Cam has been planning our organization's biennial group conference for over a year now and we've been talking about going to Hungary for ages and all of a sudden it happens and now it's over! We had a terrific time at the conference, though we were crazy busy the whole time. The venue that we were at is a Bible College during the school year and a conference center during the summer. One of the conference center curators and I (Sonja) were born in the same Army medical hospital :o)
Before the conference we arrived in Budapest a few days early and we stayed at a guest house in the Centre. It was gorgeous and close to all the sights. We were at the conference for 2 whole weeks - the conference center used to be an old homestead/plantation and bespoke a turn of the century castle as their main building. During the conference we had a group outing and we went to a neighboring city called Pecs which has some Roman ruins - amazing!
In Pecs near the Roman ruins (which were underground)
I celebrated my 26th birthday at the conference, August 1, 2008! Cam was pretty creative in sneaking around and getting me little gifts here and there and also organized a huge bouquet of lilies for me. What a sweet husband (I'm in love!).
The hotel that we stayed at near lake Balaton
After the conference we took a well deserved 4 day holiday by lake Balaton (Europe's second largest lake). All I can say is Wow and no-internet-access, woohoo! The weather was absolutely perfect and there were plenty of activities to take part in. We rented bicycles and road about 10 kilometers, and then we played tennis - we played a proper match and I beat Cam! Then we lounged by the pool and went into the jacuzzi in the evenings and watched the stars. We walked about 20 kilometers in a couple of days and just had a great time fiddling around in the neighboring towns and going to little restaurants and wine festivals. The place looked like a Bavarian town and the Mediterranean all together.
Cam in front of the Kesthely castle
We got back into Budapest the night before we flew out and stayed at another great guest house. We had wi-fi and found out all the emails we'd missed out on (but didn't really "miss") and we found out that someone had left a piece of equipment on the charter bus to the airport so we had to go find that bus and get the piece of equipment back and take it with us to St. Pete. That took the better part of our last day in Budapest but we did find a Gloria Jeans (Australian coffee chain) coffee shop next to one of the tourist attractions - and downed a couple of iced coffees before heading out in the heat again. All we can say is we're sure glad we don't have kids so we can wander aimlessly around gorgeous European cities without tired little feet and having to eat at McDonald's all the time. I'm sure that will come soon enough and we'll fear the flight between Australia and America, and back with little kiddies.
A stinkin' cute house with a thatched roof and tons of flowers, and a room to rent for the night!
Speaking of little kiddies, Cam's brother Matt and sister-in-law Karri had a little baby boy in February and he's already 6 months old! His name is Rhett and he's adorable - we can't wait to meet him :o) I'll attach a pic at the end of this post.
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