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 »

Countdown

Posted on July 16, 2008 by Hails

They have a really cool public transport system in Lyon, called Vélo’v. It consists of little mini-stations, each of which houses a couple of dozen bikes. You buy a 1€ card (which lasts for a week), and this lets you hire a bike from one of the “stations”. They charge you €2 per hour, but the first half hour on every bike is free. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?! Yes, a little warning buzzer goes off after 27 minutes of cycling, to let you know that you have 3 minutes left before they start charging you. Your mission then, should you have absolutely no money as the result of being a victime d’un infraction and therefore have no choice but to accept it, is to pedal madly, scouring the streets for another Vélo’v “station”. Find one, return the bike, and take out a new one… hey presto! Another free half hour!

All very well if you’re not someone with absolutely no sense of direction.

Partly for this reason, and partly because I am too afraid to ride a bike on roads where they drive like maniacs (I’m especially intrigued by the practice of reversing the length of an entire street at great speed – today I witnessed a woman almost being knocked over as she crossed at a designated crossing point, having looked left, seen that the road was clear, and stepped straight into the path of a car zooming backwards from her right), I chose to try out the bike thing at the park instead. Le Parc de la Tête d’Or is quite close to where I’m living, and it’s beautiful. Gardens, walkways, a huge lake, and – oddly – groups of wild animals randomly dotted around. I thought Le Flatmate was joking when he told me to watch out for the lion. As it turns out, he wasn’t.

I cycled merrily around for 27 minutes, taking in the sights, breathing the fresh air, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin. Bliss.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Beep-beep-beep.

Uh-oh. Relaxation went out the window as my bike announced that It Was Time. Like a meerkat, I sat up straight and looked all around, trying to remember where I’d come from and if I’d passed any bike docks. Erm. Help. Panic inexplicably descended, as if paying €2 would make matters significantly worse or something, and I began cycling faster than I’ve ever gone before. I had no plan. I just kept going. Then, as I passed a familiar-looking tree (what? You don’t recognise trees that you’ve previously encountered?), I realised I’d just done a frenzied circuit.

It’s been a long time since I last went on a bike ride. I suspect it may be quite some time before I go on another one. Breathless, blinded by sweat, and my damp hair plastered to the side of my face, I glimpsed an exit gate. With – oh joy! – a Vélo’v “station” outside. Jumping off (and narrowly avoiding collapsing to a trembling heap on the ground), I wheeled the bike to a stand and secured it. My legs were decidedly wobbly, and other parts ached in a saddlesore kind of way. I sat down rather suddenly on a low wall, pretending that I was just enjoying the view (of the car park).

Cycling is an enjoyable, efficient and relaxing way to see the city. Yes.

Filed under: bikes, fun, Lyon, park, scenery, serenity, stress, sun | 9 Comments »

Heading off

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Hails

I find heat difficult to cope with. I’m not even talking about the sunburn factor – just the wamth itself is enough to make me spend my days groaning miserably and fanning myself ineffectually with a magazine. When I was in Nashville a few years ago I had to be rushed from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned car in the fastest possible time, lest I dehydrate and/or collapse, landing in an overheated heap on the melting tarmac, where my body would instantly sizzle and evaporate into the hazy air.

Anyway. With this in mind, I don’t know what possessed me to opt for the south of France as my chosen destination for the month of July.

I’m actually having panic attacks about it, as I sit once again in a sea of unpacked clothes and general disorganisation. Tallinn has been pretty hot, but temperatures have never gone above what I might reasonably be expected to endure in Northern Ireland. It distresses me terribly, therefore, to observe that the temperature upon my arrival in Lyon promises to be 32°C.

There’s only one thing for it, I decided yesterday, as I returned from a mild stroll in even milder temperatures and spent ten minutes gulping down water and pushing sweat-soaked locks of Mad Hair out of my eyes, the Mad Hair has got to go. And so it was that this afternoon I located an English-speaking hairdresser’s salon and marched resolutely towards it. Having less hair on my head is, let’s face it, probably my only hope of survival in 32°C. All intentions of growing it into a chic, sleek bob have been abandoned: this is an emergency situation, and it is time to return to the insane spikey look. It is a matter of life and death.

Alas! I am too late, for the hairdresser had no appointments available today. I leave tomorrow morning, with the hair equivalent of a 15-tog duvet on my head.

Woe is me. Woe.

Filed under: contemplation, decisions, disorganisation, Estonia, Fear, hair, packing, sun, weather, woe, worry | 6 Comments »

In which I dig a hole for myself

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Hails

I’m not normally one for posting photos of myself on my blog. There are enough Genuinely Frightening photographs of me on various social networking sites to scare anyone for life, and I generally try to compensate by not adding any more. This, however, has to be seen for my foolishness to be believed.

The cheesy handwave isn’t meant to be cheesy; it’s actually there for contrast, i.e. normal skin colour vs. current facial skin colour. The really disturbing thing about it is that this roasting happened only a couple of days after my blog post about my previous painful experiences with the sun.

