Two things are going to force me to keep this post short, though I wish that I could write a lot, as I gained a lot of new impressions today. My first issue is that I am sick, which is lessening my desire to write. I have felt sick to the stomach since yesterday morning, when I visited the only bakery in which I have eaten in Hungary, and have not gotten better since then. I am not sure if I am eating things that disagree with me or if the water here, despite being reputed to be safe, is causing me difficulties, but I feel terrible. While my appetite had been relatively steady until this evening, it has fallen since I had dinner, which is a good sign: if I can eat a minimal amount of food for the next day or two, my body might sort itself out. (I am not going to eat nothing, even if my appetite is gone; I recognize that one's body needs at least a baseline level of sugars and nutrients.) The second issue affecting me is my schedule: Eger is a town of brutally early mornings. The latest direct bus from Eger to Aggtelek left at 8:20, while the latest train that can take me to Kosice tomorrow in less than twelve hours leaves at 7:30 AM; the next train after that leaves at shortly after 9:00 and arrives in Kosice shortly before 10:00 PM. While I should not complain about getting up early, as many people have to do that for work every morning (i.e., most people), it is a pity to have to do so on a trip like this, especially as my stay in Eger could have been restful if not for the terrible bus and train schedules.
The most logical place from which to continue this post will be to describe what I did today before passing on to more general musings. I got up at 7:15, discovered that the rest of the cherries that I had bought the day before had fermented, had a rushed breakfast, and headed to the bus stop. I was astounded when I got there: the buses were lined up in an orderly manner, there were schedules for each of them, and there was even an electronic overhead display, like in a train station, telling when each bus was going to leave, and where. What the hell is a first-rate bus system doing in eastern Hungary? I got on the bus that was to take me to Aggtelek, explained to the bus driver that I was a tourist, and bargained with him, in Germany, to give me a ticket to Aggtelek, using the name of a village that a woman at the tourist information center had given me the day before; I had never expected to be so delighted to be asked if I spoke German! (German is the lingua franca here for tourists, as only young people speak English.) The bus driver had me sit up front, perhaps so he could tell me when we got to the village next to the Aggtelek caves, and, having learned that I was from Canada, started asking me a ton of very complicated questions about it, very few of which I could answer. While I managed to explain that I was a teacher at a university and that Canada was "very beautiful," I did not get much farther than that, as my vocabulary, despite my having managed to "converse" with a couple of Germans prior to today, remains very limited, and I have very poor comprehension of questions that are directed to me and do not pertain to trains, train stations, or food.
It would take a long while to describe the bus trip to Josvafo, the village abutting the park containing the Aggtelek caves - more time than I have here. The drive took us through the wooded bluffs and copses of the Hungarian countryside, which, to my dismay, was quite beautiful. While I do not like ascribing any good qualities to countries that I label as any less than first-rate, I have to admit that the Hungarian countryside was impressive in its serenity and evenness. The area looked completely untouched, as though people had been living in the same fashion for the past two hundred years and did not realize that the world around them was changing. I saw an angry old woman pulling a cart with a giant tub of water on it along the side of the road, about a half-dozen men in construction gear standing around and watching one man work a jackhammer, and a man bailing hay - people actually do that! I did not see any obvious signs of poverty in the communities lining the countryside - no more, at least, than in the city - though the bus driver told me that there was "no work" in east Hungarian villages, and the road was full of potholes big enough to cook stew for twenty people in.
