Licences and certificates: tour guide in Hungary, aromatherapist (French method), basic html and mySql

She never knew what she wanted to be. The opportunity to work in tourism came out of the blue at the age of 19 and she fell in love with it.

She used to live in Greece, Slovenia, travel around Europe, could try and develop her skills in every field of hospitality business from being a waitress to managing a restaurant, being a tour guide to organize an entire conference.

This is what she most enjoyed about this sector. One can always meet new challenges and opportunities even after 21 year spent in tourism business.

1. Where did you grow up?

Rétság, Nógrád County, Hungary.

2. If you could be an expat anywhere in the world, where would you choose?

Slovenia. I spent my Erasmus scholarship semester in Ljubljana and Koper, travelled around the country, learned the language and got fascinated by the Slovenian people and land.

3. What would you miss most if you moved away from Hungary?

If I move away with my family, then my Trabant.

4. Friends are in Budapest for a weekend - what must they absolutely see and do?

Start planning a second visit, as a weekend is only enough to get an impression. I would do the must sees in the downtown of Buda and Pest on the first day and focus on my personal interest on the other.

So for the first: Travel on trams 2 on the Pest and 17 or 19 on the Buda side for the view, orientation and quick approach to the main attractions like the Parliament, the Basilica, the Market Hall on Pest and to the Castle Garden Bazaar, the Royal Palace and the Castle Hill on Buda. Recharge in a bath and enjoy an evening river cruise.

For the second day I recommend a visit in a contemporary exhibition in Ludwig Museum, Budapest Galery, Godot or Capa Center, explore Memento Park and/or travel on the Children’s Railway.

5. What is your favourite food?

Any vegetarian dish containing mushroom :-) 

6. What is your favourite sport / form of exercise?

Hiking combined with picking mushroom in the middle of the forest. I enjoy yoga and jogging as well.

7. What is your favourite place in Hungary?

Szentendre Island. Or Bánk Lake. I can’t decide.

8. What career other than yours would you love to pursue?

I have always been interested in cultural anthropology and ethnography. But at the end of the day these could have lead me to tourism, too.

9. What’s a job you would definitely never want?

Police officer.

10. Where did you spend your last vacation?

Porto, Portugal in abroad and Tokaj-Hegyalja in Hungary.

11. Where do you hope to spend your next one?

Munich and the Bavarian Alps in abroad and at the Tisza Lake in Hungary.

12. What was your favourite band, film, or hobby as a teen?

Bands: Jon Bon Jovi and Depeche Mode
Film: The Shining and Hayao Miazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Hobby: I used to write poems, novels and theatre plays

13. Apart of temptation what can't you resist?

Mayonnaise.

14. Red wine or white?

White. There’s a sentence saying that we are born with the taste of our mother’s breastmilk and shall decease with the taste of the white wine. It doesn’t mean that I am ready to die, I rather think I found my nectar.

15. Book or movie?

In this order.

16. Morning person or night person?

My children’s room and hideaway until I moved to the capital had an Eastern siting. I never used black-out curtains, let the sun wake me up every morning. I got engaged to the sunrise forever and so deeply that I developed a motto for myself around the age of twelve.

17. Which social issue do you feel most strongly about?

Segregation instead integration.

18. Buda or Pest side?

Buda, with the foresty hills and lots of green has always felt a bit like home.

19. Which achievement in your life are you most pleased about?

It is a serie of achievements that I am very pleased about with special regards to the Google business profile of Memento Park and the sales I do time after time at the cash desk. Visitors say that I got a special talent in persuading people. But I can’t think of my actions as superlative. I just do what I believe is good for me and my closer and broader environment, including family or business.

20. What would you say is your personal motto? 

As long as dawn lasts, I can be part of the sunrise. After that, I can only be twilight.