Norwegian Christmas Traditions: Lutefisk

Few Norwegian traditions, save pillaging and raping have garnered as much infamy as lutefisk and this is all for plainly obvious reasons.

            To non-Norwegians, the name lutefisk sounds somewhat exotic, like many foreign foods names: Boeuf bourguignon, paella, or moo shoo gai pan.  Often cuisine sounds much better when a person doesn't know the meaning and lutefisk is no exception.  It directly translates to “lye-fish,” which does not dress up the food at all.  Lye may sound familiar to some.  It is a highly alkaline chemical that when mixed with water becomes extremely reactive and caustic; this is the main ingredient in many drain cleaners or oven sprays.  When mixed with fat it becomes soap.  In some cases, I wholly endorse literal naming of foods.  Brunost is brown cheese.  Fårikål is lamb and cabbage.    I am not a fan of cabbage, but at least cabbage only becomes poisonous after digestion.  When the main ingredient, however, is a deadly chemical, some embellishment is needed.  Nobody wants to eat bleachbeef or shiny blue windex wings and lutefisk should be no exception.  Sadly, a brainstorming session only yielded the alternative names, jigglyfish and rotten-smelling-grey-lump, so possibly lutefisk isn't so bad.

            The origins of lutefisk are either unknown or veiled in embarrassed secrecy, but one theory that seems to make sense to me (please bear with the convolution) is that long ago, there was a Viking—let's call him Stein-Sturm (Stone-storm).  He was drying fish above a fire as Vikings have been known to do, but the flesh was too soft and the fish fell into the ashes and was forgotten.  Norway is rainy place and so when water fell from the sky, it mixed with the ash and all that mixed with the fish and sat there for about week, becoming a lye-water-fish mixture.  When the rain subsided, Stein-Sturm went to his spit to build a fire for the purpose of drying berries or rutabagas or whatever the Vikings ate, and found the forgotten fish.  It had taken a gelatinous texture and only melted his skin slightly, so he decided to give it a taste (he may have discarded the fish based on its smell, but he had lost his nose during a raiding party in Belgium four years before).  It didn't taste nice, but also didn't kill him, so he put what he didn't eat into his cellar and forgot about it until well into winter.  As food became more and more scarce, he was forced to resort to eating that rubber-like hunk of no-longer-fish.  He didn't die and thus he found an amazing way to store meat long term.  He told his Viking buddies and they all tried it.  However, they all still had their sense of smell, so they embraced this method with a bit of trepidation, but after another brutal winter, they forced the stuff down, choosing disgust over death.  The biggest mystery in the story of lutefisk is why people continued to eat it after the discovery of refrigeration.  Another story suggests that it was a failed attempt by the Scots to poison the Vikings’ fish and Northmen decided to continue eating it out of boastful spite.  Either this or lutefisk is a prank on humanity by the trickster god Loki.

            Inevitably, every time I begin to demonize the second-most horrible thing I've ever put in my mouth, some Scandinavian or Minnesotan will barge in its defense.  “It's tradition!” they'll say.  Well, so is ritual human sacrifice in some cultures, but you don’t see people gathering in church basements to partake.  Another is, “Oh, but it tastes really nice when you eat it with lots of bacon and potatoes and peas and butter and chase that awful taste with a shot of akavit.”  Bacon is one of the most delicious things in the world.  Its flavor is so overbearing, that Julia Child—who was no coward of strong tastes—suggested blanching bacon to reduce its power.  When people use this defense of lutefisk, what they are saying is that they like bacon.  Even bacon doesn’t kill that sharp bitter taste.

            I personally find the taste to be terrible, but bearable.  It is the texture that I find particularly repulsive.  The body has a natural defense against the swallowing of inedible things.  I’ve tried lutefisk a couple times now, but I’ve yet to convince my throat that it is in fact food.  Therefore I was forced to move this horrible tasting piece of rotten-fish-flavored jello in my mouth until I could finally force it down.

            Lutefisk is an experience I recommend everybody try at least one time in their life.  There are some people who do find it palatable.  No matter which side of the debate one finds themselves, nobody can deny that eating lutefisk is unforgettable.

Exit Sandman

Years ago I managed a small lunch-time hotspot in downtown Minneapolis. On Monday through Friday, from 11 to 1:30, it seemed the entire office-workforce of the city was lined up at our door and it didn't matter if somebody was a cook, cashier, dishwasher, manager, we all had to work together at our positions, become one as a team and made sure we got everyone out. One could say I was a legend there, great at almost all the positions, but I was undeniably the fastest sandwich maker there. I could slice the bread, arrange the fixings, give it all the proper cut and hurl it home like it was a 95 mile-per-hour cut fastball.

