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| Farewell photo of the Canadian delegation + 1 honorary member |
The morning session was chaired by Alex, so I got a chance to make a contribution about the immigrant crisis and Orbán's attitude to the EU, while in the afternoon I commented on the situation of women in Hungary today, which was well received. The smaller lecture room was also much nicer, more intimate, quiet and cool, than the big theatre, so that was altogether a good day.
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| Sam is speaking in the session about women |
Monday brought an all day session on organisational matters and Francesco's lead-off was probably the best I have ever heard on this topic. His approach was quite human, funny and accessible, his lists not as boring as these usually are and we were all impressed and enthused by them. I also liked that he not only started with Canada, but showed deep knowledge and understanding of that country. I am sorry to have to say, that most previous speeches on this topic seemed to overlook that great section's achievements.
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| Julien is reporting on Canada |
Monday evening has also had the customary last night's party, which, as usual, started with each section singing. As mentioned in the previous post, the Canadians and me wrote a new, revolutionary text to be sung to the tune of The Drunken Sailor sea shanty. The Francophone comrades have sung a French working class ballad's first two verses and then we all started on our own creation in English. It was a rip roaring success, which we were very happy about.
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| The fort from the bus on the motorway |
I had to go to bed soon after, as the basement room we were in had not enough air and I started choking. Once in my room I packed for the following morning. One out of the two girls I was sharing with was already in the bedroom, but the other one probably only came back after 2am. She didn't look too good in the morning, I must say.
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| Impressive rock wall |
After some anxious waiting for a very late coach, it finally turned up and had taken us to the airport in record time. I managed to take a few good photos through its windows, including one of the fort where I climbed up to on Friday with Alex.Turin has a reasonably small airport, so normally you don't have to wait for anything, but this time it looked as if we were all going to be late for our flights, as they wouldn't let us through to the departure gates. Later we found out that there was a fire on the runway, but they dealt with it quite quickly.
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| A romantic castle visible from the motorway |
Alex had a discussion to finish with Julien, so I was waiting for my flight (which departed an hour before Alex's) with Christina near the gate. She is such a lovely person, just as nice as her twin sister Marissa, whom I got to know 2 years ago. In fact, these Canadian young people not only do not disappoint, but get better with every new visit to Bardonecchia. Finally Alex turned up to say good bye and at the very end another 10 comrades joint me at the back of the queue for the flight to Munich.
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| A town in the valley by the motorway |
Two of these comrades have left us in Munich to get their flights, but the Swedes stayed together and as their flight was even later than mine, we hung out together. I had some excellent discussions with some of them and made some more friends in the process.The flight to BP was uneventful, but even here I made another friend. Near me sat a lovely young woman who works in BP and was going home after a girlie holiday in Spain. She was a joy to talk to and the time just flew past.
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| A castle or a church, I couldn't decide |
Roy was there to meet me, which was lovely and we got home in reasonable time, considering the absolute nightmare that roadworks, tram and underground renovations and a few other works caused us. In fact, normally we change twice coming in from the airport: once from the airport bus into the underground and second from the underground to a tram. This time, the number of changes was the same, but they included a fair amount of walking. First we got on the bus, that went a lot further than it normally does, because it usually drops you at the terminus of the underground, but that part of the line is being rebuilt. So it brought us in to where you could get on the underground further into town. We did that, but the tram we got on later, was also being updated and renovated, so we had a longish walk to it from the metro station. Once on it, we found out that it was going to its garage, so we had to walk the last stop to get home. Getting home from the airport really felt at least as long as the flight from Munich, if not longer.
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| Turin Aiport |
The following morning, when we intended to stay in and have a rest, was spent in hassle, as there was no internet, telephone or TV, plus my mobile data service on my cellphone was not working either. This just highlighted how dependent we are on the internet and other electronic gadgets. I rang Laci to ask for his help to at least get through to the company for information, but by the time he got back to me, finally the problem was resolved. At least half a day wasted!!
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| Karesz and Feri on a previous trip with us |
The following day I managed to catch up with people I had to contact about a few things, either by e-mail, Messenger or phone and sorted all but one. I managed to fix up a day's geocaching with Zsuzsi next Saturday in Visegrád, I managed to find lots of lovely old books on an internet based second hand book site, which might come in handy for contact work in the future, I contacted Feri and Karesz about the next visit in the country and it looks as they are coming, wrote to Pityu to ask for the likely date of harvest (no answer yet, but he is still at the seaside in Croatia, I think.), agreed with Bozsa about this Saturday and sorted what's happening next Sunday at Nata and Colin's BBQ, where we will also meet Ros and Ian to get the post.
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| The castle at Visegrád |
Alex couldn't open the link I sent him about some cruises for next year, but it is too early to book yet, anyway. I think the earliest we will be able to do it is next February, let us hope that there will be places left. We want to leave from and get back to Venice. As Meaghan can only get 2 weeks, it will have to be a week's or at the most a 10-12 days' cruise. Unfortunately, not too many go from and to Venice, so the choice is limited. The ones I found were from Royal Caribbean and later from Cunard. The prices seemed OK, they do go in July and August, but not too often. We'll see!
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| Grand Canal |
Today I had to sort out something at the bank, but thankfully that is now OK and there were no losses involved. Personally, I think that the best solution would be to close the account and just live a cash existence. This country is living in the dark ages as far as internet security is concerned, so I don't think our money is safe in their hands. On the other hand, paying bills in cash at the Post Office is not an activity I am too fond of, so perhaps we will persevere and keep only a small amount in the bank, that we can cope with losing.
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| Not mine, but similar |
And finally, let me tell you about our plum harvest. Roy brought in a few kilos of plums from one of our new trees. Unfortunately, not from the Stanley variety, that one produced nothing again. However, the one he brought in was also nice and having eaten a few as they were, the rest was made into a crumble. I used the Non-soggy crumble recipe from Ginny and it was great. You prepare the fruit and the topping separately. Bit more work than the traditional way, but fantastic taste at the end.
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| Ours was similar but not quite |
Must go now, I am planning to contact the guys I finally caught up with just before I left for France and Italy, and who seem to be interested in our kind of politics. Keep your fingers crossed for me that they turn out to be good guys!
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