Opera and Lake Balaton

I have seen a lot since my last post. We went to Bratislava in the Slovak Republic for a day. We went to the opera. And I got lost on a bicycle. You should be able to see some pictures at

http://picasaweb.google.com/autorec

The Opera: The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra performed Korsokov's "Sherezade", Musorgsky's "Night on Bare Mountain", and Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite". The conductor, a Japanese man named Kobayashi Ken-Ichiro, has had a long history in Budapest, and is very popular there. We were sitting in the front row, and got to watch this man work. He was so into the music that you could take away the sound, and follow the emotion of the music by his facial expressions. During one slow movement, he had his face turned to the ceiling of the opera house, eyes closed, and looked like he could cry at any moment. Then, when the music picked up, he would bow his head down, shake it from side to side, and make these sort of angry Donald Duck grunting noises. He stole the show, despite tremendous violin and chello soloists.

Lake Balaton: The orientation was over, and the group had split up to go to their placement universities. I was now on my own in Budapest. Since it was a three day weekend (Pentacost) I decided to go to the largest lake in Hungary: Balaton. I heard that the lake had a paved bike path all the way around, so I decided to rent a bicycle and explore the villages around the lake. I took the train to town of Siofok (s = sh in Hungarian). I walked immediately from the train, through a nice park, to the lake. The lake was enormous, and a beautiful light blue green color. I walked along the lake shore for a while, then got directions to a bicycle rental shop. I wasn't impressed with the quality of the bicycles, but I guess thats what I get for not planning. And, what the heck, I was in for an adventure. So I rented the bike suggested to me by the shop owner, a "Lucky Country" rainbow colored mountain bike. The woman next to me on the train had suggested that I go to the town of Tihany on the north side of the lake, which was about a 50 mile ride form the bike shop in Siofok. There was a ferry in Tihany, and I could take it back across the lake to complete the loop. The shop owner suggested that I take two days to get to Tihany since it was already 4:30pm, but I was pretty sure I could do it in one. So I took off on the bike path, to make it to Tihany before nightfall.

The bike path had signs posted at most key navigational points. There were a few times that I was sure I had gone off the path, only to see a nice sign of a bike with an arrow to reassure me. The path followed the lake shore through neighborhoods, along farmland, and through forested areas. It was about 90 degrees outside, and very humid. I enjoyed seeing the hungarian countryside. There was a large farm with a heard of white cows with long horns. There were a few vineyards on the hills on the north side of the lake.

I had been biking for hours, the sun was setting, and the bicycle seat was taking its toll. The trusty signs, however, told me that Tihany was near. So I pressed on. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a room before night fall. Finally, I cam to the Tihany exit. Tihany is located on a bulbous peninsula that juts out into lake Balaton. The bike path doesn't go down into the peninsula, so I had to leave the trusty signs. Tihany was about three miles away, on top of a hill. After a long day of biking, and no dinner yet, my legs didn't have much left. I kept peddling, and found myself riding past large fields of lavender. At the top of the hill, I found the Tihany city center. It was a bit touristy, and the hotels were more expensive than I had hoped, so I made the commitment to go down the other side of the hill. This was a commitment because there was no way I was going back up. At the bottom of the hill I found a very nice hotel. It was getting dark, so I went in looking for a room. The concierge looked at me like I was crazy. He explained to me, in a combination of Hungarian, German and a bit of English, that this weekend was a holiday, and there were no rooms available. He sent me down the road, where I found a kind of campground, which also had rooms available. Due to the tenacious mosquitoes, and the lightening storm that had just began, I chose a room instead of a campsite. I was just in time, as the lightning storm quickly escalated, and was getting very close. After trying to sleep through the thunder, I decided to open my curtains and look at the lightening. Just as I pulled back the curtains, the lightening struck a building right in front of me. There was no delay between the lightening and the thunder, and the sound was so shocking that I actually grabbed my chest in fear. The power was out.

The next day, I rode back up the hill to the town center. After site seeing, I had a huge three course Csarda style lunch with fish from the lake dressed in a lavender sauce. I also had three SMALL glasses of wine, you know, to taste the different wines made around the lake. Feeling pretty good, I managed to take the ferry back across the lake and return my bicycle in time. I swam the rest of the afternoon, and took the train back to Budapest that evening.