The day we can say, we did it!!

It has been a very emotional journey so far, and so much happened, we got so much support from everyone, from Hungary and from all around the world, that it is just simply unbelievable! Yesterday we were busy organising a lot of things ahead, such as calling the beer company, Coca Cola, preparing poster for the Grand Opening Party and creating templates for our drink menus. We have to focus on what we are doing in the next moth to make sure, that everything is ready when we open up. Not to mention all the paperwork that comes with starting up your own business...This is totally new to me, and while Scott is keeping people entertained on Facebook, getting more and more big dj-s supporting us and making these amazing videos, I have to take care of the legal side of the bar, which is a tiny bit less interesting:). Anyway, we have to get the company registered, so we went to a office for a consultation about the details of the registration. It turned out, that we might have a problem registering a company containing the word `Budapest`, for some reason, you have to apply for this at the City Hall, and it is not a quick process. After the first shock, we realised, it is just easier if we do the company under the name of Lost International Bar Szolgaltato Kft., and then we can still use the original name on the bar. We have to go back for the registration tomorrow and they sort everything out. After that, I went to see our accountant to get all the information we needed to start up and Scott came home to do some work on the computer with the layout of the bar and the usual video. It has been a successful day to get things done and have all the papers we needed even before signing the contract.

Today started early again, we went to the ZAJ DJ shop, which is only 2 minutes down the street from the bar. Scott prepared a very nice folder full of pictures of his previous dj boxes and plans for how the bar is going to look inside, outside. The guy was really helpful, they came to an agreement, that Scott can have the rest of the equipment he needs for rent on the Grand Opening and then sort out a reduced price for buying and they are going to check the place out next week to fit the sound system. Scott was really happy with the results of the meeting and we didnt even know that what was ahead of us. The landlady rang us, and said although she still doesnt have the signature we are waiting for to make the long opening hours official, but she thought we can have a set of keys and we can start working in the meantime. This was really crazy!! It is such a nice feeling how much she seems to believe in us and trust us, we thank so much for her help, without this place, the project would not be the same, for sure! We were sitting in front of it for half an hour waiting, and we just realised how much footfall we have in this street, a lot of people walking and lots passing by with their car, and this was only on a Tuesday. So it looks really promising. We looked around, came up with some ideas about the furniture and the interior, like opening up the big wall at the entrance with a window to make it lighter. We are going to go there tomorrow to clean it all up and get started on the bar layout.  The contract signing is due to be on Thursday now, really looking forward to it, but we have the keys now, that is the most important thing for us!
We still feel this is something unreal that just happened in the past month since we are in Hungary, it has been so quick, and we had our ups and downs as well, but looking back at the whole story now it all makes sense. Not much left today, Scott is done with the video, so we are going to go to the Trofea Grill Restaurant to celebrate and then we are going to check out the bar again before we really start with everything for real!!! Have a nice 1st May everyone for tomorrow, which also means it is only a month left for our Grand Opening!!

Lost in Budapest Blog Adventures Part 13
Music support by Futuristic Polar Bears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7O-k49qDoY&feature=share 

Coming soon Lost In Budapest Blog Adventures Part 13 
Music support By FUTURISTIC POLAR BEARS

Lost In Budapest Blog Adventures Part 12 Music Support From 

LOVE ME FEEL 2013 REMIX

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2TS_U4nlF4

Ready to roll!

its time to party

Todays focus was to get everything sorted that we can before we go into the most important week since we started the lost in budapest project, starting the week with the contract signing and finally receiving the keys it looks like we will be living at the bar all month if Scott has anything to do with it. We have to give ourselves a target every week, what we want to achieve till the opening, which is only 5 weeks away!!! But all the main paperwork has been sorted, so we only have to be creative within the bar. Scott was in his element today, since he was doing his first events dj booking from a friend in England who we our flying over for the Grand Event. We have started to receive emails now on the lostinbudapest2013@gmail.com, which makes us even more business minded with the first group bookings on their way. 

Big plans ahead working with connecting international bars

Scott also had an interesting chat with a fellow bar owner in Vienna, Travel-shack, which is a international backpackers bar in Austria, about future connection, events and web-site plans. Due to such a central location, we are very lucky to have so many hotels and hostels on our doorstep, so we have all the information about the surrounding places in order to get in touch with them. We want to focus on the local places around the bar, and later get a bigger audience, but we always have to be aware of the size of the bar and that it is only the two of us doing all the work, so we have to stay sensible:). 

