4 countries, 4 weeks

This adventure begins following the end of the school year at the boarding school in Austria.

May 26th
The expedition begins on a Sunday.  Patrick and I fly to Stanstead airport, take a tram into London and meet our hosts, Dustin and Mark at the train station drop off point.  Dustin takes one of my bags and hands me bottle with a picture of an apple on it containing a yellow-green liquid and smelling of vodka.  This is a good indicator of what will come to pass in London.  We arrive at their apartment in Hamstead, a dirty little place on street right out of the ghetto, interesting considering the next street up seems rather nice.  Dustin explains that the houses on his street were once the servant’s quarters for the houses on the next street over.  We proceed to play dominoes and have mixed drinks with our hosts and I am introduced to the concept of a ‘drink list’, a handy way to keep track of what one did on a vacation.  One simply keeps a record of every drink one has consumed and this list will serve as a mnemonic aid as one will later recall who they were with and what they were doing at the time of consuming each drink.
My list began:  Apple juice vodka, Vodka straight, Strawberry vodka, cement mixer, Milk/Baileys/Vodka, Special Brew beer.
I recall declaring that I would not take another drink moments before the beer was opened and placed before me; to my credit, I barely touched it.  Also to note; we were introduced to the third roommate, Tatia, a short roundish girl who can ‘party with the boys’.

May 27th
Some time after lunch, Dustin, Pat and I stopped by a market, bought 3 Grolsch beers and a bag of 12 half liter Kronenbourg beers.  Dustin then took us down to the river (the Thames) in Richmond near where he goes to school (he has two classes left to complete this summer, one of them is ceramics).  It is a beautiful day, the grass is green, the sky is clear and it is actually warm enough to remove my shirt.  We play dominoes on Pat’s felt jacket spread out on the lawn along side the river.  We drink beer.  At one point, as I lazily let my head roll back, I happen to notice a large branch, severed from its trunk, caught up in surrounding branches and dangling many meters above where it appears a young lady is sunbathing.  I bring my observation to Patrick’s attention.  He is concerned and gets up to alert the young lass.  My modesty getting the better of me, I too get up, but taking a circumambulatory route I keep my distance.  From my new perspective I call to Patrick to notify him that she is indeed safe.  But the good Samaritan will not be dissuaded and he approaches the girl and informs her of her danger.  She does not seem concerned with the branch, although maybe perhaps, a little with Patrick.  My friend and I resume our seats around his jacket and await Dustin’s return from the lavatory, which, per my suggestion, we have relocated within close proximity of.
3 and a half Kronenburgs later I am quite inebriated (Pat and I had to share the last one because Dustin, sensing we were lagging, drank one of ours) when Mark arrives on the scene with a friend, Elena, and a fresh bag of large European beers.  Details become hazy as we take a walk toward the school.  Dustin leaves Pat and I at a very swank English pub with instructions to find him at the ceramics room after I have consummated my much demanded rendevue with an authentic pub.  Patrick makes a quick inquiry into the location of the restroom and effects an immediate disappearance.  I order two sandwiches, shrimp for myself, black forest ham for my friend and take my seat.  Mark is soon to arrive, he orders a beer and we have, what for me is, a light, unfocused, somewhat buzzing conversation.  The sandwiches arrive and as Pat is not yet here I order him a Sprite, considering perhaps he is feeling somewhat dehydrated.  The drink arrives and we continue to wait, I nibbling on the quarters of my, rather excellent, sandwich.  Mark and I take turns paying Patrick visits in the bathroom, which, I admit was rather nice, but not wholly deserving of such a long residence.  I set into Patrick’s sandwich and, sensing the lengthening hour, encourage Mark to do so as well.  He will only acquiesce under the condition that I help him with his beer.  I sense that perhaps my sobriety is the subject of some conspiracy, but not one to allow good food to go to waste (and boy was Patrick’s sandwich good) I agreed to the deal.  Nearly two sandwiches later (and one sprite) I was ready to go but Patrick was still married to the fine plumbing upstairs.  I made one final foray up in which I implored him with every supplication, flattery and argument I could imagine to come out and accompany me on to the university.  Finally, through the wooden barrier, he relents and we stagger on to the beautiful Richmond University.  There we discover Dustin, amidst attractive coeds and messy brown clay, hard at work making a pot from a spiraling snake of sticky earth.  Patrick soon disappears and is later found to be in the bathroom.  I am set up with a computer where I check and respond to email in a somewhat dazzled state of mind.  The evening was spent in a surprising state of sobriety and we were introduced to a friend, Josh, whom I quickly identified as a perfect example of ‘Adrianism’ –deep familial wealth facilitating self-destructive behavior in the pursuit of denying homosexual impulses.  We  attempted to finish the night with a movie, X-men, which we rented from a machine at Tescos, but I promptly allowed myself to pass out on the futon.  I woke up over 5 hours later to discover I was in exactly the same position (on my back, my feet still hanging over the edge of the futon) and next to me, asleep, was Josh.  Not knowing how publicly acknowledged was Josh’s ‘ambiguity’ but wary of the potential jokes, I got up, and moved to the couch where I finished the night’s (morning’s?) sleep in a state of semi comfort.

May 28th
The next morning, Josh’s bisexuality was brought up in hilarious conjunction with my having slept ‘with’ him.  Soon everyone went to work or class and Pat and I found ourselves released upon London.  Due to the fact that I had left my hat at the change counter in Stanstead airport I hesitatingly borrowed a cap with a picture of a six pack of beer and reading, “6 good reasons to call in sick”.  Utilizing the underground we visited Buckingham palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the British Museum where we saw all kinds of ancient artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone and Cleopatra’s mummy.  We had lunch in an authentic pub in Picadelly Circus where I drank a Guinness and we ate excellent fish and chips.  We later met Dustin and Mark and traveled to Tescos supermarket where there was a special on Carlson’s beer.  I picked up a nice bottle of whisky out of guilt for all of the free food I had been eating and we purchased all of the trappings for a barbecue.  As we left the building, I fulfilled the local tradition of always leaving Tescos whilst eating something containing meat, with a cold shepherd’s pie.  The evening began with drinking beer and barbecuing cheeseburgers and chicken wings on the sidewalk and proceeded with chatting up the people trying to drive around us on the narrow one-way street, playing dominoes and shooting Whiskey.  I was introduced to a further friend, a strange blonde guy whom I only remember as ‘the dirty little Dutchman’ because Dustin introduced him by saying, ‘this guy likes to have anal sex with girls because  he says there are two muscles, not just one,’ to which the Dutchman just smiled and shrugged. 

May 29th
Patrick and I spent the better part of the peak of the day in and around Hyde park, enjoying the sun.  We met up with Dustin at the University where they were having a school sponsored athletic event – badminton, beer provided. Amongst the company of the Richmond student body Pat and I helped ourselves to more than our fair share of Fosters (me more than Pat).  Sitting in a circle on the lawn, the guitar was passed around and, free from the distracting influence of attractive females, I silently pondered myriad topics whilst picking at the cool grass.  As the sun was setting we turned away for home and that evening was a reprisal of the night before, only with a menu of french bread and ribs – a suggestion of mine that went over wonderfully.  I ate entirely too many ribs and chicken wings, often declaring that I couldn’t fit in another bite, only to be persuaded, minutes later, to have just one more chicken wing after which we would share a collective laugh at our excess.  Carlsberg beer was the new special, consumed alongside ‘snakebite’ cider (purchased in plastic two-liter bottles) and vodka straight.  Amongst all this drinking we played dominoes and then six person Simpsons clue, which I led by first explaining the rules and strategy and finished by winning in grand fashion.  The game segued into a very long, very loud argument/conversation covering politics and philosophy.  Taking breaks from my debate with Josh regarding the humanity and reasonability of self-sacrifice, I attempted to mediate an intense debate on the topic of power between Mark and Dustin wherein Mark staunchly defended the assertion that Bill Gates could rule the world.  I attempted to explain that they were arguing about two fundamentally different topics, Mark – economic power, and Dustin – political power.
I found no end of frustration with my own adversary, Josh,  who adamantly maintained that he would give his own life for anyone else’s.  Anyone.  He claimed that my selfish mentality was indicative of everything wrong with the world. I attempted to explain to Josh that his ideals were ridiculously unrealistic and that evolution, the fundamental force of the world, compels humans to selfishly regard themselves and their families above strangers. His own claims were beyond believing and I attempted to draw a correlation to financial sacrifice that perhaps spoiled rich boy Josh could understand but the discussion was entirely too emotional to make lucent analogies.  I became rather caught up with myself and tears even threatened my eyes as I fell into a soliloquy regarding the compelling devotion of love, to mate and offspring, and made the connections to my words all too personally in my own mind.  Josh argued that (heterosexual) men were insensitive, implying that his self-sacrificing convictions were a product of ‘sensitivity’ (and not derived from a lacking sense of self-worth) and that the only sensitive men he knew were gay (i.e. the reason he was ‘bi’).  I felt like telling him that he must know some pretty shitty people, including his own father, but rather, I let that strand of the conversation die off without comment.  Hours after the sun had come back up and Mark had gone to bed I grew tired with debate, fully understanding that no real conclusion could be reached.  Having had my fun, I removed myself from the discourse, declaring that I must go to sleep.

