Naive dismemberings of oneself in the name of Bob Marley

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The last night in Novalja gave me just 2 hours of sleep, it was horrifically hot and for some idiotic reason I refused to open the window to keep the mosquitoes out, despite having a fan on which would have done the job alone. So after writhing in that oven of an apartment all night, I gave a rather tired sigh of relief as I stepped onto the (air-conditioned) coach to Zagreb, knowing that tonight I would be leaving the 36°C August temperatures of former Yugoslavia long long behind.

I arrived into Zagreb 3 hours before my train out again was supposed to leave, so that gave me some time to see the city, something which I chose not to do last time I came through here the other way. Apart from the appaling organisation of the public transport system, which is prevalent throughout the whole of Croatia (and had me walking everywhere as there was absolutely no information about where tram tickets can be purchased), the city was very well organised and laid out for tourists to go off and find stuff to see without them having to do much.

Consulting a huge and very concise signpost in the city centre after getting something to eat, I decided I was going to go and see exactly what was so "naive" about "The Croatian Museum of Naive Art". Answer: I still don't know. But it was very good, all of it was rather surrealistic and slightly dark and cynical. It was mostly paintings, a few sculptures, one of which of "Adam and Eve" showed a scary resemblance to another artist's painting of "a gipsy man and woman". After seeing all of this I walked around the old town for a while, which wasn't too unlike Prague old town, it's a very beautiful city for sure. Stopped off at the cathedral and the botanical gardens on the walk back to the station, once again feeling bloody glad I was about to leave the heat behind properly.

Worked on some music and then got chatting to a Bosnian dude on the train from Zagreb to Budapest, which I needed to take as far as Balatonszentgyörgy (pronounced "Balaton Saint George" in a hungarian accent). They checked our passports 3 times on the border crossing but didn't stamp them once (boo!) I was getting worried I wouldn't notice when my stop actually came, as proper signage at most Hungarian stations was near nonexistant, but we were perhaps rescued by the Bosnian dude's phone and its GSM leetness which informed us when we were approaching the Balaton area. The train from Balatonszentgyörgy to Keszthely was one of those "welcome to the ex-eastern bloc" ones where someone could quite easily have died a horrible death as the door opposite the platforms was unclosable and therefore hanging slightly open the whole journey. Hungarian trains are also the only ones I've seen so far to still have smoking areas. I think out of all the countries I've been to so far, if you want complete disregard for health and safety procedures (which I'm not saying is necessarily a bad thing, by the way), this is where to find it!

So at Keszthely, my friend Richard and his girlfriend Virag (which means "flower") were waiting for me and took to their house. I hadn't realised that Rich lived with his parents still, and they were absolute darlings who, despite unfortunately not being able to communicate much with me, spoiled me to death with food, so add one more night when I've eaten far too well to consider myself "backpacking"! After food, Virag drove us up to this hill about 10km out of town which overlooked Lake Balaton, where we were treated to a sunset followed by an amazing lightning show from miles away, but to balance it out, ripped to shreds by mosquitoes. After going back home to get some mossie-proof clothes on and chill out a bit, we went out to meet another friend of Rich's and the four of us went to see what was going on on what they called the "beach" - basically the lakeside.

There was not really a lot there that wasn't fun to laugh at, firstly some band who must have played for about 4 hours doing this almost child entertainment like show where they kept covering pop songs in accents so indecipherable I had to rely on Richard to translate which lyrics they were singing most of the time, and inviting overexcited 15 year old girls onto the stage to dance with them. Every now and again they would say something over the mic to which Richard and his friend would respond with sarcastic remarks about how "hilarious" they were. Even though I don't stand a chance in hell of understanding the estranged Hungarian language, I still could feel the embarassment of watching this show. Richard's friend went on to explain to me that western Hungary was "the redneck capital of Europe" and therefore this type of entertainment is common.

After we had had enough of watching this show, the guys introduced me to the local wine (wine tasting is definitely a skill I'm acquiring this summer) which was really very nice and made me a bit sleepy. So when we did find the one club in Keszthely which wasn't playing Britney Spears, we sat outside with our beers and I just started falling asleep. So we went home, ate some stuff and went to bed. That night I had rather vivid and shocking dreams set on the main shopping street in Brno, where people were running insanely fast and powerfully at oncoming trams, and then holding up their dismembered hands and arms and proclaiming things such as "I have lost my hand, in the name of Bob Marley!" I found this rather interesting as I woke up as Rich is a huge Bob Marley fan and a skateboarder, so prone to regularly injuring himself (though not on purpose).

And thus I left their house with a load of sandwiches and drinks made for me by his mum, and began my epic, 5 change journey to Vienna. As we crossed the border, we went straight into grey skies and rain. The summer holiday really was over.

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Photos

Zagreb
Old town

Chapel in Keszthely
On top of the hill where we watched the lightning

Comments

[Petr]

"Richard's friend went on to explain to me that western Hungary was "the redneck capital of Europe" and therefore this type of entertainment is common" which statement is also a total bullshit...