The bus driver himself deserves a bit of description. He was a small and wiry man, perhaps fifty years old, with a forceful and very kind demeanor. He seemed to have something to say to everyone who got on the bus and tried for most of the way - or so it seemed to me - to Josvafo to engage me in conversation in German despite my not understanding words such as "see" and "question" until I looked them up. He drove so close to pedestrians at times (for roads and sidewalks combined are about as wide as ordinary roads) and sometimes appeared to be calling to cyclists, many of whom I thought that he would run over like hapless pill bugs, to get out of his way when he approached them from behind. He started swerving into the other lane (which was empty, as one only seems a car every few minutes on these roads) while looking at a ticket that someone had shown him and appeared at one point to be looking for something on the floor. Early in the bus ride, he stopped when a young man, without any obvious gesture, flagged him down and pointed to something on the side of the bus (I assumed that the luggage compartment was open.), while, later, he gave a woman, who did not even get on the bus, a plastic bag with two packs of cigarettes in it, and she thanked him and walked off. Soon before we reached Josvafo, we hit the branch of a fruit tree that was hanging into the road, and when we got to a bus depot in a different town, the bus driver told me to get out for a minute and try the free buffet. I got out of the bus but looked confused, so he came to my rescue, leading me right up to a sign that must have said "buffet." There was nothing there. He asked a woman standing next to the sign, "Where's the buffet?", she said something or other to him, and he turned to me and said, "Sorry. No buffet"; he was genuinely apologetic. I used one of the free bathrooms - Romania, a country with essentially no development of any sort whatsoever, is more advanced than Germany, France, and parts of Austria in this regard; the bathrooms in Romania are even cleaner than those in the aforementioned countries - and got back on the bus before the driver. When he arrived, he looked over his shoulder to make sure that I was still there, and, when we reached Aggtelek, the bus driver shook my hand before I got off of the bus.
When I got off of the bus in Aggtelek, I was truly in the middle of nowhere. Before me were a bunch of houses and a gas station; to my right was a forest; and to my left was a giant field full of horrible, screeching insects. The only sign of civilization in the area was a sign with English words, including "caves" and "tourist information." I followed the sign past a little campground and was soon standing face-to-face with the entrance to the Aggtelek caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The woman working at the tourist information center spoke enough English to tell me that the ticket office for tours through the caves was across the way; when I bought a ticket, I was told that a tour was starting "right now" and was hurriedly ushered into the caves. I stepped into them behind another tourist or two and found myself in almost total darkness (by contrast with the brightness of the day; the caves were not actually that dark) on a slippery set of stairs into the unknown.
It would take a long while to describe the bus trip to Josvafo, the village abutting the park containing the Aggtelek caves - more time than I have here. The drive took us through the wooded bluffs and copses of the Hungarian countryside, which, to my dismay, was quite beautiful. While I do not like ascribing any good qualities to countries that I label as any less than first-rate, I have to admit that the Hungarian countryside was impressive in its serenity and evenness. The area looked completely untouched, as though people had been living in the same fashion for the past two hundred years and did not realize that the world around them was changing. I saw an angry old woman pulling a cart with a giant tub of water on it along the side of the road, about a half-dozen men in construction gear standing around and watching one man work a jackhammer, and a man bailing hay - people actually do that! I did not see any obvious signs of poverty in the communities lining the countryside - no more, at least, than in the city - though the bus driver told me that there was "no work" in east Hungarian villages, and the road was full of potholes big enough to cook stew for twenty people in.
The bus driver himself deserves a bit of description. He was a small and wiry man, perhaps fifty years old, with a forceful and very kind demeanor. He seemed to have something to say to everyone who got on the bus and tried for most of the way - or so it seemed to me - to Josvafo to engage me in conversation in German despite my not understanding words such as "see" and "question" until I looked them up. He drove so close to pedestrians at times (for roads and sidewalks combined are about as wide as ordinary roads) and sometimes appeared to be calling to cyclists, many of whom I thought that he would run over like hapless pill bugs, to get out of his way when he approached them from behind. He started swerving into the other lane (which was empty, as one only seems a car every few minutes on these roads) while looking at a ticket that someone had shown him and appeared at one point to be looking for something on the floor. Early in the bus ride, he stopped when a young man, without any obvious gesture, flagged him down and pointed to something on the side of the bus (I assumed that the luggage compartment was open.), while, later, he gave a woman, who did not even get on the bus, a plastic bag with two packs of cigarettes in it, and she thanked him and walked off. Soon before we reached Josvafo, we hit the branch of a fruit tree that was hanging into the road, and when we got to a bus depot in a different town, the bus driver told me to get out for a minute and try the free buffet. I got out of the bus but looked confused, so he came to my rescue, leading me right up to a sign that must have said "buffet." There was nothing there. He asked a woman standing next to the sign, "Where's the buffet?", she said something or other to him, and he turned to me and said, "Sorry. No buffet"; he was genuinely apologetic. I used one of the free bathrooms - Romania, a country with essentially no development of any sort whatsoever, is more advanced than Germany, France, and parts of Austria in this regard; the bathrooms in Romania are even cleaner than those in the aforementioned countries - and got back on the bus before the driver. When he arrived, he looked over his shoulder to make sure that I was still there, and, when we reached Aggtelek, the bus driver shook my hand before I got off of the bus.