May 30th
I awoke well past noon, having consumed more alcohol in a four day period than ever before in my life.  Knowing that our flight out was at 7:00 (PM) and that it was from Stanstead airport (a distance to the east of the city) I figured I had plenty of time to sit about and read some Kafka before taking a shower and eating breakfast.  I stopped by Pat’s (Dustin’s) room to check on the old boy (who has somewhat of a sleeping disorder and sometimes forgets to get out of bed).  He was up but rather groggy and in the process of brushing his teeth.  He then informed me that our flight was actually at 6:00.  “I told you last night,” he mentions in response to my immediately excited state and queries of, ‘shouldn’t we have already left by now?’  I returned downstairs, where a cluster of Richmond friends had recently deposited Courtney - another visitor in town to have a good time, to finish collecting my belongings.  Passing the coffee table, about which they were generally gathered, I couldn’t help but notice a light blue powder arranged in lines and a one dollar bill which Josh had rolled up into a tight tube.  I asked myself if the self-sacrificing bisexual hadn’t just an hour earlier opened his eyes and complained of a splitting hang-over?  I expediently gathered my two bags by the door and returned upstairs where Patrick had secreted himself after his own harrowing visit downstairs to the kitchen (I’ve seen Patrick in a cold sweat over minor school-rules infractions and I feared the effect of what I’m sure he had the full pleasure of witnessing around the coffee table).  I confirmed that he was as equally ready to go as I was and we found Dustin, who, after no sleep and a day in class, had passed out on Tatia’s bed.  We attempted to rouse him to say goodbye and the lethargic, catatonic even, result brought the hairs on my neck to attention and caused me to wonder if Dustin hadn’t broken his claimed ‘no-drug’ policy (the necessity of which I was only now understanding).  A dude from downstairs came up to ask of Dustin something and leaped playfully on his prostrate body.  Patrick and I cringed in horror but the pounce seemed to have a beneficent effect and Dustin snapped out of his glassy-eyed vegetable state and, after imploring me for the fifth time to stay the summer with them, wished us a good-bye.
With good haste we made our way to the underground and I reflected to myself how impeccably timed our departure was, not a moment of boredom, and not a moment of anxiety beyond the first.  Of course that would not include the disaster we encountered at the train station and the 90 pound taxi ride to Stanstead or the missed flight back to Salzburg.
Once we had purchased our new flight (leaving at 6:30 the following morning) and checked our bags I became much more relaxed and determined to make the most of the situation.  The expensive taxi ride could be rationalized as avoiding the undue stress of the train station (they were working on the tracks and canceling trains at arbitrary whim, much to the ire of the thousands of travelers packed into the hot station).  I led a two-man expedition out of the airport across the road and into the English countryside.  After alleviating concerns that we were trespassing, we had a jolly stroll past quaint cottages and through rolling meadows and cool stands of trees.  As the sun was setting we managed to feel our way back from whence we came and found a country pub I had vaguely spotted some hours ago.  Inside, the Three Horseshoes was everything we could want from a country pub, warm and rustic and serving food – or at least serving food until 9:00 and not a moment after.  It being 9:01, we would have to content ourselves with chips and beer.  Oh well, we could eat back in the airport.  The enchantingly attractive serving girls more than made up for the rude drunk safely situated on the far side of the bar and I once again brought to Patrick’s attention my holiday-long observation that here in London every young female wearing a pink shirt was invariably very cute.  As we finished our first round he surely toasted the credence of my observation.
Two pints, and some many minutes later we moseyed back to the airport where we found surprisingly good food available at reasonable prices (I’ve got to hand it to the Europeans for not taking advantage of tourists at every opportunity).  It was nearing midnight and I was ready for some sleep so, abandoning Patrick in a bookshop and wandering the length of the airport, I claimed the last three-seat bench and promptly made my bed. 

May 31st
I briefly awoke some time later to discover Pat sitting, reading on the floor beside me and then awoke again some time later to find him sleeping below me on the ground.  Finally after three refreshing hours of sleep I was aroused by the noisy snoring of an elderly neighbor.  I shook Pat and commanded him to take over sleeping duty on the bench before I departed on my second foray out into the English countryside.  I saw a beautiful dawn, but at the same time hopelessly soaked and soiled my tennis shoes.
Some time after five I returned and woke Pat and, for the next thirty minutes, I found I had to watch him closely under the suspicion that he would spontaneously relapse into slumber and injure himself (or allow our bags to be stolen).  The twenty-four hour diner scored again with breakfast and soon we were on our way home.
In Salzburg we were unable to arrange for anyone to pick us up (bad sign number one) and were forced to wait for the bus.
I telephoned our student in Munich, who responded that she would not be around and that we could not stay with her.  I wasn’t very surprised as her behavior regarding the whole situation had always been cagey and indefinably strange. We found Deena, with whom the rest of our belongings were stored and spent a fairly casual day, highlighted by a trip to the bank to close out our accounts.  Upon closing my account I was given a slip of paper reading six thousand four hundred and something which I carried across the bank to a man who then gave me a wad of twelve purple five-hundred Euro bills.  Deena’s speech became a bit jilted and unrythmic at the sight of my haul and the shame was evident in Patrick’s face as he was given the forty odd Euro left in his own account (of course much of my own money was ill-gotten, but we won’t get into that).  I attempted to close my wallet, but to no avail, something would have to be arranged, as I still had over three weeks of eastern European travel ahead of me.  In the eleventh hour, Patrick and I scored a place to stay at Ariana’s house when I consulted Ariana at O’Malleys, the local Irish pub.  We moved our belongings out of Deena’s over-crowded apartment and in with Felix and Ariana across the street from the public pool.  Arriving at their door was made a bit more exciting by the confused and paranoid Felix who received us, “Tony, oh it’s you, what’s going on?  Oh, I see, yes bring your bag in.  Who’s that?  Oh, Patrick, OK, come in, come in.”
The den of inequity, as I had come to think of Ariana’s house over the course of the year (due to the sex and drug rumors I would hear) was surprisingly mellow and nice.  Unsure of the layout and not wanting to create an uncomfortable scene of room-determination confusion I chose simply to fall asleep on the couch while we were all watching a DVD.  My last thought was to pull the blanket beside me up over my body.

June 1st
The next day Patrick left and I made contact with the other staff still in Salzburg, notifying Ariana and Felix that I would remove my belongings shortly, to which they assured me there was no hurry and that the doors were always unlocked.  A nice situation for me, although Felix’s addled memory did lessen the comfort as it seemed he was constantly forgetting, and asking, when I was leaving.  I moved my belongings into the room Patrick vacated and spent the day slumming about Salzburg, enjoying the beautiful weather and hanging out with Deena.  That night I strolled in late and bumped into the Polish house sitters as they were moving in some of their belongings.  There were three people and I began to have serious worries over a shortage of beds.  I told Ariana and Felix that I was staying another night but that I would be leaving the next day.

