Week Diary from May 2007

Monday 14.5.

We woke up early in the morning to eat some breakfast and get ready for the trip. Our flight from Oulu to Helsinki was leaving at 8.30 am, so we had to be at the airport at 7.30 am. Our parents drove us there, and after saying good bye to them, we were ready to check in.

The flight to Helsinki was fine, and we landed on time.

In Helsinki we had some time waiting for the next flight, which would take us to Budapest, Hungary. Some of us went shopping, and some of us went to have some over-priced Pepsi (2.95 € per 0,5l bottle, that’s crazy!)

The flight to Budapest was quite long, and we had some breakfast (for the third time that morning) and spent time talking to each other, listening to music and reading the magazines on the plane. Landing to Budapest was quite a shock. When we left home in Ii, the temperature was +3 Celsius, in Helsinki it was +9 Celsius, and suddenly in Budapest it was +30 Celsius. It was very, very hot for us.

 

In Budapest, our hosts were already waiting for us. We got on the bus, and drove to Dunaharaszti and Baktay Ervin Highschool, where we met the students from Slovenia and Austria and had a quick break, before heading to the Gallop Major -farm. We changed clothes to bit cooler ones, and looked around. They had many horses there, and a couple of donkeys and dogs.

 

 

 

We had our first Hungarian lunch, goulash and pancakes, which was very good. After lunch, we had a little more free time, and we bought our first Hungarian products, orange juice.

We had the change to go horseback riding on the farm, which was very nice. Many girls tried it, and we think we saw at least one boy on a horse, too. After riding, we had presentations about our schools and towns, and we also presented our selves. We learned that all of the Slovenian and Austrian students were only 12 or 13 years old.

We got back to school from the farm around 6 pm, and headed home to get settled in. Later that evening some of us went to have some amazingly delicious Italian ice cream at a cafe called Timi, and took a small walk in Sport Island. Then we all got home to go to bed early, because we were quite tired.

Tuesday 15.5.

We met each other at the school at 9.00. Our buss was very hot, because the temperature outside was over 20 degrees. We had a guide with us and he told us some things about Budapest and some other things as well. At first we stopped at Heroes square, where the guide told us something about the history of Hungary and the ancient kings. Everybody tried to listen carefully, even though the weather was so hot that it was difficult to focus on what he was saying. We took many photos of that place and returned to our “lovely” buss.

Our next destination was The Castle District, which was located in Buda on the other side of the Danube. We got some free time to look around and take photos. The scenery was awesome, you could see the Danube and The Parliament House on the other side of the river. Some of us bought post cards and other souvenirs, but they were a bit more expensive than normally. And almost everyone bought some ice cream. When it was time to go back to the buss, we noticed that one of us was missing. Luckily, after some minutes of searching around, he was found in one piece.

Finally we went to the zoo in Budapest. We had really looked forward to it. We saw a lot of exotic animals, like lions, elephants, giraffes and parrots. Unfortunately many of those animals were having a rest because the weather was so warm that they were too tired to be more active. Luckily not all of the animals were so passive, for example rhinos and elephants were ready to pose for us. After wandering around in the zoo, some of us found some cute stuffed toy animals from the zoo shop. At least three apes and two snakes got a new home in Finland.

 

 

Wednesday 16.5.

We went to school at 9 o’clock and familiar bus waited us in front of the school. We heard that Tiina was a little bit sick so she stayed at home. The weather wasn’t as hot as yesterday so the bus trip was nice and it wasn’t hot in the bus. The trip took about 2 hours and then we arrived to Tihany Abbey, which was beautiful place. We wandered around and watched places. There were many nice little shops and we bought some souvenirs.

Then we went by bus to the Balaton Füred. We weren’t able to swim there, because the water was so cold and somebody was quite sad about it. We looked around and admired how beautiful the Lake Balaton was. There were also many birds which were quite angry. Some of us ate dinner there and some ate just ice cream. After about one hour we started our trip back to home. 

 

 

 

 

After arriving back to Dunaharazsti we scattered and went eating Pizza. Some of us went by train to neighbor town and there was very nice pizza place. Our hosts explained us fillings of pizzas and everybody found their favorite pizza. We (Jonna, Elina, Marjut) taught to our hosts how to say bon appetite in Finnish and it was very funny and the girls taught us it in Hungarian. Pizza was very delicious, but our pizza was so big that we weren’t able to eat it, so we took it home. The trip to home was very exciting and scary, but that’s enough about it…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 17.5.

I woke up in the morning about 8.30 , it was nice that my host student lived near the school. After eating breakfast we went to the school. When everybody was inside the bus the driver started driving us to Visegrad the place Where the old medieval castle existed. The view there was extremely beautiful. There were hills all over, it was nice to stand on top of the old castle wall and just stare the horizon. Well, I couldn’t just be on top of the wall all day so I walked all around the castle and discovered that there were many medieval exhibitions there. And lots of medieval weapon replicas. Too bad us visitors were not allowed to hold them. After seeing around the castle we went back to the bus.

The next stop was Estergom Cathedral. I’m not religious person but still I can say we don’t have that big churches in Finland. It was humorously big, as to show the power and glory of the catholic church. The architecture, the religious paintings and all the gold, the place looked really expensive. I’m sure much money has been burned to build that place. After wondering how on earth did they build the Estergom Cathedral I went to see the treasury. And what I saw was tons of gold items shaped as religious crosses and such. After that I climbed a really tight stairway leading to the top of the cathedral. After about 200 steps (if more) I was really exhausted and cursed my laziness to exercise. But it was worth it. The view from the Dome was yet again great. I could see the whole town up there. And again I stared to the horizon for too long. Then I went down to the bus and we Finnish students went to the shopping street in Budapest while the younger ones and the teachers were stuck on traffic for two hours. We walked all over the streets of Budapest shopping and after that we went back to the Dunaharazti by train. After that I went back with Miklos to his home and went to sleep.

 

 

 Friday 18.5.

At 9 o’clock, We went to the school were we had some workshops together with Slovenian, Hungarian and Austrian students. At workshops we learned how to clean water, how to measure the quality of water, how to measure strengthen of the betony etc, etc…

After these workshops, we went to Budapest to shopping, to department store called WestEnd CityCenter. It was quite stressing because we had only two hours time to do shopping and department store was huge.

At evening we had a party where we said goodbye to Slovenians and Austrians because they returnned to their countries on Saturday morning.

 

  

                                                                                                                        

 

Saturday and Sunday 19. - 20.5.

During the weekend all the students visited different places around Dunaharaszti with their host families. Fortunately they didn´t need to meet their teacher, only he had his mobile phone on if there would be some problems. But no problems occurred. And the Finnish students got impressions of the Hungarian way of life. Many students visited The Budapest City again and saw the famous sites of the Hungarian capitol. We had a good taste of Hungarian food and got many new friends.

Monday 21.5.

Monday was our last day in Hungary. I woke up at about 6 a.m. because my host Klaudia lived in an another village and we had to take bus to the school. Everybody met at school at about 9.00. Then we took another bus to the airport. The bus was very small. After arriving to the airport we took farewells to our hosts. We went through many security checks and then we went to do some tax free shopping. Our plane left at 11.40 and after two hours we arrived at the Helsinki airport. The flight was very exhausting. Before our flight to Oulu, we had to go through another security check. We didn’t have free time before the flight so we went straight to the plane. When we arrived to Oulu there were our family members awaiting us and they took us back to home.