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Harvard World Model United Nations
Budapest, Hungary
1997
The trip was a major success. It gave us the opportunity for us to see Eastern Europe especially after the fall of Communism. Representing the country of Iraq, a delegation of five students were sent to the conference. They were:
Middle East Summit: Rakesh Kotecha
Disarmament and International Security: Stuart Lambert
Commission on Human Rights: Pryia Shah
United Nations Environmental Programme: Alasdair Grant
United Nations Development Programme: Emma Butler
We made our own way to Heathrow meeting at desk 32E for MALEV AIR. After arriving at Budapest in the warm late afternoon sunshine, contradicting our earlier opinions of how cold it would be in comparison to Britain, we made it to our five star hotel.
The conference went fairly well, regardless of all our attacks on the United States of America as you would expect from an Iraqi diplomat! The conferences were held in the Building of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, an interesting historical building. There was an average of about 10 delegates in each committee, which is not a bad size. We managed to get through the mixture of different English accents.
Most of the delegates there were Americans, as you might expect, but there were an interesting collection of foreigners including ourselves. There were only two U.K. delegates – us and Nottingham University.
As well as the formal procedures of conferences, we had the opportunity to explore Hungary. The Budapest University organised a guided tour around the city. In the afternoon we were given a Hungarian horse show. This was not an ordinary show, as it was a bit scary at times. At one point it looked like a horse was going to hit us, and only escaped by 5cm from us. One of the riders managed to ride 3 horses on their backs at once!
We soon settled down to dinner, with Goulash and the Hungarian equivalent of a fruit strudel from Sainsbury or Tesco! Yes we were provided with several jugs of Hungarian wines. Speaking of Tesco, on the way back from the Dinner place in the heart of Hungary, we managed to find a Tesco advert! It was a pity that we did not bring our clubcards with us!
The delegates there were extremely friendly which we enjoyed their company. The Taiwan delegates were so generous that they bought us Dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Courses followed each other.
We stayed on in Budapest after the conference to explore Budapest. We were shocked by how cheap food and drink were. A big-Mac was only 40p! We managed to find decent beers at only 30p a pint at the supermarket.
This trip was one in a million, that was enjoyed by all the delegates that were present. However this trip was important for our reputation. This was especially so, as Rakesh won a best delegate award.