:::sigh:::

Anyway, yesterday I took the advice of Foreigner and went on a little daytrip to Pärnu – Estonia’s “Summer City”. It is, as she suggested, a beautiful place, and I was particularly taken with the beach. Warm, white sand, sparklingly clear water, beach cafés and bars, volleyball nets, playground games, music… it was an ideal place to relax after, erm, a couple of days of work (you have to ease yourself back into these things). I lay on the sand for a few hours, just appreciating life, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on my face, and trailing my fingers lazily through the fine sand.

I was woken from my half-doze by a little boy who had been playing nearby. He said something to me, and I shook my head. Ma ei räägi eesti keelt. He repeated his babbling, and I shrugged helplessly, prompting him to look at his babysitter, a girl of around my age, in some confusion. She spoke to him at length, evidently explaining our language barrier in greater detail than my five words would allow. He did not appear to understand, and continued to attempt to communicate with me. Eventually I realised that I had absent-mindedly been digging a small hole in the sand as I trailed my fingers through it. Small Boy was interested in my project, and suddenly arrived at my side with two plastic spades, one of which he offered to me.

Erm… aitäh! I said as I accepted it in some amusement, watching as he began to dig in quite a purposeful manner. He kept looking at me and babbling quite sternly, so I meekly obeyed and joined him in some serious digging. Small Boy communicated with me in short phrases and hand gestures, having apparently concluded that my lack of speech meant that I was some sort of slightly stupid overgrown child.

Before long, we had a very deep Hole In The Sand, which we surveyed with satisfaction. Small Boy was saying something about which he was clearly quite excited, but I could not understand him. Frustrated, he turned to his babysitter, who was grinning. Ah, yes… she said to me, in halting English, he asks if you do not mind to be… ah… She, too, began the odd hand gestures, apparently having difficulty finding the right word. I watched helplessly as the pair of them mimed something utterly ridiculous, until eventually the babysitter indicated the Hole In The Sand and added …to be under it?

Excellent. Small Boy wanted to bury me on the beach. It was like one of my worst nightmares coming true, and I was powerless to stop it for fear of making him cry or something. Helplessly, I got into the Hole In The Sand, and Small Boy began to shovel sand around me in delight. The Babysitter looked increasingly overcome with mirth, and did nothing to change what was happening to me at the hands of her charge.

I had to stay in the hole for at least 15 minutes before he got bored and dug me out. I’ll probably have nightmares about it for many years to come.

Filed under: beach, conversations, day trip, Estonia, Fear, holidays, kids, laziness, pain, sun | 4 Comments »

Burn, baby, burn.

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Hails

I’ve just realised that I’ve managed to get my back and shoulders spectacularly sunburnt.

Please dismiss any images of lounging around soaking up the rays on a beach that that sentence might conjure up, for they would be wildly inaccurate. I’ve been working very hard today. On a Sunday, for shame. Tsk.

Of course, ‘work’ no longer means ‘sitting at a desk in a darkened room with no window for eight hours a day’. Thanks to the marvels of freelance writing, I can work where and when I choose to, which, it goes without saying, drastically transforms my attitude to it. I love my job!

Brief pause as I reflect upon exactly how many years I’ve spent longing to say that with a straight face.

And so it is that I got out of bed when I felt like it, made a nice big pot of coffee, and settled myself at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the appartment to tackle my work in the warmth of the sunlight. Feeling slightly like I was on show in a greenhouse, I threw the window wide open and enjoyed the cool breeze as I typed. As a result, a casual glance in the mirror when I stopped for lunch revealed, to my dismay, some upsettingly red portions of skin. That’s going to hurt.

I am no stranger to sunburn, being a girl of Very Little Brain who consistently fails to learn from some of life’s more painful lessons. Forever etched upon my mind is the fateful family holiday in Tenerife, where I spent at least one day (probably more – it’s all a bit blurry) in bed because of a severe case of sunstroke. It improved my Spanish slightly, as I could only move enough to switch on the TV, so I spent my time groaning feverishly and watching dubbed episodes of The X Files and Friends.

Fastforward to a few summers later, when I took a break from my A Level revision to have lunch in the back garden. Naturally, I fell asleep on the sun lounger, and with no one there to wake me up I found myself sitting some of my exams in a considerable amount of sunburnt pain. Putting on school socks over red-raw skin is not a pleasant task.

Yet still I did not learn. A camping trip to Tollymore Forest Park with a group of friends a few years ago saw me lying blissfully in the sun, uttering phrases like “Ahhh… this is the life!” before predictably falling asleep. That was dire – so badly burnt was I that I needed assistance to get up from my inflatable mattress the next morning. Poor Lollibelle had to half-carry me to the showers, where she threw me in and waited anxiously outside as I stood, swaying dangerously and propped up against the wall, underneath a lifesaving stream of cold water.

Still. Getting sunburnt whilst sitting at my ‘desk’ is such a novelty that I don’t think I can bring myself to complain.

This is the life!

Filed under: holidays, memories, school, sheer silliness, summer, sun, weather, work, writing | 5 Comments »

Swings and Roundabouts

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Hails

I am tired.

