The Beautiful Margret Island

Margret Island is an island in the middle of the Danube River right in between Buda and Pest, the two cities which make up Budapest.
Margret Island is the Mecca of Water Polo.
There are the most beautiful stadiums here, with probably around 15 Olympic-sized pools.
And it is completely outdoors, which is very harsh during the winters because it is very cold here in Budapest.
Yesterday I had some games there and it was about 6 degrees Celsius and raining. So it was very cold.
But we beat the team we were playing, so it was worth putting up with a little cold weather.

One of the many beautiful pools here on Margret Island.

The view across the Danube towards the Buda side of the river.

Revolution Day

This past Tuesday was Revolution Day in Hungary.
This day represented the fight towards complete freedom in 1948 from the Austrian Empire.
It is a melancholy celebration because almost half of the population(at least in Budapest) lost their lives in this fight.
And then a year later the Soviet Union took control of Hungary.
But on Tuesday I went to an army museum of all the vehicles in the Hungarian army during the last century since the First World War.

Trip with TB's class

TB's class invited me to go on a school trip with them this weekend.
I was told that we would go to an adventure park.
I thought that was just another name for what in the states we call a theme park.
This adventure park was one of the most unique places I have ever been.
The area the class went to was the tree climbing/zip-lining area. We climbed up into the trees and moved around via the zip-lines to which we were attached by carabiners.
I have a hard time explaining this. Hopefully these pictures will help you understand what we did.

I'm sorry for the language 

It was a lot a lot of fun
But I found out i am extremely afraid of heights

Lost To Eger

We lost to Eger Vizilabda club on Sunday. They are ranked 3rd in Hungary for the A league.
We were up and winning through the first half, and then the referees went to work. Two of our top players were ejected from the game.

Eger has the #1 goal scorer in Hungary. He has over 110 goals in 15 games. That dude can shoot!

I ended up scoring 2 goals that game. 

UVSE Tie

We tied the top ranked team in Hungary on Wednesday.
We could have won, but our 2 meter guard was ejected from the pool for talking back to the refs at in the beginning of the 2nd quarter. We then had to play without him. Tough to tie, knowing we could have won.

Nice souvenir I got from the game.

Touring Kolozsvár

We had a game at 9 in the morning on Saturday when we

beat another Romanian team.

There was also a fight in this game.

I got punched, so Sandor, my coach, told his team to go after the guy that hit me.

Both teams had 2 players ejected for fighting, but we still won 17 to 5.

Our next game was at 9 that night, so we had a while to explore.
We toured the city, which was very pretty and had a ton of great statues.

The most famous King of Hungary was born 100m from the statue

 

Gypsy Palace 

City Streets

Surprise on my walk to school

On Monday morning we were late to school and we missed the bus by a couple seconds, and had to wait an extra 15 minutes for the next bus. But on that second bus we had traffic all the way into the city, so we got off the bus and took the tram instead.
On our way through the city on the other route 
we passed this dormitory, which was across the street from my school.  There were 12 people slaughtering a pig in the middle of the road that morning. I was told that they were making goulash. 
I thought it was amazing and so strange to see people chopping up a pig in the street, but Tibi thought it was completely normal.
When we got to school I told everyone what I saw and they also thought it was completely normal and thought I was the weird one. 

Kolozsvár Romania

We got into Romania on Friday afternoon after a very long bus ride.
Right after arriving from an 8 hour bus ride to Kolozsvár,  we had to go in and play a game against a top Romanian team. We had no time to rest.
The pool was very pretty and we played in a 33 meter field, which is a much larger pool than what we play in the States.
Even though we were very tired from the bus ride, we still beat the team 16-9.
Tibi, my Hungarian brother, got bit by one of the "Gypsy" Romanians. There is a lot of bad blood between the Romanian and the Hungarian water polo teams. These games are very rough.

This is the pool

Weekend Tournament

Heading off to Romania for a tournament this weekend
Its a good tournament and my team should do very well

Hope to bring good news when i get back on sunday

Budafoka vs. FTC

On Sunday my team had a game vs. FTC at our home pool.
We had a full house watching in the stands, because FTC is ranked #2 in all of Hungary.
It was a very tight game, but Budafoka held on to a 1 point lead for the last 3 minutes and beat FTC.
This was a great win for Budafoka.
http://www.waterpolo.hu/meccsadatok/92/meccs_10891.html
These are the stats of the game
Next weekend we travel to Transylvania for a big tournament.