Okay, I feel guilty over not writing sooner. Honest, I do! There are reasons, not excuses for the absence, which I will go into short detail about and then hopefully we can move on from there. We were in Granada. Were the past tense as in we left there…over a week ago. What happened? Well, it is summer in this region of the world. It is hot out. No, change that to blistering hot out. Unlike Panama City where every store has air conditioning blasting and the front doors wide open, here they have the front doors wide open, but no air conditioning. Even our accommodation charges $10 a night extra for A/C with the expectation that it is nighttime use only. That said, the room did have a heavy-duty floor fan as well as a ceiling fan. Neither really met the match of A/C, but we didn’t realize how much we really needed artificially cooled air streams blowing over our sheets causing us a nighttime chill. The room was not totally uncomfortable, but we toyed with the idea of wrecking our budget for a night or two splurging on the remote control needed to turn on the A/C unit, but it never won the battle. Add to this that Nicaraguan beds and pillows are like sleeping on marble slabs. I truly believe the pillows are made of straw that has been soaked in concrete before being formed into a shape that will never know what fluffing means. This led to lack of sleep. Lack of sleep led to apathy. Days were moderately busy, but honestly, there would have been plenty of time to write IF it were not so damned hot. The heat melted away any incentive I had at being creative, sharing, or moving away from the poolside, though I did not even go in the one here. Finally, the Internet connection is worse than when I had a 56K dial up modem, two centuries ago. The bed and breakfast has “high speed” Internet with a heavyweight router, but the upload speed is as fast as a mule in mud. One day, I thought I would be progressive and upload my photos. It took me 2 full days of letting the computer run non-stop to upload 36 photos. I could have delivered them to Picasa in person faster.
Even typing my notes in Word and then copying and pasting into Blogger has not solved the issue. Blogger times out before any saves have been made due to the Internet speed. So that said, this is why I have not created a comprehensive overview of Granada and now León has past. I will write up a quick overview of each for my memory in the future as well as for your ‘reading’ pleasure. Hopefully, it will get uploaded.
It is so hot here and has been this entire last week. How hot is it? Well to give you a clue here are some things that have happened this week.
It is so hot that when I open the refrigerator the flies swarm in to get cooled off.
It is so hot that when I took out a frying pan, before ever turning on the burner, having put the eggs in it, by the time I reached for something from the other counter, the eggs were cooked.
It is so hot that our faucets had to be renamed: Hot and Hotter.
It is so hot that I had been ironing sheets for thirty minutes before I realized I had never plugged in the iron.
It is so hot that when I hang up laundry, the first pieces are dry by the time I put the last clothes pin on the last piece.
It is so hot that the ice cubes are getting sunstroke.
It is so hot that the air conditioners in the malls need to have fans blowing on them.
It is so hot that our wine deer stripped off its clothes.
It is so hot that our small herd of zebra keeled over in the lavender patch.
All donations of cool air are 'warmly' appreciated.
The train ride was painless, not at all what I had anticipated. I don’t do well in confined spaces for very long, if I know I cannot escape from them. I had not even considered the lack of air conditioning, but of course the weather did not disappoint. It was in the 80s. Some train person had the foresight to open every window on the train. The cross breeze made it acceptable. We were in a cabin for six, but only one thirtyish-year-old man asked to join us. No one bothered to look at our tickets for the first two hours; by that time we were in Veszprém. An hour later, the man left us and we had six seats to ourselves.
We had cleaned out the fridge, taking food that would spoil with us for our meals. Loaded down with four sandwiches, extra cheese cut into thick chunks, two beers (they do spoil when unattended), a large bottle of water, three tangerines, and assorted other goodies, we looked like a catering service. What the conductor happened to walk by again, he looked in, said something like “Oh, you are Hungarian. Good appetite”, in Hungarian of course.
During the trip, I finished the novel that I started when the train pulled out of Deli station: The Dressmaker, by Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck. I only brought one other book with me; I am thinking I should save that for the trip home otherwise I will chew on my foot out of boredom. There were plenty of catnaps in between reading, so it wasn’t all recreation. Sleeping on a train takes stamina holding your head in place. It’s not easy.
