Worrisome Walking

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Hails

I’ve just been reading one of Bill Bryson’s hilarious books and laughing merrily to myself all the way through it. The man both delights and saddens me: the former because he writes like I can only dream of doing, making the most mundane things seem utterly hilarious; the latter because, well, he writes like I can only dream of doing.

I was particularly amused by his observation that in some places it’s virtually impossible to to be a pedestrian in this age of getting into the car and driving 200 yards to the shop for a loaf of bread. While I must confess to having been guilty of this on many occasions, I now have a slightly different perspective, being well and truly Without Car, and Bryson’s observation has proved to be accurate for me on several occasions over the past few months. The reason I laughed so much at his earnest tale of trying to walk to his destination (to the horrified disbelief of the man he’d asked for directions, who tried to urge him to take a taxi because it was at least a mile away) is that I’ve experienced the same sort of issues – but, being me, I thought it was just because I was slightly dim-witted and was choosing to walk in the wrong places. It never occurred to me that actually there’s nothing crazy about walking a short distance through a city centre, and that it’s just a reflection of our general laziness as a species that there are large areas that are virtually impossible to traverse with only your own two feet to carry you.

Bryson was enjoying his saunter through the town, extolling the virtues of a walk on a nice sunny day. You saunter. You amble. Then you come to a mad junction at Burger King and discover that the new six-lane road to K-Mart is long, straight, very busy and entirely without facilities for pedestrians… I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve found myself in a situation exactly like this. I’ve had some frightening moments when trying to do something as simple as get to the other side of a road. In several places, I was forced to conclude that you simply are not meant to do so, if you don’t have a car. The other side of the road is not for you. It is forbidden. In other places, I persevered and either made the suicidal dash across what Bryson calls six lanes of hostile traffic, or found an alternative route, usually adding at least half a mile to my journey, cutting through muddy/rocky/private grounds, and/or getting completely lost.

By far the craziest set-up I discovered was Budapest. The day that I explored the city on foot will remain forever etched in my mind. Vividly. With sound effects. My enduring memory is of the road along the Danube, between the river and the parliament building. I’d been walking all day and was exhausted, but I’d just crossed over the Chain Bridge from Buda into Pest and figured it would be a shame to not do the river walk while I was there. This was not as simple as it sounds. I could see the road, but I had absolutely no way of getting to it. Traffic was flowing quite madly in all directions, and I did my usual dance of crossing about 15 roads just to get to the other side of the one I’d started on. Once on the correct road, I had to figure out which side I should be walking on. The side nearest the river had an ankle-high barrier separating a narrow, pebbly pathway from the zooming traffic; the side that I was on had a separate lane that could plausibly have been used by pedestrians, but was instead occupied by hundreds of parked cars stretching as far as the eye could see. I opted to stay where I was, on account of the zooming traffic and the slightly dangerous appearance of the river “path”, and began to walk along the side of the road, getting odd looks from drivers and trying to weave in and out of the parked cars without setting off any alarms or actually getting wedged in (which almost happened on two occasions). Several times I had to wait for a brief gap in the traffic and step out on to the road to get around a badly-parked car, which was great for getting the adrenaline going.

When I reached the end of the row of parked cars (after about 15 minutes), I discovered that the lane, too, had ended and that there was not, in fact, any way to proceed on foot. Gritting my teeth and looking all around me in bewilderment and annoyance, I realised there was only one thing for it.

I turned and walked all the way back. I couldn’t cross the road at that point; it would have been complete madness, and I would not be here now telling you the story. No, I had to walk all the way back to where I’d started, and go in search of a safer, quieter spot to cross. I still ended up having a horn blared at me, but at least I was on the “path” now, with the relative safety of potholes, protruding objects, boat ropes and a sheer drop – mere inches from my feet – into the River Danube should any of these things cause me to stumble. All this, together with the slippery surfaces caused by the constant rain, made it a walk that I will never be able to forget.

The roads in general in Budapest were genuinely confusing, and I had several Brysonesque moments just trying to proceed along a single road before I realised that the reason for the complete absence of footpaths and crossing points was that there were ramps leading to a series of tunnels underground – you crossed the roads by going under them, not over them. Ingenius concept, except that for a foreigner with (a) no knowledge of the city and (b) absolutely no sense of direction anyway, it was near on impossible to figure out which exit you wanted to take when you went down there. I tried at least three at every one I came to, repeating the embarrassing process of emerging into the street, looking around to figure out where I’d been before I went underground, realising that I’d actually crossed to the wrong road, going back down and trying a different exit.

