Sherry L Huckabee: Hot, Hot, Hot Hungary - And I'm Not Talking About The Paprika!

Friday, July 20, 2007

It is funny how some cities you just click with and others you just don’t. I tried to like Szeged. I really did. Despite the blistering heat, I ventured forth, determined to take in something of the city. The day I arrived, was the hottest day in recorded Hungarian history – 107 degrees. Okay, so it gets hotter than that in Texas, but Texas has air-conditioning. Hungary does not.

I was never particularly fond of the heat. My parents joke to this day about the time I was seven when I looked at my grandmother with abject horror and whimpered, “Oh, Wa-wa, I am about to sweat.” Texas probably wasn’t the best place for someone to grow up who despised the heat so much. My parents took me once to Mexico (our only trip to another country except the islands) where, much to their disdain, I spent the entire time in the air-conditioned hotel reading my books. Funny to think a world-traveler, devoted to the discovery of new lands, spent her first trip out of the country in air-conditioning reading! The love of words hasn’t changed, but at least my tolerance for heat has, if not my distaste for it.

Szeged was lovely, not in the endearing sense of the word, but in the sense that there is really nothing wrong with some place but really nothing particularly notable about it either. It reminded me a bit of Stepford, lovely and well-kept on the outside but with an empty soul. Perhaps it was the fact that the better part of the 50,000 students who make up one-fourth of the town’s population were gone for the summer. Or perhaps the heat just melted away my ability to appreciate anything.

The hot, heavy Hungarian wind had turned the city into a ghost town. Nary a car much less a person could be found on the streets. Széchenyi Square, one of the largest landscaped squares in Europe, was deserted. The Serbian Orthodox Church, City Hall, Reök Palace, and numerous other architecture delights were lovely but stark in the still air of the empty town. The pedestrian walkway was picture perfect, bordered with freshly painted buildings, dotted with art sculptures reminding me much of Plovdiv, but devoid of shoppers and tourists. There was no one wandering the square before the Dom, which is equivalent in size to St Mark’s in Venice. One brave soul sat in a sea of empty tables watching the Tour de France which was being broadcast on a giant screen before an empty square. Even the swimming hole at the edge of the river Tisca that runs along side the center city was empty. It seemed it was too hot to even go swimming, or maybe the water was actually boiling.

The highlight of Szeged was shopping with my host Daniel at Tesco. Really. And not just because of the air-conditioning, though I did linger a long time on the frozen foods aisle. Hungary actually has the nicest grocery stores I’ve seen this side of the Atlantic. Large, clean, bright and shiny shopping meccas to rival even the best of Targets married to the best Harris Teeter. Daniel patiently computed money conversions and answered my questions about traditional Hungarian foods, laughing at my shock that one of their favorite snacks is a side of lard. Truly, you can buy a big ol’ hunk’o’fat at the butcher shop and gnaw away on it like a dog with his bone. Daniel was quiet and kind, with dark eyes and long thick dark hair any girl would be envious of. It seemed long hair was still a fashion in Hungary. I hadn’t seen so many long-haired men since the Ozzy Osborne concert I saw 25 years ago (boy doesn’t that date me?!).

I was Daniel’s first couchsurfing experience, he had not yet either hosted or surfed, but he was a natural. He met me at the station, bus ticket in hand (never get on a bus in Hungary without a ticket, unlike Belgrade and other places, the conductors are always there checking). He offered me little baby pears for a snack, and wonderful crepes for breakfast Saturday morning, and even home baked muffins for the bus ride to Pecs. He took me out with his flatmates for beer and the famous Hungarian Unicom liquor, which tastes like a bitter natural herb cough medicine. They say it is similar to Jagermeister – Jager is as sweet as Dr. Pepper compared to Unicom. The streets deserted during my daytime stroll were at least somewhat populated Saturday night, but there was still a heavy stillness everywhere, like no one could really get up and move. I signed my name on the wall with the markers provided by the Blues Bar, which played American techno music all night, and we called it an early night.

The wind had thankfully blown away some of the heat during the night but it was too late to save Szeged. Putting on clothes that were hot to the touch and earphones that burned your ears just left little chance for this town to find its way into my good graces. If I every go back, it will be in winter!!