June 2nd
Felix and Ariana rose early to depart for Monaco, telling me to take my time in moving out.  I spent much of the day with Shay, Susie and Adam attempting to solidify some sort of plan for the next few days, perhaps a trip to Croatia or across Austria, at the least.  But, all schedules seemed to center on Susie who needed time to finish grades and packing and shopping and this and that.  In the end, after feeling like a complete ass for attempting, ineffectually, to instill some energy into the idea of traveling, a series of day trips with a rented car was planned.  Susie, Shay and I went to the pool where, via Shay’s cell phone, I was finally able to get a hold of Lucas in Slovakia.  He informed me that he was ready for me whenever I could get there.  Not wanting to slight the two girls beside me I told him I would arrive as soon as I could, rather than giving him a definite date telling him, as I secretly wanted, that I would arrive tomorrow.  I soon over-heated in the sun and split up with the girls.  I went downtown to the train station to inquire after train tickets to Bratislava.  I could take a train at 5:00 that afternoon (it being 2:30 there was just enough time to make it)  or I could wait two days because there was a transportation strike scheduled for the next day.  I opted to wait, for the sake of my ‘friends’ and my desire not to place myself in hurried, stressful situations.  I then went for a hike on the Monchsberg to burn time before calling Susie on Shay’s phone (which she had loaned me for the purposes of contacting them) to determine when and where we would be meeting for dinner.  Susie was too busy shopping to make a definite decision and I warned her that the battery was dangerously low on Shay’s phone.  I continued my hike and thirty minutes later the battery died.  Luckily, I had convinced them to agree to a contingency plan of meeting back at Konig Ludwig at 7:30.  I waited on a bench in front of the hotel and the warm afternoon faded to night as 7:30 turned into 8:30.  Exasperated, I called them on a payphone with the last of my change.  Susie informed me that they were just finishing dinner and that she wasn’t sure but they would probably go out to the pub some time later.  The phone was passed to Shay who had enough time to ask me, in a saccharine voice, what kind of trouble I was causing before my money ran out.  Irate, I stormed back to Ariana’s house and the Polacks.  I encountered the young male in the driveway and explained to him that due to tragic forces beyond my control I would be needing to stay with them that night but that Ariana had no problem with it.  He, being an excessively friendly and compromising person (as everyone from the old world, despite contrary stereotypes, seems to be), immediately acquiesced.  Entering the house I encountered the young female cooking frozen pizzas in the oven.  Fast forward an hour or so and we are sitting on the couch, eating pizza, drinking beer and engaged in a pleasant and educational discussion of the American and Polish cultures.  I learned of their difficulties in obtaining work visas to continue their employment as housekeepers in Austria and how Mrs. Sackler was helping them find alternate employment as she no longer needed them for the house she was selling.  The bleak outlook of their situation only furthered my astonishment in their cheerful demeanors.  Michael and Mila then informed me that, although they love me, they suspect that Mrs. Sackler will be visiting the house the next day.  I told them not to worry, I’d be out by then.  I then solved their problem of getting to work the next day against the absence of bus transportation or telephones in the house (I gave them directions to a nearby payphone) and went to bed with mixed feelings of comfort and apprehension.

June 3rd
The next day, I arose early and walked all the way to the train station to confirm that the rail system was completely down.  I then waited for the rental car services to open and inquired with them, only to find out that there were basically no cars (that I could take to Bratislava).  I returned to KL (safely after 10:00 AM to ensure that my ‘friends’ had already departed on their exciting day trip) to beg Maria for a place to stay that night.  “I have nothing,” she informed me; the summer music program hosted by the school was using all of the available rooms.  Then she remembered ‘the summer house’- a dusty trailer hidden behind a stand of trees.  She laid out the mattresses, grabbed some fresh linens and indicated the wide fields as my bathroom.  I spent the rest of the day wandering about the town, chatting with some of the music students (I tell them where the nightclub is), discouraging the wasps from returning to their nest in the trailer and reading Kafka on the lounge chair outside my ‘room’.

June 4th
My last day in Salzburg is a nice one but I am soon on my way, via train, to Vienna.  My attempts to phone Lucas, both the night before and this morning have resulted in the same ambiguous failure – a Slovak answering service.  Aside from having four bags (the largest weighing over 55 pounds) the trip to Vienna went flawlessly, including my trolley transfer across Vienna from the West Bahnhoff to the South Bahnhoff.  In the South station is where my problems began.  An announcement, in German, informed the few people waiting for the train to Bratislava that it had been changed.  Bags in tow, I followed two younger men as they moved from one platform to the next, searching for the train we had been transferred to.  They finally consulted a station employee and moments afterward I confronted them and asked if they spoke English.  The older of the two, a man most notable for his unusual ugliness, explained that our train was rerouted and we could take a different train to a multi-syllabic Austrian town where it would be waiting for us.  I had him repeat the name of the town but my English ear could not make sense of it and finally he told me that I simply needed to follow him.  In the course of our trip to Bratislava, I learned that he was a university-educated mathematician living in Slovakia and commuting to Vienna, where he can earn much more money.  He lamented that most of his friends had moved to the United States and that he would like to visit but that it is too expensive.  By the time we arrived in the Bratislava train station dusk was already nearing and I was filled with apprehension over being in eastern Europe, alone and in charge of everything of value I had possessed over the past nine months.  In the station I found a tourist office advertising, amongst other things, a phone and money changing services.  In an effort to endear myself to the girl working in the office I changed fifty euros into Slovak Crowns.  Then I asked to use the phone.  She insisted on dialing for me and Lucas’ cell phone produced the same result it has the past four times I called it.  I then tried the Slay family who live in Bratislava and with whom my coworker Dalibor was staying.  My heart sank as there was no response there either.  I left my bags with the nice girl and refreshed myself before moving out into a conspicuous spot in the center of the station in the hopes that Lucas has sent his friend to find me.  I almost approached a confused-looking Slovak who periodically wandered into the station to gape about, thinking it might be him.  After a half hour I returned to the tourist office and made a final attempt to call Lucas.  This time he answered and indicated surprise at discovering that I was in Slovakia.  He tells me to hang tight and he will be there to pick me up in forty minutes.  A short time later, as I am in the process of relocating myself to obtain more light to read by, a pair of young Slovaks greet me and inform me that Lucas sent them to take me to Nitra.
After a somewhat harrowing ride behind the driving of a fearless youth we arrived at Lucas’ house where I was introduced to his charming parents, their friend who was visiting (and occupying the guest room) and Lucas’ best friend (and non-English speaker), Matus (pron. Matush) to whom my first dedicated thought was an earnest desire that he not be the disgruntled skinhead he appeared to be.  Lucas paid off the boys and we determined that tonight would be a good night to go out and see the local haunts of Nitra.  We took a taxi to Devil’s Bar, a somewhat shady saloon where Lucas and Matus seemed to know nearly everyone.  By western standards the drinks were very cheap and Lucas insisted on buying me round after round of beers and shots.  I was introduced to a tipsy and antic drunk called Medic who spoke little English and was notorious for drinking without his grilfriend’s consent and getting into heaps of trouble the next day.  Lucas also pointed out a thuggish-looking bald guy whom, he whispered (not an easy thing to accomplish in a noisy bar), was the head of the local skinheads.  We returned home a bit drunk and I crawled into the fold-out bed prepared for me in the computer room (probably the only ‘computer room’ in the entire city of Nitra).

June 5th
This day was hot, very hot, over one hundred degrees hot.  We rose late and proceeded slowly.  Lucas took me downtown where I was introduced to the main street; not much to look at, a few restaurants and some middle-class shops.  We walked up a steep hill to the ‘castle’ where we were provided a view of the city.  Faint with heat we slogged our way back down the hill and stopped at a beer garden where the beer sold for 16 crowns (40 crowns to an euro).  I attempted to double fist a half liter beer (which I really didn’t want) and a half liter beverage I was told was the Slovak equivalent of coke and tasted something like Johanesberry.  My stomach ached from the heat and both beverages weighed heavy on it.  We visited a museum where we found an old man sitting at a metal office desk.  After consulting with him in Slovak, we each gave him ten crowns which he dumped unceremoniously into a desk drawer before making a quick phone call.  A few minutes later a woman arrived and led us upstairs.  She unlocked a door leading into a few connected rooms containing well-maintained display cases and finely crafted dioramas.  The quality (and value) of the artifacts impressed me for such an obviously overlooked museum.  We were treated to a full tour which Lucas succinctly translated for me.  I am almost certain that on one point our guide corrected Lucas, leading me to believe that she could actually speak English.  After we were done, she locked the doors behind us.

