Day 4: Exit Hungary
For some reason I always wake up early when I'm abroad. Doesn't matter what time zone I'm in, the moment I leave Norway I am suddenly and inexplicably changed from my usual slothlike self, wherein I have problems remembering my name before noon, to an energy bundle bouncing out of bed at 6 am barely able to resist shouting "cock-a-doodle-doo" at the top of my lungs.
Despite the train-wrecked sleep I'd experienced (I'll always hate myself for that joke, though probably not as much as you, the reader, will) this morning in Hungary was no exception. I showered, got dressed, packed my bags and, having found the scraps of last nights meal even more unappetizing in daylight, trotted downstairs to see if there was any food to be found.
A new person was on duty this morning, but he spoke English almost as well as the first one had done and he was even able to serve up a half decent omelet. A little short on taste, but not really bad. Curiously, the Eastern Europeans don't seem to use their staple spice -salt- when it actually SHOULD be used, they only use it (and HOW), when more exotic spices would have been applied in a western kitchen. I am still uncertain if this is due to sheer gastronomical incompetence or if it's another one of these sick little plots poor nations pull on rich westerners. I suspect this is how sushi actually got started - some bitter Japanese guy said to himself "ok, you Yankees may have nuked us into the 20th century, and you may have turned us from a feudalistic fascist mess into a filthy rich democracy, but just TRY getting us to cook your fish, you foreign devils". I attribute the rise of the Latino Pop music and Kylie Minogue to the same phenomenon (ok, Australia is not technically poor but it WAS built by ex-convicts with a grudge).
Having devoured the omelet and drained every orange juice container in the room (revenge for the trains), I got in the car and started to drive in the general direction of downtown Györ. I was surprised at how many people there were on this Sunday afternoon, but the explanation soon struck me: This was Election Day in Hungary.
I drove around randomly for a little while, just looking at the architecture and the people, before leaving the city behind in a futile attempt to locate the motorway. I did however find a much smaller road that had signposts for Slovakia, so I decided to follow this instead of continuing my search for the motorway, rationalizing my abject failure as a driver with the unlikely thought that the Hungarian countryside might provide an interesting view.
After about ten minutes, I encountered a small village - really just a few hundred meters of tacky bars and souvenir shops. I stopped to see if I could get directions to the motorway and was immediately taken in by the incredible variety and tackiness of the objects at display. Here were garden gnomes in all colors and sizes, likewise a vast assembly of angels, pyramids, sphinxes, stars etc, etc ad nauseam. I wandered around for over ten minutes, dumbstruck by this incredible testimony to bad taste and lack of business ethics.
I stood for a while and pondered whether I hated anyone back home sufficiently to buy one of the garden gnomes as a present, but in the end, I could not stomach it. Having a ludicrous amount of Hungarian cash in my pockets I instead decided on a rather neutral looking model of a sphinx head - I also thought I should buy something in exchange for the owner's giving me directions to the motorway, although as we probably both knew at the time, the directions were utterly misleading and wrong. When I came out on the street again, some sleazy looking native fellow had cleaned my windshield and my side windows and stood waiting for me with a hopeful look on his face. Now, I am normally the kind of person that would rather smack up a homeless, legless 3rd world child for touching my car uninvited than pay them for a service I have not asked for, but my windows actually needed cleaning and my pockets were still full of Hungarian monopoly money. Feeling grand, I handed him a fistful of notes probably sufficient to allow him an early retirement and drove on toward Slovakia.
After a few more miles with no sign of a motorway I passed a huge open field (actually, this part of Hungary is more or less one long field, interspersed with the occasional mud hole, clump of trees or decrepit village or a combination hereof). Way out by some power lines stood about a dozen deer, peacefully grazing. Always the sucker for good photo-ops I stopped the car and got out to shoot a few pics. This set the whole flock galloping away panic stricken, with the curious exception of two animals that continued grazing as if nothing had happened. While their fellow herd members were turning into a rapidly disappearing cloud of dust on the horizon, these two defied the principle of natural selection and went about their business of stuffing their little snouts with grass or whatever else was in that field. They were clearly either very much smarter or very much dumber than the rest.
A few miles before the border I encountered what seemed to be a cozy little place (the name has escaped my mind). However, with impeccable Eastern European logic, the tourist office was closed on weekends, and so I drove on until I finally reached Slovakia. Having just crossed over, I went out to change the still considerable amount of Hungarian money I had left. I spent ten minutes trying to explain to the lady operating the tiny booth that I already had a road fee sticker (or "vignette") for Slovakia and that I therefore wanted the whole amount of money in cash, thank you very much. In the course of discussion, it dawned on me that I should have bought a new vignette upon entry to Hungary the day before and this gave me a strange, tingling feeling of being a criminal. I could almost feel the glare of Hungarian traffic authorities burning into my neck, and feeling like an outlaw of the old west who has just crossed the Rio Grande; I got in my car and hurried off towards Bratislava.
