Six days on the road: Day 4: Szeged in Hungry

Day four, or the first day of a journey towards the homestead. I promised to take Gabor with me, and I did. All the way from Sibiu to Szeged. A five hour drive. One thing I learned during these Romanian and Hungarian days is that you never, never, have to rush. Everything works out fine, as long as you take the time to enjoy whatever you are doing. I will never forget the words of Florin: “Don’t worrry, we will manage.”
Great guy. There is too much stress in our lives in our parts of the world. Here they do know how Pallieter lived, how Breughel painted his masterpieces. These days the motorway rans from Sibiu to the west for 120 kilometers. In the end, one day, it will connect with the motorways in Hungary. In the meantime you have to follow a national route to Arrad. Sometimes driving through villages, sometimes through the woods, sometimes 30 km an hour sometimes 100 km an hour. Romanians are friendly, and they signal with their headlights when a policepatrol is coming up. Gabor and I had some friendly talk on the way. A little about mills, a little about everything. He would have shown me around the windmills in his area, but believe me, for now I’ve seen enough mills for a couple of weeks, and the dayly this and thats are peeping around the corner. Driving on Sunday was a pleasure in Romania, and I believe that stories about the wild car driving Romanians, are exagerated. It is a fact that they do not know what a white line is intended for, but they blow their horn, when they maneuver, which is nice. Anyway why do we have car horns, as nobody uses them in our country. All cars do stop in a front of the yellow lines when footpassengers cross the street. In one word, they do behave. One last coffee on the way, in again, a USSR like cafe. On the outskirts of Szeged, we had dinner, in a spacious new restaurant. I never had mushrooms crusted, and baked in oil. Just like our donuts, or whatever they are called in the English language, those little beignets, fried in oil. As usual too much, but very tastefull, and I took the rest of it with me in a some sort of doggy bag for tomorrow. This seems a normal thing todo over here.

Szeged is a beautiful student city along the river Tisza. Gabor lives close to the river in the college area. I could not resist the temptation to drive the few hundred meters back to the river, to enjoy a very lovely Sunday afternoon for some time. Gabor’s lovely wife was standing on her doorstep when we arrived. A great team. So long my friend. I do hope we see again many, many times in the rest of our lives.

Time to move on: two more days on the road.

Day 5:

Monday from heat to rain…. I left Szeged this morning because the heat started coming in, and it was only a quarter past nine. I drove through a part of the town, which was enjoyable. Wished I had another week to visit cities on the way home. Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, at least deserve a visit. But as time went on and I had to travel nearly 800 kilometers, I just passed by these old marks on the road. A few powernaps, and a coffeebreak helped to cross Hungary. In the afternoon, all the way through Austria, where I had my coffee at the same Rose something roadstop, where I sat at the same table, as three weeks ago. Around six a clock the rain setted in. Now I will know if the newly baught tent survives this journey. I used nearly all the little eurocoins I still possesed. Which was something the campsite owner at Irring (same campsite as day 1) did not like very much. He prefered cash. Boy did he change over the last three weeks. No chitchat, just 20 quid, and see where you can find space, in the rain. No paper to fill in. Did he recognize me after all, or was he just putting my 20 quid with some other money of a passerby in a black box? He grumbled when he took my mastercard.

I definetely look him up on Tripadviser, to see what others wrote about him. The free wifi still does not work on the veranda…. but luckily the rain stopped.

So I was right. On my first stay, he charged me 14,5 quid. I will definitely sent him an email and ask for a refund. I don’t like being ripped off.

Day 6:

Tuesday, sixth day on the road. Rain stopped during the night and set in again after eight. By that time I managed to do all the usual morning things. I managed to break up the tent, without being wet, although the tent itself still needs tpo dry. First I had to get rid of an awful lot of snails, that came crawling in during the night. I had to pitch them of the outside of my innertent. I sure do hope I did not miss one, as I would not have them crawling in my car. The ground was still very wet around the car. Not the best experience on a campsite: being ripped off, snails crawling everywhere, the grounds for the tentspace too wet. I noticed that my neighbour did not even bother to set up his tent. He slept in his car… strange people those germans….

Anyway time to set out on the road for the last 856 kilometers. It was a day of rain or sunshine, depending on the region and the time of day. Around six a clock the weather changed back again to the more normal climate we are used to.

The last 300 kilometers. One stop in Leuven, for an evening meal and who knows finally a pint of belgian beer on a not too cold terrace….. Duvel here I come.

noroc, noroc, noroc…….