16.04.2013 - BUDAPEST!!

After a very very very very tiring day, we are finally in the new flat in the city. It is amazing, although seems a bit noisy after Balaton:). Woke up still at the lake, had to tidy the house, make sure that everything is perfect so the family cant say a word about it:)...wanted to leave the house so bad that we were already at the ice cream place next to the train station an hour before the train arrived. When we got on, we saw that Ruby has two bugs in her (kullancs...), the first one came out pretty good, well, Scott took it out, but the second one didnt, so she still has a bit of the bug in her or something, so we might better take het to the vets tomorrow, at least we register them in Hungary. Scott was in a shock, since he's never seen this type of bug before, and the lady next to us on the train looked at us really weird, while one of us had to hold Ruby down and the other one using a plucker to take it out. Probably this was too much for us, because everyone fall asleep after and we arrived to Budapest!

Beautiful view from the restaurant

Our first stop was at Erste bank, so Scott can take money out for the rent and deposit, it took about half an hour to do that, since just because you have an Erste bank account in Austria, you cant use it properly here in Hungary. Tomorrow we have to set up a new joint bank account, but we dont know which bank yet. 

Had to sit down somewhere because we had a spare 2hrs before my mom came to pick us and the dogs up, as we couldnt take them with us for the meeting. Had a beautiful lunch in the Angelika Cafe at the Batthanyi square and Scott appreciated a lot that the waiter was talking to him in such an english way calling him mate, which is weird coming from a hungarian, but he was very cool with the dogs and all we can say, great service:)!! 

As usual, my mom misunderstood the time we had to meet, so she was half an hour late, which meant we were half an hour late from the meeting. After feeling funny standing on the side of the Rakpart with the dogs and all our stuff they finally arrived and we headed to the office leaving the dogs with my family. We were very desperate to have a shower and change our clothes, but there was no time. There were five people waiting for us at the table, the agent, the owner girl, her mom and two other people from the agency as one of them was an intern. Everyone else was dressed up nice and in a business way apart from us, just got off the MAV look, haha. The mom of the owner we can say was a bit of a snob, and we were so happy, that both of the girls who own the flat are going to be abroad, we just realised that the mom just works down the road, and she seems to be a kind of person who likes to keep an eye on everything. But she was still very helpful and spoke fluent english. We took the tram back with her to the flat and she showed us around, then we headed to the supermarket to fill our fridge up a bit. After Scotts request dinner in KFC (we love the location to have everything on our doorstep, even better than what we had in Vienna-Scott loves Mammut:)) we came back to the flat and wanted to have a nice bath since we have this unique tub. But we realised that there is no hot water, because the bojler doesnt seem to be turned on. They said we just have to let the water pour and it is going to turn itself on, but that never happened. So we are here in the new flat now, best view on the Castle District, but no hot water. We have to phone the mom first thing in the morning to figure out what we could do, but it is too much familiar to the week in Vienna when our bojler broke. At least now it is not minus degrees outside:)....

Sooo much to do tomorrow, and we are very tired, but it is nice to be in the city, definitely going to enjoy ourselves here, and hopefully we are going to sort this hot water thing out quick and make sure the dogs are fine, than it is all perfect!!!

Tomorrow is going to be about getting ourselves into the Buda atmosphere. We have one bar that we found on the internet and looks very nice in the Dohany street, so its definitely worth a look. Other than that we have to say we still didnt find a way to relax, we have been working hard and so much happened since we left Austria. We have to give ourselves time to adopt and get used to being here and last but not least to enjoy our time. 

Water please!

15.04.2013 - a fortnight at the lake....

Is my burger ready yet?

We woke up bright and early as usual watching the clock till 9, so we can call the agency, but it felt unreal to leave today straight away. So, the agent said he is going to do everything for us to arrange the meeting today, bur unfortunately the owners were busy this all day.Still this is the end of the Balaton adventure, and this time for real, it is confirmed, we sign the contract for the flat finally tomorrow at 6PM. We packed our stuff, but have to leave most of it here for now till Bori s parents come and pick it up with a car, so all we need to take is the basics to survive for a couple of days. 

