This Monday was a wet day, and much cooler. By acute observation, and luckily asking a lady who could speak English, I took a bus that went right back over the bridge. With another mission achieved, I returned to Klauzal ter, packed my rucksack - which suddenly had a 'heavy' day - and set off again for Deak ter and Nepstadion where I could get an express bus up to Eger. We had asked after this in a small Tourist Office the day before. It was still typical of such an official place that I got the clearest, most definite news from other customers, a young Hungarian couple who just happened to have travelled there recently, while the girl behind the desk only thought there might be this possibility and that possibility. Erzsi, half serious, had given me just one piece of advice, "Just be careful how you say bus, if you're looking for the bus stop. If you say it like English 'bus' it means something quite different, and they'll think you're one of those girls, you know. You have to say 'bus'," and she pronounced it the northern way."
So I emerged from the underground at Nep stadion, amongst the flower stalls, and soft drinks and snacks, and wondered where the bus station could be. Who should I ask? It's always quite a toss up. If uncertain I go for women with children, but they're not always the best travellers - even if I hope that's becoming an old-fashioned prejudice. I opted for a 50 year old man just ahead of me. His jaw set in a firmer line, his pace quickened. I must have said it wrong. I was not going to be outpaced; if he realised I had a backpack he'd know I was just a foreign idiot. I tried the word again, and tacked 'for Eger' on. He slowed and relaxed. "Deutsch?" he asked.
"Nein, aus England," I replied. And we were well away. He showed me a couple of buses standing, with Eger and times clearly signposted. Then he took me into a ticket office with computer screens and a queue. So I nearly missed the bus, as the office was only if I needed to book a ticket to go later on; as the bus was about to leave I ought to be in the queue outside. I spent time dreaming out of the bus window, willing it to draw closer to the low line of hills on the horizon. Budapest was great as cities go, but I can only see the straight lines of sky vertically above me for a few hours before wanting out. I perused the Rough Guide and sections on walks into the hills, and then in a touch of panic got serious with the list of guest houses, making a cross against those reasonably priced, trying to remember words like Vedeghazy. I had a session with my Berlitz phrasebook too. The most reasonable aim seemed to be to learn the letter sound correspondences, so that I'd have a chance of pronouncing the names of where I wanted to go. Once I'd found out that <s> corresponds to 'sh', and <sz> to 's', I started some intensive practice - this needed learning.
My trusty guidebook said Tourinform offices should be open till 6pm. My rucksack still had one of its really heavy days on, so in Eger bus station I decided to ask before I went the appealing way along a path across bright green mown grass, towards fine looking buildings in ochre yellow stone. The three young women looked at me, so I repeated in English, "Is this the way to the town centre, the tourist information?" And then to pin them down a little more, "English? Deutsch?"
"You want to go to the tourist information?" the one with blonde curls asked, with very little hesitation. "But it's nearly 5 o'clock, it'll be closed."
That wasn't what I wanted to hear, so I asked them to show me anyway. I might need it the next day after a night on the park bench. With the first move made, they were delightful, relieved to hear I was a teacher (respectable), surprised, encouraging.
"That's wonderful that you're doing this. You're very brave. I would like to try too, without my husband, or boyfriend, but."
"You speak very good English."
"I worked for the airlines," and she laughed and shook her blonde curls again. "It was very interesting. Now I stay at home." Several young women would say that.
They looked more like friends having an afternoon together, than as if they came from work, or looking after children. It did cross my mind, since I didn't feel that brave at all, that they might be interested enough to offer me a bed, but as we came out through the park gateway onto a pedestrian shopping street, they were keen to point to me the street I was looking for and walk with a wave in the opposite direction.
The side street felt older, with carved stone doorways. Of course the Tourinform was shut. I walked out towards the main square and took a few serious deep breaths. At least it was very pleasing, a wide, long expanse of cobbles, worthy of a major French square, with something like a fountain at the far end, and an imposing building on the right. To the left was a modern glass and metal shop frontage with benches, and the sun was still shining. The young man seated on one refused any sign of having understood my simple enquiry for a telephone. Did I want to go into expansive arm gestures again? I chose an older couple and she smiled and waved her arm vigorously back to the far corner of the square. And of course the telephone booths were right there. I was still confused - a whirr of new buildings, streets, directions. I told myself it was all perfectly simple. There was no need to feel sweaty and blurred and give into the ease of a hotel, especially as they were the sort of ridiculous price they are in England too.
Telephone card, a list of names in the accommodation booklet, a minute map of the town on the leaflet Erzsi had got me. No, I ought to see if I could check the road before I phoned so I wouldn't be miles out in a suburb, so I stepped back to let another man use the booth. I reorganised. Now if it's difficult to find a language people will respond to face to face, what'll happen over the phone?
