Eager Eger

By now, I’m just about as well-versed in Eger as Rick Steves or any other English-speaker in the world. It’s a good thing, of course, as Eger is still as charming and wonderful as when it was my cultural escape from Heves. It’s a perfect blend of small-town charm, colorful history, ecclesiastical delight, baroque architecture, posh urbanity in little, consumable portions and, of course, wine. So it made sense that the magical county seat of my old county-du-jour would be my recommendation for the first law-interns weekend.

At first, it’s hard to plan for and travel with detail-oriented people who aren’t quite yet accustomed to traveling and living in a world that borders very nearly to second at times. They insisted that they heard Intercity trains were the only way to go. I countered with the realities of train transportation to Eger and promises that fish-heads-under-seats is, in fact, “culture.” Hungarians recommended reservations, they clamored. I begged to differ, never once having bought a ticket earlier than the moment before I jumped on the train and never once having ordered a seat, and paid more for it, unless it was compulsory. That’s just the laissez-faire see-what-happens Hungary I’d come to love last year.

The crew was impressed by the train when we finally hopped on Saturday morning, Melanie, Kalli and I running to catch up with the rest of the group, lunging onto the train in fear that it would leave any second. As they snapped pictures as we whizzed past the not-so-tall tallest point in Hungary, the Matra mountains, I gave them just the facts. I didn’t tell them what it’s like to hike, without a map, from that highest point, Kekesteto, to the village of Sirok, 40 km away. Maybe it’s because they wouldn’t have been interested, maybe it’s because tour guides should leave something for their clientele to explore and learn on their own.

Julia’s the Columbia gal in the Open Society office with me. You’ve already been introduced. She looks good with a wine glass in her hand, no? A contentment of sophistication.


Melanie and Kalli, too, are old news. I didn’t know, though, of Kalli’s proclivity for photography until she snapped 565 digital pictures over the course of the weekend.

Canadian Dave is, you guessed it, Canadian. From way up where the Carlyn sails, so north of Vancouver that it’s almost Alaska. Melanie and Kalli met him through Facebook after they almost rented an apartment from him. They didn’t though, and they felt so bad about jilting him that they invited him out for drinks. He came to Hungary in pursuit of an adventure and a license at dentistry. After high school, he absconded college to learn through more experiential adventures and picked up far more applicable trades like construction and Swedish.

Now, four years later, he’s without the Bachelor’s Degree that isn’t such a prerequisite in these parts of the world. He’ll study for five years at Semmelweis University in Budapest, mostly with other foreign students, and earn a medical degree that’ll be valid anywhere in the EU (and strangely enough, California). He’s gotten much better in Hungarian during his year in Hungary so far than I did in the same amount of time, I’m a little envious.

Stephanie works with Mel-n-Kalli. (He, I can’t believe that I didn’t come up with the melancholy nickname before right now!!) She’s at Princeton now, but hails from Florida.

Kate is an Australian who earned her entire Bachelor’s Degree at a Japanese university. Now she’s landed at Columbia, and just finished her first year of law school. The Trabant-top picture may or may not have been at my late-night instigation!

Saturday, after finding our Guesthouse just underneath the castle, we set out see Eger. At lunch, Dave and I sampled bikaver while Kate settled on beer. The waiter gave an impressed “Really?!” when he set the big beer down in front of the lady instead of the two gentlemen at the same table.

We finished the last of our ice cream cones before entering the cathedral, we gulped down the last of our dip-n-dots before entering the Mennonite temple, We spun our way up the minaret, as all good tourists must. Claustrophobia and heights struck half of our group, but we battled through. I lectured the short history of Eger and its role in a brief tour of Hungarian history in the shadow of the 17th century sliver of a testament to Turkish dominance of the city. There might not have been applause, but I think they were duly impressed.

An afternoon in the wine-cellar-ringed Valley of Beautiful Women is where the photo madness began. To amazing results, Kalli and the others started snapping away. While it’s normally a photogenic place, this afternoon was more amazing than most. A smiling 7 year old. A week-old bride shrouded in a droopy hat. A four-toothed violinist. Endless glasses of deep-red shiraz. Smiles.

We got lost in wine and conversation and laughter until a late supper. Most of the girls went home after a long day, but Dave, Kate and I stayed in the valley to make some Hungarian friends. We thought we heard some Australians do an Ozzie-Ozzie-Ozzie-Hoi-Hoi-Hoi, but they just turned out to be skinheads, according to two new friends at the top of the valley.

The crowd in street became younger and younger and Dave and I became restless for a disco. We decided on the infamous lava-tube disco underneath the Bazilika instead of the disco in the city park, despite directions to the later.

At Amazon, much smaller and quieter than I remember, I teamed up with a cute gal on the foosball table. I don’t think her older brother took it kindly when she and I destroyed him and his partner. Not much English was spoken.

Sunday morning, as we packed up, I made our sixty-year-old hostess cry. We wanted to leave our bags at the guesthouse until we were ready to take the train a few hours later. I tried communicating that in Hungarian. She, on the other hand, wanted to go to the baths. She communicated that by crying, I gave in, of course, and she got her way. We hauled our bags off to a breakfast of fruit at the market. Again we found ourselves strangely photogenic. Even normal meals looked better in black-and-white. By the time we rolled into the same train station – Keleti – that we had rolled out of less than 30 hours ago, the photo ladies had managed certainly no less than 600 pictures. That, of course, is more than 20 an hour! I just feel bad for ruining so many of them with my presence… :-P