Saturdays were a different story. Everyone had to pay their dues and we all took turns working the slowest day of the week. I'm not sure why we were open; we barely pulled in enough tourists and workaholics to turn much of a profit, but as a manager, this was fine. I could trust my staff with the tiny trickle of traffic and used my Saturdays to write fancy computer programs that would calculate labor costs or streamline my line-ups and mise-en-place designs.

It was on one of these Saturday afternoons when I was catching up on some Stevie Wonder in the office, that one of my employees popped her head inside and asked, “You're a guy right?”

I discretely patted my pants then nodded my head.

“So, you know a lot about sports?”

“I guess I know a fair bit about baseball.”

“Then you gotta come out here.”

I locked my door, strode through the kitchen and popped out into an empty restaurant. Shannon, this hardly seems important enough to pry my from my work.”

“Aaron, you were just jamming out to old school R&B. Singing with your eyes closed. Don't pretend you were busy. It's Saturday.”

“So, what's the deal.”

“I think we got some famous sports guy or something in here.”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“He was athletic, muscular and stuff and was talking about the game with girlfriend.”

My heartbeat sped up. It was July; the only professional sport going at that time was baseball. My brain flashed as who it could be. Was it Joe Mauer, Justin Mourneau, Joe Nathan perhaps? “Who was it?”

“I don't know! That's why I got you. You're the manager. I figured this is the type of thing you'd want to know.”

“It is.” I said. “Please don't mess up his order.”

“We won't! We know how to take care of VIP's”

If there was one problem our restaurant had, it was the complete inability to take care of VIP's. Our block was surrounded on all sides by prestigious hotels. Our skyscraper, the IDS Center, was the highest in the city, home to businesses that had their own skyscrapers named after them in other cities, headquarters of law firms that had commercials during soap operas. Our regulars included the mayor and members of the perennial WNBA champion Lynx. No matter how much I tried to hide the status of our celebrity guests from the employees, they always figured it out, got starstruck with wide eyes upon seeing faces from the TV or election ballots, and could never remember that R.T. Rybak doesn't want mustard on his roast beef.

I grabbed a damp towel from a bucket and started wiping down all the clean tables in the restaurant, trying to catch a glimpse of David Ortiz or maybe Albert Puljos. I was really hoping for Albert Puljos.

I went round to the area in back and there, drinking soda from a lidless cup, sitting back, straddling the corner of a booth was not the all-star I wished to see. He wasn't wearing his slimming pinstripes or iconic black hat, but his face needed no context for a baseball fan.

Before me sat the regular Twins Killer, the man who'd broken my baseball-loving heart more than any other. Mo. Mr. Lights-out. The Sandman. Mariano Rivera.

I looked up to him, he noticed and I went back to my feigned working. I eventually reached his table, gave him and his supermodel girlfriend a quick smile and asked him if he was doing all right.

He nodded and I moved on.

I have this disease when confronted with celebrities. Now, I'm possessed of no shyness; my friend typically appoint me to be the one who says hello, but I often say dopey things. Like when I met Stanton Moore, one of my favorite drummers, all I could mutter out before he quickly found a reason to depart was, “Wow, I'm so honored to shake your amazing hands!” I wanted no such occurrence here. To be a drunk dude confronted with an idol was not the same as a restaurant manager meeting the face of his most hated team in the world. This required tact and composure. I could have easily gone back to my office, tucked his quick interaction away next to the time I walked up to Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Valley Fair, asked him if he was Dale Earnhardt Jr., then walked away, smugly satisfied when he chirped with his throat, “Uh-huh.” But I didn't.

I took three steps back, looked into his Latino eyes and said, “You look really familiar.”

His face lit up. “Oh?”

“Yeah, you look a lot like somebody famous.”

“Really?” he spit out excitedly. “Who?”

His girlfriend suppressed a laugh.

“Well, I could be wrong, but you are a splitting image of a famous baseball player.”

“Which one?”

“What?” I asked. “You've never gotten this before.”

“No, who do I look like?”

“Mariano Rivera.”

“Who's that?” he asked.

I questioned my identification for a second, until I thought I heard his girlfriend kick him from under the table. “He's the closer for the New York Yankees.”

“What's that?” asked the man who probably knew more about the duties of the position than any other.

“It's a pitcher that usually gets the last three out of a baseball game.”

“Huh, sounds exciting. This guy any good?”

I scratched the side of my nose. “Well, some regard him as the greatest closer of all time.”

“Wow, that sounds like a good person to look like! And what do you think of this Mariano Rivera.”

I knew I couldn't tell him the truth. Tell him that my second-favorite baseball moment of all time was probably the worst moment of his entire life: watching him blow his first ever post-season save in the bottom of the 9^th inning in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. His errant throw put the tying run on the bases and Derek Jeter got injured in all the same play. The Yankees team that had won four of the last five championships was left in tears. The unbeatable Sandman showed the world he was human. No, I couldn't tell him the truth, but I was incapable of telling a lie.

“Well, he's good, but he's no Dennis Eckersley.”

