Slovakians and Hungarians
For a while now I’ve been thinking that it will be nice to get out of German speaking territory and into somewhere new. I hope that doesn’t sound a bit mean, but traditionally when you visit a country you just go for a week or something and I’d been there for ages. Enough to learn German almost perfectly.
But then, when I got to the edge of Austria there was this massive city made of white tower blocks gleaming away at me on the other side of the river and it all looked a bit unnerving. Every single place I’ve been to so far looks kind of the same with a little church spire poking out of a bunch of multi-coloured pastel houses, and this place looked totally different. I think it was Bratislava. It managed to shine even through the load of gloom which seems to hover over the Danube.
I carried on walking and then found that I’d accidentally walked into Slovakia (were you expecting that? I wasn’t) and then I walked some more and found I’d accidentally walked through Bratislava and out the other side passing precisely one open cafe to let me know it was a capital city. Then I met some people who apparently didn’t speak any English or German who I had a conversation with. They did a lot of acting, including something which looked like Minch’s impression of Kath (but I’m sure she can’t have meant that) and which I understood exactly none of. I did a bit of acting which they also didn’t understand, and then they gave me some biscuits which I did understand. Later I met a guy called Erik when I was putting up my tent and he invited me back to his house to sleep there instead and the next day he came with me. We walked for a few kilometers and were in Hungary. So I’ve picked up a co-pilgrim in every country, including Slovakia which (if you had correctly guessed that I was going through) you definitely wouldn’t have thought I’d have managed. And that’s what the Slovakians are like.
When I sat down for a rest in a pub in Hungary they gave me some soup and then another course (potatoes, rice and some sort of schnitzel – the food is getting stranger for sure) and then yesterday when I sat down in another pub they gave me beer and Jágermeister and when I said that I hoped to be in Gyor tomorrow and Budapest in a week or so and then Serbia in a month they laughed and shook their head and said “Gyor in a week, Budapest in a month and Serbia in three months” and I suppose I saw the logic in that so I stopped there for the night (in the basement of the pub).
Catholic Quiz
You get one point if you’re the first person to correctly answer in the comments, but you’re not allowed to answer straight away if you’ve just looked it up.
Who is:
- The Roman centurian type character who is pouring water from a bucket on a small building, possibly a church, which is on fire?
- The bearded Pope/clergy guy who is always holding a crucifix with Jesus on it?
- The angel who is carrying a fish?
- The saint who was tied to a tree stump and shot with three arrows?
I’ve seen these guys everywhere in pictures and statues.
Joiners
Here are some people who have threatened to come in order of how serious they sounded:
- Jen – “I promise I’ll come”
- Abi – “do you mean you think i won’t come and visit you? i will. i’d even come just to prove to you that i would come.”
- Mum – “…if I were to join you (I’d love to)…”
- Tommy Vore – “I just don’t know if, when and how it will be possible”
So far Abi has been talking about buying train tickets and such but I’ll only believe it when she turns up.
Thankyou
Here are a list of ways to say thank you in order of stupidness (starting with the least stupid)
- Thank you
- Danku (Dutch)
- Danke (German)
- Gracias (Spanish)
- Merci (French – this is quite sensible because it’s a variant of Mercy, which isn’t really to do with thanks, but it’s in the broad category of words to do with nice things)
- Chekui (Czech, I think. Well it’s something like Cheeky)
- Checkuem (Slovakian and I’m reasonably sure it’s not spelt like that, kind of sounds a bit like Requiem which is totally inappropriate)
- Multsumesc (Romanian and could be argued deserves a higher place because it sounds like Lots of Mesc, which might well be something you give someone as a thankyou present)
- Kusumu (Hungarian. I have to remember that it’s a cross between Cosovo and Wassaname, which takes ages and is stupid).
Catholic Quiz: Don’t Know; ditto; ditto; ditto
I’ll email Dick. He’ll know, maybe. But remember I was the first to give four correct answers.
You’ld think St George, who turns up everywhere in the world would be a candidate for one of them, and maybe St Christopher who carried Christ across the Styx, but I can’t justify either. By cheating I’ve found out that St Wenceslaus is the Czech patron saint so perhaps he’s one of them. As to the first one, there are buildings in London with a sun symbol which meant that you were insured by the Sun Insurance Co but it was all some while ago. So my best guess is that there’s an eastern European insurance company that will come and put the fire out if you show, by having the “Roman centurian type character pouring water from a bucket” that you’ve paid your premium. Or maybe it’s Elijah preparing to see off the prophets of Baal.
Love Dad
St Sebastian’s the guy with the arrows, for sure. There ends my knowledge of Catholicism.
When you get to Israel you can show off by knowing that the Hoopoe is the national bird. Nice colourful bird with a crest and black and white striped wings. About blackbird size.
Big hugs mum
Fame! International fame at last! People will be saying to me “you know, Mikey mentioned you on his blog, Kath”. In fact, they already have, since you did it last time. Whoop! Tell us what’s in the Hungarian bins, too…
Apropos your list, I’ve found out that “Thanks” in Hungarian is: Köszönöm or Köszi and thanks very much is Nagyon köszönöm or Köszönöm szépen
Dad
I have a friend who is Hungarian and he has told me two well-known expressions, which I am sure must help you on your travels. The first is ‘We are poor but we live well’ and the second is ‘Take my hand – it’s not a pig’s trotter’. I once bought a trotter and concealed it in my sleeve and shook his hand and after he recovered, he cooked it. But later he told me he had thrown the result away because it was disgusting. Love also from Joyce
Also, the one bit of Hungarian I will always remember is that “How are you?” sounds like “Huge vadge”, but said as if you were a mouse with a cold.
EASY, know ’em in me sleep
1.St Florian, for firemen
2.If on a bridge, St John Nepomuk [Czeck history]
3. St Raphael, Patron of hey ho WANDERER/TRAVELLERS so keep him with you, and a surprising no of other things too, like doctors/healing, marriage [my 30th W Anni TODAY!], youth
4.St Sebastian
cos I sleep next to ‘St’ Christine.
‘Dad’, are you a true Catholic?!
Nigel.
Hi Learboy – have caught up with your blog again after getting a bit behind. I’m staying at my parents which helps, as Dad likes it and mentions it fairly often, which reminds me to look it up. I’m impressed by how far you’ve done already – that’s a good effort.
I can relate to your bowels situ as I just went to Cambodia a few weeks ago and one day when we were out in the villages, I had eaten something funny and I realised a bit late that I needed to ask the Cambodian family if I could use their toilet (which you can imagine is a little hole in the ground with some wooden walls round it). I had a fair bit of back-arching shooting pains (do you get that?), some tummy rumbling and then a fair bit of straight down the line loud farting that I couldn’t hold in before they could get me to the shack – not to mention the fact that the wooden walls were not exactly soundproof. So not a lot of dignity left in front of that family.
You’ll also be pleased to know I’m putting myself on the frontline in the G20 protests – you can see Cate here giving the fuzz the what-for:
Anyway, keep it up Learb.