When I got off of the bus in Aggtelek, I was truly in the middle of nowhere. Before me were a bunch of houses and a gas station; to my right was a forest; and to my left was a giant field full of horrible, screeching insects. The only sign of civilization in the area was a sign with English words, including "caves" and "tourist information." I followed the sign past a little campground and was soon standing face-to-face with the entrance to the Aggtelek caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The woman working at the tourist information center spoke enough English to tell me that the ticket office for tours through the caves was across the way; when I bought a ticket, I was told that a tour was starting "right now" and was hurriedly ushered into the caves. I stepped into them behind another tourist or two and found myself in almost total darkness (by contrast with the brightness of the day; the caves were not actually that dark) on a slippery set of stairs into the unknown.
At first, I thought that trips through the Aggtelek caves were entirely self-guided, as I could not see a tourist group anywhere, but it turned out that the tour had started a few minutes prior and that the group was just a hundred meters ahead of me. I caught up to them and quickly discovered that, unlike German tourists, who shut up and listen to every word that a tour guide says in a tour through caves, Romanian tourists do not pay the slightest heed to what the tour guide says, which forced our guide to yell to be heard above everybody. This turned out to be more the case at the beginning than the end, and the behavior of Romanian tourists was otherwise unremarkable. The caves had all sorts of interesting stalagmites and stalactites, some of which were thinner than one's finger and often not as along as it; many of the stalagmites reached the ceiling and were orange in color, with a sort of slimy outer appearance due to the high water levels in the caves. There were some limestone formations in the caves that were just bumps on larger sections of rocks, like the taste buds on one's tongue, while some of them were striated, like a whale's baleen. The reflections of limestone formations in the water were fantastic, and the caves had excellent acoustics, as demonstrated when we were treated to about ten minutes of terrible, and very loud, music partway through the tour.
I did not do much after the tour ended before heading back to Eger. I met a charming couple from England, the most recent of a long list of very warm and inviting people whom I have met from there, and spent some time listening to the birds, which were fantastic. I could not get a good look at the birds today, as they were swift and good at hiding in the foliage, but I saw some that were the size of hummingbirds; some that were black and white, had long tails that they moved like rudders, and could cut through the air almost like bees; and others that were almost the size of small crows, did not seem to produce song of any sort, and were of a yellow-brown, almost chestnut color from head to toe. I went back to Fosvafo early in order not to have to rush to find the bus stop, found it with the help of the woman working at the gas station (where I was told, by the woman at the tourist information center, to find the gas station), and waited there for an hour, batting at bugs and reading a book. I saw, at one point, a man pedaling at less than ten kilometers an hour on his bicycle (I had also seen a man in work overalls and rain boots riding a bike earlier.). He stayed within my field of vision for at least fifteen seconds, as though I were watching a movie clip of him, and seemed to represent the whole difficult saga of this backwards country.
When the bus came, I saw that the same driver was driving it. He sold me another ticket, as the first one had turned out to be one-way only (Perhaps they did not sell two-way tickets.), and told an adolescent sitting where I had been sitting before to get out of my seat. I explained that the caves were beautiful but forgot how to say "eight," which was, I think, how many there were. When I failed to conversationally engage him, the driver started talking to the adolescent, even giving him his phone for a few minutes to look at. I do not think that anything else of note happened between my leaving Fosvako and arriving in Eger; at least, I slept for most of the trip, which is what I had been hoping to do, as I had already seen the sights. I stopped by the tourist office to thank the woman there for her accurate directions, had dinner at the same restaurant as I ate at last night, checked out a local park, and came here to relax and right this email. This day will commence with my lying in bed, sick to my stomach, and being unhappy that I have to get up at 6:15 tomorrow morning.