Still. It was much better than running out into the middle of six lanes of traffic, dodging three of them, and causing the fourth one (coming unexpectedly from the opposite direction) to screech to a halt and start blaring their horns as I stood frozen to the spot and panicking about whether to keep going to the other side or turn and run back. Not that that ever happened to me at any point, of course.

Filed under: books, confusion, decisions, driving, Fear, Hungary, laughter, road rage, sheer silliness, uncertainty, walking, worry | Leave a Comment »

Where am I?

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Hails

I’m suffering from a severe case of haven’t-got-a-clue-where-I-am-itis, which means that the first few minutes upon waking up in the morning are becoming increasingly confused and disorientated. It’s a new ailment to me, since for much of my life it was a safe bet that when I opened my eyes I would be in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Things are a little less certain these days.

I’ve had to develop a routine upon waking: firstly, don’t just assume that you’re in the last place you remember being, as sometimes the mind simply can’t keep up. Take a moment. Let your brain wake up before you attempt any complicated memory feats.

Next, try to remember which country you’re in. This is an extremely helpful step, and makes the next one much simpler. Which city? Cast your mind back to the day before, and gather all appropriate information: train journeys, names of stations passed through, people spoken to… it’s all relevant. Once you’re reasonably confident of your approximate geographic location, you can try to get more specific.

Open your eyes and look around – do you recognise the room? Initially, the answer tends to be “Erm… no”, but don’t panic: generally you can  retrace your steps from the night before, and at least recall the last person you saw before going to sleep. This tends to help narrow things down (consider what language they spoke, what their accent was like, that sort of thing – grab any stray pieces of jigsaw that you can find).

In the past week, I have woken up in Holland, England, and Hungary, and now sit dazed and confused in Austria. Three mornings in a row found me in three different countries. From a loft room in Utrecht, to a pink bedroom in Cambridge (I have been sternly reprimanded for calling it “London”, but it was close enough. I got to meet up with yet another internet acquaintance, mainly because of the proximity of his house to the airport, and to sleep in a real bed. Hurrah!), to a hostel in Balaton.  Since then, I’ve slept on someone’s couch in Budapest, and am currently in some guy’s flat in Vienna, looking out at the rain with a feeling of utter exhaustion. I do not want to see any more nice buildings. I do not want to ask anyone else if they speak English. I do not want to visit another museum, or climb another hill, or try to figure out how, where and when to validate tram tickets in yet another city.

I don’t mean that I don’t ever want to do these things again, of course. Give me a few weeks to recharge the batteries and no doubt I’ll be wondering which country I can visit next. For now, though, I’m knackered. I have no energy left: only this afternoon I got stuck in a set of tram doors, which rather inconsiderately closed on me as I was trying, in my feeble state, to struggle up the steps with my bags. I do not know the German for Somebody help me, I am going to be killed when the tram takes off with me half in and half out of it!, but fortunately Arrrrghhhh! seems to be universally understood, and a guy on the tram leapt forward to open the doors and haul my bags in with one hand, and me with the other, as the tram went merrily on its way.

No more! I want to wake up in the same bed for several days in a row. I want to spend an entire day sitting in one place. I want to spend some time with someone who actually knows me, and have real conversations. And so, after the weekend, I’m heading back to the familiar surroundings of Tallinn and the comfortable company of Riho. Ah, Tallinn: where everything is cheap, people speak English, and my biggest problem is being unable to identify the ingredients for my speciality dishes in the supermarket.

Just need one final spurt of energy for a whirlwind tour of Vienna, a train ride to Slovakia, a flight to Sweden, sightseeing in Stockholm, a flight to Latvia and a six hour bus ride to Estonia, but sure that’s nothing…

Filed under: airport, confusion, conversations, England, flying, foreign languages, friends, Holland, hostels, Hungary, normality, time out, tiredness, trams, travel | 7 Comments »

Feeling the Terror

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Hails

I’ve always been fascinated by the history of Hungary, after studying the 1956 revolution at school, many moons ago.

I was very excited, then, to actually be in Budapest and have the opportunity to see round the House of Terror – a step-by-step journey through Hungary’s history of Soviet occupation and ethnic cleansing. Sure, it doesn’t sound like your typical tourist’s idea of beer-soaked ‘fun’, but I’ve been looking forward to this for ages!