We arrived fifteen minutes late, in the other L word, again better than expectations. There were innumerable stops for ten to twenty minutes, but no passport control to hold us up. We had no idea where to go to find our hostel once we arrived. We only had 2 ½ months to prepare for this, but that is a map thing. Everyone knows I don’t do maps, but Ron is Mr. Map. He fell by the wayside on this one. We walked 2 blocks in the wrong direction, before we asked for directions.
Once we were turned around, our hostel was a breeze to find. I have to say even in the dark, this city has more graffiti than Budapest ever thought possible and that is a real stretch. The hostel is a converted prison. Our room is an old cell, needless to say, there is only one window that opens on high, with bars on it, preventing any cross ventilation and is HOT. The temperature when we arrived was still in the mid-80s. More about the hostel later. It is time for a b and b = beer and bed.
For those not in the know, The L Word was a television show on cable TV.
If the heat is getting to you, imagine what your computer is going through with only one little fan to cool its insides. The heat is definitely doing strange things to my computers. It may or may not be the heat though with the desktop computer having had a tech here replacing all of the innards part by part. Yet, the Internet connection is still a problem. Funny, the WiFi works fine for all of the other computers here both resident and visiting. A week back, we upgraded our cable TV to a DVDR subscription to get more channels in English. We now have a grand total of five. Do I hear a big WHOOP? When the repairman was here, he did some stuff with the wiring, which then led him to my Internet modem. When he left, it was white lightening. Today, it is slower than getting mud out of silk.Trying to work on the Toshiba laptop, I have been back and forth between the coffee table and the desktop. It is too hot keeping the laptop on my lap and if I set it on anything non-porous, it shuts itself off. I have a fan blowing on the power cord to keep it cool, but finally put it on a bag of ice wrapped in a dish towel. If I am not electrocuted, I will get my shopping chapter completed today. If I am electrocuted, it will go on hold indefinitely.There is a silver lining. On Wednesday, I get my brand new computer with a four core processor, my Windows Home Server will be installed, and a WiFi router with two antennas strong enough to project through lead walls. The best of it is it will have Windows 7 on it. Ah, you say, Windows 7 is not out yet. This is the Windows 7 Release Candidate, which can be downloaded until August with a key. It will work until March 2010 at which time I will have the regular version to replace it with. The only down side is having to reinstall all of the programs now and then again later with the full version. The price one pays for technology.
Yesterday, we went to Balatonkenese, the second town on the west shore of Balaton, almost opposite the river from Siofok. A friend invited us to a small BBQ. This being the first ever invitation, we were intrigued. I really did not want to go since I knew they would have to speak English just for us.
So we go get our train tickets: Deli pu to Balatonkenese and return. No problem. I checked the Hungarian train site and took a screen shot of all of the returning trains so we could leave at any time. The train going was 3 minutes late leaving Budapest, HOT as hell. I swear, I could have baked cookies in the train car and the seats were the old-fashioned bench like seats. All of the windows were open, yet there was not a modicum of a breeze coming through.
Thinking it was only a 2 hour trip, we only had a small bottle of water, not knowing if we had consumed a barrel full, we would have sweat it out and never needed the WC. We get there over 20 minutes late. They have a lovely home two blocks length from the train station. The party was nice. There were some conversational strains when they turned to us to translate their lively conversations.
They all decided they are going to the lake for a swim and are curious why we don't have our suits; no one suggested it, but I don't do swim suits with anyone I know personally. Perfect time to announce we had to make the 4:26 train back to Budapest. My department head checks my print out to make sure I am correct; she is sincerely disappointed we would not join them to the lake, and we take off. We are at the station with time to spare, but no train. I looked at the schedule on the ticket office door and the 4:26 is not listed there. The next train is at 5:29 and shows Budapest Deli pu. Okay, it is blazing hot, but we are covered, so fine. There is NOTHING around to get fluids. The little restaurant at the station is locked shut. Okay, we can survive this.