June 6th
As on the 5th, we started the day late and slowly and it was excessively hot.  The two of us met up with Dusan, an ex-boxer in the gendarme academy and ‘not as dumb as he looks’.  That may have been true but he was not, by any stretch of the word, intelligent.  The three of us wandered around a bazaar-type area for some time apparently following Dusan’s shopping whim.  We went to a Chinese restaurant where we eventually met Dusan’s girlfriend, a beautiful dark haired girl who looked more Italian than Slovak.  I was informed that Dusan was eager to see her language skills tested against a native English speaker.  Lucas was soon forced to depart to make a driving school class and I was left at a quietly awkward table.  Eventually the girl came across the courage to engage me in small talk and soon our conversation was actually able to progress to the point of making Dusan jealous for not understanding a word passing between his beautiful young girlfriend and the exotic foreigner.  The girl was forced to translate every simple piece of small talk for his benefit and the time passed magnificently.  Lucas returned and the plan to go watch Matus at his ultimate fighting practice was changed to playing counterstrike at an internet café (a suggestion from the ever insightful Dusan).  We went to where the Slovaks thought they might find an internet café but the scant computers we found were obviously not up to the task.  Things became interesting that evening when we met Matus, his brother Harvey, another fighter Ricard, the basketball player (Mikas?), and a (typically) ugly Russian and his (typically) attractive Slovak girlfriend at the local ‘working man’s beer garden’ known as the ‘restaurant’ purely for issues of legality.  Somewhere in the course of two liters of beer and four shots of ‘cognac’ I consumed “Slovak Chips” (labeled in English for some reason) and played a rousing game of billiards.  Like Popeye and his spinach I discovered that alcohol aroused in me a latent power – the ability to communicate fluently with anyone despite language- and the rest of the night proceeded as it might have, were in an English-speaking country.  Once we were all quite good and drunk we changed venues to the ‘bread house’, the happening Nitra nightspot.  I was pushed in the direction of some friend of a friend who knew English and introduced me to a score of girls, identifying some as “these ones will fuck you if you don’t mind how they look” to which I responded that I always mind how they look.  He raised his shoulders as if to say, to each his own.  I had a charming conversation in broken English with a fifteen year old girl who was hunting for a permanent boyfriend and could barely contain her excited embarrassment to be speaking with me.  She was so innocently endearing I couldn’t help my drunkenly sappy self from gently squeezing her cheek.  My path occasionally crossed with Harvey, a plaid shorts wearing, spiky haired blonde punk who spoke no English but “Mother Fucker!” and “blowjob”.  He would yell the first with emphasis on the ‘uh’ and tried to convince me to use the second as a pickup line on the local girls.  I also recall spending a good five minutes (thirty maybe?) intermittently observing from five feet and dancing, pressed firmly against, an attractive dark haired Slovak girl who spoke wonderful English (the oddity of which did not occur to me until the next day).
At some point I discovered that Lucas, Dusan, Matus and everyone else I knew from before had vanished.  In an only semi-concerned panic I searched the entire place for a friendly face, only to find Harvey in the last corner I checked.  Harvey and I spent the next thirty minutes or so wandering the club while he consoled me by discussing the merits of various females, encouraged me to pursue blowjobs, and occasionally demonstrated how to get a female’s attention.
Eventually Lucas arrived, after having walked an ex-girl friend all the way to his house (appx 30 minute walk) with sexual intents, running into his father who was still awake and walking the girl all the way back to the club.

June 7th
We arose at a decent hour in order to travel with Lucas’ parents to visit his grandparents in Piestany.  In what was typical of eastern European ‘casual wear’, his grandmother answered the door in a shirt and her underwear.  After dressing, she was an exceedingly sprite and charming old woman.  His grandfather, who had been a member of the first Slovak senate after the Russians left, argued politics in Slovak with Lucas’ father.  We lounged on the back porch, nicely shaded from the gradually declining heat while Lucas soothed a mild hang over and I conjured the ‘beer shit’ that would save me from the unsettling rumblings emanating from deep within.
For lunch, I was introduced to a variety of Slovak dishes which I politely entertained to the best of my post-binging capacity.  A liberating use of the facilities later, we strolled along a near-by river into the heart of Piestany (pee esh tany).  Unlike Nitra, Piestany is beautiful, decorated with expanses of massive-treed parks, a river, cosmetically crafted buildings, an attractive pedestrian downtown area and a renowned healing hot spring spa complex.  Lucas and I walked and discussed a myriad of topics from Stanley Kubric and Martin Scorcese (whom he has a wonderfully clear understanding of) to an analysis of the behavior of our peers at the school.  I was impressed in seeing a side of Lucas that he would not reveal around his peers at school or in Nitra.  I attributed his strongly affected uncultured-tough-guy persona to guilt and a need to fit in with the under-privileged crowd I had witnessed in Nitra.  We passed the evening playing computer games and watching an independent English movie on an ‘artistic’ channel – a welcome break from the previous English options of CNN or the all-fashion-all-day channel.

June 8th
I recall playing computer games in the morning and then putting on swim trunks and getting a ride to “the lake”, basically a large hole dug out of loose dirt and filled with water.  We set up camp on one end of the lake (where there were trees growing and it was generally pleasant.  We lounged around and went into the water while Lucas intermittently talked to his friends on his cellphone.  Eventually we determined that they had arrived and set themselves up at the other end of the lake.  As we walked along the side of the lake we came to the realization of just how big it was.  We reached the other end, where cars attempting to double park kicked up large quantities of dust from the arid, barren earth.  With still no sign of the elusive friends we continued around the other side of the lake until we eventually, sliding down a dirty slope, found them.  Lucas plopped down in the only open space of ground and I wandered around the other side of some people that appeared to be part of the group and laid out my own towel.  I then proceeded to spend the next few hours completely alone within my own head, while a band of massive skin heads lounged in the muddy water and everyone else sat on the ‘bank’ and spoke in Slovak.  A nasty little mutt that desperately needed to be hurled into the water snarled, yapped and arrogantly strode his filthy paws over the top of anything he pleased, including my towel.  The bank at this end of the lake was much steeper and I found my limits of exploration were narrow.  I spent as much time as I could languishing in the water, the rest of my time was spent laying on the steep bank, imperceptibly sliding towards the water.  I tried not to feel hungry or thirsty and secretly rooted for Dusan, who became involved in a rather heated debate with Lucas regarding the ownership of a sandwich, believing that a hungry Lucas would be more inclined to leave sooner rather than later.
Eventually, as the sun was lowering in the sky, I was packed into a tiny red eastern European made car with Dusan, Ricard, Matus and the basketball player.  We rumbled along a dirt road behind other, departing autos and ate so much dust that I could grind it between my teeth and taste it on my tongue.  Once we were on a ‘main’ road and had picked up some speed, Dusan spotted a line of female bicyclists, the rear member of which was wearing a thong bikini (everyone wears thongs in Europe).  He relayed his intentions to Ricard who swerved the car within spanking range.  Dusan leaned out the window and with a mighty smack gave the unsuspecting girl an open hand across her buttocks.  The reciprocating yelp reminded me of a startled dog and threw the car (myself included) into hysterics.  I arrived home an hour earlier than Lucas but passed the time happily on his laptop with Warcraft III.  Lucas arrived and reported that his father had admonished him for abandoning me to which I told him not to worry.  For dinner we had a traditional Slovak dish of potato lumps and goat’s cheese.  I more than made up for the points I had lost in refusing catsup spaghetti the night before by claiming my exuberant taste for the dish.  It really was rather tasty.

June 9th
Some time after noon I parted with Lucas, who had to stay in Nitra for his driving school lessons, and his father and I drove to Kosice.  At the school I had a reputation as being the unhinged driver and some of the students felt uneasy driving with me, but in Slovakia the word daring has a completely different meaning and I give myself credit for not openly sweating or otherwise betraying my moments of terror more than the phantom break-pedal I executed during a critical moment of truck passing excitement.  It was raining heavily when we arrived in Kosice and located the apartment building that most likely housed my next host, Tom.  Standing on the stoop with Lucas’ father watching, I helplessly began pressing all of the unlabeled buzzer buttons on the panel.  Luckily Tom’s mother responded to the second button.  I ran my bags out of the car, careful to circumnavigate the massive puddles reaching for my feet.  Tom was at the park, waiting for the rain to abate before walking home.  I was pleased to discover that Tom and his parents had discussed my visit in depth and had a slew of potential activities planned.  I was also pleased to discover that they were extremely pleasant, English-speaking Americans.

June 10th
Toured Kosice, a city nice enough that as long as I stayed in the downtown I felt like I was in Europe without the ‘eastern’ prefix being necessary.  There was even a cathedral, albeit a rather small one.  I played scrabble that night with Tom’s parents; I showed them how it’s done and learned a new word from the official scrabble guide which I used to amazing results; qaid – although I haven’t any idea what it means.  I believe that it was also on this day that we began what would become a regular movie-athon including Chocolate, Higher Learning, Miss Congeniality, Unbreakable, perhaps more…

June 11th
Tom played tennis, as he did most days.  I had my hair cut at a local salon, populated solely by thin, well tanned girls, for a rock bottom price complete with two hand-washings.  I was amazed at how, yet again, the Slovaks were unable to make change for larger bills.  While waiting, I calculated that if they had completed just nine comparably priced hair cuts before mine they should have enough cash on hand to make my change.  As it was close to two in the afternoon and business did not appear to be slow I could not see how there could be a problem; I suppose I’ll simply attribute it to Slovak math and leave it at that.  That night Tom and I had planned to meet his parents out at the Irish pub but instead played Perfect Dark all evening, from dinner time to past midnight, on his Nintendo 64.

