today is my last day in hungary before i spend 10 hours on the train tomorrow to take me first to budapest and then prague. and, in fact, in less than a week i'll be home. at this point that feels so, so strange...i haven't spent more than 7 nights in the same bed in over a month, and i'm about to go stay in one for 2 months of nights.
southern hungary is pretty amazing. i'm staying here with my friend aniko from my first summer at camp, an organist who helped me become a much better violinist through hours of bach duets in the basement of the camp library. her boyfriend zoltan is also here, visiting from his town in the north-east of the country. aniko's mother's house is basically a full-grown version of a dollhouse; it's over 150 years old and the furniture hasn't changed since then. all the couches are upholstered in brocade velvet, there are chandeliers and crocheted doilies. the garden is so big that you can't see the house from the front gate, even though it's only a few metres from the gate to the front door. the house used to be a large restaurant with tables all over the garden, and in the parlour (which i can really call a parlour) there is one of those pianos that plays by itself. on the first night here i opted to sleep on the balcony, as (yes i know it's horrible) i'd never slept outside before. it was really nice, but after that i decided to move back inside as i woke up with 7 mosquito bites on my face that make it look like i have bad acne.
the heat here is incredible. it's already 30 degrees outside by 8 or 9 in the morning, then it gets hotter and hotter until finally it goes back down to 30 around 6pm. you can be outside from about 6-8am and 9pm-3am. this is also the first time in my life i've ever experienced dry heat. you torontonians know our incredible summer humidity...here the heat makes my lips chap, and i almost never actually sweat because the sweat evaporates instantly. i never thought i'd say htis, but i actually prefer the humidity...although not our wonderful smog. pécs is the second-largest city in hungary, but the sky is sooooo clear...last night i sat outside for about an hour just staring at the stars. i got mosquito bites all over my legs, but it was worth it.
the atmosphere of this city is really cool, too. there are a couple universities in pécs so the city is very full of life. there are festivals almost all the time in summer and autumn. right now there's some kind of theatre festival which for some reason means that there's tons of live music on open stages at night and the evening streets are lined with stalls selling hungarian and croatian delicacies and top-quality wines for the price of...well...actually cheaper than anything you can buy in canada. hungarian wine is truly amazing, and i can understand why they drink it two or three times a day. i've had 6 or 7 types now, usually costing about 3 dollars a litre, and they've all been delectable. speaking of which, i am officially swearing off alcohol for a considerable amount of time when i'm home. i calculated that i've had at least one drink at least 27 out of 43 days that i've been on the road. considering that this includes the week in paris when i didn't drink at all, i would say it's too much. i am also swearing off coffee.
my feet are much happier now as i purchased a pair of nice leather italian sandals (soooo cheaply for like 40 bucks), and now i can't even feel the cobblestones under my feet and the blisters are finally disappearing.
i got the opportunity to visit the synagogue in pécs, which is only open for 2 hours every day. it is large and gorgeous and honestly felt a bit more to me like a church than a synagogue (it even has an organ)...but it really drilled home what for me is the most unnerving thing about my trip to europe. it's that in most of europe, judaism is a dead thing, completely of the past...to visit a synagogue here is like to visit a museum about vikings or early primates. there are now 140 jews in pécs when before the 1940s there were over 40 000. it's really terrifying for me to think about, and to me it somehow is just as effective i think as if i had visited one of the concentration camps...aniko told me that for her it was such a shock to come to the usa and work in a jewish camp, because she didn't know there were still really jewish communities anywhere outside of israel. when i said shalom to the man working at the synagogue, he seemed so surprised.
so. the trip is almost over. i can say now that for 6 weeks, i've gone where almost every north american woman fears to tread...meaning that i have eaten the fattiest meat 2 or 3 times a day, i have covered it with sour cream and cheese, i have paired it with potatoes, french fries and 4 or 5 slices of bread, i have followed it with dessert and with whole milk, and somehow....somehow, i have survived. without gaining a pound. ladies, food is good. and yet, some of the skinniest people i know are still sitting beside me and eating twice as much as me and telling me to eat, eat, eat more. europe is one strange entity.
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