The Grand opening Event is already live on facebook, and it looks like we are going to have a great crowd, thanks for everyone for the support once again!! In the afternoon I met my friend to visit the Empire of Death, it seemed to be a very nice Sunday afternoon program. This is in the 22nd district, basically you step into a 5000 sm wine cellar, where you get one torch and have to find the way out. It is very entertaining and I have to admit that we screamed quite a lot:)! I can only recommend it to everyone!

https://www.facebook.com/HoltakBirodalma

The rest of the evening is about relaxing a bit, and organising our first private party in the bar, which is going to be our try-out day before the Opening, very exciting! We are looking at a very busy week, hopefully we can sign the contract tomorrow, and there is no stopping  us now!! but scott has so many Blog adventures filming planned for next week f we are sure everyone will see the daily Bar revamp stage by stage so for the first time in month we have a chance of having an early nights sleep fresh and ready for the crazy busy week ahead.

Key Hostel customer base

Countdown and long working hours

We woke up still not believing that we found the perfect place to open our business. Still it feels unreal, probably till we are actually in the bar, which is already next week. Things are moving so quick, not only in Hungary, but in general, since we came up with the idea, that we should do something, it is crazy, when we realise it was only in about December, and we came such a long way ever since. We started saving money, everything we could, we had to put up with the hard times in Vienna, when we couldnt work together and barely saw each other, and every time we had to keep our hopes up, and focus on what our goal was. 

So, we decided today, that the most important thing is to organise ourselves before we sign the contract.  

We had to sort all our paperwork out, and be professionals, because this is where it can go wrong, so the major goal for today was to finish off our office with our financial plan, broken down to every expense in the next 3 months to know where we are, what we can afford, and try to meet all this with what we want to create in the bar. We set ourselves for a budget for the bar but luckily we thought ahead before, and we have most of the important equipment already. This way, it is easier and more organised for us to have a budget for every single item we have to spend on. Of course this is only an estimate, but this way we know, that we are not going above it, but we have no arguments over it either. The finances are probably the most sensitive part of our business and our relationship as well:). We have different ideas of what is worth spending on and what is not, and this way, we made it clear, what are the priorities, and anything that we are going to save at the end of the month, we are just going to spend on something really cool for the Grand Opening night.

another paper work over load day!!

Scott really wanted to go to the Zaj dj shop, to check out what they can offer, and we passed by the bar on the way, since it is just next to it, and we were once again amazed by how perfect the location of our bar is. Everything is on our doorstep. While we where looking for the shop, we started talking to a guy, who owns a bar on the corner in the Jokai street, he was very helpful and we asked him about a lot of stuff of the beer suppliers, how he opened, what was hard, how long he has been there, and it helped us so much. Sometimes, even though Scott is the best in organising things, I still feel like we are not prepared for so many things. After talking to him, I felt like, that we are okay, and everything we dont know yet, we will find out together on the way. This is still all new to us, but also this is our only chance and we know, that we have the best concept we could come up with and it is something that we are both more than happy to give our names to. We just realised this is our life now, once we get the keys to the bar, we are going to be there all the time, till it is perfect and ready for opening up for the public.

So, the guy in the dj shop was really nice, and after Scott explained him what we are doing, he said he can come back on Tuesday and they can give a price offer and also they can check the bar out. So everything is going according to plan and even better! We bought the rest of the folders and came home, and sorted all our finances out. It was quite a long process but it feels so good that we are finally done with it! In the meantime, my mom was so nice that she brought all our clothes and remaining stuff from the lake house.

I can already feel what is the difference between working for yourself or be an employee. Now we have no one to tell us what to do, which is sometimes hard, because you have to figure our for yourself, but on the other hand: no one is telling you what to do:))!! The other thing is, that before, we did some usual things during the day before work in Vienna, and had to go and start the shift, which sometimes was painful, because you just want to enjoy the weather and stay home, relax. But now, since we left and started on working on Lost, we are non stop. And yes, we are tired, but this is what you do, this is what we talk, think and even dream about...There are no more days off for a long time, but every day is a unique adventure and we have to appreciate what we have and what we achieved. 

 Lost In Budapest Blog Adventures Music support keeps on coming 

we our very proud to announce that FUTURISTIC POLAR BEARS will be giving us a track for one of our up and coming videos!!

Up and coming Blog adventures Music Support from 

BIG THANKS Out to Paul Gardner aka SoulAvengerz for being part of the ever growing Lost In Budapest Brand and supporting one of our up and coming Blog Adventure Videos with there latest track LOVE YOU 2013 Remix!!! Bring all types of international music brands under one roof!!! add us now @Lost in budapest......

We came, we saw, we conquered!

What a day behind us! It is even hard to begin, it had been so busy and full of events. As we woke up, we received an email from the landlady saying, that we can meet up at 11 o clock at her sons online marketing office in the 3rd district (Brandlift Online Brand Management), where we get the chance to show our idea and concept of Lost in Budapest. We were already out of the flat at 9AM, being too excited and we decided to go and get a nice breakfast and talk through what we want to say about the bar. Unfortunately after going to the bank and sorting some stuff out, we only had time to get some food quick and headed off to Obuda.

