07.29 - 08.04 - CT weekend

Flora arrives!! On 31st after 36 hours travelling - Wednesday (dinner, walking) - pick-up time is 1:30PM
I've cooked a nice dinner for her, she was not tired at all and just a bit hungry. I was so excited to see and feel her in my hands. The airport pick up was not easy, on wednesday i went to work and around 10:30 i left, hopped into the florist the got this red rose. (It turned to be free because the cashier did not have change so he said, it is my fault, have a great day:) Yes, we had a great day. Anyway, there was no problem with the traffic, just with the signs. I have been told to go to another terminal, because her flight was transferred there. On that other terminal they told me that no-no it was a wrong sign, go back. I lost over 30 minutes and I was afraid of missing her on the way out. And this is exactly what happened. She got me when I was looking after her. There was such a great moment to feel her arms around me.

On Thursday we went for shopping a bit, because I wanted to show her every shop I go to. We checked out the Wallmart, Dollar tree (wonderful shop), Stop&Shop, Marshalls. By the time I got home she reorganized the whole room where we gained a lot of space, so we were able to fit every package and clothing on 70 square feet.

On Friday after work we went to Charles and got the kayak and other gears (tent, kayak rack, ropes, lamp, etc.) for the weekend. Because the original plan was to go to a State Park set the tent and fish and kayak around on the sun. We also went to the Mill Pond next to the campus and put the kayak on for a test ride. We paddled way up on the small river and had a great time.

On Saturday we did a lot of things.

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The weather did not look that great so I had to re-plan the whole weekend. First we went to Niantic to The book barn and then in Niantic we checked out the fish market where we had an incredible seafood platter - haddock, clam with bellies, scallops, shrimp and new england clam chowder soup.
After this we visited East Haddam (Gillette Castle State Park, castle, ice cream, fishing in the small pond)
Around 4PM we put the kayak on the sea at the Bluff Point State Park (kayaking, no swimming because of the jelly fish - we saw a ton of jelly fish)
At 9PM we arrived to the farm where Alley set up the BBQ, I don't have to say that the food was amazing. And then around 11PM we went to the Mohegan Sun Casino. I gambled and bet $5 on the slot machine, I was losing the money where Flora wanted to try and so in like two minutes she made $15.91, so we earned $10.91, she was soo lucky!

On Sunday in Bozrah we went for a boat ride where we fished from the water and swam a lot. In the afternoon James and his girlfriend arrived and we had a nice BBQ again. Then we went to the Salem Valley Ice Cream shop (Bence: red velvet, and basil; Flora: peppermint and strawberry)

Hello Flora! Smiling suspiciously behind the kayak:)

Pimped out car:) and its proud owner. This kayak actually looked great on the car! I did not even want to take it off. It earned respect on the highway too.

At the book barn, reading and picking books. Finally we bought a bunch of them for Erna, my brother, and for us. Great books at a very cheap price. 

This was actually a barn and they turned it into a book store. You have the chance to look up 500.000 books in over 10 buildings and at three locations. Wonderful place. http://www.bookbarnniantic.com/

Great woman with a great car

Niantic fish market and harbor. As you can see the weather was not that shiny but it got really nice in the afternoon.

Posing outside

The seafood platter. Flora tried out every possible New England seafood variety during her stay with me. Her favorite is the scallop. Least favorite is the lobster. 

On the way to the Gillette Castle we stopped by at the funky, hippy, picker shop. We dug through all the usefulness and ugly stuff until we finally found a couple of treasures.  

With the treasures

Full size picture:) with less car but with still a bit of the car

Before the Gillette Castle of course we licked couple scoops of ice cream:) With Flora it is a must fun.

http://www.ctrivervalley.com/4-Connecticut-CT-in-of/Major-attractions-in-CT/gillette_castle_state_park/

The Castle from inside

And from outside

The weather was terrific, remember 4 hours ago it was horrific:)

With Bence fishing is a must fun, so we fished at the Gillette castle pond where there were sings: No fishing. But on our side of the pond the sign was missing (somehow) and that is where we fished legally. Flora caught a lot of fish. We caught over 20+ and around 6+ species. Here is Flora with a catfish.

With a small common rudd

On the Bluff Point State Park

http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2716&q=325178

Happy Bence

We wanted to swim but look at this huge ugly jellyfish whatever, the water was full of these

We embarked on a small island and collected shells

Now this is on the farm. I like this picture a lot. It has everything I have.

Flora, family, friends, and a lot of fun.

On this photo we are collecting flowers for a refreshing lemonade with mint

While we were preparing the boat Flora caught a nice bass:) Never stop fishing!

Cruising with Jeffrey and Alley

Swimming and fishing in the water from the water. It was awesome! I literally got the fish under my leg!!!

