A Boy Absconded

There comes a time in every man's life when he needs to be kidnapped and that time for me happened on Tuesday morning while washing the dishes.  I suppose I should have seen the signs in the preceding days, even minutes leading up to my absconsion: Michelle's encouragement that I find a substitute for Wednesday morning, her pushing me to finish my wedding shopping a couple days early, her insistence on us cleaning the house the day before, and finally her refusal to let me get elbow deep in bleach water to scrub the tub, instead convincing me to just wash the dishes.  The door buzzer rang; Michelle answered.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Don't know,” Michelle answered.

“Was it the postman?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I asked.

“Well, he was speaking in Hungarian.”

“Well,” I asked.  “Was one of the words 'posta'?”

“Don't know.”

“By now, I'm sure we've gained a reputation for just letting anyone in.  I bet every bum on the street knows that all they have to do is hit 15, then spout out any old thing in Hungarian and we'll let them in.  I bet one of them is pissing on our stairs right now.  Or maybe some robber or maniac could just waltz in our front door...”

I looked up from my dishes and saw a scruffily dressed man with dreadlocks to his feet and crazy smile standing our kitchen.

“You're coming with me,” my future captor declared.

“Will I need anything?” I asked.

“Just your shoes.”

“Ok,” I said, “let me pee first.”

I was brought to the 23 tram line, which runs south from my ghetto neighbourhood, through another ghetto neighbourhood on its way to the ghetto.  We got off near the natural history museum and grabbed another bus I'd never heard of heading further south.

“What the hell could possibly be in this part of town?”

We were in the heart of the old industrial district, just gypsies and abandoned warehouses as far as I could see.

“Can I at least have a hint of where we're going?”  I asked.

“It's gonna be loud,” is all he said.

We boarded another bus, this one going even more south.  I was sure we had to be out of town, but that would involve another type of bus ticket.  We passed Hero Square, but a different Hero Square.  I didn't even know there was another Hero Square.  The bus went over a bridge and I could see we were just on the other side of Csepel Island, further than I've ever been, then the bus driver slammed on his breaks, turned towards us and began yelling.

“You can't do this!” he screamed in Hungarian.  “There is not a problem, so just stop doing that!”

I looked behind me and realized he was yelling at a man in the back, who seemed to feel the need to press the request stop button incessantly.  The man said sorry and the bus continued towards nowhere.

Shortly later, “Get off here.”  And we did.  “Do you know where we are?  Have you figured our yet where we're going?”

I shook my head.

“Good.” the dreadlocked man said and brought me around the back of a shady looking warehouse.  He led me down a dark staircase and knocked on the metal bars that blocked the doorway.  A bald, 150 kilo man, all muscle, like an old Vin Diesel, answered the door.

“This is Aaron,” the man in dreadlocks said.

“Ah yes,” he said in a thick Hungarian accent, much like Dracula's. “We've been expecting you.”  He unlocked the cage and I was pushed through the door.

Inside, it looked like a dentist's waiting room, only it was filled with British tourists and instead of Cosmo and Newsweek, they were all reading Soldier of Fortune.

“What is this place?” I asked, playing dumb.  I knew full well where I was; I'd heard rumors of this place from backpackers and locals.  This is where people came to pick up AK-47's, sniper rifles, whatever deadly weapon's they fancy and let 'em rip.

“This is gonna be cool!”  Alan said with his distinct Irish accent and nodded his dreadlocked head.

Our appointment wasn't until noon, so we passed the next 20 minutes looking at catalogues aimed at cops, soldiers, and Montana-residing conspiracy theorists.  They sold every form of tactical clothing, all lightweight and able to securely hide even giant guns.

“Who the hell needs tactical pants?”  I asked, just as a man handed me a clipboard; he was wearing the exact pair I saw in the catalogue.  I smiled awkwardly and read the form.  It was all the standard safety rules and release questions for any semi-dangerous activity: Do you have a heart condition? Are you pregnant?  Do you suffer from chronic back pain?  Most importantly, are you currently depressed or being treated for mental illness?