June 12th
Today Marek, Mr. Pavia’s driver picked me up and took me to the steel factory.   Unsure about my interests, I was passed over to the head of the IT department who had very little to show me, basically a room full of very large computers.  The most interesting thing he had to explain was how the fire prevention system was able to remove nearly all of the oxygen from the central computer area (a number of rather large rooms) in a matter of moments.  After IT, Mr. Pavia, Marek and I went for a driving tour around the facility where we saw heaps of ore and similarly dirty minerals, and lots of pipes, tubes, tanks and massive shadowy buildings.   The gas recycling system was impressive; the boilers can run on nearly any substance known to burn, including all of the facility’s gaseous by-products.  We stopped to enter a building where white hot slabs of steel were being rolled out of an inferno, stamped and stacked to cool.   Following that adventure we had lunch with a few VPs and tried to make small talk.  The rest of the day was spent watching movies at rest and the evening was punctuated by a gathering at the tratoria.  The tratoria was a favorite restaurant located in a village approximately a half an hour to the north.  We were the last of a large party to arrive and I was introduced to a slew of people; employees of the tratoria and American friends from the US Steel community (which I couldn’t distinguish from the locals until everyone actually sat down).  I found myself at one head of a very long table.  On my left was Tom, and around us were all of the youngest occupants of the table.  A precocious and polite boy sat to my right and said very little the entire meal.  His mother dominated the conversation on our end of the table for most of the evening and directed it mostly toward the other adults, away from myself.  This arrangement allowed me plenty of opportunity to sip my way through a few large beers and screw around with Tom in low voices.  Between guffaws and giggles he tried to maintain a credible public face for the others.  As the sun was slowly dying in an orange grave Tom made incessant observations of a particularly large and feisty insect which often paid us visits to see what we were doing.  “Is it a bee,” he worried.  With a heroic backhand I caught the massive bug mid flight and sent it crashing onto a wide brick set in the grass.  We both chuckled as I gloated over my prowess and patronizingly rose to determine if it was indeed of the bee persuasion.  With surprise I discovered and declared that it was indeed a very large bee.  Tom implored me to kill it but as I looked upon its agitated and overturned form I fancied I would let it live and I expressed my intentions.  “But I’m allergic to bees!” Tom declared.  “Oh, yeah,” I remembered and with a deft stomp the danger was subdued.  The meal then proceeded with the hype, arrival, and criticism of a rather ordinary herb butter.  Mixed sliced meats were also served and, as a result of my not wanting to see any of the delectable morsels go to waste, I began to wonder with trepidation how big my salmon fettuccini would prove to be.  The conversation tended after the hansom young man, by all appearances, including his dialect, to be a surfer dude, sitting with his sister beyond the young boy.  Apparently the lad was attending MIT and planned to go to medschool but my incredulity was maintained throughout the evening due to a lack of hard evidence that he was more intelligent than he appeared.  I later had a conversation with the equally incredulous Tom along the lines of unremarkable people arriving in apparently remarkable situations – he initiated the conversation but I indulged it with gusto, eager in my inebriated state, to educate the younger generation.
My fettuccini was particularly heavy and, along with what I seem to recall being my third half liter of beer, it caused my stomach to press uncomfortably against the confines of my skin.
Many hours later, as the party made its way haltingly, amidst joyous hugs with the establishment’s owners, toward the door, Tom and I discussed the surprising unattractiveness (and unexpected shortness) of MIT’s sister, although I must note that Tom had an annoying and paranoid habit of begging me to speak in a softer voice.  An exuberant Slovak imposed a tumbler of lemon flavored spirits upon me which I begrudgingly imbibed.  The car ride back I kept quiet just in case I would otherwise be perceived as perhaps having had more than an acceptable quantity of alcohol; Tom’s parents got in a bit of an argument and facilitated my intentions by killing the general mood for conversation.  After returning home, Tom’s father rather seemed to encourage the idea of the two of us visiting the local Irish pub (which I not so discreetly encouraged myself) to the point of stuffing a wad of cash into the hands of his overly hesitant son.  Tom was a bit of a wet blanket, refusing to drink anything after noticing coworkers of his father’s present at the pub (I didn’t even attempt to broach the idea of joining the dance floor).

June 13th
What I came to refer to as Tom and Tony’s big day out; this Friday we had Marek and the Audi A6 for the day.  First we drove to a little town where both Mr. Pavia and the president of Slovakia got their suits.  The Slovak woman taking my measurements was apparently having so much fun she called in a friend while I modeled my suit vest without the aid of a shirt.  Tom became overly self conscious and I departed to find a bathroom while he had his own measurements taken.  The wonderful women made adjustments to my suit while Marek and I found a change kiosk and I changed 100 Euros into Crowns.  After purchasing my suit we drove to a nearly ruined castle / museum, took some pictures and putzed around for a while.  We killed time to give Marek a chance to socialize a bit with his in-laws, who lived close by, and then called him to come pick us up (I figured he probably didn’t want too much time).  We then drove to a traditional Slovak restaurant where I had Perogies.  After returning to Kosice we went to the movie theater to watch Shanghai Knights which had only been subtitled into Slovak because the Slovaks are too poor to dub movies.  The theater seemed proud to display any promotional material even if it was for movies many years old.

June 14th
Saturday, the day of the US Steel tennis tournament.  Tom left early and his parents and I strolled over a little later to catch the end of his first game.  I spent most of the day kicking around the tennis courts and moving from the sun (which was too hot) to the shade (which was too cold).  I wandered into town later in the day to buy a bottle of whisky for Antonio’s father (on a tip from Antonio who told me a little gift was a sure thing for easing my way into the role of favored guest), although I felt stupid needing to borrow cash from Tom’s father (I was out of crowns and I paid him back in Euros).  We finished the day with a company Barbecue.  Trophies were presented and Tom and his partner had won first place; as the day wore on and all of their older competitors grew tired, the younger guys became increasingly dominant.  Tom’s parents researched the train schedules for me and planned-out seeing me off the next morning.

June 15th
Rather early in the morning Mr. Pavia drove me to the train station which was right down the street.  Although I was able to deduce the correct tunnel, Mr. Pavia still thought it best to ask someone where we needed to go.  We said our good-byes and I was told to keep in touch and then I was on my own again.  The train ride must have been the most flawless of my travels because I can’t remember a thing about it but that I thought to myself that Sunday was certainly the day to travel by train in Europe.  I arrived in the dreaded East Train station of Budapest where Antonio had instructed me to speak to no one and to wait for him at a particular café.  I found the café and was in the process of dragging my four bags to a table when a waiter informed me that I could not leave my things there.  I asked him if I could be served a beer and he was suddenly quite accommodating.  I expected my wait to be over an hour as Antonio had scoffed at the idea of waking up at 10:00 to be in Budapest by 11:00, but it was not long before he arrived.
We carried my bags to his car where his best friend, Tomas was waiting.  My first impression of Tomas was as a thin, wiry, and cosmetically unattractive young man who spoke absolutely no English.  He also came across as being a closet homosexual.  Antonio informed me that the trip to Budapest was not only to pick up me but to offer Tomas an opportunity to do some (shoe) shopping.  We spent a good deal of time wandering around in an indoor shopping mall becoming progressively bored.  Finally we emerged, after Tomas had bought both shoes and pants and we did a little walking in downtown Budapest.  My first indication that perhaps I had an uncomfortable week ahead of me occurred when a girl sitting outside of a strip club called to us and my companions asked me if I wanted to go into the strip club.  I told them I did not but it took a few minutes to convince them that perhaps something like that would be better considered some time later than 2 in the afternoon.  I had not yet, and for many years later, visited a strip club, in any country.
We soon departed for Donajuvaros (new Danube city) where I was introduced to Antonio’s nice, but not as large as I expected, house.  His mother quickly took to me, although we couldn’t really communicate; her affectionate smiles and occasional comments translated through Antonio showed her approval.  Mr. Sulak came home and cooked a large BBQ.  Perhaps in an effort to test the endurance of the young American guest (who was already two beers deep) I was toasted to shot after shot of extra powerful Hungarian schnapps.  There followed a very strange, yet perfectly enjoyable political discussion wherein Mr. Sulak and I communicated via Antonio.  My brain was loose enough that I really felt as if I was speaking directly with Mr. Sulak.  As dinner finished and we made to leave to meet up with Tomas, Mr. Sulak warned me not to vomit on the walls, as they would be difficult to clean.  I informed him that it would take at least three more shots of his strongest schnapps before that was even a consideration.
Donajuvaros proved to be less interesting than Nitra and we visited a few dead bars before heading home, walking along nondescript and empty roads long after midnight.  Then Antonio and Tomas had a bright idea, we should visit Blue Eyes (yes, in English), a local strip club they had never visited.  I conceded when I realized there would be no hope of returning home just yet and I had no chance of finding my way back alone.  When we entered Blue Eyes we found it to be a rather small room furnished with couches and a tiny stage with a pole in one corner.  Three girls were the only people in the building and two of them were sleeping.  When they heard us come in, they all got up and took off their shirts so as to be in only their bras.  One of the girls took off her pants and rocked about on the stage while another brought us a drink menu and explained to Antonio and Tomas that the Champagne was “a half an hour” and the Champagne with fruit was “a whole hour” but that they were strictly to be consumed off of the premises.  So that explained why there was no real stripping going on; we weren’t in a strip club, we were in a whore house.  The girl finished ‘dancing’ and put her pants back on, Antonio and Tomas spoke with each other in Hungarian and I considered, sleepily, how tired I was.  Then Tomas defied my expectations and went home with the ‘dancer’.  Deprived of our friend, Antonio and I were finally able to go home to bed.