The office is in a really nice building full of new companies, all of them seemed very modern, and the one we went into was especially nice. It had beanbags and even had basketball loop on the garbage bin. We met the son of the landlady, who is the owner of this company, and went into a meeting room with funny quotes on the wall. The first impression for us, was that we found the right people to work with, it was all professional, they gave us a chance to show the idea, that they knew was really good. It was our best decision to work with pages like facebook, blogger and youtube, since it gives you the opportunity to show your statistics so far with the business. Every week it was interesting for us to track  from which countries people follow us, and now it became so useful, because we were able to show them, that half of our readers are Hungarians (best group:)), and the other half is totally international. Lets just say, 3 weeks ago it seemed impossible to have 1300 views on our blog and have

so many people interested in what we do. In a way every day is an adventure for us, we have never done it before, but we feel privileged to be in this position, that we worked so hard for. Now we truly believe if it is meant to be, it is going to happen. After all we hope we can prove it is not about how much money you have in your pocket, it is about how much passion you put in what you do in life and about the idea you come up with. 

So, the meeting went great, and the son said he really liked the brand. It is very good to be in a situation where you can fully express yourself without anyone judging you. It is always inspiring to see a professional person within the industry understand the brand and its future development. After the joint group meeting, we were left alone with the landlady to discuss the contract step-by-step. Scott is really understanding when it comes to the paperwork and it is easier for us to communicate in hungarian. We went through the contract and everything seems to be in place. All parties agreed on the terms of the contract and the Lost in Budapest brand, then we confirmed all with a handshake and a contract signing hopefully on Monday or the latest Tuesday, due to the late license document to be finalised. 

Scott suggested that we revisit the bar just so we can take pictures and notes about the place and we can plan our in bar expenses budget during the weekend, to be all ready for next week. He took lots of pictures and videos of the property and we even discussed about the painting of the outdoor wall at the entrance. There is a cake business next door, we already introduced ourselves to them, and the owners agreed on renovating the walls, which is great news for us. 

The weirdest coincidence, that leaves us no doubt, that this is all not a coincidence, is that the property just above the bar is for sale. Of course at the moment we are not planning to buy a flat in Budapest, but we called the agency and told them, we would be interested to rent to property on a long term as it would make total sense being the tenants from below. This is surely a project that will be continued. 

After we said our goodbyes to the landlady and took a few pictures with her in it as well, we left with total satisfaction, excitement and trust with all that had occurred. 

Our main thought was now to get back to the dogs, as we have been out for a couple hours and we left them on their own quite a lot recently because of the bar hunting. But now with all the current events we can relax and sort out all the financial details of the project. We decided to get the final element to our office today,a printer, so we came home fully prepared for the weekend paperwork overload organisation. Todays events are a lot to take in for us, but it has actually helped to ease the stress and give us the time to concentrate on opening Lost on the 1st June!

All this, shorter and in a form of a video:):

Lost In Budapest Blog Adventures Part 11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGk8DcyHDkw

Music support by Jason Bye!!

Best day so far

Lost In Budapest Blog Adventures Part 10 

Music Support By Brandon Morales

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzOKEUQxhAw

Proud to be a citizen!

It all started like an average day, we had a very simple plan of getting Scott registered and wait for the rest of the bars we contacted to get back to us. Before we left the flat for the Immigration Office, we quickly checked the bars and found a new one, which was only 40 m2, but we decided to call them anyways, since we havent been to that area yet, so it might worth a look. 

We got to the Immigration Office quick and luckily there was no massive crowd, so it looked like we are going to finish quick. Scott said, this was the most complicated registration he ever had. They sure check all the papers, all the copies even more people double checking to make sure only the right people get to stay in Hungary. Or maybe they were only this strict with Scott:). Anyway, finally he got registered, and he got a residency card from them. The whole process took a bit more time than we thought it would, so we really had to hurry to the viewing. The bar is in the Kalman Imre street, which is near the Parliament, just next to the collage I used to go to. It was in a way a surprise for us, because it actually looked nice from the outside, and since the agent was a bit late, we got really enthusiastic about the place in 10 minutes. The fact, that it was just across the street from the Nagymezo street, and that it is located next to a bus stop, put our hopes up about it. As soon as we entered, we didnt feel like it is the perfect place (simply, it was not big enough), but we definitely saw some potential in it. I sat down in the gallery with the agent, while Scott looked around. The agent asked us about the idea we have and we all agreed that we couldnt make the most out of it in this place. It also didnt help, that the barmaid whispered to us, when the boss wasnt around, not to take it, because there are not enough customers in this area. So, we got a bit disappointed, when the agent told us, that there are two other venues, that could suit us even more. Then suddenly a weird thing happened, she started to describe a place that turned out to be the one, we originally viewed in January, while visiting Budapest, right at the start of us creating the Lost in Budapest idea. There were a couple of new things about is, such as a possibility of an outdoor area and the longer opening hours. Scott insisted to view it straight away, since we were really close to it, so the agent called her and we got lucky, she was already at the property and had a little bit of time for us. 

