Pest Controlled

This week I managed to leave Budapest, but not after enjoying it just a bit longer. I keep thinking that I need to be headed somewhere. That somewhere is Asia but how do I get there? When should I buy my second 1 way plane ticket of the trip? And where should I fly from? A while back I received a very tempting invitation to visit Amsterdam and I'd like to do that before I head out East but I've got to research this plan some more. Immediately after writing that and getting some tips on the weather, I got a ticket to Bangkok on 9/26 for $515. It's a 13 hour flight. That's a solid deal and good arrival/departure times all thanks to Hipmunk.com. If you haven't seen this travel site, check it out. It's awesome in it's simplicity.

So, on Wednesday I met up with my Hungarian friend Peter. He's one of the guys that I met in Macedonia. I think that we've got a lot in common... like we're both programmers, we've both played a particular obscure videogame (DotA), and yet we love to hike. Strange stuff. He's also pretty easy to talk to because his English is outstanding. Peter knows a friend who works at the Budapest zoo and could get us in for free, so Sofie and I met Peter in the middle of town and we headed out there.

The zoo was pretty decent. We walked around to the side and found a gate guarded by some union lackeys who let us in after looking up Peter's friend. I guess that my favorite part was the giraffes eating food out of kid's hands... their heads are huge. The trained seal show was pretty killer too. Those guys can balance a basketball on their heads like nothing I've ever seen. After getting a little langosh we all went back to Sofie's place so that she could check her email to see if she got a job at a kindergarten she interviewed at. It wasn't clear whether she had the job, but Peter had to get going and we called it a night.

The next day Sofie and I went to the botanical garden that's near her apartment. It wasn't especially nice, but it claimed to be the oldest in the world and was generally pleasant. My favorite part was the cactus garden hidden away in a greenhouse. I was looking forward to the orchid room, but it was a bit chaotic. Later that night we went to a small cafe on the other side of town to see Greg's band perform. One of their members took the wrong bus and could not make it, so they each performed songs that they wrote and I had a lot of fun. Afterwards we hit a couple bars and then took a fresh bottle of tequila to one of their houses to fuel a 4am dance party. An Irish girl showed me a new way of drinking the stuff... lick cinnamon off the wrist, take the shot, and bite an orange. I like it but I think that it's just supposed to be used with gold tequila.

The next day was somewhat special... it's St. Istvan Day. He's the king that founded Hungary around 1000 AD, and this is their big patriotic holiday. Most stores and restaurants were closed so we did a little home cooking and then saw the fireworks over the Danube later that night. They were pretty great, especially because of the setting, but apparently half the fireworks money went to help the flood victims from a few months before so it was a halfhearted show. I love it. Also, I got in touch with Peter and he invited me to meet up with him the next day.

So that was it, my way out of Budapest. Took long enough! Sofie went out to meet with the kindergarten people again that morning and there found out that they wanted to hire her full time, as she wanted. If she didn't get the job, she was going to have to return to Oregon. That would be too bad, but now they're paying her a good salary, like $670 a month when rent costs $215 for half of a nice apartment. It's a good wage here. I had lunch ready when she came home and she made a cake in celebration of her newfound job. I'm going to miss her good attitude but I said goodbye anyways and made my way to the bus.

Peter lives in a small village with his parents near to the larger town of Székesfehérvár. That's a mouthful. It's a pretty rural place that vaguely reminds me of New England in some way. The tallest building in town is a church steeple on the highest ground and most of the homes have large gardens. Both of Peter's parents are school teachers and he's got 2 siblings, a younger boy and girl. He met me at the bus station and we walked around the town for a bit before he drove us back to his house in the village.

His German cousins have a house very nearby and they are currently staying there for a short holiday. That night Peter and I played some Uno with his 15 year old sister, Abigale, and played some computer games together. My netbook isn't too good for this application so this activity didn't last too long.

The next day I went out for a walk with Peter and his cousin Stephan. Stephan is a university student also and is a nice guy. We saw pretty much the whole village and walked out to a small field to see the local quarry which is a lot less impressive than it sounds. Later in the day Peter and I went to town to get a crossover cable and more wine. The wine here in Hungary is by far the best that I've had on the trip. Peter got a bottle of Tokai dessert wine where they dry grapes on the vine and then mix several baskets of the dried grapes with fresh white wine to leech the sugars away. It's crazy delicious. When we got home the family had a big meal of goulash and pasta cooked over an open fire. It was really really good, but not quite what I was expecting. Goulash here is a kind of potato and beef soup but at restaurants it's a tomato/wine sauce with beef in it. Peter says that there's a different name for the red kind but they call it goulash so as not to confuse the tourists. I've got to get the recipe for the red stuff.

Peter's mom fed me with a vengeance... she made mushrooms cooked in cream with paprika, lots of meat and cheese platters, some kind of chicken liver. I ate the liver, but I grimaced a bit doing so. I just can't say no to that kind of challenge. She also made a traditional Hungarian desert where they wind a string of dough around an oiled rolling pin on a stick, then roll it in sugar and roast it over a fire while turning it. The sugar caramelizes and keeps the moisture in. It's very nice and tastes like a less fatty churro.

The next day we played some games of horse and 33 at their basket ball court and then I had to say farewell. Peter helped me find the bus going to Pecs (pronounced pay-ch), a smallish but beautiful city in the southwest of Hungary. It's in a low land area that tends to have milder weather and longer summers than the rest of the land. Most of the drive was through endless rolling hills of sunflower fields. Very pretty, but difficult to photograph from the dirty bus windows. I hear that there is a huge wine region nearby that's worth taking day-trips by train from Pecs.

I checked into a nice hostel that I found after walking around for a while. My foot was kind of hurting and I didn't want to walk around much for the rest of the evening so I declined to go out to a bar with some of the guys at the hostel. I don't know how I hurt it, but it had been hurting for a couple days when I went to Sziget festival. I think there's something wrong with the arch of the foot, but it seems to SLOWLY be getting better. I've got a bit of a limp these days. Still, the walk to the hostel was very lovely if a bit painful.

The next day I slept in late and then went out for a walk. The city was an important administration center for the Turks while they were in charge of Hungary for 150 years, but it is much older than that even, being founded by the Romans. Later on it because an important center of early Christian activity and today is a rather expensive university town overflowing with tasteful architecture and shaded walking streets. I saw the 'mosque church' which was obviously a mosque before being converted after the Ottomans left. Also I got to see the outside of a great Catholic cathedral here but refused to pay $6 to enter. I don't pay to go into religious buildings that were built with donations. That's a scam IMO.

Later that night I went to an outdoor bar with several other hostel dwellers to see one of the hostel workers DJ. We sat around on some cushions, enjoyed some beers and strong local red wine, and eventually went home. The folks in this picture are 2 geography majors from Germany and Belgium named Federica and Vanessa. The Korean girl is actually from Uzbekistan and was clearly pleased that I was able to name 2 cities in her home country (Samarkand and Tashkent; thanks dad). She says that it's a nice enough place and that backpackers ought to visit, even though it's a huge pain in the ass to get a visa. Some day It'll change though.

The next day (today), I got a train ticket to go to Vienna the next day. I guess I'll try to visit Prague afterwards. I hear that Berlin is crazy cheap from a lot of backpackers so maybe I'll head there at some point. I heard that there's a hostel called 'Generator' with 600+ beds for 6 euros a night. The place is said to be full of underground artist communities and the single best city in Europe. That's what most all of the Europeans say at least. I guess that I've got to go, but only for a short time I think.