Bye Budapest
I haven’t posted in a long time. So, shall
make a post now since I have the time on hand. :D
I am no longer anywhere near Europe anymore
as of now. Currently I am in Melbourne after 25 hours of flight plus transit. Gonna
write this backwards as I can only remember everything backwards now. I am suffering
from a very very bad jet lag now. With the 8 hours differences from Central
Europe, to 7 hours differences in the Middle East, to now in Melbourne. More
jet lags to come when I am back in Singapore I supposed.
The weather here so far is not too bad, but
unexpectedly cold. Was expecting temperatures to be above 10 degrees. But, it
turns out that temperatures here are below 10 degrees. I hope I will survive
through this winter here in Melbourne.
Well, I had a long transit wait at Hamad
International Airport. I have never ever ever had a transit before this trip
before, hence, this wait is the longest I have had. Even though my plane from
Budapest was delayed for 30 min, it doesn’t make too huge a difference of 6
hours that I have to wait. I almost died at the airport. Not even kidding.
Luckily I found a spot with a sun tanning
chair and coffee table (although there is a partition to the children on the
other side, I can still hear them loud and clear). Sat there and chatted with
an Indian guy who is currently residing in Portugal with his family. He told me
he missed his flight to London earlier on and is waiting for the next available
flight to London. Poor thing. The wait was much longer than mine. (and I thought
that mine was bad enough, seems like there is always someone worse than you).
Ok now before my wait at Doha, I was almost
stranded in Budapest. Not even kidding. I didn’t know that we, Singaporeans,
needed a visa to enter Australia. So… I didn’t had one, and I couldn’t check
in. Luckily, I found help and got my visa all sorted out within 30 min and managed
to check in and board the plane. Felt so lost for that moment when I realized that
I couldn’t check in for the plane. So, guys, it’s always good to reach the
airport 2.5 hours earlier for your flight, just in case something like this
happens. But think I got lucky too as the visa was approved shortly after
applied for.
Special thanks to Amanda for lending me her
data to make calls and get everything sorted out as the service provided for my
phone in Hungary is pathetic. And also, sharing a cab to the airport which help
me save some money as it was too much for me to carry my 3 luggage bags to the
airport by taking a bus, then changing to the metro, then transferring metro,
then another 2 more buses. Think my limbs will break after. Especially when my
stuff were more than 30kg unexpectedly.
Well, on my plane from Doha to Melbourne, I
took a pill which somehow allowed me to only stay awake for about 3 hours out
of the 13 hours plane ride. Feel so awake when I landed, but it was night, so I
pop another pill and went to sleep. Hence, the jetlag now. It’s supposedly 4am
now and I am supposed to be sleeping like a log now in Hungary.
Anyway on the 1st August, I had
a farewell lunch with my trainer, Tunde. Very nice girl that helped and guide
me along during my stay in Budapest. Telling me what I should expect when I am
in the camp volunteering as I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing
according to the job scope given before even booking of the air ticket. She was
telling me before during our 1st meeting that the people in Hungary
are still very close-minded and some are racist. So it is already a big thing
with our presence. The job scope was supposedly to teach the children some English
and also, to do some culture exchange. However, I did nothing of the above.
Ended up cleaning the tables and chairs, sweeping the floor, cutting cloths.
Was totally not the job scope as written on the website or as mentioned in the
camp.
About the camp, it is run by the director,
Edit. It is a family business with her husband and daughters and other family
members. I stayed there for 7 weeks for the volunteer program. There were a few
weeks that there were not much to do. The camp basically have enough people
running it well as they have about 4-5 camps usually in one week.
So for me, I was allocated a camp each
week, but I can choose to run around freely to other camps when I have free
time from the camp that I am allocated as the children gets play time in the
playground from time to time.
Week 1 – Harry potter and the goblet of
fire camp
Week 2 – British School children camp
Week 3 – Off from work (Went to Czech
Republic to find Valerie)
Week 4- Media Camp
Week 5- Fashion Camp
Week 6 – Fashion Camp
Week 7- Bakery Camp
These were the
camps that I was involved and I am pretty sure the days passed by pretty
quickly and there were some days that I have nothing to do.
Oh, there was a girl from Greek in the camp
as well. We had some culture exchange among ourselves and she fell in love with
Chinese food as I crave for it from time to time and will go for some Chinese food.
She was telling me how Chinese food is only meant for the high status people in
Greek, people usually are unable to have them as they are too costly and the
prices in Hungary are cheap as compared.
We even went to climb the bridge and sat
there for a can of beer while talking about everything under the moon. It was
so scenic and comfortable as it wasn’t too cold or hot and the view was nice.
On the 6th week, Valerie came to
Budapest. Took her and her friends around and had some fun and laughter. Oh,
and Valerie almost drive the bungee car into the tree because she was too
distracted talking to us. Was funny although my heart almost dropped out a few
times when she was behind the wheels. There was once whereby I have not sat
down at the back seat and she started driving and I almost flew out of the car,
another time where she almost drive us into the tree and another time when she
step on the accelerator too quickly and was unable to control the car properly
(that was initially) and also when I tried to make her do a reverse parking
with the car. Think she got used to it after maneuvering with the car for a bit
driving forward.
Oh, and about the car, we rented for an
hour. So, we didn’t managed to make it back in time and the car died on us on
our way back to the place where we rented our car. Then comes a tram that is trying
to pass by the same road that our car is stuck on. Luckily we met a nice guy
that helped us push the car to the side on the grass so that the tram can move.
Never thought that I will have to push a car like this in Hungary. Luckily I
still had some credits left on my phone to make a phone call for the emergency
hotline and get someone to come help us. He put in another 1 hour token and I was
so tempted to continue driving around. But decided to just return the car as
the timing of our car rental is recorded on the paper, and I don’t want to get
extra charges for the car.
And I can’t thinking of anything to write
now. So will write again when I can think of something. :D