Despite the train-wrecked sleep I'd experienced (I'll always hate myself for that joke, though probably not as much as you, the reader, will) this morning in Hungary was no exception. I showered, got dressed, packed my bags and, having found the scraps of last nights meal even more unappetizing in daylight, trotted downstairs to see if there was any food to be found.
A new person was on duty this morning, but he spoke English almost as well as the first one had done and he was even able to serve up a half decent omelet. A little short on taste, but not really bad. Curiously, the Eastern Europeans don't seem to use their staple spice -salt- when it actually SHOULD be used, they only use it (and HOW), when more exotic spices would have been applied in a western kitchen. I am still uncertain if this is due to sheer gastronomical incompetence or if it's another one of these sick little plots poor nations pull on rich westerners. I suspect this is how sushi actually got started - some bitter Japanese guy said to himself "ok, you Yankees may have nuked us into the 20th century, and you may have turned us from a feudalistic fascist mess into a filthy rich democracy, but just TRY getting us to cook your fish, you foreign devils". I attribute the rise of the Latino Pop music and Kylie Minogue to the same phenomenon (ok, Australia is not technically poor but it WAS built by ex-convicts with a grudge).
Having devoured the omelet and drained every orange juice container in the room (revenge for the trains), I got in the car and started to drive in the general direction of downtown Györ. I was surprised at how many people there were on this Sunday afternoon, but the explanation soon struck me: This was Election Day in Hungary.
I drove around randomly for a little while, just looking at the architecture and the people, before leaving the city behind in a futile attempt to locate the motorway. I did however find a much smaller road that had signposts for Slovakia, so I decided to follow this instead of continuing my search for the motorway, rationalizing my abject failure as a driver with the unlikely thought that the Hungarian countryside might provide an interesting view.
After about ten minutes, I encountered a small village - really just a few hundred meters of tacky bars and souvenir shops. I stopped to see if I could get directions to the motorway and was immediately taken in by the incredible variety and tackiness of the objects at display. Here were garden gnomes in all colors and sizes, likewise a vast assembly of angels, pyramids, sphinxes, stars etc, etc ad nauseam. I wandered around for over ten minutes, dumbstruck by this incredible testimony to bad taste and lack of business ethics.
I stood for a while and pondered whether I hated anyone back home sufficiently to buy one of the garden gnomes as a present, but in the end, I could not stomach it. Having a ludicrous amount of Hungarian cash in my pockets I instead decided on a rather neutral looking model of a sphinx head - I also thought I should buy something in exchange for the owner's giving me directions to the motorway, although as we probably both knew at the time, the directions were utterly misleading and wrong. When I came out on the street again, some sleazy looking native fellow had cleaned my windshield and my side windows and stood waiting for me with a hopeful look on his face. Now, I am normally the kind of person that would rather smack up a homeless, legless 3rd world child for touching my car uninvited than pay them for a service I have not asked for, but my windows actually needed cleaning and my pockets were still full of Hungarian monopoly money. Feeling grand, I handed him a fistful of notes probably sufficient to allow him an early retirement and drove on toward Slovakia.
After a few more miles with no sign of a motorway I passed a huge open field (actually, this part of Hungary is more or less one long field, interspersed with the occasional mud hole, clump of trees or decrepit village or a combination hereof). Way out by some power lines stood about a dozen deer, peacefully grazing. Always the sucker for good photo-ops I stopped the car and got out to shoot a few pics. This set the whole flock galloping away panic stricken, with the curious exception of two animals that continued grazing as if nothing had happened. While their fellow herd members were turning into a rapidly disappearing cloud of dust on the horizon, these two defied the principle of natural selection and went about their business of stuffing their little snouts with grass or whatever else was in that field. They were clearly either very much smarter or very much dumber than the rest.
A few miles before the border I encountered what seemed to be a cozy little place (the name has escaped my mind). However, with impeccable Eastern European logic, the tourist office was closed on weekends, and so I drove on until I finally reached Slovakia. Having just crossed over, I went out to change the still considerable amount of Hungarian money I had left. I spent ten minutes trying to explain to the lady operating the tiny booth that I already had a road fee sticker (or "vignette") for Slovakia and that I therefore wanted the whole amount of money in cash, thank you very much. In the course of discussion, it dawned on me that I should have bought a new vignette upon entry to Hungary the day before and this gave me a strange, tingling feeling of being a criminal. I could almost feel the glare of Hungarian traffic authorities burning into my neck, and feeling like an outlaw of the old west who has just crossed the Rio Grande; I got in my car and hurried off towards Bratislava.
posted by Ghost of Goldwater at 5:16 PM
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