Double bacon cheese chicken burger

So after that we decided to treat ourselves again with a goodbye BBQ and a bottle of Jim Beam. Bori just realised that although she said she wants to move to the countryside at some point of her life, she is nowhere near ready for a life like this. We miss normal shops, banks, and a hussle and bussle of a city life. But we are all getting it back tomorrow:)!! We already have a couple of bars we want to view this week, and the flat agent is already looking for more possibilities for us. So who knows, maybe we are looking at a early opening this summer?! 

Balaton planking

14.04.2013 - Lazy Sundays, lots on our minds

What do you do, when there is nothing to do? Waking up to another hot and beautiful day at the lake, after such a long time this was the first day when we had nothing planned and we were quite tired after yesterday´s adventure. We have never seen the dogs sleep so much in one go, they were still lazy this morning...so were we. Couldn´t stay out long in the sun, since Scott already had a nice red tone on his face and arms, so we were a bit stuck at the computers surfing on the internet.

The only useful thing we did, is that we looked up a couple of bars, and there are some that definitely worth checking out. Other than that not much happened today, as of now, we are in bed again, writing the blog haha. We realised our time is up now here at Balaton, it a lovely place to be, we achieved everything we wanted to do here and more, we relaxed a bit, and now we are all ready to get to the city and start the actual work with the bar. But we feel, we have taking off a lot of pressure off the project already and feel very confident with our results so far and stand by our idea a 100%. It got a lot clearer what we want to do since we left Vienna and a lot has changed for the better. It is not always easy, but as Scott said yesterday it is scarier in life not to live your dream than to try to make it come true. The most important thing is that we are both happy and we agree on the main things. We expect people to have their opinions about our plans (we never thought a year ago that it could happen and our lives would change so much). We feel we have always coped under pressure, and we start to realise that it is already a lot of responsibility on us with the dogs, moving to Hungary, doing our own business, but neither of us could imagine any other way now. It is what it is. Waking up every morning and being able to plan your own life gives you a great freedom and lets you express yourselves, giving a big challenge to show what you are capable of. In no way has it made us lazy and instead of going to work every afternoon because you have to, you can do what you love to do. We would be really happy to become successful here with the bar and bring something new and fresh to Budapest and build ourselves a nice future and settle down, since we both moved around quite a lot in the recent years. Hopefully we finally found what we were looking for. Both of us changed so much, but in a way we had to, to end up here now and be able to start this together. We dont want people to think it was easy, and we have been working very hard ever since we came up with the idea. We had to build our trust with each other in such a short time, living together from almost the beginning of our relationship, it helped a lot that we both reached a point in our life where it was time to grow up and take the big step. It is an opportunity you cannot miss and you don´t get a lot of this in life. 

So, everyone can see, we had time to think our lives through here at the lake house:)).   

New week starts tomorrow and it is going to get busy for us! The plan is to phone the agency early in the morning tomorrow, and if possible we arrange a meeting with them in the afternoon to sign the contract, sort put the keys etc. We are only planning to take some of our stuff since we are taking the train again. The most exciting thing is to move into that fabulous flat and settle ourselves into a routine, we are really thankful for Bori´s family for letting us stay here, but everyone needs there own home. We have to start with the basics, registering Scott at the City Hall, sorting out the bank accounts and just do general everyday life activities. We even plan on filling up our fridge for the first time and cooking our first meal at home and defo having the best bubble bath in our amazing bathroom! Scott is especially excited about setting up his own office/music studio, and Bori can´t wait to watch hungarian TV again lol. Finally we decided to just sort out unlimited internet (like normal people do...) and just use the hot spot in the bar later. It is a new thing for both of us, since Scott just moved here, he´s only been to Budapest for short visits before, and Bori never lived outside of the 22nd district, which is almost not considered as the city haha. 

Although probably Ruby and Sky is going to miss the garden, but we are sure they are going to make lots of new friends at the local dog run. 

So, a short Goodbye to Balaton and a BIG Hello to Budapest!

