Hungarian Diary 2

We’re lazing about, watching CSI: Miami (and yes, Horatio’s Hungarian dub sounds just as take-off-the-sunglasses-and-make-the-point as the original) after a five and a half hour stint at the fürdő, which is Hungarian for bath. Calling it a bath doesn’t really give a fair picture of the reality though.  There are pools to swim in, yes, but also pools to lounge in and play chess, pools to get whirled round by riptides, cold pools to plunge in after heating yourself up in one of the four saunas that we found, smelly pools with health giving properties – in short, the apotheosis of water. It was no ordeal to spend a fifth of a day in such a glorious celebration of aquatic pleasure. Another reason it suits me very well is the total lack of body fascism characteristic of Hungarians. My potbelly and Speedo were totally unremarkable in the variety of human form present – you could say that the shapes of the people mirrored the infinite variability of water if you were prone to that kind of metaphor.

This of course mirrors the first post, which was set in Lake Balaton and of course to do about water. There is really no thematic motive here, just that it has taken till now to overcome my laziness in posting. So, a quick summary is in order. From Keszthely, we drove to Baja to see more relatives, the Prof’s uncles/aunties/cousins/nephews-in-law. This meant three days of eating (joyfully and lipsmackingly), drinking (amply but responsibly) and talking. The music of fractured Hungarian and broken English has a particularly dissonant beauty.

Leaving Baja on Sunday evening, we drove to Piliscsaba, north-west of Budapest, to Prof’s cousins house. Every day so far has been full of eating, drinking and talking, though the English is much better (our Hungarian, though, still walks like a horse with one leg). Activities this week – walks in the neighbourhood, one unplanned, dazed, day in Budapest, a drive to Esztergom just over the border from Slovakia, Slovakia for 30 seconds (took a wrong turn), and, finally, five and a half hours in Széchenyi Fürdő. With the swimming, you know.