No sleep till bedtime
Returning from Romania, I was set to have a week of recovery in Hungary. Not so. But late nights and early mornings made me aware, conceptually, of a strong linguistic connection between Hungary and Holland.
The Dutch word of the year 2008 was swaffelen, which refers to touching people or objects with your flaccid penis. The Hungarian term faszkorbács literally means dick-whip, and is typically used in relation to an oratory trashing of an individual.
Expecting to recover from a good week out east, I ended up partying more like it was 1997 and only had an easy day on my last, when Benno left early to attend a function in Germany.
The next morning, I had to get up at five to catch a bus to Brno. The bus, trundling through the Hungarian countryside, again showed me the beauty of the gently sloping fields and low green hills. How gorgeous. I can’t wait to get back to Salone. Notice the sarcasm.
But up to a point. The flat north is less enticing.
While in Budapest, I also went through the painful process of losing an arm and a leg in the process of buying a ticket from Holland to Freetown. I huffed and puffed, and managed to get the cost down to 543 euro. That will be the cost from door to door, including three trains, a bus, a plane, another plane and ending with a speedboat. I would save a good 30 usd using the ferry in Freetown, but I arrive at 3am. Not the nicest time to trawl through an abandoned peninsula and city.
This is a one way journey. Booking a one way journey with Kevin Mcphilips, the ‘budget’ option for Sierra Leone, for the same day, would cost 700 euros, flying from Heathrow. On top of that, I would have to get to Heathrow and still get from the airport in Freetown to Freetown itself.
The cheapest alternative would leave from Amsterdam and would cost about 80 euros more.
I’m flying from Charlerois, Brussels South. The train journey to get me there is a low, low, 14.50 euros.