13.04.2013 - Sun, Tihany, good food and chilli

Doooby in a coma

Yesterday after receiving the great news about the flat, we decided that we are going to spend our weekend relaxing and experience the Northern part of the lake in Tihany, where Scott s never been before for a nice walk and a lunch at a really good Hungarian restaurant. We both know, as soon as we get to the city all the hard work is going to start and probably this is our last weekend doing nothing:).  Scott, the wannabe Spielberg brought the camera as well and turned it into a blog adventure part 6 (this is Scott relaxing…).

 So we took the dogs, the sun was unbelievable hot and later we regretted not taking sun lotion with us. We headed to the train station and took a stop to Balatonfoldvar, since there is no train stopping yet at Szantod-koroshegy this time of the year, so we started with a nice 4 km walk down to the ferry.  It was the dogs first time on a boat and they enjoyed it a lot. Just as we got off we bumped into a Hungarian restaurant with a really nice outside big pot, cooking amazing  soup and a whole pork roasting on a barbeque. It was quite tempting to try it till we saw the eyes:)…maybe next time!

Anyone for pig eye?

I told Scott the restaurant was up on the hill, so we have to walk a bit more to reach  it, and asked him if he wanted to see the famous church of the city  after lunch just a 15 minutes walk from there (it was the quickest no I ever heard of him), but we still made it to the restaurant.  Looking back at the end of the day, it was the best decision to head back straight after lunch. Once we arrived at the Csarda, it was weird, but we were the only ones sitting outside in this beautiful weather, everyone else was inside all suited up.

The dogs were having trouble with the heat, and they settled themselves straight under the bench. Actually they are quite used to eating out, since that s what they did in Vienna with us almost everyday. It was our solution to our boredom:).

I can see your PIN number:)

We were greeted by an older tiny waitress dressed in Hungarian traditional outfit, Scott was fascinated by her shoes (a lyukas sarku klasszikus haha), but she was quick enough to get us a drink , and was very surprised after we told her that we are planning to have three main courses after our soups.  She suggested we only order half portions, Scott wasn’t too impressed, but he just has to get used to the portions and the currency.  Before the food, we had some chilli pepper on the table, and since Scott loves it, I told him it wasn’t too hot, and he should get a bite to try it. He did. See the rest on the video:).

The soups were very nice, and that was only the beginning, all of a sudden our table was filled with multiple dishes served in a nice way.  We decided to just share everything and tuck in. The portions were still huge, and we choose some very filling meals anyway. Scott tried the stuffed cabbage, some stew and a pork with bacon and onions. All of them were delicious and we were full within a couple of minutes. After one more drink we gathered enough energy to go back to the ferry, which we were lucky enough to catch in time, but we had no idea what is ahead of us.

Sailing for the first time - Titanic part II.

After we walked back another 2 kms it was an urgent matter we reach the train station asap as the 4 different dishes, the chilli and the beer kicked in for Scott lol mmmmm Bori I need a toilet…! We arrived at the smallest train station, where they not only told us that there is no train for another 2hrs, but it took waaaay to long for her to hand over the toilet keys for Scott, who had a hard time by then to walk properly.  Lets just say the situation ended well.

After seeing Scott in a better mood, I had to turn him down a little bit by telling him the bad news, not only there is no train going from this station for about 3hrs but we are not going to make it to the other station in time to reach the next train in 10 minutes.  We both knew this can only mean one thing…walk all the way back to Balatonszarszo, looking at the poor dogs, we even had to pick Ruby up and spill some water over her to bring her back to life.  We do forget sometimes how small her legs are.  It would be hard to describe the next two hours and it is all a bit blurry, but we did get home somehow. Scott got sunburnt on the way and the dogs are sleeping for 4hrs now since we got home, only woke up once to eat and drag them selves out to the garden to go toilet…poor babies:).

As you can see, this our way of relaxing!

