street cleaners

Back in Budapest for probably the last time on this trip. Andy and Laurie have gone to Rome for a few days, but left me their keys to their apartment. Nice. Not that I don't enjoy other people's company, it's just nice to have some quite time to myself. Almost like normal life, whatever that is.

On Saturday, Mizik and a couple of his friends went to hills between Esztergom and Komárom to dig garden beds. On the way we stopped at a Kasdabalo Kotchma (knife throwing pub), which was occupied by lethargic alcoholics rather than the promised blade toting fight starters. After our coffees, we ventured to a local small scale winery and purchased two litres of white wine to accompany the day's digging activities. Mizik's mate's dog had been put down earlier that morning due to old age, and we got down to burring the dog first. Then we flew a kite, which was a more fun than I remembered, but the string kept breaking. With no more distractions at hand, we all took turns digging at the ground, getting a couple of garden beds ready for when spring comes. As winter is coming, we didn't plant anything, opting instead to place unopened bags of cow shit on the top of the garden beds. When the sun went down (4pm), we packed up and left.

While I was digging, forgotten events from the previous night of drinking came back to me.

Mizik and I had walked from Hungary into Slovakia, which aside from the stamps and passport control, was as eventful as stopping for a picture next to a "thanks for visiting SA" sign.

In the later part of the evening, while I was using the facilities I looked at the pictures hanging around the urinal. Right in front of me was a half naked girl emerging from a pool with an expression somewhere between "oh this is a nice ice cream" and "I'm having trouble with this bowel motion". To my left was a poster for the upcoming gig for a mean looking metal band who by the looks of it had got their mum to take their promo photos. To my right was a poster of such greatness, I promptly stuffed it down my trousers, to be posted back home at a later date.

I don't remember the stamps being put in my passport on the way back into Hungary, or much of the walk back. At a time when I thought I was drinking too much in my life, I assumed my tolerance for alcohol would be much better. We ended up at a bar where a cookie monster metal band was playing. It may or may not have been the same metal band as the one on the poster from earlier in the evening.

The following day Mizik and I took a tour around town. We walked through the more exclusive part of Esztergom, where through renovations and investment, the old houses and cottages nestled in the hilly bits near the Basilica, are slowly transforming into a nice looking postcard. Then we visited a lake, which from what I could gather used to be a large open cut mine. We drove past the Suzuki factory and I remembered Kate (the Japanese fan girl I had met in Székesfehérvár), worked there. When we got back to Mizik's place, I went to send her an email, only to find an email from her saying that she had read my blog and saw I was in town. It's still a small world.

I think my laptop needs an overhaul. The hard drive occasionally makes a faint clicking noise, the ram seems to be on the fritz and now I'm getting blue screens on a regular basis. As you can see from the photo above, my camera's sensor is starting to die.

Unlike me, I've been reading books on a regular basis lately. Can people leave suggestions on authors or books which they think I'd enjoy? And if you know any Hungarian authors/books translated into English which are good, let me know.

A few things of interest:

The Encyclopædia of South Australian Culture
Luke Toop's media challenge to me