The Final Installment: From Mousetown to the Rathouse

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Greetings from Munich/Grotungs von Munchen! (that's my Eurovision-style opening gambit - and just to make sure I'm waring a garish pink dress, my hair is scraped up into a ridiculous shrubbery-type cascade of overly-moussed ringlets, I have copious amount of cakey make up on my face that gives me a certain orange tinge... mmmm Eurovision!)

Anyway, enough of this - I'm on my way home and I feel its time to reflect on all the various aspects of this month's excursive activities... Ha!

I was really sad to leave Hungary yesterday. I love it there. I can't say precisely why, so I won't.

Since my last poetic outburst I've been a busy thing. I went off on my own to Sopron (pronounced Shop Ron - near the Austrian border). I have to say it was slightly disappointing - a very pretty place, there's a really tiny little historic centre, which is lovely, but ever so small - it consists of 3 streets, 1 main square with monument included, 3 churches, 2 synagogues, 2 resaurants and a wine bar. So I pretty much had it sussed after an hour or so, which meant I wasn't quite sure what I'd do with the remaining 12 or so hours - well I suppose there were certain ideas that entered my mind but we won't go there... It was strange; though there were always tourists in the main square the streets around it were always empty - I still haven't worked out how this phenomenon was possible - maybe there was a secret underground tourist route I missed out on.

I went into the church on the main square which is called "Goat Church". Given the limited options open to Catholic goats, I'd say Sopron is a safe bet for any goat looking for papal sanctification or whatever. I didn't see any goats at worship, however there was a nice goat display in the forecourt.

Exhausted and footweary after my 7th lap of the "Belvaros" I somehow found myself in the wine cellar "GYOGYGÖRDÖR" where I tried some of the local wine produce, amongst the old winos of Sopron. I headed back to my hostel, uked, slept and then the next day it was all clouded over and even rained (the first and last rain of the whole trip). I took refuge in the synagogue, then opted to head home earlier than planned, given that I didn't have the appropriate wherewithall for the showery conditions that now hampered my progress.

Back in Piliscsaba with Aniko we had a bit of a ukulele evening where we sang through my whole book of "Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Gems" - which is all classic hits from the 30's. "Ain't she Sweet" has become a kind of theme tune for the trip as it's the one I can play best and Aniko knows all the words.

The next day we headed for Eger (meaning 'mouse' in Hungarian - hence Mousetown...). I'd been there with Balazs about 8 years ago, but this time was quite different. First of all I travelled there with a whole bunch of students who were going on a Golya Tabor - a bit like a Freshers camp. I opted to sort out my own accomodation rather than stay in the barracks with all the 18 year olds and found a lovely B&B called Bartok Bela Panzio. Aniko had to do stuff at the camp, so I went into town and ended up in the Castley bit overlooking the town, it was a lovely sunny evening and I sat with my ukulele in a 'Jatszoter' (playground) where I played all my fave songs undisturbed except for occasional bemused passers by. It's a lovely town with a castle, minaret, cathedral, thermal baths and jatszsoters.

By now I had a certain melancholic disposition in light of my imminent departure, however I was to be pleasantly distracted by a new masculine element in the form of Alan the Italian Stallion. Yes I know Alan isn't such a typical Italian name and I would feel much more comfortable if he had been a Paolo or Luigi or Giovanni, but let's not quibble over details. It was highly amusing to start off because I'd only just arrived in town when this guy asked me earnestly where the tourist office was. He was a very attractive and, more importantly, lonesome traveller and I noticed that he had a small guitar shaped instrument on his back - I asked him what it was and it was South American Cuatro (or Quatro - I have no idea how you spell it). I then showed him my ukulele, and immediatley there was a bond - or so I thought - because when I told him I wasn't Hungarian, he was visibly disappointed and I realised he had a Hungarian agenda... So we left it at that - I thought what a silly sod, you should never look a gift-ukulele in the mouth.

