The visit (3)

Seven days in and we’re both still alive, if bordering on exhaustion. I want to be a kid again so I can stay up all night and sleep all day and not have to worry about who pays the bills. Working for a living is a mug’s game.

We spent a day hopping on and off the Big Bus. We went to City Park to touch Anonymous’s pen in the hope that it would give  us some ability to write. We even hopped off the boat and went to see the musical fountain on Margaret Island. We’re still sampling the hazi limonadé. We’ve fallen in love with kürtöskalács (chimney cake) and are planning on introducing it to Ireland. Budapest is fast running out of fish and chips and I’m left wondering where he puts it all. He’s a bottomless pit. And there’s not an ounce of spare flesh on him – obviously our genes differ.

We got told off by a grumpy old driver for taking the train down to Palatinus and then not going inside, even if it was close to 6pm and it shuts at 7. I felt stupidly chastised, as if I’d been caught red-handed stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. I even blushed. I had to remind myself that I was an adult and that the driver was being a prat. And then I thought of being a full-time parent and having to be on my best behaviour all the time – leading by example – and the strain of that! And then I thought of the parents I know and laughed. Maybe I need to chill a little and stop taking this responsibility so seriously.

On Friday, we took the train to Komárom – to the fort. And we brought along some company – a very chatty 12-year-old who thankfully spoke fluent Hungarian. It was like sitting in the middle of a dolby stereo. We played chess and draughts and pawn war and they talked non-stop for hours. We wandered down the town and saw what little there was to see other than the fort, and then we came home. And ate. And ate some more.

We’re slowly making our way through the menu at the cukrászda (cake shop)     … somlói galuska, krémes, dobos torte, csokis-kakaós csiga … where his universal point-and-salivate language is well understood. And did I mention the unquenchable thirst for lemonade?

Saturday we did the whole Bloomsday thing and yesterday, after Part II of our research into fish and chips in Irish pubs in Budapest (Jack Doyle’s won on account of the newspaper wrapping being in English and from Ireland), he went visiting and I got to work.

First thing this morning all I got was – Can we go for fish and chips?