Well yes, I actually had a pretty good time - not considering the few parts of it when I flipped out - but enough is enough. And now that I'm back, I thought I could tell you some stuff about it - you know, just so you have something to read about today.
I promise, that I'll try and give you something else to read about tomorrow.
Well, let's start at the beginning...
The first day was excruciating in the sense that we didn't have one bit of sleep. Our train left at 4 in the morning and every single one of us decided not to take a nap before it.
The trip was pretty long and boring, especially because it was still dark outside and we couldn't even distract ourselves with looking at the scenery.
We finally arrived to the city of Nagykároly (Carei) at 9 in the morning - and then we had to wait for some cabs, cause the whole city has about 12 of them in total.
Since there were 6 of us, we split up in two groups and went straight for the camping - really impatient to have everything packed away.
This is what the camping looked like:
Not that bad, after all - besides that part where we found a fridge in our trailer that stank like no tomorrow (which was removed promptly after we told the hosts that we will move out from there if they don't do anything about it).
As soon as we had everything packed and we changed in our bathing suits we headed out for the pools.
It was pretty interesting to realize that those pools weren't as big as I imagined. The pool you can see on the first picture is just small enough for those who want to play around on the slides. It's completely closed off from the other parts, and you have to pay an additional fee to go on them.
There were four additional pools that had different kinds of hot water in them - so freaking hot, it was almost impossible to enter them (ranging from 28 to 41 Celsius). It was one of these that we spent almost the whole day in - because the other pools were the total antithesis of Hell. They had four of these two - one of them that was only for good swimmers, and was also used to learn scuba diving. One for little kids that reached only to my knees, one that was also for kids, but was just a little bit deeper, and one that was slowly descending until I could barely touch its bottom with my toes. This last one also had a slide, that was actually free to try out.
I don't know why - possibly because we were so tired - but most of that first day was like it will never end. We switched from one pool to the other and when about half of us went off for an afternoon nap we decided to just go out and check out the closes shops.
Well, the closes shop was about 15 minutes away from the camping, and because of the heat wave in the afternoon it wasn't a very nice trip. We could only buy so much water to carry back - and let me tell you, we needed that water.
I swear I probably never in my life drank so much water. And beer.
So when the day finally ended we were ready to sleep the sleep of the dead, possibly till late in the next afternoon.
Heh...
Right.
I woke up at 6 in the morning cause the damn flies didn't give me a minute break. Then, at 7 in the morning the work began - there's another pool they are building just besides the camping, and they always started out promptly in the morning.
The first day I didn't even really mind this - I got my phone and walked around the camping to see what's to see.
They have a whole bunch of horses there - yeah, you can actually go horse riding if you want.
The routine for our days were practically the same. Shopping, swimming, go out for a drink, swimming, go out for some food, swimming, some napping or just sitting around doing nothing, swimming, then grabbing a bite and going to sleep.
It was kinda monotone, but there were some pretty nice things to do too - and after the second day the cold pools seemed to get a lot warmer (or maybe we just managed to get used to it), and we could also try out the slide. (Probably the best part in the whole trip. I never expected to try it out, but once I did I could barely keep myself from going over and over again. Though, eventually the feel of shame of my huge ass between all those kids finally got to me in the end...)
That's the slide:
And yeah... we were the only ones in that pool for some time.
Now, I also have to mention the fact that this place is open for only 3 years now - and I guess they are still developing it. They have a few programs ready for youngsters and the adults alike - football championships, slide competitions, sometimes live music and concerts or dancing shows - there's even an occasional water gymnastics.
They also have Water Walking Balls- balls you can literally climb inside and walk around on water. Or... well... roll around in water, as the case may be. Which is actually hilarious, once you sit around enough to watch kids and teenagers try to stand up on those things and fall back down the next second.
Sis actually tried it out and after only 5 minutes she was exhausted - and I remember a child of about 5 or 6 who also tried it out and once they let him outside of it again he could barely stand on his feet - he managed to fall on his ass about 3 times till his dad came to help him out. I swear, it was one of the funniest things I saw out there - every single person in those balls looked like they are intensely drunk.
Anyways. Here are some suggestions for anyone who wishes to visit the place...
First off, bring some bug spray. It will make your life easier. Second: don't go there on the weekend. The place fills up so much you won't have a place to fart, and they will fuck up your time. I'm telling you, they will. There are a lot of assholes there on the weekends. You know the ones - they turn up, drink until they can barely walk, and listen to their retarded music so loud you can actually feel your last brain cells dieing.
And the showers and toilets in the camping are all outside... so, I guess this will add to your sense of adventure.
Also, bring cooler boxes. The heat there is really really bad - and going into the water won't really help. I got major sunburn on my face after the first few day even with using lotion - so also, be careful of how sensitive you are and at what hours you venture outside.
Bring medication with you too. It will make you life a lot easier - I didn't see the doctor who was supposed to be there at all, so I had to rely on the pills and creams we bought from home.
The prices are awesomely low though. Don't worry about bringing food from home - you can get delicious meals in there for the same price you can get them at home. For those who want to check it out, there's a little place at the back of the deep pool with the scuba diving place, that has pretty good food with decent price. And they will give you just enough of the food for you to feel like you're bursting. The beer is also at practically the same price as in a shop, but you might want to get your bottled water from the shop. I think the water is the most expensive there- it's almost double the price inside than in the shops.
Sooo... I guess this is almost it for today. I'm going to show you guys a couple of pics more, but I'm still lacking a whole bunch of them (we had 4 different cameras that we all used, and I don't have them all uploaded on the comp yet). Everyone who is curious about them, though... feel free to check them out on Facebook.
That's me trying out a thing I saw on the internet where you cut off the bottom of a bottle, put a sock on it and you have your own home-made bubble maker. I guess we WERE tired...
That's the menu I was talking about. HUGE amount of food, and it was all delicious. My sister ate the soup too - so that might be proof enough that it was good. Compliments to the chef!
These are 3 out of 4 of the cold pools. There aren't too many people because it was probably still early in the day (since we lived at the camping we could go inside the pool as soon as they opened and stay there till they closed everything up. Which was at 10PM). I'm still mad a little about the fact that they didn't let us swim around till the morning - their site said that on Friday and Saturday it was open till 4 in the morning. Which was the reason for us to stay there in the weekend. A shame, really...
These are the pools with the hot water. There were usually 3 filled up, with one of them always being cleaned and refilled the next day.
This was the place where they held the parties. It was unusually empty in the day...
That's the pool with the slides.Looks pretty neat, doesn't it?
There were a whole bunch of different kinds of horses - and ponies, and at least 5 of them had little ones. The youngest pony was sooooo cute, it could barely stand when we were there.
That's my sis, trying to get a closer look at the goats. I usually don't like goats, but these were mostly kids themselves, so they were pretty nice. All the animals were surrounded by electric fences though, so it wasn't a problem that they would get out. They were pretty tame too - when we approached them they usually gathered around possibly in the hope of getting some food - which we gave them, actually. I also got zapped for my troubles because I somehow managed to put my hand on the fence.
That's dad standing near that wreck of a car. He was itching to check it out, since he didn't see one of those since he finished his military training - these cars were all used in the military.
They also had some beautiful peacocks there - two colorful ones and two totally white ones.
I don't have a good enough picture that has both of them in it, so you'll have to be patient to see those. When Ágota gets back home she will send her pics to me, and I'll make another post with the help of those. Until then, keep checking back!
Also, thanks for not abandoning this blog while I was away. I love you guys!