This was in 2008, when Rivera was only in the discussion for the best closer ever. Of course, he would add five more seasons of dominance to his resume and put the cap on his Hall of Fame career. He would eclipse Hoffman and Goose Gossage and eventually even Eckersley and stand alone on a pedestal as the undisputed king of the 9^th inning.

I was afraid to get a cup of coke in the face or even a lightning-speed cut-fastball to the groin for my insolence, but instead he gave me a beaming smile from ear to ear. And I had to do the same.

“But I will say this,” I added. “When the Twins go into the 9^th without a lead, there is no face that I dread seeing more, than that one on TV that looks like yours.”

He looked at me for moment, but said not a word, his smile fixed. He then offered me a big wink, which I accepted like it was “Mean” Joe Greene's jersey, then I took his cup to refill his coke.

I went back to the kitchen where a pizza was waiting. I was possessed with no desires to sabotage his lunch, sneak some ex-lax peperoni onto his plate to give the Twins a little leg up for that evening's game. My face just shone bright as I escaped a moment with one of the true legends of the game without making a fool of myself.

I proudly marched the pizza to him, presented his lunch that I hoped might give him heartburn. He looked down and said politely, “That's not what I ordered.”

I took it back to the kitchen to an ensemble of laughs.

“Aaron, that's not his food!”

I only gave him an apology; I didn't wish him luck, I still wanted him to fail. He didn't need my blessing. That night Mo struck out the side in the 9^th and the Twins lost.  They missed the playoff that season by a single game. Mariano went on to collect his accolades, finally retiring this year after 18 seasons. As a Twins fan, I won't be missing him. His always-composed face stands as a symbol of fear, the picture of dominance, sign of impending disappointment for his opponents. But on that afternoon, carried by the flash of a wink, I learned that it is possible to hate the legend, but still like the man.

Farewell Mo.

Hyttetur

 My father-in-law has an encyclopedic knowledge of things to do in the outdoors, but then again, so does my own father. Maybe this is something that happens around age 50; one finally accumulates all the ways to cut up your hands or skin your knees. At 30, I'm aware of a few, but I must be missing slightly less than half.

When Michael has had a few beers, he gets nostalgic, starts telling about all the things that he used to do. It is never clear as to when he's ceased these activities or even if he'd ever stopped, but he always says, “we used to...” then whets my appetite for adventure, but usually fish; his stories usually involve them.

It was on one of these nights, when he began waxing upon his adventures at Onkel Stein's cabin, fishing and crabbing. He will never admit it, but I believe he enjoys having a man in the house that isn't the dog. Not that my wife is dainty or adventure-negative—she may even be more masculine than myself—but it's just not the same. In addition, I'm a foreigner and have a great lack of essential Norwegian experiences. So whenever Michael says, “we used to...” I can be expected to get wet at some point in the near future.

The next day, he called up Stein, booked us a night at his cabin and purchased some special crabbing apparatus. He described it as if it were the pinnacle of crab engineering, but in reality, it wasn't much more than a metal triangle on a stick with some chicken wire strung across the bottom. I wasn't expecting to eat many crabs when I saw it.

We loaded up the truck with sleeping bags and fishing rods, wellington boots and rain gear, and a couple pairs of wool socks. Of course we also needed two cases of beer. At the last minute, we decided some food would be good as well. When all was packed, we ventured off on our hyttetur.

Most families in Norway own a cabin (or hytte in Norwegian) and many own two, one in the mountains and one by the sea. The Troye's didn't but knew people who did. And thankfully Onkel Stein was usually willing to allow guests at his family's cabin. He technically wasn't anybody in the family's uncle; he's Michelle's mother's ex-brother-in-law, but close enough to keep the name. I had been to the cabin before, earlier that summer for some drunken merriment, but there were no crabs involved in that trip. It was located about 45 minutes out of town, on one of the barrier islands of Bergen's fjord. If you need a pop culture reference, you could say it was located in the heart of the Iron Islands. The area is lovely, with rocky cliffs jutting out of the sea next to gentle bumps above the water, as if some god-child left all his stone toys in the bath. The cabin was also nice, both cosy and warm with a giant, unnecessary color television; it was pushing the line from cabin to second home, but we still had to crap in a hole.

Beer were popped open almost before the car was unloaded and after the second, we donned our rain gear and hit the fjord for some fishing. In Minnesota, fishing usually involves rods and fancy spinning contraptions and slidy thingabobs and often some slimy living thing. Michael had most of these things, but Michelle and I were assigned 200 yard of fishing line on a wood spool, with five hooks connected to tiny plastic red dots they called tyttebær, or lingonberries. I skeptically dropped the line in, let it fall to the bottom and within minutes, I felt some tension. I pulled it up and there were three tiny mackerel. The next dip yielded five more. This was hardly fishing, but I couldn't argue with the results. We caught about 30 small fish, slightly bigger than perch, then gutted them all when we returned to shore.