The main thing we remembered about the bar, was how nice the landlady was, which is very important for us to have, in order to have a good relationship between the owner and us. Plus she speaks perfect english:). We arrived at the bar with high hopes, and with the memories from the last time, but this time it was a very different feeling, since we are now in the position to take it, we saw it in a new way. Our ideas about Lost changed a lot through the past months, but we can finally say, that we have the best concept now so far, which we think would work perfectly, and we both felt like this is the place we can make this project come true. Like always in life there was a "but"...while we were admiring the place and already having visions how it is going to look like, it turned out, that there are two other applicants at the very last stage of signing the contract. So, we started to explain to her what we are going to bring to the bar, so she understands how passionate we are about our brand. It was very refreshing to see her opening up by our ideas. Scott told her, she could give the place to someone, who would just open another average bar here, or she can rent it to us, and we can create something very special. We got the impression that she liked our ideas and concept and agreed on a second meeting tomorrow with her son there as well, so we could show them in details what we would bring to her bar. So she said, what we can do, is she could send us the contract and we can go through it and see if we like it, she can give us time till Monday, because that is when the other people are due to finalise. 

We were in a weird mood when we left, it seemed like this was it, we both wanted this place so bad, and it all just worked out perfect, like it was meant to be for us. What are the odds, this place is still available after 3 months, and it just got the extra opening hours on the week when we started looking for the bar? 

The rest of the day was about relaxing for me, I went for the aqua fitness class with my mom and Scott finished todays video. Everyone fingers crossed tomorrow, think about us at 11 o clock, that is when we have the meeting and the dream may come true!!!

Bar hunting day 2

The day started off with a usual dog walk in the very early morning. I thought that I can go back to bed for a while and sleep a bit more, but it turned out, that, according to Scott  we have a strict schedule we have to follow and since this is our job now, we cannot rest till we have the bar. And I have a feeling there is no rest at all after we have it... While we had breakfast we checked the internet again for bar viewings and for some reason we found a place that was tiny, only 30 something square meters with a gallery, but it was near the Blaha Lujza square, so we called them quickly to get an appointment. The agent said, that there is a person interested already and they are signing the papers this afternoon, but if not, she is going to call me back. Okay, we said a bit disappointed, but we kept looking and we found a place almost with the exact parameters and same contact number. So we rang her again, and she said, this person is going to rent both of the places, since it is easy to have both, it is cheap and close to each other.  Our mood was a bit down, it is a weird feeling, every time you see something your hopes go high, and when they say no, it is a bit painful. But we know, that we have to be patient and the right one is going to come our way when it is time:). 

Somehow we got over this, and we headed off to the city early to look around in a certain area that we are interested in. So, it is not decided yet, which side of the city we want to be in, because there are certain ares of the Buda side as well, where people might be interested in our bar. Bur are there any tourist? Would they be willing to come to this side of the Danube for a nice night out? We were not sure about it, but still we walked through the line of the tram 47 from the Moricz Zsigmond square to see what it has to offer for us. Just like in the other places we have been before, this street was the same as well, every second property was empty, but unfortunately non of them were bars. Crossing the Szabadsag bridge we found the area of the Muzeum street a bit too fancy for us. Not in a way that we wouldnt love it, because it is beautiful and full of tourists, exactly what we need, just in a way, that probably it is too expensive to rent here. We ended up in a hostel, looking for a map that has all the recommended bars on it, which is going to give us the place we need to search in. It was so, we finally made it clear for ourselves that we are ideally should be in the triangle of Nyugati-Deak-Astora. It is the same conclusion what we had when we viewed a few bars in January just to see the possibilities, but then we had bad experiences, so we ended up saying, it is better for us to be on the Buda side. 

To be honest, I got very tired after walking all over the streets, crossing them off our maps if we couldnt find anything on them and it was way too hot today, so I suggested to just go home and continue the bar search over the internet. Since our ideas changed a bit, and we are willing to have a smaller but cosier bar, maybe we can find places that we havnt even considered before. We went through the Kiraly, Dob and Wesselenyi street.

We came back at around 3 and Scott was so full of energy, he decided that we need to arrange a viewing for today and we have to be "on it"! So we did, and called a bar that has the best location, great layout, but the opening hours are very bad, and the agent said it is not negotiable. So, to see in a way how desperate we are, we said, it is not a problem, that we have to close at 10PM, we are just going to be a pre-bar, opening earlier and have people around mostly during the day. It just sounded a good idea at that moment, but anyway, we got a viewing this week there. The other choice was a bar near the Ferenciek squre, which is a good location as well, but the budget is exactly what our highest budget is. We are going there on Friday to check it out. This place is owned by a company that owns more properties in the city, so they really want to have people with a good idea and experience, so not only we are going to meet them, but we have to explain our concept. 

