A little bit more than one month has passed since I returned home from Lithuania. Since then, the season changed, and although the weather is still hot, soon I will have to prepare myself for a change as well, like if every autumn was is the beginning of something new. This means that I'll have to turn retrospective these days, looking back to memories I had in the latest period in my life. This obviously includes this journey, the story of what I left unfinished.
I don't deny the fact as I was uncertain to write about my meeting with Igor, because I was afraid of what reactions I get. But now I am certain that I was wrong. Still, I only want to tell that I've never met anyone before when I would feel that I knew this person for ages... And that we don't have to adapt to this crazy world to be accepted by someone as we are. We met in Šiauliai, and visited the Hill of Crosses - you can search for pictures of it, read the relevant wikipedia article and after, forget about it - none can really describe the amazing spirituality of this place. And right the same day, I got to the Baltic Sea, saw one of the most dramatic sunsets I have seen in my life, and when the night fell, I saw young people having fun everywhere in that town. I spent a night having a long, refreshing sleep in a tiny, little, romantic apartment in a small house - it reminded me of my childhood days in our old house in Balatonföldvár...
I love Palanga.
Next day, my hosts (Audronė and her family) brought me to the beach again, where I could finally bathe in the sea or just sit in the sand and watch people. I am still speechless of the wonderful hospitality I got from my hosts, they made me feel the magic over and over again. I went to church with them in the morning, had some white cheese, dark bread, lašiniai (no comment for this one) and many other things like that during the day, and shared stories, feelings, lives.
Unfortunately this was the last day with nice weather during my stay, so the next day (after meeting my next hosts, Aurimas and Renata, seeing another sunset and spending the night in Klaipėda) I departed to Nida and Curonian Spit in continuous rain. I don't have to mention that I got totally wet, and although the rain stopped until I arrived there, the sky was covered with thick gray clouds during almost the whole day. But thanks to the weather, I could see the amazing beauty of the nature without any annoying tourist groups in sight, and as I was alone, nobody disturbed me when I sat on my raincoat between teo dunes and stared in the endless, thinking and feeling :)
Liepāja in Latvia, on the next day was also beautiful. :) It was a shock for me though that I almost froze (I left my pullover at home), I (almost) got lost, I was almost tricked in one shop (although not deliberately, I think), and I didn't have enough time to visit Karosta and the once-was Soviet military base. But I loved Liepāja coast and, especially, the lake. I really want to return to Latvia one day to discover other towns and hidden beauties...
And I am afraid I am only repeating myself when I am talking about my train journey from Klaipėda to Vilnius, my feelings towards this bohème city, the small, lovely streets and the living, new cityscape with high-rises, the view of the Neris and the hills around Vilnius. Somehow I loved the feeling of the city, it has something that I miss from Budapest, maybe it would be some witty craziness and playfulness, I don't know... I spent a lovely time with Edita, Laurynas (the Wise... ;)), another friend of Edita whose name I can't remember :(, Lina (I was with her when saw night Vilnius from above, with Švyturys and Badacsonyi Merlot... where are you, Lina, I really waited for you to come to Hungary this August... :(), Miglė and Jovita. I saw some of the dramatically beautiful lakes of Aukštaitija National Park and before I finally had to leave Vilnius, I could wander around the old town, saying farewell to this country that brought me so many wonderful memories and experiences. I can recall the feeling when I was about to go to the train station in the evening, it was almost dark and raining, the lamps of cars painting such a strange ensemble of lights on the pavement. And I cried. (Yes, this is a thing that I don't want to hide, but anyway, I cry really very often, so... ;))
But I felt home already when I arrived back to Poland. If Poland was a person, I am sure I would love it as a parent, or a very dear family member... And wherever I go, I can only feel that Poles and Hungarians are really friends... Amazing. ;) I was so lucky to get to know Białystok and Warsaw  being with you, Ewa, Wojtech (or Wojciech?), Małgorzata and Scott :)

So... that was it. That was it? No. But at least you get the brief story now, and let's hope it isn't unfinished yet. By the way... right now I am trying to convince my best friend, to go somewhere nice for a weekend in September... like Croatia, it's not so far away ;) but she resists :( Ah, how I wish she was at least a little bit like me.

...that despite every sober mind (as we say it in Hungarian) I went directly to Balatonföldvár with my mother after arriving home from Lithuania.

