Veszprém, Hungary Dec. 12-15

My friend Mio and I traveled quite a bit in Europe. In 1998, we backpacked throughout western Europe for one month, and two years later we were on a short bus tour to see a bit of eastern Europe. I now realize that since then I had not been expanding my travel map until this past week. Nathan had a conference in Veszprém, Hungary, so here we went, to wintry Hungry!

The city of Veszprém is the 16th largest city in Hungary, with a population of 64,000 people. Historically rich, I believe the city is full of visitors in warmer seasons. Most of the museums and galleries were closed for the year. I spent a day to explore the castle district, with an organ concert at Szent Mihaly (St. Michael's) cathedral for the finale.

On the following day, I attended a one-day porcelain painting course held at Herend Porcelain Manufactory. It turned out that I was the only participant of the day, so I had the full attention from the master painter who has worked there for 26 years since she was 14 years old. The course even included a half an hour guided tour, where the artists demonstrated their work from shaping to painting, just for me!! Incredible amount of time and energy is spent on each product, and you understand why it is so expensive. I painted a 15 cm plate, with a pattern called "Vieille Rose de Herend." You mix glass powder and serpentine oil until the desired consistency. The colour of the glass powder is determined by what type of mineral is inside. The purple we used have gold in it, so it is very pricey. Of course, the instructor did not let me do the mixing. You can also see that the finished colour is not purple but pink. This occurs during the firing process. I truly enjoyed this experience and if I had another chance to go back, I would visit Herend again.For the third day in Veszprém, I pulled a hikikomori and stayed in the hotel room. Believe me, it was cold, and the hotel we stayed at was so lovely and comfortable. Hungary, though a member of EU, still uses its own currency called forint. When we were there, 1000 forint was equivalent of $5CDN, and we were able to have a set menu (soup, pasta, and dessert) for that amount of money. The average monthly salary in Hungary is €340, which is 1/4 of that of France. So we were able to stay at a four star hotel, and reading a book in the cozy hotel room was priceless!