I did not do much after the tour ended before heading back to Eger. I met a charming couple from England, the most recent of a long list of very warm and inviting people whom I have met from there, and spent some time listening to the birds, which were fantastic. I could not get a good look at the birds today, as they were swift and good at hiding in the foliage, but I saw some that were the size of hummingbirds; some that were black and white, had long tails that they moved like rudders, and could cut through the air almost like bees; and others that were almost the size of small crows, did not seem to produce song of any sort, and were of a yellow-brown, almost chestnut color from head to toe. I went back to Fosvafo early in order not to have to rush to find the bus stop, found it with the help of the woman working at the gas station (where I was told, by the woman at the tourist information center, to find the gas station), and waited there for an hour, batting at bugs and reading a book. I saw, at one point, a man pedaling at less than ten kilometers an hour on his bicycle (I had also seen a man in work overalls and rain boots riding a bike earlier.). He stayed within my field of vision for at least fifteen seconds, as though I were watching a movie clip of him, and seemed to represent the whole difficult saga of this backwards country.
When the bus came, I saw that the same driver was driving it. He sold me another ticket, as the first one had turned out to be one-way only (Perhaps they did not sell two-way tickets.), and told an adolescent sitting where I had been sitting before to get out of my seat. I explained that the caves were beautiful but forgot how to say "eight," which was, I think, how many there were. When I failed to conversationally engage him, the driver started talking to the adolescent, even giving him his phone for a few minutes to look at. I do not think that anything else of note happened between my leaving Fosvako and arriving in Eger; at least, I slept for most of the trip, which is what I had been hoping to do, as I had already seen the sights. I stopped by the tourist office to thank the woman there for her accurate directions, had dinner at the same restaurant as I ate at last night, checked out a local park, and came here to relax and right this email. This day will commence with my lying in bed, sick to my stomach, and being unhappy that I have to get up at 6:15 tomorrow morning.
Despite Hungary's being a hugely-underdeveloped nation, I have been filled with ideas (and stomach pain) over the past two days. I suppose that I should start with more minor impressions before moving on to the major ones, as that will let me get through more of my notes. Firstly, Eger has a good tourist office, suggesting that it is not a total backwater. I went to a supermarket yesterday and discovered that one has to go to the open market to get fresh fruits and vegetables - supermarkets themselves do not sell any (though they do stock juices and canned fruits and vegetables; the population here is not perforce malnourished). I found that one can always find a young person or two who speak English, even in a tiny town like Eger, and those people can explain things to, say, cashiers. While one does not need the local language to get by for a day or two, I would recommend that people who plan to spend at least a week in an out-of-the-way place like Hungary try to learn the local language out of respect for the country's culture.
One simple note that will interest nobody but me is that one of the towns that the train passed on its way from Budapest to Eger yesterday was called "Komarom," which means "via mosquito" in Russian. I saw some candies the other day called "negro" and thought of buying them, but I did not know if they would be any good, and I figured that it would be simpler to pick up souvenirs in Holland. When I mentioned to the cashier at the Aggtelek caves today, after the fact, that she had given me an "adult" ticket despite my being a student and having a student card to prove it (she had not asked), she gave me back 50% of what I had paid, which comprised the student discount, without complaint, despite the fact that I had already seen the caves. I was ripped off in an interesting way at the market the other day: when I got a local to ask the vender to give me a half-kilogram of cherries (which may have made me sicker - who knows, at this point?), she gave me three-quarters of a kilogram, which was more than I needed, instead. Finally, the on-site manager of the hotel in which I am staying speaks very little English, which has made negotiating with her a bit of an adventure, but the place in which I am staying is actually quite nice - one of the nicest in which I have so far stayed.
I would point out that one needs occasional rest days - i.e., days with a room of one's own, as I would have had last night and tonight if travel here were easier - when travelling for a long time, as hostels are a mixed bag, but I have to pass on to more pressing affairs. (In fact, I have one more side note. Although the phrase "Do you speak English?" from my two pages of Hungarian phrases has proven to be a dud, words like "bus," "towards," and "thank you" have proven quite useful. Even a bit of Hungarian can get you a long way here.) The order of the day is the Russian proverb, "We smile as we're being beaten." Is it true that people in poor countries are more generous and unaffected than people in wealthy countries? Is it true that people here have, to use a hackneyed phrase, a bigger heart than people in the West? It is to this question, more or less, that I will devote the rest of this post.
Let us start with what is most straightforward: a Hungarian person whom you meet on the street is much more likely to invite you into his home, serve you dinner, and play you Hungarian folk music than a German is to do the same in his native style. Acts of spontaneous charity and goodwill are surely much more common here than in western Europe; people are, by necessity, probably more focused on community than individual fitness here, and they may be less suspicious of sharing their few goods with other people and less isolated from one another. I would not be surprised, on the other hand, if spontaneous acts of violence and cruelty were also more common here than in the West, as people here are probably desperate for money and will probably - again, I do not have any real data besides the very limited experiences of the past few days - do anything to get it. Social interactions here appear to be much less codified than in the West, perhaps because artifice has less value to people here or conflicts more with their communicative goals than in Austria or Hungary, for example.
