It was May 2006 and I had a crisp TEFL certificate in my rucksack, an EU passport in my back pocket. I was off to discover the continent, first stop Budapest. I came for 3 months and stayed for the next 2 and a half years. That first summer, I spent my nights in the Backpack Hostel in a 10-bed dormitory under a wall-sized painting of Ganesh, the Indian Elephant god, or on a mattress behind the counter if I got chance during the 14-hour night shifts of manning the desk and the bar.

20th August is Hungary's national day, a commemoration of the first catholic king of the Magyar, St Stephen. I was on night-shift that evening, the only one in a hostel full to bursting; even the back garden tents were full, those were the days before the extension and the yurt. I persuaded almost everyone to go out that night, to watch the fireworks by the side of the river. They started at 9. Precisely five minutes later, one of the biggest storms I've ever seen broke over the city. I watched the front door banging in the gales as, outside, the wind ripped trees from their roots and deposited them onto the streets; half a mile away, they whipped up waves on the Danube so rough that boats collided. 5 people were killed. None of our residents though thankfully, who returned rather earlier than I'd hoped, each with tales of near misses, and proceeded to party until five. I managed a fitful doze before I had to get up to tidy the hostel and get to my other job - five hours of an intensive business English class.

I found enough work to quit the hostel and moved into a one-person flat opposite a pub with a rocking horse above the door that flashed christmas lights until the early hours. My ground-floor window had bars like a prison - it was on the edge of the notorious eighth district - but the courtyard was pleasant and after 3 months in a 10-person dorm I was ready to be alone for a while.

I listened to the BBC in those days, and just a week after leaving the hostel the World Service was full of news from my new home city. The Prime Minster had admitted, on tape, to "lying in the morning, lying in the afternoon, lying in the evening," and people were taking to the streets.

In Hungary, it turned out it wasn't just the weather that was volatile. In the hours every week I would alone spend with students, only too keen to talk history and politics to a foreigner, I learned why the protestors had tried to burn down the Hungarian Television Building (it was a reference to the 1956 uprising against the Soviets when their predecessors has taken control of the state-controlled radio building); how today's rioters had set fire to a water cannon and later even stole a tank that had been part of the fifty-year anniversary commemorations for '56. That night, protestors barricaded the 6-lane Elizabeth bridge, and were finally dispersed, in the small hours of the morning, with a torrent of tear gas. I didn't hear how much from either the radio or my students, but from the receptionist at my language school. When she turned up for work the next morning, tears were streaming down her face at having had to walk the 20 steps from the Metro station to the school building.

We, meanwhile, had escaped to the countryside that weekend, to the Orség for a bike tour of old churches and potters. At one place, the owner was so happy to ply me with apple palinka that I flew along on my bike, a rucksack of pottery on my back, straight into a ditch. I broke only a single, 50 forint (0.20 Euros) shotglass, but that was me pretty much done for the day.

So that night we went back to our 3-room bungalow, drank fröccs and talked.

There was one man, in those days, about whom everyone I spoke to was almost universally afraid.

Viktor Orban.

At that time he was leader of the opposition to a government that was pulling itself apart. He'd been Prime Minister before, once, but in those days the populace still had respect for the old Socialist party and had voted him out after one turn. Now he was riding a wave, making the most of the disarray in government while surfing the rising of tide of nationalism which diverted his party from being young liberals to authoritarian nationalists.

Left: Three billboards in a row tell Hungarians their goverment's message is 'not to take chances' and 'vote no' in their upcoming referendum.
Right: Opposition poster simply saying 'Did you know? There's a war in Syria'.