At the end of the day it was an amazing day out, nice weather good food and we even made a good Blog Adventure video out of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKm_n2anDqs&feature=youtu.be

12.14.2013 - Celebrations all around

This morning just continued the same as yesterday, waking up with the same feeling of confusion and doubt will we ever gonna get the answer about the flat? After breakfast we decided to phone the agent...again! - we couldnt get upset with him, because he was doing his best to get us the flat, as he thought we would be the perfect tenants, but it was all up to the sister living in Belgium to confirm if it was okay. Just as a plan B, we started to look for other places, but we had to give up, because non of them were near to this one. So, we didnt want to sit around all day in the house and drive ourselves crazy, so we took our usual lovely local 5km walk to Tesco, at least we were able to take the train on the way back as Sky seemed too worn out to walk back:)

Usual afternoon nap, still waiting, calling the agency again, still nothing. We started to make our video about how disappointed we were, but yet we have to think positive till Monday and just enjoy the weekend ahead of us. Then suddenly out of the blue, the agent guy called a couple of times, saying we can have the flat if we are willing to pay an extra price for us to have the dogs in the apartment. At the end of the day, we had to weight up the pros and the cons of the flat: we dont have to buy any furniture, its good location, beautiful, all we ever wanted and more. It was no question we said yes straight away. So all we are waiting for now is to set the date with the agency to do all the paperwork and we are ready to move as soon as possible! 

So so so excited to finally go to Budapest, it means we get started with our bar hunting and we just got a BIG step closer to our dream! Everything seems to be happening for a reason, and this past 48hrs was our only down point in the project, but in the end it seems to bring us closer together and make us believe that this is really going to happen, and it is our time now:)! 

We also have started arranging our summer festival field trip for Balaton Sound, we are planning to a days filming there for our Blog Adventures series. Really looking forward to this, hopefully even can promote our name a little bit and grab some contacts at the same time...who knows, we might already have the perfect place by then!

So we can relax now for the next two days, and take a little break from the project, spend the next two days enjoying our last days of living outside of the society. It is going to be so nice to get into the city, sort out our finances and get ourselves into a normal routine, we know we have a lot of work ahead of us, but that was never a complaint... Last but not least we finally can see and contact everyone!! There is an upcoming house warming party, Gabi is coming next week, and it is Bori s birthday as well, so everything just seems to come up at the right time. 

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Quick chat part 3 about todays events:) http://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=NBMYpDqRNTE

11.04.2013 - You could cut the tension with a knife

Scotts super chilli cheese pork salad burger!!

Not too much to post about today, it was all about waiting. We woke up early as usual, Scott was feeling his allergy symptoms again and we were a bit nervous about the day ahead.We called the agency, they told us, the owner wants a picture of Sky, to see what kind of dog we are bringing to the flat. Well...only the cutest and most adorable pitbull ever! So,we sent a nice letter with a picture of Sky, telling a lot of nice things about her, but we still have no answer. I called them in the afternoon, but we will have to wait for the other sisters approval in Belgium. We dont really want to jinx it (but we did open the champagne to cut the tension...), but the guy at the agency said, it is probably ours. We will see! 

It is a nightmare to be in this situation at the moment, cause we are flowing in every other department of the project, but we have to understand that we are still three months ahead of our original plan, and we already achieved more than we ever imagined when we were planning stuff in Vienna. 

But in life, what is meant to be is meant to be, and we are lucky to have each other. Or as Scott says, it is what it is. This is quite an adventure already, we have our ups and downs, but we always seem to pull through any situation so far. At the end of the day, we are good tenants, good people, and if they dont want us in that flat, than it is obviously not for us.  

So we decided to keep ourselves busy, and throw a Lost in Budapest, invite only, VIP garden party with a dj (you might have heard about him), Because im famous. Probably the whole city was enjoying his music today. We set the terrace and the garden up and had some nice BBQ, dogs got chicken necks, nice hungarian speciality, some turkey burgers, chicken and pork, it was really nice. We had some problems with setting up a fire at the beginning, but it was all good. I guess if we would stay here long enough, we could get famous for our parties lol. 

Nothing else to do for us, but the hardest part still, wait a bit more. 100% we will find out tomorrow what our faith is. All we can do for the rest of the evening is watch a movie, have a good night sleep and see what tomorrow bring for us. 

For more information, and to get involved in our adventures and upcoming events, like us now on Facebook @lostinbudapest!

10.04.2013 - "We take it!"

hungarian all you can eat-beats KFC any day!

