Keszthely

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Wednesday July 17 –Today was just hectic. I had breakfast in the hotel (eggs and ham – another new one) and then went to the bus station for my bus to Balatonfured, on Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Hungary. I actually didn’t find a place to stay here, earlier on, so after I got there, I took another bus going to Keszthely, a bit further away. The first bus of course had a blood thirsty pack of people trying to all get on at the same time again. But in this case, I saw why. There were too many people, and not enough seats. I got one, luckily, but many people had to stand. Now this bus was by no means direct, so people were getting on and off many times through the journey. I was on this bus for 2.5 hours, so I’m glad I could sit. I also had to pee desperately for 2.5 hours. Quelle nightmare. As soon as I got off the bus, I went into the info office and found out that my next bus was leaving in 20 minutes, luckily. There was also a not too gross portapotty there with my name on it. Normally, I would be too worried to leave my bag to go the bathroom, but I was too desperate to care, so I looked around, deemed everyone harmless, and went in. I had to hover and this was not a great situation. I ended up missing sometimes and peeing on my own foot, but I just had to go. What makes this more ridiculous is that I even bought this plastic piece that would allow me to pee standing up like a guy, but I haven’t really practiced with it yet, and there was no time for a learning curve at this point. Though perhaps I would have been drier in the end, had I tried. But anyways, I felt so much better afterwards. And bonus – my bag was still there when I was done. The next bus was much less crowded, which was great because there was no where to put my big bag. Or so I thought. On the first bus, I realized I had to put my own bag under the bus, they didn’t check in officially. But on this bus I didn’t notice anyone storing their bag. They did do this, I just didn’t notice because I was too busy trying to stay in front of the line. There was a compartment that you just have to open and close yourself to get your bag, but I didn’t realize that until I saw someone do it later. This bus took an hour and a half, but it was not crowded at all.

From the station I walked to the hotel, got the key to my room, waited to be shown around the grounds, as this is a wellness hotel and there are saunas, pools, a fitness room, etc. Then I went for a walk to town to…you guessed it…find a way to leave the town on Friday for my next destination. Seriously, who does that? I mean, as soon as I get somewhere I am buying a ticket to leave. Actually I wanted to alter the info that David had helped me find since I would now be leaving from a new town. I checked at the info office and they were helpful. I found a grocery store but it wasn’t very good, so that didn’t help me in my lunch quest. It was actually too late to eat a real lunch now, but I needed a snack.

The town is bigger than I expected, and I walked to the castle, which has nice grounds, and went inside a church that was really dark inside. As soon as I started to sight-see and take some pictures, I felt calm and normal again. I thought from here I could go swimming in the lake, so I swung by to check it out first. I was disappointed that you have to pay to get in to the beach, which is actually much o f the lake side over here. It’s hard enough to swim when you have no one to watch your things. It’s quite another to go to spend the day there alone, sweating in the sun, and still have no one to watch your stuff for you when you need a dip in the water to cool down. It’s just not a cool holiday place to go alone. My thought was that I could just show up with nothing, take a dip, and leave. But paying for it makes it seem crazy to stay for a few minutes only. So I need to think about what to do tomorrow. But I did walk around another non-swimming part and saw some super cute ducklings, which was great. I came back intending to swim at the hotel, but the pool was now in the shade and it didn’t seem that appealing anymore. I read for a bit and then went in to change for dinner. Change for dinner means I took off my unused swimsuit and put my shorts back on. I was quite hungry by now, with only some fruit for lunch, and I went back by the lake and got a carbonara pizza at one of the restaurants there. It was really good. Then I went for a walk by the lake again and it was just after 7pm, when they stop charging for the lake swimming. I walked in and it looked pretty nice, with a lot of grass to lay in and lots of people still swimming. On my way out, a girl was walking ahead of me and dropped her bra on the ground. I picked it up and gave it back. She was really embarrassed. Funny. Back at the hotel I couldn’t get the internet to work in my room so I had to go downstairs. I did some skyping while watching a couple make out in the whirlpool in front of me. Awkward. Watched the Daily Show and Colbert and all was right with the world.

