Shortcutting

Some cities cannot be exited by anything other than a car. But the no-bike signed road in Hungary is a sliding scale and once you find out that the minimal safety requirements cannot be met, your often too far in, kilometres away from a turn-off and sweating profusely while trying to stay away from either falling off the curb to your right or getting sucked into the wooshing flow of heavy traffic on the left. Its a miracle we're still ok.

But then again, its also a miracle that almost ever single night we effectively meet marvellous people who put us up, often feed us and share with us parts of their lives that would be unreachable in any other scenario. These stories often unravel slowly, are sprinkled with misunderstandings due to gaps in the storyline and impractical translation but are woven in their totality into a wide array of the daily life so appealing to a stranger like me.

Sometimes it’s a household of architects who funnily enough have a shower installed under the slanted roof that needs the opening of the window to allow enough space for me. Another time it’s a retired Dutch couple that have moved permanently to the Hungarian countryside and live their lives like one continuous holiday.

One thing that is definitely not lacking in these late summer days is the sound of lawn mowers and grass cutters. Not one day has passed in the last week that our rest was not disturbed by trigger happy government officials of the green department. So if we end up getting driven off the road eventually, at least we will crash in a neatly kept slope.