Alpine Wonders: JCI Hungary Trip

As an unsuspecting group of 8 young, strapping gentleladies and gentlemen we met at the EuroAirport Basel full of life, vigor and joy.

Upon landing in Hungary, our dear cabin staff asked us to sing Happy Birthday to Leandro, a guest flying in row 7 😁

Why this is relevant for this JCI report, even I don’t know yet! What I do know though is that for pictures, you will need to scroll to the very bottom of the report! 😎

Afterwards, we quickly proceeded to the train station, where we ate typical Hungarian food, Asian Street Food (due to limited time).

We also had the chance to partially experience Hungarian (train station) reality, firsthand witnessing a drunk man being physically thrown out of the store (around 1PM) where we were shopping. He was accused of stealing and didn’t want to show his jacket’s content.

I would ‚love‘ to say that our (Hungarian-style) train trip was a dull, boring one, but after a killed gin bottle and quite a few cans of beers, our trip became exponentially more interesting.

After our kind construction lead/host, Tifó, picked us up at the train station, we ended up driving through a little village, called Fügöd, which is a segregated place with only gypsies living. Many of them on 30m2 with 12 people living together and no access to water.

As for the rest of the night, it was pretty relaxed, going to sleep early after quite a few glasses of wine/beer/gin&tonics and talking about borderline truth or dare topics.

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Karina and Julia were kind enough to prepare breakfast for all of us, consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, coffee and other yummy things we bought before.

A bit like being at camp! What we only suspected at this point is that we’ll need all the energy we can muster for the day ahead..

The work day started strong, our projects included clearing a path for a pavement by taking layers of dirt and grass out, then setting the boundary for the concrete, filling it up with rubble and gravel. In the meantime some of us inside the to-be donation shop took out damaged wall elements (with the pieces being transported to the back of the house), took down a piece of the ceiling, while Dominik cut down a gas pipe and cut out an entire fence with a ‚flex‘. Absolutely amazing and satisfying teamwork, which means it’s time for a well-deserved lunch break!

To summarize the afternoon, let’s see some numbers:

– 50 wheelbarrows of concrete to set the pavement

– Which means 13x25kg=325kg of cement used

– So with wheelbarrows we carried 4 tons (!!!) of concrete over the afternoon

– Number of group breaks taken = 0

– Years that JCI CH will be visible on the pavement of the InDaHouse donation shop = hopefully many 🙂

Interesting facts: we reused the broken tiles from the roof that were taken down, putting it under the concrete as filling.

We had 1 coordinator (Tifó from InDaHouse Hungary) for 8 people, who did a fantastic job keeping the instructions lean and to-the-point with myself acting as translator.

For some time we were the talk of the town as it didn’t happen often before that a Swiss group appeared in Hernádszentandrás, a village of ~350 people.

And we did all this hard work in beautiful sunny weather topping at 21C, so many people were out and about.

Special shout out goes to Debi, our MVP who worked like an artist machine squatting/kneeling the entire afternoon to make the pavement nice and flat.

For dinner we ate in a restaurant that is quite legendary. As we learned, this place is visited from people even on the other side of Hungary (many hours away).

Anyukám Mondta (My Mother Said) has an interesting concept, sort of like a fusion between Hungarian and Italian cuisine. That’s why we ate a mix of traditional Hungarian dishes (with a twist), pizzas, etc.

We were also joined by the founder of InDaHouse Hungary, Fruzsi, her husband (Tifó, who was our construction lead) and their 11-months old daughter Zsófi. They shared some interesting facts about InDaHouse Hungary, for example that it was founded in 2014, by now they have around 20 people on salary, numerous houses they wanted to buy were actually fully donated, with their headquarters/guesthouse being built in 1.5 years by over 600 volunteers.

Regarding the restaurant, a special mention goes to the Parsnip Soup with Rabbit Liver and the Pannacotta dessert.

And then we ended the day with more fun conversations back in the guesthouse, even having the chance to talk to other InDaHouse Hungary volunteers staying there regularly.