Thursday July 18 – Today was such a good day. It started out with “sleeping in”, a notion that does not go far in a place where the sun comes up so freaking early. Even sleeping with an eye mask there is too much light not to notice. But I stayed in bed until 8am, then headed down to breakfast. It was a pretty decent buffet, and I tried to make some healthy choices. I also tried to eat a lot so I could skip lunch since my Hungarian money is at a minimum and I leave the country tomorrow. I’d like to just spend what I have and leave without getting more, exchanging currency, etc. That essentially leaves me with $20 for today and tomorrow combined. Hence the eating a big breakfast scenario. I wish I thought to prepare a few sandwiches for lunch in there as well. After breakfast I spent some time on the internet and then finally headed out around 11am. I really wasn’t sure how the day would turn out, but I thought I’d give the free bike rental a go and see what happened from there. I asked the lady who runs this place about it and she told me how to get to a beach nearby. So I decided to head off in that direction.

Everyone who finds out that I travel so much and often alone tells me I am brave. But really, there’s not much bravery involved. I buy a book, it tells me where to go and what to do, and even how to get from place to place for the most part. It is far easier than people realize, and feels not so much brave and prescribed. And when I travel I think I often just come off as goofy. And not the endearing goofy of Zooey Deschanel in New Girl, but more like the oh poor dear kind of goofy. But today was a little different. As soon as I took the bike out, I felt a little braver. This is the kind of thing that puts me out of my comfort zone, and I was doing it. I was not exactly sure where I was going or what I would do there, but I was riding down the street on this bike and trying something new. It doesn’t sound exciting, but it felt that way. It must have only taken five minutes to get there, but it was great. I saw that it was another pay beach, but I parked my bike nearby and had a closer look. I took some pictures of boats and then walked over to the entrance. This one was cheaper and smaller. It looked even more family oriented and I thought that it might actually be possible to leave my things safely while I swim. So I decided to give it a try. I’m so glad I did. I headed straight to the bathroom – yay for a free toilet! Then I scoped out a place to sit under the trees that would give me a view of my stuff if I went swimming. I put some sunscreen on and settled in to read. It was noon. I stayed for about five hours, switching between reading (Dexter), swimming, and snoozing. It was great. I did feel like no one would rip off my stuff if I went swimming since it was just families and couples around. It was really nice. It was a hot day temperature wise, but under the trees it felt quite cool, with shade and a nice breeze. By the time I left, the sun had moved and I was sitting in the sun, but it was still not too hot. I had only had a handful of nuts to eat while I was there, so I opted for an early dinner. I got back on my bike (!) and headed for the restaurants near the other beach, where I ate last night. I almost went back for the same pizza, but settled for a different restaurant that had a tasty looking schnitzel. And I was not disappointed. It was delicious and yummy. I don’t even think that was due to my skipping lunch. Feeling rich (after all, I had more than $10 left for tomorrow), I ended it all with a chocolate ice cream. The flavor was deranged chocolate, or something equally weird. It was really dark and really good. From there it was just another short cycle home and a relaxing evening. Tomorrow my train leaves at 3:35pm, so I have some more time to either see some more of the town or the beach again. I won’t have a room anymore but will be able to keep my bag here, so it should work out. Maybe she’ll let me use the bike again?

Friday July 19 – I stayed up late posting my blog – which I don’t do often enough – and then slept until about 7am. It’s just hard to sleep beyond that. I’m not sleeping well, but I am also not a good relaxer, especially when I am traveling. I packed up and then went to breakfast. I checked out at 10am, left my bag in the hotel, and then took a bike out again. I rode down towards the big beach, wanting to check out the park there. I rode on a bike path along the lake that stopped at the beach, but continued on away from the beach. I decided to follow it to see where it would go. Apparently, it would take me another 60 kilometers if I let it, and then maybe more. I managed to go 4 kilometers but then decided to turn around. My day pack was quite heavy, but mostly I was worried about getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and not being able to get back in time for my train. It took me around 35-40 minutes round trip, riding at a leisurely pace and having a look around. Back at the park I sat on a bench in the shade and read my book. Maybe I should have gone back to the beach and found a good place to lay down, but I was a little anxious about the upcoming journey. I went for lunch at noon, at the same pizza place I’d had dinner two nights ago. It was still good but quite filling. No ice cream for me afterwards. I stopped at the grocery store on the way back and tried to find a way to spend my leftover money. Somehow I still had some. I ended up with some blackberries, some dark chocolate and some water. There was just nothing else that appealed or seemed easy enough to bring with me. Even the berries seemed a bit of stretch.

