We were drastically running out of money but had one week off inbetween our Angloville courses. There were so many places in Poland we wanted to visit, but knew with limited time and money there was one place which was top of the list: Krakow. We found a super cheap hostel in a great location and settled there for the week. It wasn’t the liveliest of hostels but that wasn’t a problem as we managed a mini Angloville reunion.
As you may have previously read, Mitch and I did some voluntary teaching in Hungary through the Angloville programme. We signed up for one more of these teaching programmes in Poland, but somehow ended up doing three, and a weekend style programme. It worked out well for us though because we were running very low on money and Angloville provides you with accommodation and food for the week, all we have to pay for is alcohol (and it’s not exactly expensive in Poland). You can read all about the programme here from my post about it when we did it in …
It had always been our intention on our trip to do some work/volunteering as we travelled. It’s not only a great way to save money and elongate the trip, but also a wonderful way to meet people and immerse ourselves in the culture. Unfortunately, due to travelling in low season, the opportunities were far between. We had planned another week’s worth of English teaching in Poland due to start in April but before then we were crossing Slovakia from Hungary. We took this opportunity to try our luck on help exhange once more.
We actually hadn’t planned on going to Bratislava. We were going to leave Debrecen and go straight to Help X farm work we had lined up in a small place in Slovakia. However, the couple we were going to work for/with asked us if we could postpone it a couple of days. We didn’t mind, and so headed to Slovakia’s capital for two nights and one full day. As much as we enjoyed our time in Debrecen, we were looking forward to heading to a busy city and perhaps having a night out. We arrived in Bratislava and checked into …
Ever heard of Debrecen? Probably not. Most people visit Hungary and go to Budapest, naturally. Other recommended cities you might find are the wine region of Eger or Lake Balaton. The great thing about Angloville was that we met people from different areas of Hungary, even better is if you get to know them they are happy to offer you to stay with them. This is what happened with Debrecen and the wonderful Judit.
Budapest was the biggest city we’d visited so far on our trip. Upon arriving after a long train journey from Bratislava I said to Mitch that it reminded me in some ways of London: busy, buzzing, metro stations, international restaurants and shops greeting us. He laughed in his ‘I-hate-London’ way and told me it was nothing like London. He was soon put in his place when we were told that the main bridge connecting ‘buda’ and ‘pest’ was designed based on Hammersmith bridge in London and other parts of the city were actually quite similar. For the record, I love …