Today has been very eventful, lovely weather at the lake, we had to let the dogs play outside in the garden for two hours to wear them out before we leave them for a couple of hours. We took the train to the city, and had a spare hour before the first viewing. Unfortunately, yesterday one of the agents called and cancelled our appointment, so we only had two for today. What the hell, we still had to go, and it seemed really hard to find a decent flat for two people with the dogs, which is still a central location, furnished and modern. Most the flats were really bad design, and we didn´t want to move into one of those places. 

Quickly we went to the Moszkva square, where there is a new place (at least for us), all you can eat, mainly hungarian food, quite cheap if you compare it to any fast food restaurant, or just to what we used to pay every day in Vienna eating-out. Waaaay too expensive...and it seems like Scott likes the local food as well:)). With a full stomach we were ready for the first viewing. So, this flat is in the II. district, near the Margit bridge, very good location, although we want the bar to be closer to the Gellert hill. Scott fell in love with the neighbourhood straight away, there are three (!!) english second hand clothes shop in the very near area, plus an english bar, Pointers just on the opposite side. It turns out, that only one of the shops were actually selling english clothes according to an english person. 

So, we met the guy from the agency and the owner, a young woman, very nice people. From the outside, to building is not the most beautiful one and it is very noisy, since it faces onto Margit street with the tram, but as soon as we entered...OMG! Clean stairs, very tidy, looks amazing, and it only got better!! We only remembered the best bath tub we ever saw from the advertisement, but there was much more. Perfect bedroom, living room, a spare room which can be turned into an office for us, a balcony with a view to the Castle hill, modern furniture, fridge, everything that we ever wanted in a flat is there.

You know that feeling, when you are looking a for a place, and as soon as you walk in the right one, you feel it, this is where you have to move in. I had it many times in Amsterdam, moved about 4-5x in a year, then in Vienna, and we were so sure, looked at each other when we entered the flat and nodded, yes, we are taking this. Which is a bit weird feeling when it is the first place you check out, but still!! All Scott said, with the camera in his hand: "We take it!". So, the woman said, she really liked us, but she still has to talk to her sister, because they own the place together. The agency is going to call us back tomorrow in the morning and after that we shook hands as a not official agreement, but fingers really crossed we have this place! We have to have it...we both fell in love with it, there is the Margit island behind it and a dog run for the dogs just behind the building. No neighbour, because they live abroad, this calls for a house warming party as soon as we move in:)!!! 

If possible, we try to sign the papers on Friday, and move in as soon as we can. This must be faith, we both believe that we deserve this flat, it is what we wanted and since there are no coincidences in life, we have a stronger feeling every day that it was for the best we left Vienna early and we are where we have to be at the moment!

We were standing in the middle of the city, the owner told us, they call us back tomorrow, but no one else is going to view the flat today. We just wanted to sign the contract there and then, but tried to stay cool (failed) and said okay. We still decided to go to the other viewing, just out of curiosity, but too excited anyway by the thought of moving to the city soon in the best flat ever!

It started raining, like in the movies, showing the mood we had over the next flat, haha. It was also in the the same district, next to the Deli train station. We were standing in front of the building, the contact person was late, and when they arrived, it was a very young couple showing us into the apartment. Nothing was really wrong, yet everything was a little bit weird. First, you go into a place, which is all right, but then you pass the kitchen which looks like a mess, full of dirty dishes, Scott´s first question was: "Are people still living here?". "Actually, no, we only come here to party"...you could tell, the fridge was mouldy, still some beers in it, everything was a bit messy. To be honest, the first place put our standards so high, even if the second one was okay, we still probably wouldn´t like it. That´s why it was easier that we didn`t like it at all. Just told them, that we have to catch our train back to Balaton, and contact them after we get the answer from the other flat, but even if they say no, we don`t want to move there. We found our place, so no doubt, we are going to get it!!

From the city, we took a ridiculously long trip back to the lake house, and surprisingly, we found the flat in almost perfect condition (since then, the dogs went crazy, but still...), so not much left to do today than hope for the best, and just for the record, we seriously can´t wait to get to Budapest!!!

All this in an action packed video, Lost in the city:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSfig4nWrVI