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| Lake Balaton |
10 am: we grabbed our bags and ran down the stairs to the street. Within a few minutes Tom and Erika came cruising around the corner. We jumped in and began to drive out of Budapest. Suddenly Tom’s cell rang. On the phone was Bill, the owner of the land rover we were driving. As a post wedding gift to Tom and Erika, he had loaned them his car for the trip back to London. “Um, I just realized that I’m not quite sure that the auto insurance will cover Croatia", he said. "I think it is best that you come to where I am so we can sort this out”. Oooops! This could be a major glitch which none of us had thought of. Tom reset his satnav and we headed over to the Train Museum where Bill was waiting. Once there, the issue was quickly resolved with a phone call to the insurance agent and a faxed copy of the paperwork. No problem!
Within a short time we were back on the road. We drove for about two hours. We took a break once we reached Lake Balaton. Known as the Hungarian Sea, this freshwater lake is the largest in Europe. As Hungary has been landlocked since World War I, the area is a popular resort destination. Prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, both East and West Germans, could visit the area. This allowed families from both sides to visit each other. Today, Lake Balaton stil draws a large number of German tourists.
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Luis knew how to press the button, unlike the man in the background. |
At Fonyod we pulled off the motorway and stopped to visit the lake. The lake was a pretty steel blue. The water looked enticing....until we saw that several snakes were swimming next to the shore. Suddenly, all thoughts of taking a dip were immediately tossed aside Luis still took off his shoes and stuck his feet into the water, however, the rest of us were content with the spectacular view.
A couple men were fishing off the deck and Erika asked, in Hungarian, if they could take a picture of the four of us. We handed him the camera and posed. He pressed the button and handed us the camera back. No picture. We asked if he could try again. Erika explained that he needed to press the button a little harder and gave him back the camera. Again, we posed and he clicked. He handed us the camera and we all looked to see the picture he had taken. No picture. Erika whispered to us all, "lets just tell him it looks great". Pretending he had taken a great picture of us, we all smiled and thanked him. We walked off while trying to contain our giggles. A few paces further, Luis took the picture seen above.
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| Langos located |
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Why is the kid wearing a
woolen hat? |
Checking out the view wasn’t our only reason for stopping at the lake. Tom was on a Langos mission! Langos is a type of fried dough that is served with sour cream, cheese, and garlic. Hoping back in the car, the search began. We stopped at a couple of places but these restaurants did not serve Langos. Then, we pulled up to a few advertising Langos, only to find the restaurants were closed. Finally, just as hope was fading, we spied the Mc Langos. This wasn't just any old Langos place it was Mc Langos! (Not sure if this was a reference to McDonalds or some Langos loving rapper.) We ordered a round of the greasy treats and sat outside to eat them. It was yummy. Our only complaint related to the very ineffective napkins we had to use to combat the vat of grease that covered us after eating.
As we headed back on the motorway, a warning alarm started to go off in the car. Luis looked in the car manual to see what the warning light meant. According to the book it was an issue related to the anti-roll mechanism. The manual warned us to pull over immediately, stop driving, and seek a Land Rover mechanic. Uh oh! Tom stopped the Land Rover and called Bill to let him know about the situation. Bill said the Rover often has warning lights come on and that it usually doesn’t mean anything. No problem. Once Tom started up the Rover again, the warning light had turned off. We concluded that Bill probably knew the glitches related to his Rover, so we continued on.
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| Expert bug guts remover |
Roughly an hour later we crossed the Croatian border. As we had only planned this part of the trip the previous night, we hadn’t had a chance to learn any Croatian words. Having downloaded a simple language list, we decided to practice some of the basics. The list included things such as Thank you – hvala vam, hello – bok and goodbye – zbogom. Strangely, it also included the phrase“this is madness” which translates as “Ovo je Ludilo”. We would soon learn that the only phrase we really needed to know was Nema Problema or no problem.
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| Tunneling through Croatia |
Shortly after we entered Croatia the landscape began to change. We were now driving through forests. On the roadside were many signs indicating the presence of wolves and bears. We also began to climb up and down some small mountains. This required us to drive through many tunnels, some of which were more than 6 km long. There was also a significant increase in the amount of bugs that were piling up on our windshield. We had to stop and clean the windshield several times. Luis took on the job as designated window washer. When we weren't stopping to scrape off the bugs, we were stopping to silence the Rovers warning light as it would resume dinging every so often. After 7+ hours of driving, this all started to become very funny. We drove on, passing through Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Some time around 7:30 pm, we finally reached the coast. At this point, we started south towards Split. Eventually, at about 8:30 pm, we pulled into our hotel along the Adriatic Sea.
At check in, Erika and Tom were welcomed by the hotel with a bottle of wine. Obviously, everyone had heard about the marvelous wedding in Hungary! Being across the hall from each other, we met up fifteen minutes after settling in to our rooms. We had a quick toast and looked out the balcony to the sound of waves 10 meters from the hotel. Afterwards, we decided to grab dinner at the hotel restaurant. Walking up to the entrance we asked the waiter if we could still order food. "No problem" he said. Along with the food, we also ordered a few drinks. Jane ordered a glass of red wine? “No problem. Just one?”, the waiter said, with a puzzled look. “Just one”, we replied, wondering if it was impolite to order only one glass of wine in Croatia. Perhaps we should have ordered one for each hand? The food arrived quickly, along with a glass of white wine. Explaining the mix up, the waiter said “no problem”, and soon came back with the correct order.
By now, the theme of our Croatian experience was becoming clear: "No Problem". We started to wonder if perhaps this expression was similar to the Costa Rican "Pura Vida". When you are on the edge of the Adriatic Sea, you are in paradise. That is all. Nothing matters, except that you are here, enjoying a slice of heaven. The food was tasty and we were really happy to be on the coast. Once the waiter came back, Erika asked if he would mind taking a photo of us. “No problem”, he said, indicating he would be right back. For about an hour he disappeared. Finally, when he did return, he asked us why we hadn't reminded him to take the picture. Um possibly because he wasn't around to ask? He used Erika's camera to take the picture. Hopefully, we will get a copy. It would have been too complicated to have asked him to take a second picture with our camera. But no problem, its been a great fun filled day! We are ready for a good night's sleep. Looking forward to spending tomorrow on the beach.
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