It gave me much the same feeling as the Anne Frank house: a sense of wonder as I walked around and felt history come to life, with a real chill as I realised just how horrendous this stuff actually was. The museum is really well designed – you start off up on the second floor, and walk through the exhibitions (each room with a helpful background leaflet in English to make up for the fact that everything else is in Hungarian), moving down until eventually you’re in the basement, which is full of prison cells and torture chambers.

The whole way, you’re accompanied by music that is at times soulful (I had to choke back tears in one room, where a child’s voice was reading out names of victims to a very moving soundtrack) and at others very dramatic and militant. It actually makes you feel quite tense and nervous, especially when you’re surrounded by all those Nazi uniforms and walking through Soviet offices and the like. I was a little thrown by the presence of numerous security guards, there to make sure nobody breaks the “no photos” rule. I’m sure that their uniform is a standard Hungarian security uniform, but the mind plays tricks on you when you’re being influenced by powerful images and emotive music, not to mention reading about terrible crimes against humanity by men in uniforms quite similar to the ones on the people prowling stealthily all around you.

By the time I got down to the basement, I was decidedly spooked. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I peered into prison cell after prison cell, including torture chambers (one was ankle deep in water, so that you’d always be cold and wet; another’s ceiling was about 4′ from the ground, so you could never stand up) and a padded cell, which was my first (but not necessarily my last) time in one of those. I sneaked some photos, jumping nervously every time I thought I saw a security guard, understandably frightened about what he might do to me, given our surroundings.

Waiting for a guard to disappear so that I could get a picture of the padded cell, I crept cautiously inside the warden’s office, which looked like nothing had been touched since it was in use. Old register books, a typewriter, an old wireless… turning round, I saw lockers, and a couple of old uniform jackets hanging beside them. It really did feel like the place was still being used, and that someone could come and catch me at any moment. Imagine my utter horror, therefore, when something in the dark corner above one of the lockers suddenly came loose of its own accord, and fell with a loud clank on to the top of the locker. The metallic sound echoed monstrously around the  musty room, and I was convinced I’d been shot or something.

I screamed. I really did. I screamed a really girly scream and backed away, bruised my leg on the desk, turned to flee, and ran straight into Stalin/a moustached security guard who’d come to see who was wrecking the museum. I was about to declare my innocence when I realised he was biting his lip hard and shaking with mirth. Well, really. Drawing my shoulders back, I fixed him with a haughty gaze and stalked past him.

I say stalked… actually, my knees trembled like mad for the rest of my journey around the museum.

House of Terror: full points for aptness of name.

Filed under: contemplation, Fear, freak-out, Hungary, unexpected | 4 Comments »

Laundry Day: the “on the road” version

Posted on September 14, 2008 by Hails

Having had the hostel dorm to myself for two nights, I was last night joined by an Englishman called Dave. Hooray! Conversation that did not necessitate sign language! We went for a few beers and exchanged travel stories at the bar – but not before I’d attempted to find out from the barman if there was such a thing as a tumble dryer on the premises.

I’ve just washed some clothes in the sink, I explained, miming the washing action and indicating my own clothes for good measure. Is there a tumble dryer? Following his blank stare, I continued unabashed. A machine for drying my clothes? I mimed a wringing action, but the barman shook his head, obviously trying really hard to understand, but failing completely. I’m sorry, he said, embarrassed, my English is terrible! I smiled, appreciating his efforts. OK, I said, putting my hands flat on the bar to indicate fresh determination. Let’s take it right back. There are machines to wash clothes, right? I did a spin cycle motion with my hands, and he nodded. Excellent. Well, I continued, there are also machines for drying clothes. Again, I did the spin cycle movements, thinking that at least my arms were getting a good workout, if nothing else. Poor wee barman. He shook his head, puzzled, and I realised that the problem was with the verb “to dry”, which he’d clearly never heard before now. Dry, I persevered, smiling encouragingly, to make them not wet any more. No longer wet. Can’t wear wet clothes – need them to be not wet. Dry!

The barman’s eyes lit up and he slapped his forehead. Ah, of course, of course, I understand! He nodded enthusiastically and repeated my tumble drying mime. You want the machine for to take away the water! We smiled happily at each other. Yes, I said. So is there one here at the hostel?

No, he said.

I returned to the dorm to hang my wet clothes over the bunk beds. C’est la vie. And this morning, to my delight, my clothes were actually dry anyway, thanks to the warmth of the night air. Quickly I packed everything away and trundled off to the train station for another ridiculous not-a-single-word-in-common conversation with a ticket booth attendant. (Although “Budapest” seemed to be sufficient, and we mimed the rest.)