(just a note: as I said I will probably continue my writings about that country, but not now :))

So, last weekend (well, not really just a weekend as we were there between Friday last week and Wednesday morning this week) was full of adventures and surprises, as a rule after arriving home after one or two weeks spent away from my well-known environment. What can I say, I soon found myself longing for a bit of silence after all :)

First of all, adventures started with the mobile phone we found in the parking lot of the OBI in Siófok, only 20 kms from Balatonföldvár, where we have just popped in to buy some flowers to plant in the garden. I really can't help myself noticing things like this, and that mobile phone was just lying quietly in the grass so I just had to come across it. My mum phoned the last name that could be found in the list of incoming calls and some hours later the owner of the mobile phone showed up at our house to get it back. He was so grateful to us... he told us that he lives in Germany and he was at home only for three weeks... and that last year he had also lost his phone while being in Hungary :P He also brought us a small bottle of Unicum, as an expression of his gratitude. :)))))

After a while, we soon experienced the geranium story. The story is the following - my granny has had a geranium for about two years. Last year the whole plant did not produce a single flower, but my granny protected and pampered it just like a child. It wasn't annoying back then, just plain funny. But this year she somehow invented the idea of multiplying it, so she soon cut off parts of the geranium and planted them as well. Now it looks like two leaves in a big box filled with soil :D A few weeks ago, I planted petunias in the balcony boxes. Two of them died, from the same box, in the northwestern façade, so she soon replaced the empty box with her geraniums. But when I arrived there, I told her that I would rather see my two Impatiens-flowers in that window and replaced her geraniums with the box full of Impatiens. She got offended of course and started complaining that her geraniums are now going to die. (Even when I offered to put the geraniums back in he window, since if we really want, there is a place for a third box in the window that originally contained two.) My mum just tried everything, including pointing to the fact that the northwestern façade is maybe not the best  place ever for a flower as all the storms come from that direction. The next day my granny had an even better idea. She wanted to put her geraniums in her own window, that faces the street, which was full of beautifully blooming petunias. I didn't really like this idea either, and my mum agreed as well, but she also told me to be more patient with my granny. :P I understood it perfectly, but about half an hour later, when I heard yelling and a fierce debate, I showed up smiling and asked "what's the story" My mum only said with a sad face "Geranium". "Aha" - said I. :))))

So, after I did some work in the garden (cutting the grass, planting flowers, etc) and looking after young Donát, we were about to go home on Tuesday morning. But the morning we wanted to go home the "Vándorffy-channel" (I call the news-service of my relatives this way since half of my wider family, whom we have in our neighbourhood, are called Vándorffy) told us that actually a 2-tonnes bomb from World War II was found in our district (IXth, Ferencváros) and that almost all the district (about 16,000 people) was going to be evacuated. No wonder we decided to stay for one more day, arriving home on Wednesday in the late morning. As I was done with all my work there, I used this spare day to go swimming in the lake, which was great as always but way too crowded :( Anyway, it's nice to be home again - tomorrow my mum will return to Balatonföldvár for the weekend, but I told her I would rather stay in Budapest alone for a few days - sometimes it feels good :)

I chose to have a voluntary two-days solitude near the "Hungarian Sea"... yeah, I am going there alone, and while I am there, I'm going to mow the lawn because we've heard that our garden is like a jungle now. :))))))))))))))

Finally, finally, finally! I am done with my exams. I am extremely tired. EXTREMELY. I have had some tough period in the last few weeks, especially because I was lagging behind with things that should be done - probably because of Model European Union - which was GREAT.

I still owe an (at least a brief) story about this prominent week. Well, let's see... We departed from Budapest (by car) on Sunday, 25 May, at 0.30 am (:o) and arrived to Strasbourg in the late afternoon. We met the organizers and other participants in the restaurant where we had dinner. From next day on we were "working" in the European Parliament (our plenary being the conference room of European Socialists). My role was to represent a Czech conservative member of the European Parliament, and although there were times when I got lost in the huge load of information (i.e. which amendment of us has passed, which hasn't, and generally in what phase the debate is), soon I found the necessary routine ;) We also had breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks in the European Parliament (the pastries were delicious! :)))). The evenings were even better :) I still remember the wonderful talks and crazy moments when we were visiting that nice bar in Kehl, Germany, having parties in La Java (or just hanging out without going any particular place) and discussed the agenda in an informal setting :) Wednesday was the last day we were acting like politicians/journalists/lobbyists - from Thursday we had workshops (like "Quo vadis EU-Russia?"), a meeting with a "real" MEP and some info sessions about AEGEE, JEF, Model European Union 2009 and Youth in Action Programme. I chose the last one and I must tell that I got really inspired to start a programme corresponding with European values and streghtening intercultural ties. I don't have an idea yet but I am sure that I want to be an active citizen in the future and MEU was kind of the first step to do that. :)

Thank you AEGEE and all the wonderful people I have met during this week.