Back at the hotel I sat around planning and skyping a bit, and then it was 3pm and time to walk to the train station. It was quite sunny and hot so I was wearing my basebasll cap like a good American. At the station I couldn’t find my ticket for the first train so I bought another. Then I found the first Duh. But it was cheap so it was nothing to worry about. There was almost no one on the first train. I only had to go one stop, 10 minutes. Then I had a 40 minute break, or at least I should have. My train to Zagreb was supposed to leave at 4:28pm, but there was an announcement that it was 25 minutes late. When it finally got there and I got on, the train was overflowing with people. Literally. The train was full of compartments of six seats each, and all of the seats were full. There were also people and bags standing in the corridor all the way down the entire train. I am so glad I got a seat reservation, despite the woman telling me it was unnecessary. I got to my seat – which made tons of people angry as they had to stand up for me to go around them – and proceeded to kick out a girl who was sitting there. To her credit, she had been on the train with most of the others for several hours already, from Budapest, and there was no indication that this seat was reserved. But out she went. Her friend had the only unreserved seat in the compartment, and they took turns sharing it. That is, until we got to the border with Croatia. Many countries in Europe are part of the Schengen visa zone, meaning that if you can go to one, you can go to all of them. As an American, you can go to these countries and move between them without showing your passport typically, and stay for up to 90 days total. But I found out that Croatia is not in the Schengen zone yet, though they have just become a part of the EU a few weeks ago. So that meant everyone had to have their passport stamped out of Hungary and into Croatia. That took some time. But it also meant a problem for these two Ukrainian girls. They were volunteering with kids in Budapest for the summer and they were taking weekend trips to new places. But their visa only allowed them to enter the Schengen zone once. If they left for Croatia, they wouldn’t be able to return. So they were stamped out of Hungary but then the Croatian guy started to talk to them and then they had to get off the train and then presumably have it worked out and go back to Budapest. What a nightmare. Nice girls too.

On the plus side there were two guys from Finland in my compartment who were really nice, and two American guys who were with a group of 50 starting Cornell for their MBA in the fall. Pretty much exactly who you don’t want to run into on vacation. So I spent the whole time talking to the Finnish guys and then a Danish guy who sat down when the girls left. They were all very cool. And young. I ate my blackberries for dinner on the train. I had washed them at the last hotel and they were still wet, but the water was reddish black from the berries. You guessed it – this water ended up on my shorts at some point, and I’m pretty sure that won’t be coming out entirely. Alas.



The train finally arrived at 9pm, over an hour late and with everyone pretty much dripping with sweat. It was so hot in there. I went to the ATM for yet another currency. I have on me dollars, Swiss francs, Euros and have had Czech and Hungarian money too. It is so much easier just dealing with euros when I leave Switzerland. There is just too much going on moving from country to country in this part of Europe. After the money gathering I said good bye to the Finnish boys and went to the info office to get a map and then to the ticket office for a ticket to Ljubljana for the next day. I decided on the 12:30pm train rather than the 6:50am train, but I got a seat reservation just in case. From there I bought a ticket for the tram and waited for tram 2. It took about 5 minutes and then I was on my way. From the tram it took about 7 minutes to walk to the hostel. This trip keeps costing more and more, as long trips do, so tonight I was staying in a dorm. I checked in and found I could have a lower bunk (yay!) but that it was too low to sit up in (boo!). I met a nice couple who were also on my train and there were two other girls staying in the room. I took a shower, check me email, and went to sleep. The room had a/c, quite shockingly, but it didn’t seem to work that well. I am realizing quickly that you have to be young and stupid or just an idiot to come to Croatia in the summer, if your plan is not to bake in the sun like Florida. Guess which category I fit into? I literally considered flying to Scandinavia instead, but since I’ll be meeting Tina in a few days and we already have plans, I’ll be sticking it out and sweating all the way.

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Photos

Weird bird
Don't worry - he can fly