Scott did an amazing video of our day today, but he has problems saving and converting it, so we cannot put it on youtube now, but lets hope, that all is going to sorted by tomorrow... It is a nice feeling to be tired after a night like this, I relaxed a bit, but Scott was non-stop, and we have been up since 6AM. But all is well, we are looking forward to tomorrow, a new day, and who knows, maybe someone in Budapest is going to decide to offer their perfect bar for rent:)!!

Lost In Budapest Blog Adventures Part 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6c9kT9-CEM
Music Support From Jason Bye
Mambos,PlayMoreTerrys,WeLoveSpaceSundays

Double day

So, we had our first night yesterday, when we havent had the chance to write the blog, although there was quite a lot to write about. We went by our schedule, ticking all the things off of our list. We started with calling Raiffeisen Austria, to figure out the exact amount of money we have on the accounts and how we can transfer it over to our new hungarian account. It took a while, and it turned out (wasnt really a big suprise), that I have to travel back to vienna  close down accounts in person and transfer all the money to Hungary. After that we called the two bars that we found on the internet, and they both said they are going to get back to us after contacting the owners of the places. So, we quickly headed to the supermarket and buy food for the week and sort out the dogs a really nice bed and toys, which they love. 

One of many of the closed down venues in the city

Just as we came back and wondered what else we can do, the phone rang and the agent said we could go and take a look at one of the bars in an hour. We got very excited, since it was the first viewing since we have been back in Budapest and got ready to go. I had a bad feeling about the bars, because there were not so many of them on the sites, and the ones that were advertised are either in a bad location or too expensive for us. When we got there we realised this is not at all an area where we would want our place to be. It was near Oktogon, but not on the Nagymezo street side, bit on the other one, where all the buildings are in very bad shape, and only a few locals walk around. 

Definitely not a place for us! We called the agent back and told her, that she doesnt have to come, we are just going to leave without viewing from the inside as the outside spoke for itself. 

Ruby loving the new bed

At this point our spirits were a bit down and we questioned ourselves what are we doing here exactly. Scott expected me to know more about the areas, and I realised that I dont know that much about the city, although I was brought up here things have changed and many areas have been built up now with new businesses and the area where we want the bar must have that tourist vibe and footfall. So we came up with an idea to have a system, where we walk around in the city and look for places to rent in the suited locations we actually want our bar to be. Already in the first street, there were a lot more empty properties than what you can find over the internet. We called about 4-5 places, unfortunately some of them are not suitable for night activities and some of them were retail based shops which costs too much to convert. On the way, we found a perfect little bar, that had a small gallery as well, it seemed smaller than what we are looking for, but we fell in love with the location and the presentation of it from the outside. When I called the owner, he said, he just left the sign on, but it is not for rent anymore, since they are going to open up their place. We were quite disappointed and I told him to call us if there are any changes in this case. The day had such a variety of ups and downs, but we realised this is the best way to find a place, to get to know the city and the competition. We are going to go through a certain area every day, so yesterday we have been to the area between the Nyugati square and the Synagogue. Tomorrow we are checking out the surroundings of the tram number 47:). Finishing off the day, we finally decided to get a contract phone for the business, since we need to contact more bars and agencies. On the way to get our new phone, we were even able to at last pick up our second set of keys from the landlord (after a week), which we really needed, since we couldnt even leave the flat without each other, or with locking one of us in here finally everything was coming together and it gave us such a confidence boost.

Music by Jason Bye 

Another exciting thing happened last night while Scott was making the video of Blog Adventures Part 8. He messaged Jason Bye, who is a big dj in Ibiza, he plays at all the major clubs (Space, Pacha, Amnesia) and is a resident dj at Mambos, he is a very highly respected person within the music scene and could give us that extra coverage we needed we asked him if we could use one of his tracks over one of our  new videos. With great excitement he agreed and sent Scott over a really nice message containing a selection of PlayMoreTerrys tracks from his label. This is such an honour and really gives our video a unique sound and look and gets our Lost label out there. The video got done today, you can already check it out on youtube:

Blog Adventures Part 8 With Music Support from Jason Bye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybr9llKnS-Y

After sleeping not so much last night, I had to get up very early in the morning to catch the early train to Vienna to sort out our finances in Raiffeisen. It was just a one day trip, had a quick meeting with them at 12pm, i finally successfully closed my account and transferred all the money into our hungarian account. Its been a bit weird going back to Vienna, but it felt like I have never really lived there. It is crazy to think about it, that we only left exactly 3 weeks ago, and it just showed how much our jobs took over our lives here. we decided it was best that I go alone, since Scott had to take care of the dogs and work on the videos. So today we took another step closer to finally being organised and settled in Budapest. We now only have to wait for the flat deposit results of Vienna, and have to get Scott registered in the flat. All this takes off a lot off pressure from the project and gives us the time now to focus on finding the bar. The only down side is our ever growing piles of paperwork!!!! But least the office looks busy lol