Next were the goggles and ear muffs, followed by a further reiteration of the safety procedures.  In the middle of the briefing, we heard a loud American voice drift in the door.  We all groaned.

I may be an American, but few things bother me more than American tourists.  They are always loud, demanding, self-important and even though I display these traits myself, I'm usually the only one in the room.  A single American is loveable and charming; two or more and it seems like an invasion.

“Hey, is there where I get to shoot big guns?”  The voice asked.

Count Steve Austin went to the bars.  “Do you have a reservation?”

“Man, I tried, but I couldn't find where to do it on the website.”

“No reservation, no shooting.”

“Please man, I came all the way out here!”

The count opened the door, “You can get the basic package, but that's it.”

The American walked in.  He wore a red trucker hat with some strange cat/dog Siamese twin logo, a baggy white tank-top and camouflage shorts.  The only thing worse than an American tourist is a hipster California tourist.  He was followed by his scrawny, meek, skimpily dressed girlfriend, with pouty lips and nervous brown eyes.

“Ah man, just the basic package?” he plead.

“The basic package includes a Ruger Mk. III, a Glock 17, a Ceska Zbrojovka revolver, Taurus 86 357 magnum revolver, Remington 870 pump action 12 gauge shotgun, and an AK-47.  Is that enough for you?”

The American's lips only moved to form a wide grin and he smugly nodded his head.  He was handed goggles and was ready to go.

They took us into a long room, the walls and ceilings lined with tire chunks, a table filled with guns and ammo sat in the middle.  We were given yet another explanation of the rules: we shoot two at a time, don't aim at people, only aim at the targets, make sure you aim, everything in the movies is wrong, etc.  Then we took turns blasting up sheets of paper.

The first two rifles were only .22's, I've shot similar weak guns numerous times at boy scout camps and the Troye's garage.  Things got interesting with the next two guns.  The Glock had a bit more kick but still not too bad and so by the time we upgraded to the .357 magnum, everyone was feeling confident with the firepower.  However, once we pulled the trigger, we realized what a powerful thing we each held.  It was different word for each person, but we all uttered a vulgarity of choice after firing the first bullet.  A part of me just wanted to unload all shots quickly, to take something so deadly out of my hands quickly, but I was more concerned with aiming carefully to make sure nothing unfortunate happened.  The paper man was killed many times over.  When finished, I placed the gun down gently with respect.

 

I thought the AK-47 would be the highlight, and though it was stronger than the colt, it didn’t seem so powerful, especially since people aren’t even allowed to own one.  I will admit, it was cool, even empowering to hold such force in my hands, but I was shooting at a target in a controlled situation, intimidated into discipline by the two six+ feet bouncer types strapped with handguns.  To allow an average person to own such weapons, however, to take home or bring onto the street is simply stupid.  People are not always careful; we don’t live in rubber padded rooms and real people aren’t paper.  The only purpose of such weapons are cheap thrills or murder, neither is a good enough reason to put these in our hands.  It was sobering experience.

The American guy was given the opportunity to shoot a few more guns, such as an uzi and a sniper rifle, though it was his tiny girlfriend that was the best shot out of all of us.

The ammo was removed, the guns unloaded and we were all allowed to pick them up for facebook profile photos.  This was the time to act silly and ignore any safety rules and proper shooting stance; most guns were held sideways at this point.  The floor looked like the end of a Matrix film and we all went to grab empty shells for souvenirs.  Before we left, the owners warned us that airport dogs often have trouble differentiating spent shells from bombs and room was filled once again with the sound of metal dropping to the floor.

Alan and I enjoyed a good pizza after the hour trip back home, before I was whisked off for the next activity of my stag do.  The fully informed Michelle brought me a pair of jeans, but that was the only hint I was given.  Whatever was happening was to start at 16:00 and it was mobile.  In the end, it turned out to be Alan’s friend Bora, who arrived on a massive Harley to take me on a two hour cruise around the city.  We didn’t really go anywhere in particular, mainly twisting up and down the streets of the Buda Hills.  It’s a difficult and slow area to explore by foot, so I enjoyed the speed of the bike.  I’m normally not a fan of sitting on the back of bikes; the speed often makes me uncomfortable, but Bora was a safe, considerate driver.  After a couple of hours, he dropped me off at one of the more popular Hungarian restaurants in town, Paprika.