We warmed up at the hytte and Michael called his wife. He was missing his dog and we had a marked lack of whiskey. She was enjoying a relaxing evening in an empty house, but decided in the end to join us on our escape from the city.

The five of us finished dinner and a flat of beer, then around midnight, we put on a heavier set of rain clothes, threw our crabbin' stick into the boat with some flashlights and headed out into the fjord again.

It was a still, dark night, not much wind and mild currents, perfect conditions for snagging clawed creatures. In the Autumn in Norway, the crabs begin to fatten up from their diets of barnacles and whatever else they can find. The best time to go is at the peak of high tide, when the water levels remain constant for a short one-hour window. We brought our boats to the edge of a steep mountain wall, killed the engine, then inched along by fingertips while Michael hung out the front with a headlamp and his crabrake. The crabs usually relax about 3 feet below the surface, but quickly dive once spot-lighted. So one has to quickly dip the rake below it and coral the crab up to the surface. Once out of water, they grasp onto anything they can find—to our advantage, chicken wire suffices—then you throw them into the boat, making sure you don't hit anyone on the head or tempt their claws with your wife's nose. Michelle and I then took our turns, slowly filling up the bucket. By the end, we all had sore fingers, a couple bruises on our chests, and about 50 fat crabs. The current picked up around 1:30, as did the rain, so we called it a night, headed back to the “crabin” (hehe) and tossed the crabs into some wood traps filled with seaweed so they didn't eat each other. We then crawled into our sleeping bags and drifted to sleep to the sound of the ocean breeze shaking the house.

The next evening, we had a feast, or rather Michael and I did—Michelle and her mother aren't big on crabs. I spent nearly two hours cracking shells, stuffing my face with pieces of meat the size of a q-tip head. It was a lot of trouble; I cut up my hand quite a bit, but few things are as delicious as your own hard work. The leftovers were mixed with lemon juice and mayonnaise to be spread on bread over the next few days.

Later that night Michael told us that he used to set out nets in the lake behind the house and catch hundreds of tiny fish that are divine when smoked and so the next day he started patching the holes in the leaky boat that lives in the front yard. My rain gear and taste buds are already prepared.

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.

Walking the Kéktúra: Dorog to Pelifoldszentkerest (19.8km)

 One should never allow elevation to judge a hike. I cannot lie; I often do. Even though I grew up, or even because I grew up in such a flat place, I've quickly dismissed lowlands as either boring farmland or unnavigable swaps. This idea held despite many a wonderful walk in the prairies not far from my home town. That said, when I conceive of a hike, I imagine a mountain.

In Hungary, there aren't many mountains west of the Pilis; the Alps begin just when you cross the border of Austria. One could even argue that there aren't any mountains at all, but Hungarians are fiercely proud of whatever you call those bumps in their landscape, and as I explore them more, I become as well. It's about relativity and I suppose I should ignore my ancestral Rocky Mountain roots and extensive travels in the Himalaya and accept that I've been more or less a flatlander since birth. So let the Pilis be mountains, because it's just a word anyway.

I tackled all the Pilis sections of the Kektura first, which is natural, as they're the closest to Budapest and as much as I'd to view myself as some wake-at-the-crack-of-dawn-and-seize-the-day-even-if-that-day-is-Saturday-type of guy, I'm not. I'll have three beers on Friday night, watch a movie cuddled with Michelle, and get to sleep around 1AM, despite my best efforts, unless I absolutely have to. So after two months of wanting to venture further into the country, I found that I'd exhausted all the options for late starts.

Once you have to leave the general “metro” area, things become more complicated regarding transportation. Whereas the Pilis has hourly buses for the Budapestians that love to head to the hills to drink their beer, or to visit their parents or uncles who live in the villages, or oddly enough, the villagers who like to come to the city on weekends. The outer areas of Hungary are a different story. Sometimes you are lucky to find a bus at all that doesn't leave at dawn. So my mission of hiking across the country, one Saturday at a time, can't afford me such late nights on weekends, and if I decide to venture out on a Sunday, the buses are even more infrequent. This was the case last Sunday.

As we've established, I have a bias for high places and for my first real adventure in the heart of Hungary, I eyed the highest I could find, Kekes at 1014m. So, I filled out my little yellow post-it with bus times and transfer points, calculated my required pace to catch the last bus home, and finding my work done, I had another beer and watched a movie with Michelle, only to get to sleep too late, forcing my plan B: the Gerecse Hills, just East of the Pilis, only an hour from town.

The next morning, I found myself on the BP-Esztergom bus, amongst Japanese and Chinese tourists who were trying to flash moving photos of the poppy fields that so captured my imagination two weeks before. I was eyeing the elevations and my hike would only take me as high as 350m. I could see higher mountains out the window of my school! Unfortunately, I wasn't privy to this future essay's thesis statement, so between the low elevation and the dark clouds forming over the hills, I had little hope for this hike.