When I went to the Tourist office a bit later (to get a map, obviously) he was there (!) and obviously in the middle of a big flirting session with the amusingly dissinterested Hungarian tourist officer girl. I said hello, took my map and left promptly. It was after that I did the castle/ukulele/sunset bit and then feeling tinges of hunger I made for the restauranty bit of town, where there were 2 old men in a band stand playing classic but not very appropriate hits such as 'tulips from amsterdam'. I fled in dispair. After about half an hour I eventually came across a nice quiet place and sat down. Would you believe it - at the table opposite sat the Italian. I pretended not to have seen him, feeling sure that he would suspect that I was stalking him (which I sort of was, unintentionally, if you know what I mean). When he saw me he invited me over. After a glass of wine I asked him about the Hungarian tourist office girl and he admitted he'd tried and failed to win her over (and so he'd have to make do with the fall-back English girl option... but this didn't bother me after another glass or two of wine). He suggested we went out to boogie in a night club - the only problem was that it was Sunday night and nothing was happening, the town was incredibly quiet (quiet as a mouse! cha cha boom!). So we ended up in a really funny and slightly dodgy wine bar. The wine was actually really nice and we talked mostly about the Beatles and how attractive Eastern European girls were (I'll leave you to work out who talked about what). Anyway it was a nice diversion for the evening.

The next day I met with Aniko and we went to a park to have a ukulele moment - it has become an important element of my travels that I find a quiet park or playground to air my ukulele... When she went back to the camp I had a bit of lunch and a siesta, then headed for town to see the minaret. I got there and started to take some pictures. I then noticed someone up there with a small guitar on his back - ha ha! It was the Italian... I knew he hadn't particularly planned on hanging out with me again, but he had no escape, there he was stuck up there in the minaret and I just waited for him at the bottom. We visited the wine cellar district, called Szepassonyvolgy Ut (or something like that - meaning beautiful girl street...). Alan was definitely a bit dispondant to start with, but after a hearty dish of chicken he perked up a bit and ended up playing to me on his Cuatro - he was actually really good. I was just sorry that I hadn't brought my uke, because I'm sure he would have been suitably impressed.

That evening I met with Zsuszi and we had an excellent night - first we went to her grandmother's flat - her grandmother is amazing, she told funny stories and gave us wine and palinka. Really ace granny. Then Zsuzsi and I headed into town for some more wine. We ended up having a wine tasting - so 5 glasses with 5 different local wines plus some cheese. We were on the 3rd glass when guess who turned up... (ok, I had kind of told him we would be in town later and there aren't so many bars to choose from). By now it was obvious he was more interested in my Hungarian friend than me, but I didn't mind at all because I had no intentions of any frolics with him and I knew Zsuzsi wasn't interested because she has a lovely boyfriend and no need of Italian Stallions... After the bar closed we ended up in the same old wine bar as the night before and decided to play pool with everyone there, which was ace because it turns out that nobody else could play, so even though I'm pretty rubbish I thrashed everyone (quite slowly though). Then me and Zsuzsi danced to the jukebox (ACDC and some really fab Hungarian 80's pop). It was a brilliant night. We left the Italian to his own devices and headed home.

It's been a great trip for my Hungarian- even though I still make too many mistakes I feel much more confident speaking and I think I can understand better. I've already decided that I need to do another course at some point, because it's frustrating knowing that I'm making so many mistakes...

The journey from Budapest to Munich started out like a bit of a horror - it was baking inside and the air conditioning didn't seem to work. In the compartment was a sweet 5 year old girl, sweet but a real chatterbox. The first 3 hours were pretty uncomfortable, but strangely once we crossed into Austria (we went via Vienna) the air conditioning suddenly went into action and it was fine for the next 4 hours of journey. I wasn't expecting it, but the journey through Austria and Germany was really beautiful with mountains, lakes, forests and little cows. We went through Salzburg which looked lovely.

I arrived last night and once I'd checked into my hotel (which was fine) I decided to walk into town and - even though I was feeling down about leaving Hungary behind, it was really quite nice. I ended up in the Rathaus (rathouse...) and had a beer whilst mulling nostalgically over memories of my trip. My brain has already filtered out the duller moments leaving a stunning set of memories. It has actually been one of the best months ever. I've enjoyed travelling alone mainly - to start with I found the evenings a bit difficult - eating out alone felt a bit sad, but I sort of got used to it, and have worryingly found myself having conversations with myself - I even have Hungarian conversations sometimes, although its all in my head and I don't actually talk out loud I sometimes notice that I'm making all kinds of funny facial expressions and that's when I have to stop myself...

The strange thing is how quickly the month has gone, yet thinking back to arriving in Rome it feels like yonks ago. How does this happen? Its my warped mind playing tricks.

Well, that's enough, I'd better go and check out Munich.

I'll be back in London tomorrow (tonight I'm getting my night train to Paris).

It's been nice writing these bloggy emails, I hope it hasn't been too traumatic reading them... I know they're a bit too long, but it's important to log all details accurately, so future generations will be able to learn about our culture and travelling habits of our times. Ha ha ha.

lots of love

Clare xxx

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