June 16th
I awoke before Antonio and I was shown to the garage where a number of bicycles and motorcycles were stored and told that I could take any of them out.  Tempted, but not comfortable with motorcycles, I chose a bike and rode around town and found my way to the industrial loading yard on the Danube river.  I rode back through a strange park decorated with random three dimensional modern art and sporadic swarms of tiny insects.  We drove to visit Rita at her house and spent an hour or so sitting in her beautiful yard and talking.  Then it was back to the wonderful world of Antonio where we did some cruising with the windows down and our stereo turned up much too loudly and then met up with Tomas and his girlfriend (lucky girl) and drove to some town (I don’t remember why).  I was surprised that Tomas could have such a cute, young (and ignorant) girlfriend, although she seemed a little overly petulant.  We did a little bar-hopping that evening and I was thoroughly ready to move on to Balaton.

June 17th
That morning I was treated to Antonio and his mother arguing for half an hour while we sat around the pool.  We finally left so that I could change my money into forints.  In the car Antonio explained how his parents were driving him crazy and he was well beyond ready to move out.  I couldn’t help but remember that he had spent the last six years in a boarding school where he basically had been ‘moved out’.  We cruised again and I slid deep into my seat as Antonio fancied himself the coolest guy in Hungary.  We met up with Gabor, a friend of Antonio’s who spoke English and actually came across as being a normal guy, and Tomas who was accompanied that evening by his ‘mistress’ and her friend.  Tomas’ mistress was yet another attractive girl and her existence was unknown to his girlfriend; I began to look for the little horns that must be hiding under Tomas’ hair.  We stopped by the infamous ‘music school,’ a building to which Tomas had a key; he and Antonio reputedly used the building to seduce many a young girl.  After spending enough time at a café to get me rather drunk (in the company of Antonio and Tomas it seemed to take quite a bit more to get me jolly) we moved on to a disco.  I spent the first half of my time there begrudgingly waiting while Antonio desperately pursued his lofty goal of getting some sex very soon.  I was shortly approached by a pair of girls determined to communicate with me but speaking halting English.  I grabbed a passing Antonio and demanded to know what was going on.  He was characteristically cagey and only expressed excitement that I would be soon having a chance to utilize the music school  The first girl, who possessed the body of a runway model, demanded that we speak out side.  I was confused and uncomfortable until I realized that she was speaking to me on behalf of her dopey younger sister who apparently found me attractive.  Aha, this was more familiar ground.   The older sister took my email address into her friend’s phone (why, at the time, I could not fathom). I spoke a bit with Antonio, who was excited for me and getting nowhere himself.  By this point both of the girls were outside and Antonio encouraged me to ask them if they wanted to go to the music school.  Unsure, exactly, what was going on, and thinking perhaps this was all part of some scripted game, I gave in and asked them.  They expressed confusion and I quickly wrote off the comment before they had a chance to realize what it implied and encouraged them to return indoors to dance.  We went back in and I indulged the younger sister who was dressed very conservatively and was in general quite unfashionable.  We danced for a while and, alone, went back outside.  She attempted to communicate for a while and I felt for the poor girl who was obviously nervous.  She flat out asked me if I would kiss her and, seeing that no one else was around to interfere and afraid to offend the foreigner, I indulged her – it had, after all, been quite a long time for me.  We went back inside, danced a little more, kissed again and then I left with Antonio and Tomas.  As we waited outside for a taxi, Antonio spotted the girls leaving and called the younger sister over.  Ashamed for my friend who was simply playing a joke, I gave her a hug and gently dismissed her.

June 18th
Finally the day arrived to drive to the Hungarian hot spot, lake Balaton.  Mr. Sulak chose the moment Antonio and I were coming to say goodbye to get completely naked at the pool.  Antonio asked me if I wasn’t going to thank his father and shake his hand and I asked him if I should do it immediately – Antonio looked to where I was looking and conceded that perhaps I should wait a minute for his father to find some shorts.  We loaded the car with all of my luggage, as I would be leaving directly from Balaton.  Gabor dropped out of his plans to accompany us and once again it was me, Antonio and Tomas.  A few hours later we arrived at the main city at the north end of the lake where we picked up a girl who I was horrified to discover was another mistress of Tomas’.  She was also rather attractive although her short, crimson, spiky hair led me to wonder about her emotional condition.  Of all the girls, this one seemed to be the one Tomas liked best and Antonio told me he had been hooking up with her for a long time.  “He even got her pregnant once.”  Wonderful, I thought, it’s like fairy-tale love.  Although I would spend four days with the girl, I made a point of not knowing her name, which was surprisingly easy as Antonio seemed to make a point of not telling me.  We continued further south to Tomas’ grandmother’s place, a dumpy little building with the most horrible décor I have ever seen (I think it is safe to say that generally neither Antonio or I could ordinarily care less about decoration but yet we were both appalled).  The bathroom was attached to the building but you had to go outside to get to it.  I spent a lot of time sitting around while Antonio and Tomas’ bitch (for her, I made a special case of adopting the term ‘bitch’, which European boys use to describe any unmarried woman) smoked and the three of them spoke to each other in Hungarian.  I felt a little left out until I imagined what inane, and even unpleasant, topics they must be discussing; nearly every conversation I had with Antonio began with his asking me, “would you fuck her?” (I’m completely serious).  Evening came and, in a huff, Antonio told me that Tomas didn’t want to go out that night.  Yippee! I thought.  “We’ll have to stay out until the next train comes back at 4:30 tomorrow morning.”  “No problem,” I responded, willing to do anything to get out of the sickening presence of Tomas – perhaps the worst “Adrian” I had ever had the displeasure of observing first hand.
On the train, we drank Slovak schnapps donated by Mr. Pavia (taking a shot at every stop) and arrived back in the main town around 10:00 and, perhaps out of relief, I found that I was having a highly enjoyable time just soaking in the ‘spring break’ atmosphere.  We stopped into a tiny casino that had an automatic roulette table.  This would prove to be a regular stop for us every night we were in town.  Although I often fronted a 500 forint bill, the stakes were, in reality, quite low and although I won continually all weekend, I made less than $10.  We then visited the Spaghetti House, a liquor and dancing establishment (as are nearly all establishments in Balaton) where I capped my inebriation and Antonio and I had an entertaining conversation on the topic of money and power (which seem to be Antonio’s favorite topics, second only to casual sex).  The dancing scene was pathetic that night in the Spaghetti House so we moved on to La Siesta after scoping out the beachfront scene.  La Siesta was happening, the upper story room was packed with dancing people and we managed to while away most of the rest of the evening.
By 4:30 we were on the train and we took turns falling asleep and waking each other up out of paranoia over missing our stop.  Around 5:00, the sun long since risen, we arrived at our stop and spent an agonizing 15 minutes searching for our house on the nondescript residential roads.  Although Antonio was already cranky, I couldn’t help but mention that being he had been here many times before he should know where the house was located.

June 19th
I have very few notes regarding this day.  We slept fitfully in our crappy little beds and awoke sometime around 1:00 when Tomas and his bitch were cooking lunch.  Antonio wanted to go fishing; spending some quality time with the lake itself sounded like a good idea.  Apparently the lake did not feel like having some quality time; the wind blew so hard over its surface that a full can of beer Tomas had set down on the dock was blown over and into the surging waters below.  For some reason his bitch was determined to save the beer and allowed herself to be lowered down to retrieve it.  Antonio scared me a few times by flicking around his hooked line in the face of the powerful wind and eventually we gave up and went back.  We decided to stay in as it was only a Thursday and not much would be going on in town.