The train comes; they make some announcement at the train. There are only two tracks and the station is not much larger than our apartment, so no sophisticated equipment, let alone English translations. The train was headed in the right direction, the time was correct, so we board. Most trains have signs on the door listing their destinations. The train coming did not, so I did not think anything of the fact that the one we were climbing onto did not either. It was jammed with high school kids and difficult finding two seats together, but we finally managed. Only alter alternate windows would open, but those that could were open to the max. Noticing the puddles on the floor as we passed other passengers, we knew this was not a good omen. Within 30 minutes, we had contributed our own pools of water to the others; again, it was hot enough to roast a turkey. The open windows were a spiteful mirage of relief.
The conductor made his rounds for tickets after we had melted for an hour. He accepts the tickets from the two sitting with us and then ours. Looking at our seatmates, he says something in Hungarian. The young woman across from me gives the conductor a slight nod in my direction that I happen to catch. My thought was that he was questioning why one of our tickets had been discounted, but he did not ask for my teacher pass and I was too dehydrated to make the effort to dig it out if he did not insist. After a shrug, he moved on.
Two hours and forty minutes later, already off schedule by a half hour, we reach Budapest-Kelefold, the suburbs of Budapest. The next stop was Kobanya-Kispest, the end of the Blue metro line, followed by the small airport. No stations are announced ahead of time. Unless you know the stops, you have only minutes to catch a glimpse of the sign as you whisk by it entering the station, grab your things, jump over other’s luggage and legs and run to the door.
Ron made a comment that we crossed the river if we are stopping at these stations, but why would we cross again to return to Deli, which is on the Pest side? I check the schedule yet again, showing it to him for further confirmation. That is what the schedule states. As we leave this last station, panic rises in our throats choking off the hot air that refuses to circulate.
Ron decides to find someone with some English skills, but it takes him two cars to find success. We missed out on all Budapest opportunities. The next station would be another hour away, a town called Cegléo. We pour ourselves onto the platform and then into the station. I realize I don’t have much money with me, not expecting the need. Between the two of us, we can purchase tickets and buy a soda. We have 30 minutes to wait for the train back again, which will bring us to Nyugati, a closer station to home than Deli making this a minuscule reward.
Looking at the electronic board of arrivals and departures, we seem to think that our train will stop at platform 4, so we descend into the tunnel to cross under the tracks arise again on the correct spot. However, when the train arrives, the sign, which has been accommodatingly put on the door shows that this train has been to Budapest already and is on its way to Szeged. We found a young conductor to ask where the Budapest train was, but not only did he not speak English, he had no idea. However, he took some pity on us and looked around until he found a sign with the information and pointed us to track 6, which meant another tunnel excursion and seconds to ascend as the train arrived.
Planning on being home by 7:00 pm, we finally walked in the door at 11:20 pm.
We had some hot days last week, but then a weather front came through with torrential rain. It just stymies me how forceful the rain can be. Having been to Niagra Falls, Iguazu Falls, and Viktoria Falls, there are some close resemblances at times. Yesterday was 85 degrees and today will hit 92 degrees.
Going to the mall is not an option for cooling off. Their air conditioning is not strong enough to keep the soap kiosks from closing in the summer. The one year they remained open, all of their product was a soupy mess all over their display counter.
This is good training. We are planning our trip to Australia for December. Alice Springs gets up to 112 degrees. Good thing we lived in the central valley of CA. We know heat.
I was born in Long Branch, NJ on the Jersey shore and lived there until I was a junior in high school. From there, I moved to New Lothrop, Michigan to finish my last two years of high school. I returned to Michigan for one disasterous semester of college, but moved to Florida. I have owned a restaurant in PA, drove taxi in Jamestown, NY, and lived in Philadelphia before CA. I have a BA in Psychology/Sociology from Thomas A. Edison State College, a MSW (Temple University), and my Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco.
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