The Geresce hills are a thin chain of time humps that are a part of a longer narrow chain of humps connecting Budapest and Lake Balaton. This keeps Hungary from being completely flat in the middle and provides a convenient route for a long-distance hiking trail, that doesn't disrupt any farmer's wheat.

I was hiking from Dorog to Pelifoldszentkerest, opposite from the normal direction, mainly because buses didn't actually run Pelifoldszentkerest; the name is just simply too long to put on a bus window's sign. Even with the way I was taking, I'd have to backtrack for 30 minutes to the only slightly shorter named Mogyorosbanya, and catch one of the two buses that returned to civilization.

I'd written off this section and not just from the height and inconvenience, but also its lack of sights. The next section had two castles. This one only had three successive 300m climbs and descents. I'd learned in Nepal that it is often the lower hikes that prove the most strenuous. When you climb high, you usually stay high, but hills are a constant roller coaster of heavy breathes and sore knees.

Dorog was a lovely town with a gorgeous church and as I've mentioned before is a poppy paradise. The trail climbed straight up the hill Northwest of town. It was a moderate climb and I was greeted with a steady, but light rain. I've never loved rain, but there is one context that may make me a convert: when in the depths of a forest in summer and the leaves above create the most musical of umbrellas. Birds often love to add a melody to the thunderous percussion, the thump of my boots upon the ground, the squishy shlurp as they pull from the mud, and the rain drops' syncopation. Some mosquitoes attempted a high pitched harmony line, but I immediately squashed their dreams of joining my nature band.

Occasionally the trees would thin and I'd see the limestone hills above Kesztolc and the increasingly shrinking Dorog below. After a cloud obscured view of the whole valley from the top, the trail plummeted straight down the north face of the hill. I had to use the skinny oak trees and overhanging limbs to slow my slide down the mud-lubricated path. This was unpleasant, but I bet it would have been worse to go up.

The trail emerged in Tokod and I was glad that it left the unremarkable village quickly, especially because of what awaited ahead. I started climbing towards a rocky hill and the path travelled though another of the many lovely meadows that make Hungary so stunning in the summer. This one featured clumpy, cream-colored flowers punctuated by spiky purple ones that grew in kaleidoscopic patterns.

A storm was brewing above the hill I'd just passed, so I was pleased that I'd left no later than I did. Thankfully, the wind was blowing the storm from me, so I climbed higher, knowing I'd get to watch it without the danger of being struck by lightning.

The rocky hill was named Hegyes-kő. A couple months ago, I'd regard this as some exotic, poetic name, thought of by Petofi Sandor or some other great Hungarian writer. One often romanticises the words of an ununderstood language, often giving it a lofty status, but as I've learned more Hungarian, I've sadly discovered that the Hungarians are as bad at naming things as the Brits. This hill was called Mountain-y rock, which was simply what it was.

From the top of the mountainy rock, I could see the whole western side of the Pilis range and the great cathedral of Esztergom, the largest cathedral in Hungary. Even from miles away, it was impressive.

The trail then dipped down, crossing bald hills with views of the surrounding pastoral wonderland. I quickly walked through the cute, two-street village of Tokodipincék, stopping only to get lost and find the stamp for my book. People still collected their water from wells, every house had a garden, and most had grape vines. I should have stopped longer, but I only learned after the hike that “pincék” meant wine cellars—now that is well named village!

Behind the village was kőszikla, a hill with the name “stonerock”. After Mogyorosbanya (I don't know what that means.) I passed by “Old Rock”, a giant cave I didn't have time to explore. The section ended in Pelifoldszentkereszt, a holy place with a holy well that poured out holy water. I saw a woman loading up with it, using two-liter coca-cola bottles. I wanted to ask her if she desired to share a coke with Jesus, but I didn't speak enough Hungarian to be properly offensive.

The village may have been beautiful once, but this beauty led way for what appeared to be a seminary/dude ranch/Christian tourist trap. An old-folks home was across the street. The seminary was built around a reservoir and though I sure they were attempting some beautiful half nature/half human feel, in the end it just seemed like a waste of perfectly good forest. Just because it was lowlands, doesn't mean it isn't worth cherishing.

A letter to the fat guy buying parsnips on a Wednesday morning without a shirt

Dear the fat guy buying parsnips on a Wednesday morning without a shirt,

Why? I just wanted to put out the one word floating in my mind after I saw you, a reasonable looking man, doing what many normal people do in the morning: purchasing vegetables. Nothing about your demeanour suggested anything was amiss at all, except you weren't wearing a shirt.

