner was amazing. She took us in, apologized for not being able to provide us with breakfast in the morning, opened the whole hotel just so we could spend one night. Turned on the heating, let me use the kitchen to heat up milk and prepare dinner for the girls and was just made us feel very welcome. It was a nice turn of events. We had a lovely, clean room, the kids were fed and in bed less than an hour past their bed time and we could finally relax.

But the funniest thing with the whole misadventure was me thinking this is going to make a great story for my blog. Now, how weird is that.

 

One thought on “Hungarian misadventure

  1. It IS a great story for your blog…different but still great…it can’t be perfect everytime :)…in those spooky times you just can’t let it get to you…you did a great job!

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