Getting ready for the new week

our little baby sky is a lady now xxx

Woke up at our usual 6AM time, Scott took the dogs out for a walk, but at least it was the first night we actually slept through. At 8 I couldnt sleep anymore, and woke Scott up with the plan to go to the Margaret-island, so we could check the small zoo out and walk with the dogs since it was such a lovely weather. When we got there, we realised that today was a big run in the city the Telecom Vivicitta half marathon. It was full of people and kind of like a crazy dodging event with the dogs going through the crowd of runners and bikers. We actually realised how much attention Sky gets from people as a pit bull. It is probably because she is so beautiful and unique, but Scott has second thoughts and gets a bit paranoid of people staring at us. Maybe his neck tattoos dont help:))?! The dogs loved the little farm in the middle of island with the birds and the ponies, but obviously we couldnt go in... We took some pictures and headed back to the flat. The dogs are getting used to their new home, and today is a big day, since Sky became a little lady, she has come into season for the first time. Its crazy how quick shes grown up really, as it was only in November when we picked up this little wounded puppy in Budapest. After months of love and attention she grew into this beautiful dog, and a wonderful lifetime companion for Ruby. We could not imagine now not having them both in our lives. 

doooooooo beeeeee xxx

I arranged to spend the afternoon with my friend Ildi and it gave the chance for Scott to have an afternoon siesta for himself as the 6AM dog wake up calls have started to kick in. With Ildi, we went to the Castle district, it is so nice to have everything so close from us. Had a nice time walking around in the green part of the city, and then we picked up Scott and the dogs, and took them for a walk nearby. We had no plans for the evening, and yesterday we had a talk about how we should organise ourselves in the future and how we have been living so far, we think it is best if write down our weekly roster, so we can plan ahead and know when and what we are doing. It gives us time to relax as well. It seems like we write this everyday and it sound funny, but it is a big issue for us, not stopping and always doing something otherwise we feel lazy...so we have to separate time when we know, that all we have to do is chill out. 

But today really showed us with the blog (hitting over 1000 views in two weeks) how far we have come already just with our idea what we want to do and our daily routine. So the new week starts tomorrow, we have the days planned ahead and we feel really motivated for the bar viewings and who knows what is going to happen...? Some people would never be able to live the life we are living, it is in a way a mind game, always reminding yourself what you want to achieve. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BORI XXXXXX

 Wishing the most beautiful amazing 

 lady a Happy Birthday you came into

 my life just under a year ago and 

 what an adventure it has been 

 already you have given me all 

 I have ever wanted in a life partner

 we just seem to grow stronger more

 and more everyday I am very lucky 

 that I have you in my life you know

 what I am like BLAH BLAH BLAH 

 BLAH love you now and forever lets 

 get this bar rolling and give ourselves

 the life we deserve you me sky and ruby

 forever!!! xxxxxxxxxxxx

20.04.2013 - It is a new life in Hungary

TV paprika restaurant

We had quite a lazy day today, slept finally till 8 (!!) the latest we have done since we lived here:))... The night was very weird, the truth is, that moving into this flat was not as easy as we thought it would be and it is still not lack of problems since we stay here. The details are not really important, but the relationship with our landlord is not the best. So, maybe because of this, maybe something else, neither of us really feel like home here, and last night didnt help either. At around 3AM, the door bell rang once, we both woke up, although I am a good sleeper and I couldnt hear the ringing, only Scott told me. We said it is probably nothing, so we went back to sleep, but in a few minutes it started again, only it didnt stop now. It was very loud, so we both got up and ran to the door, but didnt open it, because it was kind of scary, and all of a sudden someone turned the light on in front of the flat. Finally Scott found the switch to the bell on the switchboard and we were able to turn it off. I couldnt go back to sleep for a while and not long after, there was another noise in the flat, something fell off, but we couldnt find what it was. Basically we had a very weird night and we have the same feeling about the flat. Dont really know what to do, maybe we just need to get all our stuff in, because most of it is still at the lake house in Balaton, and make it more of a home for us...