I had a venison ragout served over potato dumplings with cranberries.  There was enough to serve 3.  I ate it all.  Then Alan and I embarked on our two-man craft-beer pub crawl.  We started at a Czech beer house called Ferdinand, close to Nyugati train station.  The atmosphere, beer, and menu were all fantastic. Of course we didn’t eat, but I made note of the place so I could return some day for dinner.  At the second pub, we found ourselves in an empty room, no music, just two American girls enjoying their beers.  They came and hit on us, but Alan and I aren’t the types to flirtatious when not interested.

The night ended at District IX’s Eleszto, the newest ruin pub in town.  We were worried about the neighbourhood: it all gets a bit dodgy after Krudy, but once we turned onto the pub’s street, everything became well lit and nice.  The pub had a wide selection of local microbrews and the prices weren’t much more than other ruin pubs, only the beer was much better.  We stumbled home late and I was glad I didn’t have to teach the next day.

I was kidnapped again on Friday in Norway, though I’d known about it before; I just didn’t know the plan.  Michelle’s cousin Stein-Erik was the organizer.  He arrived that evening at six PM and Michael and I got into his car with workout clothing and rain gear.  An hour later, were on one of the barrier islands outside of Bergen, staring at the North Sea.

“Do you know what we are doing yet?” Stein-Erik asked.

“Nope,” I replied.

We met with three of his friends and they all grabbed a few large duffle bags and we headed along a trail towards the sea.  I was getting curious.  Finally, we dropped our things in front of  cliff face.

“You are going to climb that,” Stein-Erik said, pointing to the 15m cliff.

“Cool,” I said.  I love climbing.

Apparently, Stein-Erik had this great plan of having me climb up the cliff and film me getting vertigo or freaking out and posting it on facebook.  He wasn’t informed about my broken danger meter. Naturally, I had a blast.  I’d forgotten how much I loved climbing and I couldn’t imagine many more beautiful places to do it.  This was all followed, of course, by the consumption of insane amounts of alcohol, something I find much more frightening.  I once again learned the lesson that I should never attempt to keep up with anybody when drinking: I’m an eternal lightweight.

I ended my second bachelor party being nursed back to health at 3AM by my future wife: a fitting introduction to married life.

Hiking the Kektura: Nograd to Katalinpuszta (14km)

One of my many failings is my inability to cope with sudden changes in plans. It is odd that after nearly two years of backpacking, after moving blindly to other countries, that this would be something that still lurks inside of me. I'm getting better, but not without work.

This all begins with some rain in Germany. The rain drains into the Danube, collects some more water in Austria, and by the time it reaches Budapest, we are in the middle of the biggest flood since 1838. The significance of this to me, despite the hard work of many sandbagging volunteers and my flat far from the river, is that Margaret Island, sight of the IH annual picnic, was closed to the public. The plan was changed, the picnic was cancelled, but this is not the inspiration for my opening paragraph. Instead, we decided on the alternative idea of meeting at 6PM and visiting the Hungarian Craft Beer Festival, which I found more enticing than a picnic. This for me is an example of a positive plan change. I consulted my little book of hikes and found an perfect hike for my time-shortened day. I'd catch 9AM train to Nograd, hike the 14km, four hour hike to Katalinpuszta, then take a quick, 45 minute bus ride home: maximum total time, six hours. I'd even be able to get some accordion practice in. Well, Robert Burns has a saying on this, but I'm a bit rusty with my Scottish.

I actually thought I'd had luck on my side. Even though I rushed out the door with only cake for breakfast. Even though I missed my bus, I still managed to barely catch the train, which was also late. I had a relaxing ride all the Vac. I'd forgotten how nice trains were, especially when you don't need to spend 12 hours on them.