I would point out that one needs occasional rest days - i.e., days with a room of one's own, as I would have had last night and tonight if travel here were easier - when travelling for a long time, as hostels are a mixed bag, but I have to pass on to more pressing affairs. (In fact, I have one more side note. Although the phrase "Do you speak English?" from my two pages of Hungarian phrases has proven to be a dud, words like "bus," "towards," and "thank you" have proven quite useful. Even a bit of Hungarian can get you a long way here.) The order of the day is the Russian proverb, "We smile as we're being beaten." Is it true that people in poor countries are more generous and unaffected than people in wealthy countries? Is it true that people here have, to use a hackneyed phrase, a bigger heart than people in the West? It is to this question, more or less, that I will devote the rest of this post.
Let us start with what is most straightforward: a Hungarian person whom you meet on the street is much more likely to invite you into his home, serve you dinner, and play you Hungarian folk music than a German is to do the same in his native style. Acts of spontaneous charity and goodwill are surely much more common here than in western Europe; people are, by necessity, probably more focused on community than individual fitness here, and they may be less suspicious of sharing their few goods with other people and less isolated from one another. I would not be surprised, on the other hand, if spontaneous acts of violence and cruelty were also more common here than in the West, as people here are probably desperate for money and will probably - again, I do not have any real data besides the very limited experiences of the past few days - do anything to get it. Social interactions here appear to be much less codified than in the West, perhaps because artifice has less value to people here or conflicts more with their communicative goals than in Austria or Hungary, for example.
What does all of this talk of artifice and social interactions have to do with Hungarian culture? A central motive behind my exploration of artifice was to determine if one gets a more "authentic" experience, which so many travelers seem to seek today, by exploring remote regions of the world than by visiting more touristy places, like Rome. If by "authentic experience" one means "the experience of being (for example) Hungarian," then the only way to get that experience is to be Hungarian or, for lack of a better alternative, to spend an extended period of time working or studying in Hungary: all travel for pleasure is, to some extent, touristy by its very nature. To cut a long speech short, I am growing increasing convinced in the value of sticking to the beaten path and visiting more touristy places in favor of less touristy ones, as touristy places are labeled as such for a reason: people enjoy visiting them; they have a highly-developed tourist infrastructure; they are full of the types of things that tourists like to see and do; and they are accessible and easy to research. One goes on trips such as this to see how people live and think, not to live and think like them, and leaving the beaten path mostly just puts one in a position to see nothing whatsoever of note and to be lost and frustrated. While I was not lost or frustrated today, I saw an area that has contributed nothing to human thought, experience, and achievement; looking at the countryside was enjoyable for a day, but I would not want to return here.
I may as well continue my polemic with an analogy. Travelling in Eastern Europe is like paying one cent for a grain of rice, while travelling in Western Europe is like eating a steak for twenty dollars. While touristy areas are vastly more expensive than less-frequented ones, they also have a great deal more to offer, especially to a long traveler who has no prior connection to the area that he is visiting (such as relatives, a friend, knowledge of the language, &c.). Travelling in Western Europe, one is never far from help if one gets lost and, more importantly, never far from civilization, while one could easily get lost for weeks in Eastern Europe due to its lack of development. While there are plenty of wonderful people here, just as in any other area, the social climate is much more threatening than in Western Europe. People here have hideous-looking guard dogs rather than the gorgeous, playful, sociable dogs of Western Europe; people look at one either without interest or as though they are about to rob you here; people here have no reaction whatsoever if you smile at them, as though all joy has been beaten out of them; and men here openly ogle women, as though they were sports cars. I admit that plenty of people have helped me and that I have been well-treated since I got here, but I have had a very short stay in Hungary and have stuck to at least somewhat-touristy areas. Not only would there be nothing whatsoever to see if I were to leave such areas (except for endless hills and downtrodden villages - not my cup of tea), but I would be much more likely to be taken advantage of for money. If you prefer being in constant danger (or at least feeling that way), having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find anything of cultural relevance, and being cut off from the rest of the world, then try leaving the beaten track in your travels. Otherwise, stick to the developed world, where you are always a train ride or short flight away from centers of cosmopolitanism and social advancement. That more or less ends my tirade against Eastern Europe.