Half pound burger, Pastrami style

We just had an average day of doing nothing and relaxing which is quite outstanding for us, and then we headed for dinner with my family to a restaurant, to Pastrami, which is created by the chefs from TV Paprika. It is a really beautiful open kitchen place, with an outside terrace. We tried almost everything on the menu, because we had to wait for my brother and sister, who came from a big party with our friends, looking like what we usually look like after a night at that place. It was really nice to see her, and had a catch up with her, since she only came home for a couple of days from London where she lives now. We had some very nice food and it was nice to be with them all for my birthday, although my mom was pretty hangover...hahahaha. Looks like, even she has more social life recently than us:)). There was a plan to go somewhere tonight and celebrate, but we just decided to stay home and organise ourselves in every way. I already wrote about this yesterday, but it hit us even more today how big of a challenge we put on ourselves by doing our own business. It turns out, that we, for example still have all of our money in Austria, and when we left we havent thought about closing the account, looking back, we dont really understand why. But this is only one thing of many. We realised that we still have some ties in Vienna, which need to be sorted out asap. This is not a major problem, and it can be sorted next week. But now we know that just settling down in Hungary is going to take some time just like finding the perfect bar. After all, even though we are only 2 hours away from where we lived in Vienna, we have to realise that this is a totally different country and we have to basically start over again and keep within our budget too. From now on we are going to have a system in our flat and in how we work. We are making a time schedule for ourselves for every week to follow, leaving time to relax as well, but from next week the real work beings.  This is the same as having any normal jobs, giving ourselves a 5 day week. We only have this chance to do the bar, and we are very determined to do it and we feel we can achieve our goal but organisation is a key element of our success. So starting on Monday this is how we are going to operate our business and our life. The thing is, that we are going to have to make some sacrifices and have to be strict to ourselves in the coming up months otherwise we are going to get lost in the details and loose track of our goals. Like we have always said from the start, the most important thing for us is to be happy with what we are doing, this was the main reason we left our previous jobs, because we were not able to show our talents and skills, so we have to make sure that we do it right with this bar. 
By writing todays blog it may look like that we are down, but everyday of this process is a learning curve for both of us, that we have to go through in order to become more experienced. After all, this is the first time for both of us to do our own business, we are sure that we have so much to learn, but at the same time we know that we are going to be successful. As they say, 10000 miles starts with a step. 

19.04.2013 - Slowing down

We realised today, that we just stepped into a phase in opening a bar, where there it is a bit hard to write something everyday and still be interesting for people who read us. The thing is, that some days now, nothing really happens apart from everyday things, walking the dogs, going out shopping, watching movies on the internet and look for bars to view. Today we found two that we are going to check out next week for sure, and then we will see. It is not so many bars for rent, or at least all the criteria narrows it down, such as the rent for a month, the location or the pictures. We have something very unique in our head and it is a bit hard to meet those expectations. 

The real road of opening your own business is a bit more difficult than it seems when you come up with the idea, then all the things appear as you go, we dont have a place yet, but we spend our saved money, because we have to, so we have to get used to now to the opposite to what we did in Vienna, instead of saving, we have to spend with no income, which can be scary. The key element is probably to be very very organised with the money, with the tasks that you have to accomplish, and never never forget what you are working for. Since it is an untangible thing at the moment, it is harder to think with it as well. Neither of us is really scared of doing something new, maybe I am a bit more than Scott, but this is going to be a big challenge, that we have to take step-by-step, otherwise you really get lost in the small things. Of course it is impossible to think about everything at the beginning but we have to try to be ready for the difficulties and handle them well. So, this is why we decided we are going to write the blog, but sometimes not everyday, so we dont become repetative or boring. The goal is to record all the important chapters of this exciting process, which we are still going to do. Slowing down refers to what we should do in a way, not about the business but about everything else, which is a really hard thing for both of us:)

Anyway, we will take a risk and live the dream no matter what!!!:))

In the middle of difficulties lie opportunity

18.04.2013 - Paperwork overload

Woke up really early again, Scott took the dogs out at 6 in the morning, and they were up quite a lot during the evening as well. After breakfast we had to go straight to the Immigration Office for Scott to get registered, so we can open up the bank account and finally sort out our finances. We arrived just a bit after opening, but there was already a lot of people waiting in line. Only when we got there, we found out, that we dont have the required documents they need, since we are not employed at the moment, we have to confirm somehow that Scott has enough money to live in Hungary for three months. The problem is, that we have all our money on my account (hahaha) and we cannot put his name on it from here, since its Austrian. The other thing was, that they said our paper of our savings account would do, but after Scott warning me to take everything with me, I still left my bank card at  home, so we had to come back quick. It already seemed like it is going to turn into one of those days.

We have been cheeky on the way back, and didnt buy a ticket for the tram, but luckily faith was on our side, and it was only a matter of a minute, but we somehow escaped and didnt get a fine. After getting off, we decided that a taxi is our best solution in this situation, so we picked up my card quickly from the flat and headed back to the office. We had to wait for more than an hour to get in, where we found out, that this paper is still not valid, so Scotts stay was in danger:)!!! They suggested we go back to the bank, open up the account on his name, put some money on it, and that would be enough for registering. We have been so exhausted by then, but seriously there is always something to do and Scott never gives us a rest, so even when we took a break and had a Subway sandwich he made me eat it on the way, because he cant sit down till everything is sorted...And this is only our personal papers, cant even imagine how it is going to be like with a business. 

We had an appointment with a lady in a bank (KH), but decided to go to Raiffeisen, since my Austrian account is there, and maybe it is easier to get everything done in one bank, which was in a way true, although there is no account access between different countries. But the girl in the bank helped us open an account on both of our names in probably half an hour, so we are able to get Scott official here on Monday!