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Rise and shine for our second day of work with a beautiful cheesy and hammy scrambled eggs, prepared by Karina and Julia.

This time however, since we finished the concrete work the day before, we did wood panelling, gravel decorating, bench rebuilding, rubbish removal, cleaning, painting wooden beams and so on.

It may not came as a surprise, but you can really get a lot done if you work as a strong team with good communication skills!

After a teary goodbye, we were on our way back to Budapest to begin the ‚Chill‘ part of the trip, with some of us having significant muscle pain.

The train ride was super simple, we just slept drank 4+ bottles of wine, many beers and played Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, etc.

Needless to say, the stories are worth asking those of us about that were there. It’s a separate question whether we will share…

So with a bit of a rush, we managed to leave our AirBnB apartment and go to Burger King Pörc és Prézli, where we ate typical Hungarian dishes, tasted pálinka and had local Hungarian white and red wine made with local grapes (e.g. the famous Bull’s Blood of Eger).

Just to mix things up a bit, we headed to the Tiki Cocktail Bar to enjoy some not-exactly-local, but all the better cocktails.

The boogie was in everyone’s feet though, so I was harassed to go dancing as soon as possible..

OK, it’s not like I hesitated..

So we ended the night in Vicky Barcelona to nice Latin beats.

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34 thousand steps, 25+ kms summarizes the day rather well. But for those that want to know a bit more about where we were during the day, you can track our trip with this itinerary:

Buda castle, Matthias church, Fisherman’s bastion, Hospital in the Rock, Street Food Caravan, Szimpla Ruin Pub, St. Stephen’s Basilica, Vörösmarty Square, etc.

Afterwards majority of us went back to chill in the AirBnB, gathering energy for the night ahead, starting with some lovely food and wine at KönyvBár, which is a rather unique restaurant, as they cook from a different book every month, bringing the book alive through their dishes. This time we had the chance to taste the world of Delia Owens‘ Where the Crawdads Sing.

Following that we headed to a lovely wine bar and headed clubbing to ‚Doboz‘ (The Box), after which the boys capped the night in the humongous 7-dance floor party place Instant-Fogas.

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The morning started easy enough, minus the fact that practically nobody slept enough. But hey, as JCIs we know how to work harder and play harder.

After a healthy breakfast (vegan omelette anyone?) and other energizers, the team voted to skip something historical, meaningful, a fantastic learning opportunity to rather spend more time in one of Budapest’s famous spas. After all, one ’sad‘ touristic attraction was enough for the group.

At the spa, we had varying amounts of fun, due to quite a few pools being out of order, but a definite highlight was the group massage, where we took turns massaging each other in pretty much all possible combinations. Before anyone thinks too much about this statement, it was fully 100% child-friendly.

Afterwards we headed to collect our backpacks and other luggage, ate a marvelous farewell pizza and full of happiness and joy, we went drinking to the airport, where we … drank 🤷

With a little delay, we took off successfully.

Onboard the flight we swear, we had absolutely nothing to do with the epic annoyance of everyone who sat around us on the plane. To this day, we have „no clue“ why everyone threw ugly glances at us, after singing Backstreet Boys‘ Everybody and similar classics on the late evening flight.

(To be frank, it was really not that bad…)

After a touching farewell, we sped off home to get ready for the work week 🙂

Now for a word from our trip ’sponsors‘:

Go to Hungary they said, it will be fun they said.. To the left, to the left. Hadi hadi, tubi-tubi. Pigeon burger. Turn down for what. Dance floor. Wheelbarrow. Boarding completed. Where’s Sathish? Making arrangements. Fudge. The Love Bench. Chicken dance. Photo break. Sklaventreiber. „I kiel you“. Daddy. Köszönöm/köszi. Amnesia haze. Mama duck.. quack-quack-quack-quack-quack-quack-quack. Ducklings. Anwesend. Prrrrrrrrrrr. Magnesium. Never have I ever.. Truth or Dare. Let’s go for a cigarette. Nap time. I need a toilet.. now!

Oh no, oh no, oh nonononono.