Ticket in hand, I sat down by the railway track and was idly pondering how my luggage expands at every destination without me actually buying anything, when I saw Dave walking towards me. Puzzled, I looked at him. Hello again, he said cheerfully, reaching me a pair of knickers.

How embarrassing is it to have a virtual stranger chase after you to the train station with your knickers in his hand? And the only reason I’d forgotten them was because I’m obviously a little bashful about things like that, so when I’d washed them I hadn’t hung them over the beds with the rest of my clothes, but carefully concealed them from his view at the head of my bed. Honestly – you try to come across as all friendly and interesting when you meet new people, and yet at the end of the day their lasting memory of you is going to concern your knickers.

Still. At least they were clean.

Filed under: confusion, conversations, foreign languages, hostels, how embarrassing, Hungary, travel | 8 Comments »

The boy in the tower

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Hails

Do you see the lengths I go to for you people? Today, I climbed up to a little dot up in the clouds, at the top of a series of very large hills. The dot would turn out to be the Lookout Tower, from which, I had been informed by Nice Hostel Man, I would be able to see for miles and miles and miles…

That climb put the Eiffel Tower and the crazy Lyon steps to shame, I’m telling you. There weren’t even any steps for most of it – just dusty, rocky old paths with dodgy looking wooden rails to hang on to and (in my case) haul yourself up, gasping for breath. The higher you get, the warmer the air becomes – fortunately today was cloudy, for if it’d been as hot as the past few days have been, I quite simply would not have survived.

Anyway, here it is: a photo of my current surroundings, as promised.

I’ve been staying right down at the water’s edge, in a tiny little village. The Portrush of Hungary, if you will – it’s where all the Hungarians go for their summer holiday or weekend break. It is beautiful. I’m nicely rested and relaxed now, apart from the hill-climbing nightmare. And I even made a new friend!

This is Jeosef, who kindly accompanied me up the tower, chattering away in Hungarian and completely unphased by my English responses. It is much easier to communicate with a child than with an adult when there’s a total language barrier, because they don’t give up and go silent when they realise that you don’t have a single shared word in your vocabulary. Jeosef and I developed our own sign language and did the age-old “saying words in your own language very slowly and loudly as if that’ll help” thing. It worked fairly well. He taught me to say Hayley nak hívnak, and I taught him to say my name is Jeosef. An educational trip, as well as a scenic one!

I have a feeling that he and his father actually live in the Lookout Tower. His dad was a scruffy, slightly wild-looking guy, wearing clothes with holes in them and curled up on a pile of old sacks when I arrived. He supervised as Jeosef excitedly counted my entrance money and attempted to give me the right change, and seemed quite content to let the boy go leaping up the tower steps ahead of me as if he’d done so a million times before. I got the impression that father and son are allowed to shelter in the tower in exchange for collecting the small entrance fee from visitors – because let’s face it, that would be quite a hike to work every day.

Nice as the view is, you’d have to pay me an absolute fortune.

Filed under: conversations, foreign languages, Hungary, kids, scenery, tourists | 2 Comments »

The Big Swimming Pool

Posted on September 12, 2008 by Hails

Well, this is the life.

I’ve been fortunate enough to land in another great little hostel – dirt cheap but without dirt, which is the way I like ‘em. I’m currently in the (outdoor) bar, sipping an ice cold beer, which cost approximately 50p. I’ve had to develop a taste for beer on my travels, despite hating it for most of my life, because soft drinks are expensive and nowhere’s heard of cider.

Anyway, I’m sipping my beer, listening to weird but upbeat Hungarian music, fighting off the occasional spider, and congratulating myself on leaving the beach before the sunburn became as horrific as I’ve allowed it to become in the past. Tonight, I had dinner at a little restaurant recommended to me by the hostel owner, who understood my worries about not knowing how to communicate with Hungarian waiters. There’s a nice leetle place on the shore, just over that way, he said, gesturing, which ees very cheap and serves good traditional food. They do not speak Eengleesh, but they have peectures of the food on the walls, so you can just point!

Amused, I set off to find it, and was not disappointed.

As instructed, I pointed at a picture of something that looked vaguely like fish and chips, and was served something unidentifiable but delicious. Not fish… probably not chicken… look, as long as I don’t know, it’s fine.