June 20th
Once again Antonio became fed up with the womanly caprice of his best friend, who seemed unable to commit to any course of action, and the two of us were on our own again.  We drove along the lake to a hotel Antonio’s father had once been a part owner of.  At the end of a dike protecting into the mouth of a harbor Antonio set up two fishing poles and I took off my shirt to enjoy the beautiful day.  The old couple ten yards away hauled in fish after fish and we began to wonder what could be wrong with our own lines.  Eventually, our luck changed and Antonio began to reel in some little whitish yellow fish.  Antonio made some phone calls and arranged for us to stay at a family friend’s house.  We arrived in the main town and took a midday walk along a touristy shopping street.  Everything was going along fine until we passed a toy vender on our way back.  We stopped so that Antonio could pick up a plastic toy AK-47.  He cocked it, pointed it past me and pulled the trigger.  It released a powerful burst of air that surprised us both.  He then cocked it again and stuck it in my face and pulled the trigger again.  I was instantly stung on the chin and recoiled in pain.  When I looked up Antonio was engaged in a heated discussion with a woman sitting on a plastic chair across the avenue.  Perhaps she was scolding him for shooting me, I thought.  I waited for him to finish with the woman and pointed out that he had shot me in the face with a plastic BB.  He informed me that the woman was angry because he had hit her in the back of the head with his first shot.  I asked if my skin was swelling and Antonio cringed and expressed that he might be feeling a little shame over shooting me.  Jesus, I thought, shame in the shameless, it must be bad, yet no blood appeared on my prodding fingers.  I checked my face in the rear-view of a car and found that a nasty red spot ringed in white was developing.  Next, we went into a florist to buy flowers for our hostesses (the sisters lived together).  I was accused of being cheap when I asked if it was necessary to buy two bouquets and I was feeling rather irritated with my host when we finally left.
We arrived at the house and met the friend’s sister, Zu Za, a once attractive woman in her late forties (and yes, Antonio did ask me if I would fuck her).  Just after we had arrived and were moving our bags into the very nice house, Antonio’s father called and told Antonio he had arranged for us to stay in a hostel right next to the center of the action in the main town.  We drank Hungarian white wine and wasted entirely more time than I would have liked in a house we weren’t even going to stay in.
Next we went to our hostel, an old almost Victorian style building in a hostel park right off the main downtown street.  We left our belongings and went to dinner at an American style Diner across the street.
After dinner, the sun had gone down and we set out to kill time until the scene warmed up.  Walking to the pier, we ran into two girls, Andi and Judith, who Antonio knew from somewhere.  They looked to be around 16 and were quite cute and Andi even spoke English.  Antonio discovered that they had no place to go and were planning to take the 4:30 train home as we had done previously.  He told them that we had an extra bed in our room (which we did, although we could have had two extra beds or even an extra room if he hadn’t opted to decline the hostel’s original offering).  They took us up on the offer and for the rest of the evening they were with us.  Andi was a friendly, squeaky-voiced blonde girl who, although flirtatious, was incredibly uptight about herself, refusing to dance in close contact, talk about Tomas without shuddering, etc.  Judith had slightly crossed eyes, wore thick glasses whenever the importance of sight outweighed coolness and spoke little due to the language barrier.  We all went back to the beach club and danced for a while.  An American serviceman from Sarejevo, probably hearing our English, approached Antonio and I and asked if we could show him and his friend around.  We agreed.  Deeply envious of our girls, Adam and Russ were excessively grateful and determined not to overstep themselves.  Adam was a polite, burly, blonde kid from the south, engaged to his sweetheart and desperate even to touch a female after months in the compound.  Russ was a tall, lanky, and rather shy.  I wondered just how long Antonio would put up with them.  After we finally convinced Andi to dance up on a stage with Judith, we had a raucous conversation with some old, drunk Germans in which a joke nearly ended in my being choked and, finally, we departed.  We sent Adam and Russ ahead to La Siesta while we took the girls to move their belongings into our room.  At this point Adam and Russ knew we could ditch them if we wanted to, so when we arrived at La Siesta, their apprehensions died.  We all danced inside for a while and eventually I discovered everyone had moved outside.  It was around midnight and someone mentioned swimming in the lake.  I thought it was a great idea and swept the girls off to the room so we could change into our swimming suits while the guys sat around and pondered being drunk.  When we arrived at the hostel compound the usual gate was locked and we wandered for ten minutes trying to find a way in.  Finally I took matters into my own hands and lifted the girls, one at a time over a low point in the spiked wrought iron fence, before they could object.  Accompanied by bathing suit clad girls, I returned to the guys, determined to continue to the water.  Adam joined us but Antonio and Russ waffled and were left behind.  At the water, we narrowly lost Andi, who was beginning to chicken out with complaints of coldness and a hesitance to wade the long distance to deeper water.  Sensing immanent defeat, I picked her up in my arms and rushed her out to deeper water, while Adam did the same with Judith.  We frolicked for a while but Andi was still cold and Judith was worried about her purse (which she had brought along and left on the shore) so we soon left the water.
After we dried off, we couldn’t find Antonio and Russ (who were off hitting the clubs and actually having a good time together; I think Antonio felt like he was taking Russ under his wing to teach him how to be a swinger) so we went to the 24 hour American diner where I quickly grew uncomfortable in my wet shorts on the vinyl seat.  We had a good conversation and I learned a bit about Adam and Andi.  Adam continued to hint that he and Russ had a big hotel room and we could all go there to hang out and anyone who wanted, could “crash” there, but no one really paid him any heed and, while Adam hadn’t been clever enough to secure his room key from Russ, I had made sure I took the key from Antonio.  We returned to the room and showered.  I had been going the past two weeks without a towel of my own with no problem but tonight I dried myself with the outside of my comforter before climbing into bed.  I was happily on the verge of sleep and Adam was still hanging about when Antonio returned home (a little cranky and quite drunk) and suggested Adam get lost.
Antonio then, awkwardly, tried to convince Judith to come to bed with him, got angry and went to sleep.  The girls were apparently uncomfortable sharing a twin bed and realized they could catch the 4:30 train because shortly thereafter they gathered their belongings and left.