So, let me begin by saying that I admire your courage and your moustache. However impressive it is, it is not enough to draw my eyes away from how your abdomen jiggles when you walk. I also commend you for spending your morning buying vegetables, as opposed to a bag of potato chips or langos. The moment I encountered you first, you were handing money to the friendly looking gypsy woman for a bundle of parsnips. As you most likely know, parsnips are high in potassium, vitamin c, and fibre. They are also low in fat. If you intention is to lose the spare tractor tire you've presented to the world, parsnips are a great way to start. Unfortunately, your desire to show off the results of your positive dietary choices is a bit premature.

Let me state now that I have nothing against fat people; one of my friends had a cat that was quite fat, and I loved him as I would a skinny cat, maybe even more so. That said, I do have something against general public shirtlessness when outside of the context of a beach or a Kid Rock concert. It can be easy to be led astray from societal norms when living in a city that doesn't stigmatize public defecation and in your defence, you were wearing more clothing than an average woman in Budapest, but that still doesn't make it right and I much prefer a young woman's breasts to yours.

I suppose in certain circumstances this would be more acceptable. If you had lived in some quaint back street of the city, away from people, for the last twenty years, and over those twenty years, the neighbourhood and greengrocer had grown accustomed seeing your abdomen from time to time. Maybe you had on occasion enjoyed a shirtless beer on your front step, back in the days when you were fit, and didn't eat so many parsnips. As time passed on, your gut grew larger and larger, but your self-image remained the same. That old t-shirt that always fit so well stretched to a point where one didn't need imagination to know what you looked like sans clothing, and you woke up this morning and thought, “Fuck it! It ain't anything they haven't seen already.” I severely doubt this is the case and you don't live in some quaint back street of Budapest. You live near Keleti Train station, one of the busiest places in the city, often the first port of call for any visiting foreigner. When tourists come to this city to see the grandiose things erected in this great city, they aren't expecting your nipples.

Which brings me to another point. Are you so well insulated that you failed to notice the chilly temperatures, the biting wind, and the continuous downpour of rain? When even the city's hookers were wrapped in worn down winter coats, did you not find it strange to go for a stroll with just your bare skin to protect you from this cold snap that has plagued us for the last week? This is not a sudden freak drop in temperature, it's been like this for many days and the forecast doesn't predict it to end any time soon. Parsnips won't protect you from the elements.

So please, fat man buying vegetables without a shirt, please remember to wear clothing. Not because it's Wednesday, not because it's cold and rainy, not because this is Keleti Raiway Station, and not even because you're fat. Just do it because you are a grown man. And grown men should know how to dress themselves.

Sincerely,

Aaron

Walking the Kéktúra: Dorog to Piliscsaba (18.6km)

            Hungary isn't a nation known for its natural wonders.  It has fantastic architecture, a deep history, and a ridiculous language, but it sadly lost most of its mountains to neighbouring countries after World War I.  However, to regard its landscape as boring would be a tragic oversight.  It isn't dramatic, but it is charming, therefore it can often be difficult to predict which places are going to be incredible for hiking.  I've just now completed the 100km that make up the Pilis Hills section of the Kektura (In English, the Blue Trail.  It is a 1,128km that crosses the Northern part of the country) and 20km from Dorog to Piliscsaba represents much of what makes hiking in Hungary a delight.

            Dorog is only 45 minutes and a 700 forint trip from the center of Budapest and since it is on the busy BP-Esztergom route, there is no need for tricky planning with time.  You can pretty much start and finish at any time of the day.

            In the summer, the Pilis Mountains fill with literal fields of wild flowers.  Just east of Dorog, I found myself surrounded by thousands of poppy flowers, with their thin petals that look like tissue paper and their unexpected melange of bright red, orange, and pink; it is sure to be many children's favorite crayon color.  They are both vibrant and delicate.  When I first saw a solitary flower, popping up on the side of the road in the industrial district of Csepel Island, I thought it was a fake, but thankfully, upon exploring the countryside around the city, I've found them to be delightfully abundant.  I spent nearly half an hour trying to find the perfect way to shoot this spectacle, to decide if they looked better close up, with the petals flayed open, or folded over themselves in the wind.  Or, does this cheat their real beauty: their copiousness, the way they continue for miles.  Of course, when I got home and described what I saw to Michelle (and and that point they weren't poppies, but mystery flowers), she just said, “They're poppies, you can find them in any field or garden, but yeah, they are pretty.”  We have poppies in North America, but nothing like this.  It became clear why it is the most addictive flower.

            Poppy orange is not the only color in this landscape’s palette.  There were also purple clusters of sage flowers, tiny yellow flowers, spikey purple globes rising singularly on tall stalk, and lovely pink blossoms that hung from tree vines.  All together, it felt like I'd passed on, to a Monet painted afterlife.  I hadn't even walked a kilometer from Dorog and I was already getting an adrenaline rush.

            The trail ascended up through a new, but surprisingly dense forest, like a tunnel, winding its way through the thicket.  It was the height of the spring and the leaves had reached a blinding hue of green, even though I was in the shade.  Then the trail thrusted me out onto the other side, where I stood in front of two limestone mountains, above the cute village of Kesztolc.

