The Basics About Hungary

I’m pretty sure everyone must be interested about Hungary. At least everyone who likes travelling and getting to know new places, people and things. And let’s be honest: who doesn’t love that? So here I am, I feel like it’s a little bit my mission to make people notice this amazing but small, therefore forgotten country, and besides writing about myself, I’ll be writing a lot about Hungary.

Our flag 🙂

In my first post about it, I’d like to write only basic stuff, so I’ll be short, but as time goes by, you’ll find other great things here. I want to write about the country’s history, towns, culture, nightlife, along with a lot of other things, so I’m 100% sure you’ll find it interesting. Maybe interesting enough to think about coming here. But let’s  not go that far. For now, I’m happy if even 1 person wants to know about the country. I don’t want to bore you with crazy numbers on how big the country is and stuff like that. You can look it up any time. Let it be enough that it’s really small. It’s about the size of Portugal (a country you may know about). The population is less than 10 million people, so not too much. A lot of Hungarians emigrated after and during the world wars, and a lot of students go abroad to study or work, so the population is becoming less and less. Sadly. But I can understand the people who go away. We have problems… But which country doesn’t? And in spite of the problems, I still love my country. And I think that those who don’t have to live here, those who only come to visit for a few days, weeks or months, they love it even more. At least that’s the feedback I get from a few people. And I agree. This country is indeed amazing and it’s a shame a lot of people don’t know about it.

The neighbor countries are  Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. Hungary is situated in the Carpathian Basin.  We have two big rivers, the Danube and the Tisza. The landscape mostly consists of plain areas: The Great Plain is the bigger one in the west side of the country. The highest mountain is 1014 m high, it’s called Kékes, it’s in the north of the country.

Hungary is a parliamentary republic. At least that’s what it’s supposed to be, but I don’t want to get into politics, I might write about it in a later post. Our president now is János Áder and the Prime Minister is Viktor Orbán – a person you may have heard about in the past couple of years, and sadly, not good things mostly. But there will be an election this April, so things might change. The Prime Minister has bigger power than the President, unlike in the USA for example.

I’m done with the boring stuff. Now comes the fun part 🙂 Two things Hungary could be liked and famous for, are Lake Balaton, the biggest lake in Central Europe and Lake Hévíz, which is the biggest thermal lake in the whole world! No kidding 🙂 So if you have a back-ache, or anything, come here, you’ll be cured in Hévíz. Lake Balaton is actually a popular tourist destination, but mostly only for people from the neighboring countries. I know, it’s not like the sea, but it is really good, and at least we don’t have sharks. 🙂 And guys: it’s worth coming here if you want to see hot girls in bikinis (don’t worry girls, there are a few hot boys too) 🙂

Hévíz

Hungarian girls – it’s worth it, boys, right? 🙂

Lake Balaton – beautiful 🙂

There are a lot of places worth visiting, a lot of smaller and bigger towns and cities. The capital is Budapest. I don’t actually live there, our house is in a town called Budaörs, next to Budapest. But it’s really close to it, and my school is in Budapest, and so are my friends, so I can say, I basically spend my life there. I come home to study and sleep mostly 🙂 And Budapest is great! I think I’ll be telling you about it next time. For now, this is more than enough to read. I just can’t wait to tell more about Hungary.

Next topic is Budapest: monuments, places to visit, and bars, clubs and parties! Everything you need to know about 🙂

Budapest – interested?