Oh my! That's the biggest one of those I've ever had...

And it was damn tasty...*

Well we're back. Been in 2 hours and my ma's phoned twice. She also camped out in our house for the 4 days we were away. Apparently she deserved a holiday too. Eaten me out of house and home and drank my vodkas. Its like karmic payback for all the years I lived with her.

Budapest was good. The only disappointing thing was the food. Full of China Buffet Kings, MiccieD's, and Subways. All I wanted was Goulash and pork. It's disappointing how hard it was to find goulash in Hungary.

*We did find a wee place to eat in the shopping centre next to the hotel, which we would toddle around for supermarket shoppings and cinema viewings. For a starter I ordered the cheese and toast. I was expecting a wee plate(maybe 2 slices of cheese and toast), of cheese and some toast. No. In Hungary the portions are huge. The waiter (pince) brought out the biggest cheese board I've ever seen. With 10 slices of toast. Seriously. 10 huge slices. I swear there was enough cheese to serve 4 people. After sending the waiter into hysterics (Paul says the look on my face was priceless) I endeavoured to do the cheese justice. I failed. I roped Paul into help but gave up partially through. At one point I thought "Oh thats nice, peppers and fruits as garnish" No. Not a garnish. A container for more cheese. The peppers hid Feta and the fruit hid other cheese. I'm actually scunnered at cheese now.

So aye. Hungary was good. Bumped into a guy from Motherwell and ended up in a pub with him where 6 rounds of JD & Coke for me, and beer for the guys came to 5300HUF. Which is less than £20! Score!

Booze/Wine is cheap (about £1 - £3 a bottle and it was nice stuff), cigarettes are cheap, the public transport is amazing, the people are lovely (apart from the odd arsey person) and the weather was crisp, but dry.

The Terrorhas (Terror House) was a monument to how Hungary suffered during the Nazi, Arrow Cross and Communist occupations. Not one for the easily downhearted. Left me so upset that we decided to skip the Holocaust Memorial Garden as I couldn't have taken both in the same day, and I'm fairly emotionally void. On one of the tours around the old town theres still bullet holes in the wall where they lined people up to shoot them. It was humbling to think of all those people killed for making a stand for the things we take for granted.

Also brought home why my grandparents, and father in part, were so scared of anything like that ever happening again and why they acted the way they did. You can read about it in books, but to actually go there and see it in living history and speak to those who have been through it, is so much more touching than I ever thought it would be.

Anyway, on that sombre note I go, as have to try and find all the stuff my ma has "tidied" in random places before Monday. Because Monday is my first day of school folks!

Wish me luck!