P.S.: I have passed my English exam!!! So in a few weeks I will hold my Advanced level Business English certificate in my hands - it's a wonderful feeling :)

These ten days were AWESOME :) Thank you Aldona for visiting here and I hope you had a nice time! I think you must have arrived home these minutes. I think I should write something like a summary about these days, so that we can remember it later. :)

1st day: Aldona, Ferdy and I went to Hollókő - we saw the village, the castle, the church and the post museum. We went into a shop selling ceramics and other stuff.
2nd day: We went to Gödöllő to see the Royal Palace - we also saw an exhibition about the myth of Queen Sisi :) After Gödöllő, we went home to welcome Tina and Miha from Slovenia and meet the other postcrossers from Hungary (manda10, Szandra, and Mazipan_love). At first I didn't really know where to go (don't have such a big knowledge of places where we could go) so we waited for Meli at Sport Café. Then we went to a place called Prága to drink some wine or tea ;) After it we went up to the Castle and saw Budapest at night. :)
3rd day: Aldona, Ferdy, Tina, Miha and I met in the morning to visit Central Market Hall. After visiting it we met at the Képesbolt (postcard shop) bought some cards and after it, we visited St. Stephen's Basilica, saw the Opera. Panarea, budapestgirl1974 and her two sons joined us only this day. We went to the City Park and took a seat on the grass.
4rd day: Ferdy and our Slovene guests went home - Aldona and I wanted to go inside the Parliament, but there were no tickets left for that day. We took a train to Balatonföldvár - when we arrived, we had a lángos and went into the Balaton. (As soon as Ferdy departed, the temperature turned REALLY hot, above 30 °C in the beginning. :P)
5rd day: We went to Veszprém, then to Pannonhalma, saw the Millenary Benedictine Abbey, after it we were in a rush to catch the bus home. (Temperature about 35 °C...) We had a bath in the lake as well as yesterday.
6th day: We went to Tihany by ship (crossed the Balaton), saw the abbey (yeah, there was another one ;D) and returned to Balatonföldvár also by ship.
7th day: Early in the morning we went back to Budapest by bus, we bought the tickets at 10 am (for 12.15) then we went inside the Parliament, saw the building from the inside, and of course we saw the Holy Crown and Regalia, too :)
8th day: We went to two caves: one was called Pálvölgyi Cave, and another one Szemlő-hegy Cave. It was such a nice temperature there, especially when it's almost 40 °C outside. :D
9th day: Visited Gellért Bath between 11.30 and 16.30 approximately... thermal baths, inside swimming pool with bubble bath, steam chamber (well, it was only me from us who went inside), outside wave pool and thermal pool :)  I'm thinking on visiting another baths in Budapest as well ;)
10th day (today) Aldona went home - I think she's at home for now, so I think I'll end my writing in case she's looking at my livejournal. :D

Sorry if I made any mistakes in the text :) - I had no time left so I might be reading it at once again and - if there are - correct the mistakes. Bye! :)

I'm now sitting in the middle of a pile of everything :P I emptied drawers and wardrobes, I want to throw or give away a lot of things... (for me) useless things I mean, so I'm pretty busy at the moment :) I also have to do a HUGE cleaning up in our house.
But I'm enjoying my holidays :) This is the time I'm starting to feel them. Everything that made me tired is over and I have a little bit more than 2 months freedom left. Wheeee :)

As it wasn't clear to everybody, I'll write down my summer schedule.
6-8th July (but it's flexible): family reunion in Balatonföldvár. Can't miss (it will be my birthday celebration), but dates are somewhat flexible.
9th July (but I can manage 8th too) I'll come home to make preparations for postcrossing meeting.
11th July - Aldona's arrival :)
13-15th July: meeting, but I think you already know that.
After the meeting we'll go to Balatonföldvár for a few days.
21th July: Aldona leaves.

After 21th, I may go back to Balatonföldvár, or visit my friend in Ikervár. It's very likely that I will spend about one month in Balatonföldvár this summer.

Now I'm going to the Castle District. Probably I'll be back by 1 or 2 pm.

It was about 35 °C in the shadow today. But they say in the evening there wil be a storm and it will cool down. I wish.

I have the feeling there will be a revolution in the postcrossing forum. No one likes the administrators ;)

And Aldona!!! I really need to talk to you in the evening. I have to go somewhere (to a secret convention :D) but I'll be back at about 9 p.m or maybe a few minutes after it. If you don't like talking with Gadu-Gadu, please tell me, and I will download everything you tell me! Just translate for me XD