            Walking through any village in Hungary is often a rattling experience.  Every yard has its own dog, so a walk down the street is continuous cycle of being startled, a short recovery time, then another jump ten meters later.  I did my best to just focus on the approaching hills and the prospect of the view from the top, hopefully stretching all the way to Esztergom and the famous Blue Danube.

            After the village, the route stretched high into the Pilis until I was at the base of the main summit.  The trail bisected a wide shelf, with a meadow that continued all the way along the edge of the range.  A layer of white hovered above the fields, like fresh snow being blown across the road.  When I was closer, I realized it was a waifish, white plant that danced, weightless in the air.  These may have been the inspiration for the inflatable, “tubemen” used to draw children and potheads to car dealerships.  If from a distance they were a blizzard, up close, they were lightning.

            A tiny path veered right up the mountain, but according to my map, this was not the way; the Kektura instead just followed the meadow, only skirting the mountains until the tiny village of Klastrompuszta.  I went forward, completely happy, but not content.  After a 100m, my uncontrollable urge to go higher overcame me and I retreated back to the fork and began climbing.

            My map only covered the official Blue Trail, so I had to go blind.  I surveyed the line of the mountains and deduced that that as long as I followed the high ridge, then took the first trail back down, I couldn't possible get lost.

            The Kektura is a great way to see the country.  It's a continuous trail, hits the main sights of Northern Hungary, and you can collect your progress with stamps in a little book containing maps, elevation information, distance charts and points of interest.  Sadly though, because it is meant to be a popular easy route, the hiking itself can prove quite boring.  Often it is more of a dirt road than a trail.  The other cross-country routes are often smaller and closer to my conceptualization of “hiking.”  The trail I took, which was the Zoldut (green road), shot straight up the hill.  Thankfully, a month of weekly hikes and regular running had whipped my legs and heart into shape. 

            About halfway up the hill, I heard some rustling in the trees.  I looked through the foliage and caught a glimpse of a pack of some sort of large mammal running through the tress.  This was my first encounter with wild animals in Hungary, so I was excited at first, but when I realised that the mystery animals were a group of boars, fear set in.  So I did what any sensible person would do when faced with a herd of one of the most dangerous animals in Europe; I pulled out my camera and tried to, unsuccessfully, get a shot.  The click of the shutter drew the attention of the leading pig and it turned towards me and started running.  I scanned the area for the nearest tree to climb, but in my panic I couldn't find one, even though I was in the middle of a forest.  I froze, but the boars chose to use their flight response instead of the deadly alternative.  I continued merrily on my way.

            The peak was only a kilometre away and I stopped and ate a banana, my feet dangling from the limestone cliff, and I started down to the tiny villages and vineyards below.  I couldn’t quite see the grand cathedral of Esztergom, from on a clear day like this, it wouldn’t surprise me if I could see Croatia from across the flat Hungarian plain.  I traced the kektura and it twisted around to the tiny village of Klastrompuszta, which from here appeared as merely a church.  If I walked down the narrow gully between the next two peaks, I could get my stamp in the book and simply continue with the trail onward to Piliscsaba.

            The high trail opened into a wide open space, lined with freshly felled trees.  This was clearly a future highway on the high ridge of the Pilis, even though there was a highway a mile to the right and a mile to the left of here already.  It was becoming a common sight.  No matter where I’ve been hiking, there are ongoing projects to get cars onto the tops of the peaks.  Now, I understand the need to be on the top of a hill, it was the same internal desire that brought me here, but my hiking boots aren’t kicking down thousands of trees, cutting ecosystems in half, bring pollution, exhaust, or the worst, the sounds of cars to this sacred place.

            The Pilis hills are one of those magical places that burst with energy and draw the holy.  It was the home of the Hungarian royalty for a thousand years.  The Dalai Lama visited these beech forests in order to feel the power of what some consider to be Europe’s most sacred place.  New Agers claim it is the center of the heart chakara for the whole continent.  The catholic seat of Hungary lies in these hills.  People undertake pilgrimages from the far corners of Europe to come to these hills.  It is a land of miracles: Mother Mary has appeared on trees in these hills.  There are so few magic places left in this world, so for the love of whatever spiritual power you believe in, can we just leave a road off of a place for once, so it can only be accessed by those that want to love it, not destroy it?

            The two lane highway cut through the mountains, more or less continuing in the right direction.  As I had suspected, a cross trail leading down went along a fissure, leaving the summit.  I reluctantly descended.  The trail popped out of the trees to an overlook above the plains and I saw Klastrompuszta below, a couple miles away.  Directly above it was an even higher peak, this one at such an angle and height that I could probably see the whole Pilis range from its peak.  I turned around and rejoined the highway.

