Fulbright trip to Győr, Day 1
The Fulbright Association planned a full two-day trip for us to the city of Győr, and we left bright and early Friday morning. We met at the Fulbright building, and on the way there was this cool statue and of course we needed a picture.
We took a bus to Győr with the rest of the Fulbrighters, including our friends Gabriel and Juliette, who are Willow and Ronin’s ages. This made the trip particularly fun and helped the kids not be so annoying to the other adults. The bus ride was an hour and half, and I was glad it was mostly on highways because as we know Ronin doesn’t do well on the bus! Luckily he didn’t get sick, but I think it’s also because he was distracted with his friends.
Our first stop was the Audi factory, which we got to tour. This. Was. Awesome! We got to see a video about the different kinds of vehicles made here and then walked through the actual factory. There were no photos allowed in the factory, but it was super cool. Each car is custom made, so looking down the line each car is different. I was surprised with how many parts of the assembly were completed by people instead of machines and how much emphasis was placed on quality control. Since Ronin collects junk he finds on the ground, I picked up a few pieces screws and bolts from the factory floor that would have been just swept up anyway to give to him
The kids weren’t allowed to go in; they stayed by the bus with the tour guide that showed us around Győr. It was wonderful she was willing to stay behind with the kids so all the adults could tour the factory.
After a long lunch (it seems like all the meals take at least two hours!) we took a tour of Széchenyi István University, the main university in Győr. I didn’t take too many pictures, but here are two of the library. The first is of a short table, which reminds me of WISC blocks (school psych joke), and the second is of the neat seating area in the big lobby which also serves as the air conditioning (I think). This university has a partnership with Audi and a great engineering program.
Before dinner we took a walk through downtown Győr and saw several statues. Ronin’s favorite was of the boy in the rowboat, but he was weirded out that the boy wasn’t wearing any clothes while rowing his boat. Many of the shops also had neat signs above the doors, including the one with scissors and the one of a sparkly boat.
The streets of Győr were cobblestoned and lit up at night. There were several mulled wine stands, and I wish I had stopped to get one because it got chilly outside! Even though it was not late and a Friday night there were very few people on many of the streets. This is very different from Budapest where there are always people around!
We walked around several lovely buildings (I can’t tell you what exactly they are though)
And went inside two churches. They were both beautiful. The first was pink and white, like many of the churches we have recently gone into. The second was more Byzantine, with blues and darker colors. It looked like a service was just about to start, so we stayed toward the back of this church and did not stay for very long.
Willow spent a lot of time with her friend, Bence, who is a student here to do research on his ancestor, the famous Széchenyi. She remembered him from our last Fulbright trip and was super excited to see him again. I told Bence that he could pass her back off to us at any time, but he was so kind with her.
Dinner was at a brand-new brewery right in the center of Győr, and the food was really good. Best of all we had a beer tasting, got more beer of our favorite, and some Palinka to finish. JonPaul took one for the team and sat at the kids table with all five kids!
Ronin ended up not feeling well and slept the entire time. We were worried that he was not going to be well enough to do the activities the next day, but luckily he woke up just fine.