The earlier part of the day was spent wandering around the villages and sunbathing on the grassy beach. The water is wonderful – it’s like a giant heated swimming pool, and because it’s not seawater, you don’t get the nasty side effects of tasting salt for the next week, or your hair going all matted and dry. It’s the first time I’ve been able to swim properly in such a large volume of water without getting battered back by enormous waves – I swam out for about about 15 minutes, and then realised how far away the shore was, so headed back to dry off in the sunshine. Had one of my “this only happens to rich people!” moments as I lay there basking in the heat, but those are starting to pass much more quickly, these days.

Photos of the beautiful scenery will hopefully follow tomorrow, when I hope to navigate my way to the Lookout Tower (oh, woohoo, more steps!!), as it’s apparently going to be a bit cooler by then. For now: cheers! Wish you were here. Actually, today I was watching a couple of girls chatting to each other on the beach, and had a sudden pang for the company of The Sister. She’d love it here, I thought to myself. When I returned to the hostel room, however, I remembered why I’d realised the previous night that she’d actually hate it here:

There are a lot of spiders and insects in Hungary. Fortunately I’ve learned to become less afraid of such things, so I can quite easily ignore that familar mosquito whine in the dark, brush off the millions of large, bizarre-looking green flying things, and let the multitude of enormous spiders go about their helpful business of building webs to catch them all. I’m trying not to think about how many spiders must be running all over me in my sleep. They’re not doing me any harm… I hope. I may need to rethink things slightly if I suddenly become violently ill.

Filed under: foreign languages, happy, holidays, hostels, Hungary, insects, photos, scenery, spiders, sun, swimming pool | 5 Comments »

Tired and Hungary

Posted on September 12, 2008 by Hails

I was utterly unprepared for my trip to Hungary.

For a start, I completely failed to think about the fact that there might be a severe lack of English-speaking people here – probably not such a relevant issue if I’d been going to somewhere like Budapest (that’s still a few days away), but as it was, I flew into a little airport in the middle of nowhere, near Lake Balaton. The hostel’s website had apparently simple instructions for getting there – take the airport shuttle either directly there, or to a town called Keszthely. Since the airport wanted to charge me €40 (!!!) to go directly there, I chose the latter, “where there is regular public transport to the hostel”.

You can ask at that building for information, said the driver, pointing towards a desolate booth before leaving me standing at the dusty roadside, sweating profusedly. I trundled somewhat dubiously up to the booth. Excuse me, do you speak English? I gave the man my usual conversation opener. No, he said. We looked at each other for a moment. I was uncertain of how to proceed, given that the usual response to my question at such places is either “yes” or “not very much”, making it possible to proceed, however long the conversation might take with a few French/Dutch/Estonian words thrown in for good measure.

Erm… I battled on, showing him my scribbled hostel directions, train? Bus? I looked hopefully at him, and he shrugged. OK, I concluded with a weak smile. Thank you. He slammed shut the window, leaving me staring at the rather misleading “Information” sign.

I had an emergency cigarette under the ineffectual shade of a leafless tree, and located the train station. Nervously, I approached the woman behind the desk.  Excuse me, do you speak English? That’s going to be the name of my book, by the way.

No, she said.

Once again I waved my bit of paper, and once again I got a blank stare and a shrug. Defeated, I slunk off to a corner to open my laptop and check for WiFi availability. Of which there was, of course, none whatsoever. Seriously alarmed now, and picturing myself having to live forever at the side of this road in the arse end of nowhere, I used my phone to google the hostel, and found more specific directions. Trying to breathe deeply, I returned to the desk. Here? I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

She looked as relieved as I did when whatever was on the page made sense to her, and she wrote out the train changes for me, and sold me a ticket (for 900HF, which I believe is something like €4, as opposed to €40: ha!). Rather naively thinking my problems were over, I went out to the platform. Nothing was marked, and it was one of those train stations where, if you wait for a few hours and are lucky enough, you might just see a train.

It was 29°C, I’d been up since 6am, I was at a train station somewhere in Hungary with absolutely no idea where to go or how to get there, and nobody spoke any English. I’d actually like a huge big round of applause for the fact that I didn’t curl up in a corner and burst into tears. And that I managed three changes of train all by myself, each with at least an hour of a gap in between them and nothing to indicate that they were the right trains. I slept for a long, long time last night.

It was, however, worth all the trauma. Just you wait till you see where I’m staying…

Filed under: airport, changes, confusion, culture, disorganisation, Fear, foreign languages, hostels, Hungary, sun, tiredness, travel | 8 Comments »

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