            I did my best to mentally map my position, but I feared that the trail was slowly taking me from my goal.  I couldn’t see the peak through the trees, but I could feel it.  Just when I thought I’d either have to backtrack or just bushwhack through the forest, the route forked and the highway headed further into the Pilis, while the hiking trail headed in the direction of my dream view.

            It all opened up into the hiking equivalent of a spaghetti junction.  The green, blue, yellow, green cross, green peak, red, red peak all met here.  I had no idea which one went where, so I picked the green peak and began climbing. It was getting late, but I’d already come so far.  After a while, the trail veered north, deeper into the mountains and away from where I wanted to go.  I started walking faster as I often do when faced with the prospect of being lost and before I knew it, I was on the complete other side of the mountain, overlooking the whole North section of the Pilis and Danube in the distance.  To my left, I could see Dobogoko and I realized that I was nowhere near where I thought I was.  I considered heading in that direction; I knew there were plenty of buses home from there.  Piliscsaba was merely an abstraction at this point.

            However, I’m a stubborn man and when I decide that my destination is going to  be Piliscsaba, by golly, I’m going to Piliscsaba, so I turned back the way I came, hiked back to the spaghetti junction and followed the green cross heading down the hill.  The trail started heading the wrong way, so I ploughed through the trees in the direction of Klastrompuszta, following a dried creek.  The good thing about being lost in the Pilis is that one is never far from a village and there are ample trails going there, no matter how deep into the national park one goes.  I can’t recall the route I took, but after 20 minutes, I reached my destination.

            It was a cute village of a hundred people with some old monastery ruins that I didn’t have time to explore; I still had 7km left to go.  I was actually happy to be back on the wide, easy to follow kektura, especially because I could once again follow a map; I got lost again a little bit down the trail.  It opened up into a freshly logged field and even though there were four potential routes to choose from, none were marked.  I couldn’t see the next village, but using the map and the position of the sun, I picked a trail.  It was the wrong one.

            Fortunately, it did take me to right village, just the wrong part of it.  But not before I walked upon a group of vacationers, chugging wine.  I even caught one in the midst of urinating.  They started talking to me in Hungarian.  I apologized, told them that my Hungarian was terrible.  I asked if they spoke English and they said no.  I asked if they spoke German and they said no.  They asked me if I spoke Slovak and I knew then, that it was time to put the money I’ve been spending on Hungarian lessons to good use.  They offered me wine, but I explained that I wasn’t thirsty.  Apparently, this didn’t matter and they poured me a cup.  Since I had witnessed one urinating, I asked if the golden colored liquid in the cup was piss, but they seemed confused.  I pointed to the man and said that he was peeing, then asked if this was pee.  They still seemed confused, so I said I was only joking and we all had a jolly, awkward laugh.

            Not ten minutes later, I had another opportunity to practice my Hungarian.  As I mentioned before, I had taken the wrong trail and was thus lost.  Some men were having a BBQ in their backyard and I asked them how to find the kektura.  Nobody knew the way, but the youngest who spoke English confirmed that I was in the right village.  His father kept asking me in Hungarian where I was going.  I told him I was going to Piliscsaba.  “By foot?!” he exclaimed.  “Yes.” I said.  So the man gestured for me to come.  “Come on,” he said in Hungarian.  “We’ll go by car.”  I was happy that we had just learned the various methods of transportation a few days before in class.

            I told him that it was fine, I wanted to walk.  I saw on the map that the trail passed the only church in town, so I asked where it was.  I was told that there was no point going to the church; Piliscsaba was only seven minutes by car.  He wasn’t getting my message, so I asked his son in English to explain to his father that, even though it is extremely kind of him to offer me a ride and I mean no disrespect, but I’m on a personal endeavour to hike across Hungary and getting a ride is a direct affront to my goal.

            The father would have none of it.  He disregarded his son as if he’d made it all up himself.  He then turned to me and said in Hungarian, “Don’t listen to him, he’s crazy.  Come, we’ll go by car.”  The son looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

            I then started testing the limits of my communication ability.  I said, “Fresh and young I am.  Piliscsaba is close.  Only 90 minutes it is.”  He didn’t get it.  I said, “I like walking, I want walking.  Walking happiness makes me!  Happy man I am!  I am not tired.  Walking is easy!” 

            He stared and me and processed my brilliant soliloquy, then said, “Come on, we’ll go by car.”

            I looked at his son and asked him if I was communicating correctly.  He said, “Yes, you’re speaking Hungarian very well, but it seems my father does not understand the concept of what you are doing.”  We both shrugged our shoulders.

            I said to the father in Hungarian, “You are a very very nice boy and I am a young boy and it is late.  Piliscsaba is over there and far away, but I like walking.  Thank you for help.  Goodbye.” And I left. 

            As I was walking away, I heard the man ask to the heavens, “Why are all young people so crazy?”

            And in that moment, I knew that both this hike and my Hungarian lessons were well worth the effort.