10 October 2008: Budapest, Hungary

I lay down in the hallway for about an hour, maybe more and maybe less, and luckily I was awake when Tomi's neighbors came out of their flat, because I jumped up and was merely caught lurking around rather than sleeping.

I got my stuff from Tomi's place at 7:15, as promised, and said good-bye to what will probably go down as the most gracious host ever. Seriously, let's look at this:

1) Agreed to let me crash within minutes
2) Let me sleep on a bed for three nights
3) Let me leave my stuff in his flat for a week
4) Let me leave my stuff in his flat even when I was out of town for three days
5) Told me the code for the apartment door so I could get in
6) Left his flat door open so I could get in whenever I needed to
7) Let me eat loads of food
8) Bought me a few drinks

I mean, this guy was as good as they come. Seriously. Wow.

When I left Tomi's place I stopped by the American Corner, which is the most inaccurately named place in all of Pécs. No one spoke English when I went in, and when I finally found someone who did she said that they only had jobs for Hungarians. Shouldn't that make this place the Hungarian Corner? Or, better yet, the Every Other Corner?

So I was definitely going back to Budapest. I had left my lucky car at Beata's flat that one night, and I was supposed to meet her to get it back. But I was in a bit of a rush to get back to Budapest and didn't want to wait around.

Plus, I had done Sellye and Orfü without the car, so I felt as though I were still pretty invincible without it. And, on top of that, I had hitched to Orfü without the car, which is its true domain. I just figured that all the good-luck was now concentrated into the Michigan golf ball, which was still securely in my pocket.

(Although, how ironic that I left my good luck car in the place where I had most assuredly not gotten lucky.)

The first leg of the trip back to Budapest cost me 1150ft and the second was 525ft. That meant the whole trip was 1675ft, putting it at just over half of the 3010ft I paid to get to Pécs. While I don't necessarily blame the woman at the Budapest bus station ticket counter, I will say God bless the ISIC card for getting me student discounts when maybe I shouldn't really get them-- since I'm guessing the Budapest bus station knows the regulations more than the smaller towns.

When I got to Budapest I went to Greg's apartment, the German I met in the bar in Pécs who said I could crash at his place. He was still out of town but told me to just go and ask his roommates if I could crash anyway. I didn't know his apartment number, but the land-lady helped me find it, and when I knocked on the door I said I was "Greg the German's friend." This caused some confusion, but eventually I figured out that Greg is actually from France.

I was pretty lucky, then, for two reasons. First, because I actually found the place and figured out it was the right Greg, and second because they trusted me even though I didn't know where Greg was from. Good for them.

There was a German dude and an Italian dude when I showed up, and although the Italian was skeptical and said they had to ask the other roommate first, the German said I could at least leave my stuff there during the day and come back later.

I left for a couple hours and had bananas and tomatos and some bread for lunch, and when I came back Marvin, the German, said that I could stay for the night. Success.

I say Marvin the German because he was German, but he really should have been French. I mean, really. He sounded French and had long hair, and he wore a scarf and crossed his legs when he sat down-- he was just like the French guy on "The West Wing." How on earth could this dude not be French?

Anyway, I lay down for a bit and then we had dinner. Marvin made some pasta with hamburger and carrots, and we ate it with the Italian dude and the other roommate, an Italian girl. And let me tell you, the situation was pretty uncomfortable. I mean, the Italians didn't say more than two words the entire time. Marvin told me later that it was because they don't like strangers and weren't crazy about my being there, but Marvin had convinced them otherwise. So deal with it, I guess.

Dinner was at 10:30 and Marvin and I went to a club at 12:30, which is about as European as you can get. We had had a few beers beforehand and our first stop was an electronica club, which had a cool location-- below ground on the main boulevard, in what we first thought was a metro station-- and no cover. But inside, maybe not so cool; lots of bogus electronica dancing, which was to be expected I suppose.

We tried a couple other clubs, which both had 1000ft covers, and finally we went to a place that Marvin had wanted to check out because it was having a "guitar party."

What that meant, however, was a heavy metal/death rock party. Everyone was dressed in black and was doing a mixture of head-banging and swinging-head-in-a-circle-to-get-hair-flying. It was also pretty bogus, but we had paid 300ft to get in and didn't want to leave so soon.

The thing ended up being alright, if not completely foreign to both of us, and was a good time. I felt pretty bad because Marvin was sort of just standing there the entire time and not talking to anyone, and I felt even worse when I went off with a girl and then came back and found him in the same exact spot. But he said he didn't mind, so what are you going to do?

On the walk home after the club closed Marvin stopped to get a gyro. Boy, I would have given just about anything for a gyro, but it was 600ft. So instead I just used a bit of self-restraint and waited until we got home, at which point I made myself some chicken broth from a cube and had some bread. Deelish.