I may as well continue my polemic with an analogy. Travelling in Eastern Europe is like paying one cent for a grain of rice, while travelling in Western Europe is like eating a steak for twenty dollars. While touristy areas are vastly more expensive than less-frequented ones, they also have a great deal more to offer, especially to a long traveler who has no prior connection to the area that he is visiting (such as relatives, a friend, knowledge of the language, &c.). Travelling in Western Europe, one is never far from help if one gets lost and, more importantly, never far from civilization, while one could easily get lost for weeks in Eastern Europe due to its lack of development. While there are plenty of wonderful people here, just as in any other area, the social climate is much more threatening than in Western Europe. People here have hideous-looking guard dogs rather than the gorgeous, playful, sociable dogs of Western Europe; people look at one either without interest or as though they are about to rob you here; people here have no reaction whatsoever if you smile at them, as though all joy has been beaten out of them; and men here openly ogle women, as though they were sports cars. I admit that plenty of people have helped me and that I have been well-treated since I got here, but I have had a very short stay in Hungary and have stuck to at least somewhat-touristy areas. Not only would there be nothing whatsoever to see if I were to leave such areas (except for endless hills and downtrodden villages - not my cup of tea), but I would be much more likely to be taken advantage of for money. If you prefer being in constant danger (or at least feeling that way), having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find anything of cultural relevance, and being cut off from the rest of the world, then try leaving the beaten track in your travels. Otherwise, stick to the developed world, where you are always a train ride or short flight away from centers of cosmopolitanism and social advancement. That more or less ends my tirade against Eastern Europe.
While I sounded fairly negative in the preceding paragraphs about this part of the world, I have enjoyed being here. My main point is that I have lost all interest in trying to find the so-called hidden gems of the world. The whole reason for which touristy places are considered touristy is that they are full of the types of things that tourists like, and if one leaves one's country for the sake of experiencing other cultures for a short period of time, then one is, by definition, a tourist. Seeking an elusive "authentic experience" by going to places that nobody would want to visit is a poor recipe for enjoying yourself or learning more about world culture.
My final notes are, as usual, scattered. I have enjoyed the birds here, just as I enjoyed those of Aggtelek, and have seem some pretty interesting ones, all around the size of a sparrow. I saw one bird the other day that was brown with yellow spots and appeared to have no tail; I saw a huge number of birds that had white underbellies, black backs and wings, and cleft tails. These latter birds made rapid, soaring flights, passing right above the surface of a canal here as though hunting for insects. I saw a third type of bird that I have already forgotten - oops. I would spend some time trying to describe Hungarian food, but I have too little time to do so now, as it is almost midnight. I heard real turkeys and saw some real farm animals today; I saw a grey heron, or some simulacrum thereof, along the Danube a few days ago. Finally, I see Asian markets here and there, and I have come to visit them at every chance that I get, as I must miss Asian food. I do not actually feel a craving for any particular type of Asian food, though I get mochi cakes whenever I can, and I have come to like these bizarre pineapple-flavored, shortbread-like cookies. I do not miss dim sum, oddly, and I sometimes get odd cravings, such as when I saw a couple of girls at the hostel in Budapest eating a Turkish wrap for breakfast and decided that I needed one myself. It might be the wrap that I bought that contributed to my current illness, though it could just as easily have been the yogurt that I ate that morning or something different altogether. I expect to be fairly tired tomorrow - I will arrive in Kosice at 10:00 AM - and will probably write a much shorter post than I did today; my trip through eastern Hungary filled me with all sorts of new ideas. My final point of the day appears to have been that the Soviet Union was a disaster for all of Eastern Europe, which might explain its low level of development. I do not know what kind of a state any of the countries in this part of a the world were in before World War II, but it appears that Russia sucked what little life they had out of them over the following decades. I have a relatively easy itinerary for the following several days (and for the next two weeks as a whole, really), so I may recover some of my energy and may, if luck is on my side, get over this awful stomach ailment, which has so far been limited to cramping. That is a fairly unpoetic note on which to end this post. I hope that none of you have stomach cramps!
This is the east Hungarian countryside.
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