Nice BBQ with awesome people

Yummy food!!

Salem Valley Ice Cream barn:)

peppermint, strawberry - basil, red velvet

Struggling to keep the ice cream together. Eventually we had to get a paper cup it was just to huge dose for the cone:)

07.23 - 07.28 - Pottery, Rocky Neck wasps

- went to a raku firing with Charles - 30th
- bbq at Chris - saturday
- went to Rocky Neck State Park - sunday
- emergency department
- 16 wasp stings + 2 for me

I got the invitation from my boss, Charles to go to his final pottery class where they do the famous raku firing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raku_ware

He is Charles, my best boss ever!

This is how you build your firing pit, you make a nice bottom from bricks, then you stand up other bricks and cover them with a big stone plate, basically you make a tower from couple layers and so you cover it with a metal barrel. From the bottom to the top you fire up with a propane burner until the bricks turn to red and yellow, everything glows. The temperature is somewhere between 1500 and 1850 Fahrenheit. So it is pretty hot.

You put the dried pottery into different glazes, then drop everything into a low temperature oven just to decrease the temperature shock in the raku pit. Sometimes they still blow up because of the huge temperature difference so it happened to my lovely glazed pottery that was made to Flora.

In the meantime Charles was teaching others on the wheel.

glowing pottery - absolutely amazing in the dark

this is the result - after the glowing phase you drop the potteries into dry leaves in a metal can and so as it fires up the leaves the lack of oxygen and the coal oxidizes the glaze and it creates this beautiful surface and color.

On Saturday we went to Chris's house to have a nice BBQ party. You can see the main chef Prof. Christopher Ball with yummy polish sausages. 

Ildiko and Bence on the porch

Marti and Juli

Ildiko, Barna and Kati

a great plate of juicy, unhealthy, fatty food

Mate (Szabi in the back) and Bence playing on the nexus

Eva, Andris, Ildiko, Kati, Marti, Szabi, Barna, Juli, Mate, Chris and Emese were there. Plus me.

On Sunday I and Marti decided to visit the Rocky Neck State Park. Everything was great, ok weather, ok water, nice cliffs and beautiful surroundings. 

We also climbed up on a very steep cliff.

And all of a sudden on our way back to the car a very serious accident happened. There were trails that went towards the parking lot but actually never reached it, so we had to cut through between the trees. I went in the front and Marti was following me in 30 feet. 15 feet away from the parking lot I felt a huge tweak on my calf. It was so painful I had to run to the parking lot and check it out. I supposed it was a snake in the leaves. While I was checking my leg, two-three seconds later I heard Marti screaming and running and asking for help. Holy shit! What did just happen. She did not want to stop and was about to panic. I said ok, ok, what happened, what is wrong? 

She said, she got so many stings on her legs, arms, back and even on her forehead. We knew that those were wasps. I knew that i was a bit allergic to bees but was not sure about wasps. She never had any stings so she did not know. We were in rush to get to the car, it was over a twenty minute walk. Marti looked ok, even though her face was red, but we thought it is because of the adrenalin. After 7-8 minutes she said she is till okay. Then suddenly she felt weak and had to stop and sit down. I saw a couple of campaigners so I run towards them and asked for help. I found three adults playing something stupid game in a big tent and two kids playing outside. I said I need help and call the ambulance because my friend got over ten wasp stings and is having heavy breathing and serious allergic reaction. 

After like two minutes we run back to Marti and she looked really bad. She had fewer, her face and body swelled and she was barely able to speak or breath. I have never seen anybody like that. One of the adult was a nurse, but she blocked, one man had a phone and called 911. The third lady was continuously shouting: "she is passing out". The situation was really serious. Marti almost fainted but did not, i was holding her in my arms and helped her to stay up. 10 minutes later the ambulance car arrived and I felt much better. 

But the upcoming 15 minutes were terrible still. This was the worst ambulance team ever. Wasted a lot of time doing nothing. I told them, look guys, help her, give something to her. COMEON!

Then they put her into the car and took her to the New London emergency hospital. 

I followed them and 20+ minutes later found the hospital and Marti.

I just walked into the EC unit, nobody asked who i am and why i am there. They had no idea where Marti was. So the care was just terrible, this is not what I would expect in top hospital, especially not in an emergency care unit.

This is how her room looked like.

The other corner of the room. After one additional hour a nurse came and gave something to her and it brought her back to normal in 90 minutes. We only saw a doctor when they released her. Marti was alright, she got epipen and other life saving pills. Next time she will have 5 minutes or that was it. So she has to carry the emergency pill all the time with her.

I am glad that everything worked out well!

Finally we went home around 1 am in the morning. 

