Round 3 - November 2012

Winner - Hans Peterson

Hans Peterson  came to Budapest for a one-month stop-over to somewhere else almost 18 years ago and still hasn’t managed to get to wherever that was supposed to be.  He was raised in LA, escaped from Minnesota, and studied in Salzburg. His extended post-graduate holiday in Budapest has forced him to teach English, manage a restaurant, try journalism, and often sell his soul to the corporate and political elite of Hungary - always with a smile.  On the bright side, film-making, acting, voice-over work, great friends, and the beautiful scenery of this amazing city are mostly what have kept him on this side of the fine line dividing the sane from the rest of us. He made his GOTG debut last season and is back again on stage this year to try his luck once more

Round 3 Competitors

Austrailian Virginia Proud has vague memories of once working as a lawyer, which explains how she first learnt to talk at length, and with authority, on subjects with which she has but the merest acquaintance. It served her well over the years as a management consultant and later, as a jet-setting executive inventing new alcoholic drinks and trying to convince the world to drink them. Eventually she realised that the youth of the western world were sufficiently intoxicated and chose to do no further harm; she returned to her first loves, writing and travel. Traipsing around the world, she arrived in Budapest almost a year ago and fell in love with the place. With no reason to leave, she now calls it home.

Nourhan (Nora) Elwahid hails from Saudi Arabia. With a multinational background she's aspiring to be a comedian/writer/painter, and is currently an Economics student in Budapest. She can't wait to finish school so she can grab hold of the 'pen, brush, and mic' full time. Before Hungary she lived in Vienna for over a year. She spent most of her childhood in the USA, which has made her equally fluent in two languages as a result. Mind you, that only means she can drive people crazy in two languages. She lived in Saudi Arabia for over 15 years and so has a good idea about life there as well.

First of all, to make things clear, Csaba is a man's name. Csaba Kötcsei is a general manager - that is, he generally manages - an online classifieds business in Budapest. He lived in Finnland and in Switzerland, and still loves both countries. He is co-founder of Budapest's first and best Speed Dating business, celebrating 10 years next year. Csaba's mentor at his first work  - a media agency back in 1998 - was a certain Brendan from Ireland, who skyrocketed from bartender of Beckett's to CEO. Csaba is married with two medium-sized kids, and is proud of his newly acquired 19-year-old girlfriend: a purple Saab 900.

Howard Cohen's  life has taken many paths around the world and into many different roles. Just a few of these include: tour guide, politician, radio DJ, peace negotiator, concert promoter, travel agent, business trainer, and conference organiser.  These days, Howard combines roles co-editing Hungary's English-language online newspaper, TheDaily.HU and running entertainment company Baby Blue Banana. Howard has spoken in public to audiences from 3 people to 100,000 people and has organised (and often hosted) more than 100 live stand-up comedy shows. Despite this experience, he still hasn't managed to work out how to be funny on stage.