"Hello, I need a room for the night."
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"
It was easy as that - contact, comprehension, and a room. They could put me up for two nights, more would be difficult. She would send her husband to collect me. We did some funny descriptions - small dark-haired woman with backpack, but not young; a man in his forties, casually dressed, to meet by the statue.
Surely I could now relax and find the time for an ice-cream; I joined the small group in front of the café, feeling almost in control again. The thirteen year olds, probably on their way back from a school trip, checked the cost of every combination of soft drink and ice, as money went from hand to hand. A man in a check shirt, brown blonde hair, early forties, strolled up to the statue. Time to go.
I had some wonderful hosts in Hungary. Erzsi was a delight of smiles and warmth, taking all of a few minutes to get over her shyness and chat away. In the car my new Vendeghazy (Bed and Breakfast) host pointed out important parts of Eger to me - the new community sports complex and swimming pool. It was going up in large red building blocks, with solid beams across, and red tiling on the roof. The detached houses that are now being built in Hungarian suburbs look much as they do in well-to-do Germany - is that the Hapsburg link, or the availability of modern building materials? "That looks very large for a town this size. Is it for the tourists too?" "Yes. But we need a large swimming pool. Most of the national water polo team comes from here." Except that in German it's 'Wasserball' and I was spending the next couple of streets trying to remember what that is in English. Waterball didn't sound serious enough for a national team. I am slightly nervous, too, of getting into a car with a man I don't know. The urge for self-protection clams me up. But he was only trying to point the castle out to me, and where the underpass made a short cut right into the town centre if I walked back. Out of politeness I asked him if he played. "Oh yes, I was in the team when I was younger. But not any more. We have a water polo team from Saarland coming to stay. That's why you can only stay two days. You know that, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," I nodded. It quite suited me to have to move on, perhaps to another village out of Eger, rather than just staying with what first turned up.
Above the castle we turned up a road lined with the small square single storied houses I came to associate with the older 'normal' parts of a village. Each has just a couple of metres of garden to the front and side, with more behind. Solid railings, high enough to keep a dog in, divided them from the pavement. Vines and fruit trees hung over; it felt lush and warm. I was impressed as we drove up into their street. There was middle-class individuality in the design of the heavy wooden eaves and windows, and care taken over the appearance of the massive front door; tubs of geraniums and oleanders, even the chain leading down from the gutter into a circle of pebbles: I could have been in the well-to-do suburbs of any western country. We went in up a wooden spiral staircase, hopping the missing step that he was just working on when I called. In front of me were the plain wooden doors that could have lead into any rooms in a modern house, but to the right was a surprise. Solid pillars of wood, four or five of them, rose in an open circle from the sunken floor to a high ceiling, and tall windows looked out onto the back garden. It was striking and pleasant. His wife came out of the kitchen with hand extended. "Mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht," she began by excusing herself, as so many Hungarians do. How can they worry when I obviously had only two words of Hungarian? She looked younger than her husband, but also with a slim athletic figure, and brown-blonde hair, very attractive and young to be the mother of the tall, teenage daughter and son who came and went through the door of the kitchen. With the wooden pillars, I felt a little nervous about the price. He deferred to his wife. "3.500 forints, with 500 for breakfast." It was very reasonable.
"I show you the room. Come with me." And the room upstairs was wonderful too; clean, light airy pine, with its own tiled shower and toilet. Ikea, or a home-grown version, must be nearby. Of course, rural traditional, unspoilt by tourism is my ideal - but for that I only wait on Fortune; while I wait, just give me Ikea. I looked out of the window onto the back garden - a well built terrace step, portable barbecue, and two white plastic loungers on the dark green rectangle of grass, that ended at the neighbour's house wall behind. Neighbours' gardens were either side, and that was the only difference to a house of this quality in England, it was in a terrace, and land was very restricted.
I felt comfortable, for my hosts Istvan and Erzsebet were genuinely friendly; and uncomfortable, for how many Hungarians were doing as well as this? But as a tourist I always will be living off the fat of the land. I was, too, when I was working on a local contract in Nigeria. It's very easy to become cynical about change in other countries, as well as in your own, and shut yourself off from the everyday details of ordinary people's lives, simply in self-defence. That evening, back down in the older buildings at the castle end of the town square, I found a good goulash with the pasta type bits that are a cross between the Spatzle that you get in south Germany and Austria, and chopped up noodles. The pasta was good ordinary food, all the better because I didn't know it was a speciality. The young waiter was a bit friendly but we couldn't say much, so then I really indulged in tourist chat and exchanged notes with the Norwegian couple on the neighbouring table. They had some special insights into the business meal going on in the centre of the room. "Can you guess? Those two are Hungarian, and they're Swedish. She's really trying to impress so they can get a deal going...."