The train stopped in Vac and from my understanding of the MAV site, it would continue on into the Cserhat Hills, but it didn't, and after a few minutes of sitting on an empty train, I realised that I should probably get off. The site said the total trip would be an hour and fifteen minutes, so I asked a uniformed man in a blue striped hat where my connecting train was. He just wrote on my ticket 11:36. This was two hours later.

At first I was annoyed; this would mean that I wouldn't be getting to Nograd until the afternoon and therefore not home until five but I sucked it up and figured that since I'd been meaning to check out Vac anyway, this couldn't be too bad. And in the end, it was well worth my time. Despite the flood I could still see most of the cute churches that were on higher ground. Vac is a lovely river town north of Budapest, and with Szentenre, Visegrad, and Esztergom, one of the big four tourist sights for those that actually leave the city. It's a shame that so many zip through Europe, only stopping at the capital cities, missing the smaller ones, which give a much truer representation of a country. Not to say that Vac is a typical Hungarian village; it is is a tourist site for a reason. I still enjoyed wandering around the narrow streets, snapping pictures of the flood, marvelling at the church paintings. I avoided the trinket shops, had a cheesy hot dog, then continued on my journey.

The second train was tiny, only two cars and quickly filled, both seats and aisles, with teenagers; though it was easy to ignore because this was as pretty of a train ride as I've ever seen. The hills in this area were higher than the other places I've been in Hungary, towering on both sides as the train meandered up the valley. As the train climbed, I became more and more excited; I would soon be hiking these mountains. Finally after passing a few hillside villages and holiday settlements, the train came out into the rolling fields of Nograd.

The train arrived at 12:30 and immediately after I stepped out, I saw another obstacle to my plan. Much like the tops of high hills, castle ruins call to me, oblige me to run my fingers along the cracked mortar, imagine it at its height of their former glory. Now when you put a castle atop a high hill, you may as well tie me to the masts. I had no crew for this and so I had a lovely 50 minutes admiring the surrounding hills and the crumbled history.

I knew now I'd have to walk quickly to arrive back in town in time for the gathering, but for once, the village provided no confusing forks or unmarked turns, though I had already mentally mapped my course from atop the castle. Once I left town, however, the problems started. One of the trail markers was in the middle of a farmer's yard. It was still close enough to the road that I figured I should just continue. A bit further on, after finding no more blue stripes, I started searching around for alternative options, figuring that I was, in fact, wrong. I headed in the direction of the other route, towards the farm, traced it against my map, but it didn't seem right. I searched around until I finally found a glint of blue on a fencepost, behind some tall scrub, next to the road, so I decided that I wasn't wrong after all.

I was wrong.

The Kektura is not a static entity. Over the years, new farmers buy the land and choose to divert the trail to more convenient, less disruptive places, or creeks wash out trails, forests take over, and so the trail changes courses. Since trail markers are merely blue stripes painted on trees or fence posts or rocks, they tend to remain, long after the trail has become but a V-shaped impression in the ground.

I was lost, but I didn't know it. Fuelled by the stray mark, it was clear to me that the farmer who owned the land hadn't bothered to have more painted; there was only one obvious route anyway. But after a couple kilometres, my folly was clear. I was almost to the community of Berkenye, yet the trail was meant to veer south into the Cserhats. So I calculated the angle of intersection and pushed through the woods into the hills. This is usually a bad idea; one should always backtrack if possible and try to find the lost fork. I deemed this unnecessary.

Just before the Nograd, the railroad tracks loop east to Berkenye, then come back to hit Nograd, creating a finger-shaped cut out of the plain. I was within this finger, so if I walked until I hit the tracks, took a right and followed them for about two kilometres, I would find the place where the Kektura crosses the tracks. It was impossible to get lost.

Worry not. I just employed a writing technique called “False-foreshadowing”. My plan worked splendidly and I found the trail again, but lost another hour in the process as well as a ton of patience; the deliciously bitter taste of IPA was becoming more and more a fleeting hope.

I forced a smile to my face; I was in the forest, climbing the primary hill of the route. It twisted around the side of the hill and suddenly I had the most stunning view of the Börzsöny Mountains through the trees and once I reached the summit of Nagy-kő Hegy (Big stone Mountain), I stopped for a sandwich and my mood improved. The flood plain of the Danube looked more like a giant lake, flowing towards Budapest, than a river.