June 21st
That morning Tomas arrived with my suit (which I had left in his place) and then left again.  The plan was that he would stay that night with us but he was apparently called back to Donajuvaros on business (he was a musician who played weddings).  I had no qualms as I really only anticipated his arrival out of love for my suit.  By noon Antonio and I were up in order to make it to ZuZa’s house for a lunch appointment.  When we arrived there were many old people present.  We sat around for an hour and I spent the whole time wondering why nobody was cooking lunch.  Finally the group of us set out on foot to the lake shore where there was a ‘hut’ style restaurant.  I had no idea what to order, and going off an apparent suggestion by Antonio and what appeared to be one of the cheaper items on the menu, I ordered a fried Zander fish.  I was warned that it would be large, to which I responded that I was very hungry.  I then waited for over a half an hour while everyone else was served and consumed goulash (soup).  My fish arrived on a large wooden platter.  It was easily over a foot long, even curled up as it was, although that is including the head and tail, which were still attached.  Adding pressure to the task ahead of me, Antonio informed me that the fish was very expensive and the price listed was per unit of weight.  I made a valiant attempt and finished much more than I expected, although I rather regularly had to report to my concerned hosts that I did indeed like it; and like it I did, for the first fifteen minutes, but after that the taste began to grow tedious I thanked god I had the foresight, at least, to ask for a side of rice.  An ugly old man with a hideously distended gut teased me for not finishing and then swiped the tail, which was extra fish mass I was thankful to see removed from my plate.
We walked back to the house and engaged in a little more agonizing Hungarian chit chat, during which time the ugly old man with the huge gut pulled up his shirt and rubbed the gut like it was a giant fleshy, verrucose orb.  I propped my arm up strategically on the table to obscure my view of his purple, protruding belly button.  Finally, we drove back to the hostel where we met Roland, a big goofy guy and his little Arabic-looking friend.  They went out and bought some Bacardi and Coke although I was determined to drink only the beers which I had already paid for.  I convinced them that it would be better to drink outside in one of the gazeboes than in the room so we went out and set ourselves up.
There was a large group of German high school students playing volleyball in the adjacent beach volleyball court and we entertained ourselves by becoming ardent spectators.  Once again, as I became drunk, I was able to bridge the language barrier and communicate with Antonio’s Hungarian friends.  We had a good time and I decided that although Roland and his little buddy were hopeless (and ineffective) womanizers they were by no means as depraved as Tomas.
After the rum ran out we left the hostel and somehow Antonio and I separated from the other two.  We stopped by the roulette house and I had my best night yet, doubling my money!  Eventually we made our way over to the spaghetti house (where I seem to remember meeting up with Roland again).  Antonio and the other two drank some more while I went solo across the mildly crowded dance floor trolling for girls.  Drunk and naturally shy as I was I would dance up alongside a prospective female and observe her reaction before moving on.  I couldn’t believe my luck when a tall blonde seemed to have taken notice of me.  My only obstacle seemed to be the even taller male who appeared to be with her.  Finally, in the critical moment, I made my move to dance with her and he made his move to push me away.  I backed off and she appeared to scold him.  Then she leaned in and shouted something in Hungarian in my ear.  I explained that I spoke English and she informed me that she attended University in England.  She then asked me if I lived in England and seemed disappointed when I told her I was from the States.  About that time Antonio arrived and announced that we were moving on to our old favorite, La Siesta.  I gave the girl (Kate) a hopeless look and she told me that she and her friends would be moving to La Siesta soon themselves.  I told her I would find her and we left.
I hung about near the stairs in La Siesta for a while, having decided it was time to stop drinking for the evening, and Kate soon arrived with her friends.  We danced as a group for a while and then they went back down stairs, Kate telling me she would return soon.  I whiled away a half an hour with Antonio, who was growing bored, and ran into our old friends Adam and Russ.  Antonio and I strolled outside, where I spotted the girl sitting at a table with a big group.  We walked to the outer edge of the plaza and played a few games of air hockey (a further installment in a little competition between Antonio and I that was on its third day).  Antonio expressed a desire to move on to another location and we strolled away.  We peeked in on another place and I told him I was going back.  I made eye contact with Kate who waved me back into La Siesta.  We went inside and just the two of us danced in close accord for the rest of the night.
When it was time for her to leave, I kissed her forehead and said goodbye.  I ran into Adam and Russ, who evidently had been watching me over the course of the night, and Adam effluently told me that I had “a gift.”  Russ expressed vicarious anger at my not getting any further action on the evening but I assured him that it was OK.  I made a half-hearted attempt to find Antonio and then, by 2:30, I went back to the room and crawled into bed.
At 3:30 the Hungarians returned, all three of them, and they proceeded to talk (if you can call their excited monkey-speak talking), nonstop, till 5:00 at which point in time I got up and took my shower for the next morning, figuring I might as well get ready for the next day (and my early train ride to Budapest) being I was obviously not going to have a chance to sleep.  I planned to proceed next to the diner to get some breakfast but when I emerged the Hungarians had gone to sleep (the little guy sitting up on the end of the bed for lack of a better place) and I too went back to bed.

June 22nd
Still in the A.M. I got up and looked spitefully at Antonio’s big sleeping head wishing him fretful sleep yet hoping that he would awaken in time to take me to the train station.  I walked across the street to the diner and ordered pancakes and, in the process, realized that I knew how to say ‘orange juice’ in Hungarian (naranqes).  My stomach was already growing tight for the big journey ahead of me (I had less than twenty four hours to make it to the Vienna airport for my flight home).  I had managed to avoid breaking into my wad of 500 Euro bills and had, in fact, managed to keep their very existence hidden from my host.  This had not been easy; on a daily basis Antonio reminded me how I was saving money by staying at his house or his friend’s house and forced me, aside from pitching in for gas and food, to buy him food and drinks on demand.  Although we both had the same amount of money in our final days in Balaton, he was determined to convince me to take out more money.  He even told me, after helping me buy my train ticket (which I barely convinced him to do) that perhaps I should get more cash in case I was surprised by any further expenses while on the train.  I told him there should be no reason for further expenses if I already had my ticket and he became angry and frustrated.  Eventually I put together the intelligence I had been subjected to over the preceding days; his constant desire to save his own money while calling me a “jew” and persuading me that I needed to pay more, and his bold edicts that he was determined to have sex on this trip; I realized that he was planning to purchase the services of a prostitute if his own efforts proved futile.  At one point, I think it may have even been just after breakfast, when he once again commented on my Semitism, I informed him of my theory.  He simply smiled and paused in the discourse.
I was eventually able to get the bill from my inattentive waitress (don’t ask me how, but it took at least twenty minutes) and Antonio took me to the station and dropped me off, and in parting forced me to agree to host him when he visited California some time next year.  I lied like the ‘jew’ I was and told him that it would be no problem.
In exchange for a farcical George Bush themed political conversation in English/German pidgin, an old man told me what track my train would arrive on.

I drug my eighty pounds or so of luggage onto the first car of the train.  The interior seemed a bit roomy and I wondered if perhaps I was in first class.  I was delighted to find a large space in which I could stuff all of my cumbersome luggage and I figured, at the worst, someone would ask me to move.  Fifteen minutes later two women arrived speaking no English and wanting my ticket.  They seemed to think there was a problem.  A helpful German girl sitting nearby was able to translate and explained that my ticket from Balaton to Budapest required a seat reservation – a further 1000 forints, and that I was sitting in first class and would have to move.  I did my best to look pathetic while the German girl argued my cause to the ticket women.  Finally we agreed that I would pay the 1000 forints, which I had expected to pay back when I purchased the ticket, and they would let me stay where I was in first class.  I figured out that Antonio knew all about the seat reservation and cursed him (I think it was “fucking bastard”).
In the East Budapest train station I consulted the information desk to find out how to get to the West train station.  Luckily I had written down the Hungarian word for “West train station” (nyugati) because the woman’s English was not very good at all.  I followed her directions down to the subway (with all of my bags) and looked pathetic at the subway ticket booth, inciting the pity of a beautiful Hungarian girl who told me which train to take and which stop I needed to get off at to change subway lines to get on the train that would take me to the West station.  Then she told the ticket woman what ticket I needed (I looked really pathetic) and I bought my subway ticket.  After that I made my way to the West station without further hindrance.  Then I waited for three hours for the train to Bratislava.  I moved near the front of the train to make sure I was on a car that was actually leaving the station and then opted for the very first car when an entire grade school piled into the second and third cars.
The interior of the car was so dismal that I was convinced it couldn’t possibly be first class, so I settled down.  An old man arrived to share my booth.  After few stops a ticket checker came and told me to get out of first class.  I lugged my bags to the next car where I found an empty booth that was actually in better condition than the one I had just come from.  After a while the booth filled with four other people and a yellow puppy who liked to tumble over my shoe.
When I arrived in Bratislava at around 7:00 I was in much the same state of uncertainty as the first time I arrived in the fair city.  I had sent the Slays and email telling them I would arrive that day but I had not notified them of the time.  I gave a cabby their address and he eventually found their house at the top of a steep hill.  We unloaded my bags and I then proceeded to wait for nearly two hours because nobody was home.  I hiked around a bit in an adjacent woods, and growing thirsty, jumped the fence and helped myself to water from their hose.
The family finally arrived, along with Dalibor, in a taxi (because they don’t own a car) and Mrs. Slay was rather apologetic, telling me that they had simply given up on me.  Mr. Slay effected an immediate disappearance and Mrs. Slay warmed me up some pasta.  Mrs. Slay incited a brief period of panic by informing me that she didn’t think there were any airport shuttles to the Vienna airport (even though Bratislava is just as far away from the airport as Vienna itself) but Dali seemed to recall seeing something on-line and with the help of a computer I was saved.  Although it was nearly 10:00 by this time, Mrs. Slay made a phone call and was able to arrange for me to be picked up at 4:30 the next morning.  I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to pay my stay with entertaining anecdotes for the amusement of Mrs. Slay, Dalibor and Amy.  I hugged Amy goodbye, as it was past her bedtime, and, she being the last of the students I would see, I felt a sensation of closure to my European adventure.  The next day I would be flying home and permanently ending a distinct stage in my life.  A fat feline enamoured with my blankets made it clear that I would have company in my bed that night and I took a much needed shower before turning in for the evening.

Words learned (spelling is approximate / phonetic if necessary):

Slovak:
Prosim / Pro-seam                please / huh?
Dobre / doh-bray                 alright
Nie / ne-ay                             no
Ano                                        yes
pivo / pea-vo                        beer

Hungarian:
Naranq / narahnck               orange juice
Sur /  shur                              beer
Yo                                           great! / alright
Egen / eegen                         yeah / yes
Szeya / see-yah                    hello / goodbye (as in ‘see-ya’ later)
Chep / cheap                         sharp / biting

And I think Yogurt is the same word in every language

And the international beer challenge:

English – beer
German – bier
Spanish – cerveza
French – biere
Italian – birra
Slovak – pivo
Hungarian – sure

Yes that’s 7 and the majority of the civilized world