07.16 - 07.22 - Weston II

It's been a while ago when I updated my blog. Flora went home on Tuesday and now i try to catch up with my blog, my work, my studies and everything else. I miss her a lot, cannot tell how much. We've had a great time together on 70 square feet:)

As far as I remember I spent the weekend with Jeffrey and Alley on the farm and at their house. I was working at UI as usual, I still didn't have my car fixed so I just hopped on a train and get off in Weston on Friday. Jeffrey and Alley picked me up and we went directly to the final touch place where I got my suits and shirts perfectly tailored. I was so happy!
Then we stopped by at the Chinese massage place where Jeffrey and I got a full body massage. This was my first such experience ever and I really liked it. I was not sure what is going to happen and how. A lady came into the room and told me to lay down on the massage bed. First she started with my neck and shoulders. She had the most brutal fingers in the world. "How would you like? Gentle or strong?" - I had no idea what are the levels, Jeffrey told me to get it hard, it is very cool. So I said strong. She literally squeezed all of my muscle tones and smashed into little pieces. I was able to count the muscle pieces as she worked through them. Wow, that was very painful sometimes. I was almost about to say stop, but then wait a second she must know what she is doing, so I just let her do however she wanted to massage my body. After an hour finishing my face and feet I felt like flying above the massage bed. Very relaxing feeling, absolutely no weight on you.
It was worth every minute. I did not want to stand up and leave immediately so I was listening to the traditional Chinese meditation music for a while and then i just walked out and felt soo relaxed.

On Saturday morning we went for a short walk (1 hour:) and then had breakfast. We were going to pick up my car at Todd. He gave me a call on Saturday morning and told me that my car is running just like new. We just arrived before he went home. My car was absolutely in a perfect condition, runs very smooth and has full of power!! After paying my bill which was very-very fair price I was following Jeffrey on the highway.

On the farm we had a great time, nice food, good weather, cruising and tubing on the lake, etc. I cleaned out Jeffrey's pond and made a plan how to turn it into a very nice pond.

cleaning the pond

the plan

on Saturday night we went to the casino and had a nice dinner

apetizer

hush puppies - was really good

BBQ nachos

Alley-made burger with salad

for Flora just a bit of my culinary expertise and passion:)

Additional news: I got my qcard fixed finally. We did not gamble. We had Krispy Cream donuts. 

07.08 - 07.15 - Weston

 I just got back after spending two wonderful weeks in Hungary. My flight was more than 22+ hours as usual; with red eyes I hopped on a train at Grand Central and hopped off in New Haven after midnight where Marti was waiting for me. She was so kind and offered me a ride. I packed out the most necessary things and wrote couple emails. I was way over couple deadlocks and was hard to fall asleep. Eventually around 2 AM I fainted to sleep. On Tuesday (4 hours later) I got up and went to work with a terrible jetlag:)
I picked up the line at UI so quickly and continued working on my project.

I got together with Alley and Jeffrey on Thursday and on the weekend as well. We went for hiking, shopping, eating.:) We were having a good time! Here I am in couple expensive suits at my age of 24.

Getting pimped:)

Good to see you, America!

Oh, I almost forgot. We have seen the Pacific Rim movie a night before world premier!

06.24 - 07.07 - Hungary II.

Couple things from those two beautiful weeks:

long pole fishing - 11.5 meters - 38 ft

in action

catching a carp

(the story of this carp is that we had no bite on the carp rod for 10 hours and then i decided to throw the bait 120 meters away from our spot close to the cane, after two hours waiting the signal moved 5 centimeters and stayed there i immediately noticed the change and picked up the rod, the rest is caught on tape - it weighted 2.72 kg and guessed in the video between 2.5 and 3 kg)

My freshly graduated attorney Dr. Flora Burai!

Congratulations!!!

Just like this!

Hungarian BBQ

this is where and how you grill the best stuff ever!

YAY

sticking my nose to the grind stone - nope, not at all, i was not the chef:)

the result - grilled pumpkin, pork, beef, chicken, onion, potato

on the Danube

the view from the boat

examining a small lizard 

at my grandfather's vineyard - nostalgia 

on the peak with one of the most beautiful lakes in the background and with the most beautiful girl!

"deeproad" on the hill which can be 15 meters deep at some point

on a beautiful roundtrip 

after building a dam - it is designed to depict a letter F, like Flora

My best two weeks!

I was going back and forth a lot between Debrecen-Tarcal-Budapest, met a lot of my friends (but I had time only to meet a few of them, we will make up for in the winter that is for sure!), celebrated my girlfriend's graduation and my grandmother's 83rd birthday, went to party and fish, set up my hostel's fourth season successfully. I will spend more time with my family at home next time for sure!

It was one of my most intense two weeks and the best ones!