I wanted to savor this view as much as I could, so even though the trail went into the forest, I walked along the ridge for a bit longer. After a bit, there was a relaxing sun-shower, not enough to get me wet, but I put my camera away and pulled out my umbrella just in case. The sun-shower exploded into a storm in seconds. The dark clouds didn't blow in; the blue sky merely morphed from happy to angry. I kept going though, the umbrella and the trees combined were enough for a few minutes, but as the sky went from angry to furious, I considered finding shelter, though there was none. The rain was falling so hard, I could only barely see the trail markers; I definitely couldn't check my book. Finally, I had no choice but to find a large tree, crouch down, and try to stay as dry as I could through the pummelling downpour for the next 20 minutes. I was lucky. Much of the country saw hail. When it let up a bit, I continued along the trail, which would soon become future highway. I took a look at the book when the rain was only a trickle, and I saw that I had passed the stamping point, which was off the trail a bit.

The highway was as boring as purgatory, ugly even, as they'd bulldozed most of the surrounding forest to make it. The most remarkable thing about it was how such an unremarkably dull trail could be carved through such a beautiful place. I passed the time composing the speech in pidgin Hungarian that I'd need to explain my missed stamp (Sok eső! Sok eső . Nem lehet latni. Nem lehet stampozom!) In the process, I missed my turn.

Of course I noticed that the marks had stopped, but I ceased to care. I was four hours behind schedule, lost, but I was on a road, and all roads lead somewhere. This one led to the outskirts of suburban sprawl. The forest was being beat back and the model houses were taking their place. How can anybody want to live in this, much less see it as an ideal? American TV is polluting the world into believing that we all need to get our own soulless, uncharacteristic chunk of former nature as some way to carve our piece of the world, tricking us into thinking that the ugliest thing in the whole universe is desirable, acceptable, even beautiful. That this type of life could be heaven is the biggest middle-finger capitalism has shown us, because if you actually read some Dante, you'll find his descriptions of hell to be suspiciously familiar. I'm not a religious man, but I do deem there to be a hell and we're all moving there quickly, far too quickly through our evil acts of destruction. Paving the last bits of heaven until we live in a barren land of five-bedroom, three-bath torture. Forever lost in cul-de-sac, as I currently am in the story.

I didn't even know what village I was in, but I had a guess. It all seemed deserted. I would think that maybe I had wondered completely off the map, died in the storm, struck by lightning, forced to reform my socialist thinking in this horrible place. I couldn't decide if the sound of lawnmowers, chainsaws, and four-wheelers confirmed or negated my fears. I called Michelle, which confirmed I wasn't dead, just lost. I was familiar enough with hilly country to know that main highways usually follow the deepest lines of valleys, like man-made rivers, so I walked downhill, hoping to meet a person or a bus stop. Finally, my near-random wandering led me to a man who was tying his four-wheeler to the back of his car. He spoke English. I was in Szendehely, the next village up from my destination, meaning I'd missed another stamp for my book, basically making this whole day naught, at least as far as the Hungarian Friends of Nature were concerned. At least I was right in my reasoning and the bus stop was next to the highway which did go along the floor of the valley.

I'd only just missed the previous bus, so I had to wait another hour. This meant that I'd be getting home around 8PM. I would miss meeting my fellow teachers at the festival. Across the street was a convenience store and I bought one of the many light lagers they sell here, I can't remember which one. I sat at the bus stop and watched the rain, wishing there was craft beer in my can. But for a moment, the clouds lifted, but the rain continued. The sky sparkled before the mountains in the distance and it seemed as if the whole countryside was made of diamonds. I don't know why I'd gotten so worked up about a derailed plan. Not many people get to just leave their home one morning, tour a beautiful city, wander around cathedrals and 200 year old churches, climb mountains and explore castle ruins, all in one day, even if all I really wanted to do was walk in the forest for four hours, then meet some friends for an IPA. Besides, the festival didn't end until midnight anyway.