I’ve been staring at this computer screen for several days, in an attempt to find work of some description online. I’ve also been climbing towers, exploring old buildings, walking the streets, going out for weird and wonderful meals, visiting torture chambers and attending the opening ceremony of the Vanalinna Päevad. It’s all very well, this travelling thing, but I seem to be crashing and burning. Energy levels are at an all-time low, and it’s really warm, to top it all off.

Anyway. Thankfully, Tallinn is a friendly, helpful sort of place, filled with lots of useful little things that are designed to make life easier and a generally more pleasant experience. Like in the supermarket, for example. Don’t you just hate it when the cashier fires everything through at lightning speed, and is ready to move on to the next customer while you’re still frantically trying to pack everything? It makes me nervous, and I end up throwing everything into bags in no particular order, flustered, as both cashier and next customer watch me silently and impatiently. Not so in the local Rimi supermarket! Here, they have a diagonal divider sort of thing, which is simply pushed across to split the conveyor belt in half, allowing you to pack at your own speed as the cashier moves on to the next customer. Their groceries come out at the right, yours remain separate on the left. When you’ve finished, the cashier will simply slide the divider across and repeat the process to keep the line moving. So simple! And yet so impressive.

What was I saying before I became irrationally enthusiastic about Estonian supermarket conveyor belts? Yes, I’m tired. In fact, after clambering up and down the spiral stone staircases in the towers of the Old Town the other day, aided only by a rope, I was near the point of collapse. How lovely is it, then, that Tallinn sees fit to have little relaxing park areas with not only benches and summer seats, but actual built-in sun loungers?! Perfect. I recuperated in the sunshine for a while, and then wandered over to take a look at an odd playground game I’d seen some small children playing. It was nothing more than some large wheels mounted at just below knee-height. The idea seems to be that you balance on them and run across them as they move under your feet. Ha. I climbed on to one in the name of experimentation. I am not exactly renowned for my balancing skills; obviously my decision was accompanied by a lot of shrieking, wobbling and flailing of arms.

I was a little embarrassed to realise that not only was I being observed by a group of local studenty-types, but that one of them was taking photographs of my undignified performance with a very professional-looking camera. I paused, distracted, to point this out to Riho. “Maybe he’s collecting material for his blog,” suggested Riho wryly. I realised that I couldn’t really complain, and was about to return to my determined balancing efforts when one of the guys took a flying leap on to my wheel and babbled something unintelligible at me. I looked blankly at him before falling off quite suddenly. He made a gesture, and I understood that I was to get back on to the Wheel Of Death. “Plizz,” he added, nodding seriously. I looked nervously at Riho. “He’s playing the game with you,” explained Riho, who seemed to be finding the whole thing quite amusing. “You both run around on the wheel and try to make the other one lose their balance.”

Bravely, I got back on to the wheel. The guy looked confidently at me. I fell off.

It’s not really my type of game, anyway.

Filed under: boys, Estonia, Fear, games, how embarrassing, shopping, simplicity, sun, tiredness, wheel | 3 Comments »

We skinned our hearts and skinned our knees

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Hails

“We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…” I sang happily to myself as I lay on my back watching Jay and E2 play Frisbee in the park.

Being currently under great pressure to get A Lot Of Things done in a matter of days, I was in desperate need of a break, and joined my friends for a picnic dinner in the park. After eating, we lay around on the grass, talking and laughing. The sun was shining, the ducks were swimming, Red and Dirk were making daisy chains… it was idyllic, really. Just the thing to lower the stress levels.

Reluctantly, I got up after an hour or so, remembering the chaos that awaited me at home. Dirk, also needing to get back, came with me, and we strolled contentedly along the path to the park exit. Once again – and as seems to be a common occurrence when I become tired and stressed – I seem to have forgotten how to stand upright, because as we were mid-conversation I suddenly fell over for no apparent reason. With a startled scream (because you just don’t expect to fall over without being tripped or pushed, really) I lurched sideways and was caught by an equally startled Dirk, who dangled me by the arm for a moment, trailing me across the ground as he staggered about trying to maintain his own balance, and eventually hauled me to my feet.

We looked at each other. “Um.” I said uncertainly. “Erm.” he added, confused. We looked back at our friends, who were laughing heartily in their usual sympathetic manner. A random passer-by walked on, sniggering, as I brushed myself down with as much dignity as I could muster up. “What,” said Dirk, finally, “was that?” I looked sadly at him. “Sometimes I just fall over,” I explained carefully. He nodded. We resumed our walk. “I thought you were shot,” he confessed after a few moments, looking a little embarrassed.

The afore-mentioned passer-by had stopped and knelt down to adjust something on his child’s pushchair, and I tried to creep past him unnoticed. Dirk realised what I was doing, and helpfully stopped beside the stranger. “Hey, I’m sorry you had to be a witness to that,” he said in his most sincere and apologetic tones. “We’re still teaching her how to walk.” The guy looked like he didn’t know whether to be amused or frightened, particularly as Dirk was wearing a daisy chain on his head as he supported a 26-year-old toddler.

I have cut my knee. It is sore. :(

Filed under: falling over for no apparent reason, friends, fun, how embarrassing, Mishaps, pain, park, sun, tiredness, walking, weird | Leave a Comment »

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