This should have been the end of our day, but we had the UPC guy coming over, had to walk the dogs, and we bought some wine and beers, because my sister came around who live in London now, and came to visit for a couple of days. It was really nice to see her again, although she had to go shortly to see her friends, but in a short time after a couple of drinks, we became very enthusiastic to go somewhere tonight. It is always a problem, we said, we have to budget ourselves a big time now, so no spending, going out etc before my birthday, and than we have two drinks and convince ourselves the best thing to do is go crazy. But tiredness won over party time, and we stayed in, to be reasonable, write a blog and save ourselves for Saturday! 

I have to admit, I am very very tired now, so probably just going to go and sleep (Scott is already sleeping behind me with dogs:)), because we do really need a nice relaxing time. The catch in doing your own business, is that you feel sometimes that you are not doing anything, you have no income yet, and the whole setting up takes more time than how it feels when you talk about it. People usually just skip this part, although this is the most important. So we are going to be very careful with everything.
Tomorrow we are sorting out our finances, organising the papers we got in the past days and just go for a nice walk, because this weekend is going to be work free:)!!!

Today in a Video:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdxvFV9VSzs&feature=share

17.04.2013 -7 months flat out its time to Pass out!!!

this is some sort of dog theme park!!!

Scott is still stuck in his Balaton sleeping pattern, he decided to get up at 5:30 in the morning, probably he didnt know what he was doing, because he looked half asleep with his grab anything to wear morning face, but I was still asleep not being able to say a word.  He took the dogs to the dog run, which is famous for its busy social dog network and a has a great variety of dog run games, tricks and ladders and its huge, so the dogs love it, and also Scott met a couple of the locals, who, he said were really nice. After his return, I kind of had to explain it to him, that it is only 6 in the morning, so he passed out again, and we woke up at around 9, and we had a lot of things ahead of us for today.

have you seen this shoplifter please call the police!!!

The first on the list was to sort out the hot water, which we still haven't had, but luckily the landlord was already on the case, and she sent someone over within about 10 minutes:). Are we being watched?? At least, he fixed the boiler and now the flat is in perfect working order, so we could continue are big to-do list of the day. We have really thought about stuff in the past few days, and decided that we should sort out everything for us to be actually able to rent a bar if we fell in love with one straight away. From the registration of Scott in Budapest, to normal internet and our bank account, we have lots to do before we get into the posotion where we can view bars in a professional way. We realised that we need to be very organised in order to run a successful business, to set up such a big project and have our home office. This is the riskiest part of the project, since we have to find the pefect location and property for what we have in mind.

the one shop where you always grab a cheap hotdog!!
and steal their big blue bags hahaha

So, we made our way down to the bank to open up a joint account for us. The ladys been very helpful, and she told us a lot about setting up a company account later and our options, but we have to register ourselves to the new flat before we can do that. We rescheduled the meeting with her for tomorrow afternoon and found out, that we have to go to the Office of Immigration with Scott to get him registered. So...basically Scott is looking forward joining a line of expats in the morning to be officially a citizen:)) because at the moment Scott is an immigrant, but it would help our plan a lot if they let him stay in the country:)! We will see!

We had an idea to go to IKEA quick today and get everything essential that we need for the flat. We try not to repeat ourselves by buying so much stuff that we dont need like in Vienna. Got some nice things for us and went to arrange the UPC contract so we can have unlimited internet and TV as well! 

They are coming around tomorrow to set it up for us. I have never seen Scott so quiet like he is since we came to Hungary. It is still a bit weird, that I have to deal with all the paperwork, and Scotts favourite sentence is: I trust you, where do I have to sign? So, without knowing he already has quite a lot of stuff under his name haha.

scott looking way too english today!

We got good news as well this morning, I phoned the best letting agency in Vienna, to ask them about the flat we left, because we are expecting Scotts deposit back as soon as the new tenants are moving in. It turns out, that someone is interested, and they get an answer from them today or tomorrow, so fingers crossed, that would be a nice added bonus!

All we wanted to do after this busy day is to finally have a bath...lets just say that the hygienic level got quite low in the past day without hot water, but we still had to wait for the landlord to sign our registration form. So, at last she left and we cannot explain how much better we feel after the shower. It hit us today, how much work we have done the past few months, so we are going to sort all the paperwork out this week and then have a break on the weekend, otherwise we are going to go crazy...

Probably we will go out on Saturday somewhere and have a nice dinner with my family, also my sister is coming home today, so we have to catch up with her in the next days. So hopefully tomorrow is our last busy day, we feel more organised now, and cant wait for next week to get into the bar viewings! 

It really starts to feel like summer in Budapest, got very hot in the last week, we feel, even though we had to leave Vienna early, it actually worked out in our favour, as we couldnt imagine ourselves running around now as we have been, when we were working. This looks like a pefect time to open up our business during the summer. 

Wish us luck:)!