i'm in hungary, and soooooo full

okay, a quick recap of my first day and a half in hungary. yesterday afternoon i arrived in győr to find renata waiting at the station. ivan picked us up in his car and drove us to their university dorm, which is gorgeous. renata's room, where i'm staying, has a fridge and small kitchen and lots of floor space. in the evening, ivan cooked some traditional hungarian food - pronounced something like 'laugoush' - which is like thick, fried pancakes, with garlic, sour cream and cheese - for us and his girlfriend, yudit (also from my summers at camp). i also got to try hungarian beer, which is somehow slightly different from slovak beer, and an interesting hungarian chocolate bar made of chocolate-covered cottage cheese. much of the evening was spent with me trying to call delta airlines for ivan so that he could make some changes to a flight he'll take from new york to LA in august. győr is lovely and small, and hungary feels very different than the other countries i've been in. this afternoon, after ivan made us an interesting breakfast of hot dogs stuffed in loaves of cheese bread, the four of us drove to ivan's village - čičov - which is in slovakia on the hungarian border. we walked around for an hour or so with one of his hunting dogs, it was somehow both modern and very old. then we drove back across the border into komárom, which is yudit's village. there, yudit's mother cooked us a massive, massive, massive lunch of cheese-covered chicken, salad, cakes and bread. we walked in the sunshine and blistering heat back across the border into the slovak side of komárom (called komárno). it was really adorable, although very touristy. there, ivan insisted on highjacking my camera and taking tons of photos of me with absolutely everything in the town. then he insisted that we all have gelato (i was still full from the last 3 meals). about 3 hours later, we wandered BACK across the border into hungary (komárom again) where we stopped by the apartment of a girl named Vicki who also worked in the camp kitchen the first summer i was there - we'd had no contact since. she seems well although still doesn't know any english, we exchanged cheek kisses and smiles and then ivan, yudit, renata and i went back to yudit's house where we drank a ton of fanta, played table tennis, had a glass of champagne, looked at all my photos from europe, and then - for some reason - had dinner. i have never been so full in my life! dinner was followed by pudding, which renata and i managed to not completely finish by god's good graces - we had to get to the train station to head back to győr. ivan and yudit drove us, and we had a long goodbye on the platform. since the beginning of this trip, i've experienced so many times remeeting people i've been close to and known for awhile, spending long, relaxed hours with them - and then having to casually say goodbye again, not knowing if i'll ever see them again. it's a very strange feeling, which always makes me thoughtful - and makes me wonder about whether anything or anyone really is constant in my life (or should be) and about what it really means to be at home. this trip has long sicne passed its halfway point, and is actually almost finished - and at this point, i'm feeling like 7 weeks was not nearly long enough, that there's still so much i should be seeing and doing, that there's so much unfinished business, and that home is really another world with another me. on the other hand, it would be nice to get rid of these blisters and eat properly again and sleep in the same bed every night and actually speak the same language as the people around me. this remains a very surreal experience.

oh, one interesting thing: we crossed the slovak/hungarian border 4 times today. each time, the hungarians showed their EU cards and went through no problem, and each time my canadian passport caused us problems. the border guards were very curious about it and examined it in detail, then they had to look me up in the computer, and then i had to get stamps. i now have 2 pages full of stamps from slovakia and hungary, most from the same 2 towns which are really one town, anyway.

tomorrow morning, renata and i are going to the spa in győr, to try out the many thermal baths and the water slides. (can't you tell that spas here are very different than the ones we're used to?) in the afternoon, we'll take the train to budapest to stay in her friend's apartment until friday afternoon, when we'll go south to lake balaton. from there, we'll go to renata's hometown of szombathely in the west to meet her family and boyfriend, and on monday morning i'll take the train to central southern hungary (pecs) to spend a few days with aniko (who was a close friend in camp the first summer i was there, and who i'm really looking forward to catching up with). and then i take the train to prague and the trip is basically over...a few days there and next thing you know, i'm back in canada. so surreal. completely surreal.