Lost in life and in Eastern Europe: The Midsummer fest

Podersdorf/Gols/Sopron/Budapest 22–26.6.2012

Guess where we slept the Thursday night. Not in the tent, no. We were too scared about the storm and the fact that our tent was under a tree. So we escaped to the shower building. We spend like two hours there sleeping on the floor with our sleeping bags. Felt like a bum.

Finally the storm calmed down and we went back to our tent. Alles gut. In the morning we went to the showers in the right meaning ;) After refreshing we went to a nearby hotel to use their internet and in the evening hanged out with the guys we met on Wednesday night when they rescued us. We went to a local pub in their village to taste some truly Austrian spritzers. The guys had to leave but we decided to continue the night, because it was Midsummer Eve and it would have been against all traditions to be sober. We chilled out on the beach until the sun set. After some more wine we got this great idea to go look for some action in the center. So we went to the first bar we saw. It turned out to be a bad idea, because the place was filled with too young and too weird guys. We left home, or at least we tried. Somehow we managed to get lost on the way, even it was just about 500 meters long. Then a nice dog helped us to find the way to the tent.

And then comes the blackout part. Neither of us really remembers crashing in the tent. The next memory I have is that Piritta is calling my name and standing outside the tent shaking from the cold. She tells me that something is wrong, our tent has crashed. I choose not to believe what she is saying. After I come to my senses I however realize that she is right. The tent’s fabric is touching my face. And there is water everywhere. What the hell, I crawl out from the crashed tent and we start looking for explanation for the situation. Two of our neighbors (who we believe to have done this) were just about to pass out in their tent, and they didn’t seem to have seen anything. They just invited us to sleep in their tent. We refused the offer and were so pissed off. We started gathering our stuff from the wet tent. Then a good-for-nothing security guy came to the seen. We were laughing because there was nothing else to do and we were so tired. The security guy just told us that ok, good that you are laughing about this. Just then we also realized that some of the parts missing from the tent were on the road on the other side of the fence. He agreed to pick them up with us and also to give us a ride to the tourist information, which he claimed to be open at the time. It was 5 am. We didn’t believe him, but because he offered to take us there we agreed to go. Well surprise surprise it was closed. Even when he tried to force the electric doors open it still remained locked. We gave each other the look - what the fuck is happening.

We ended up to this hotel near the camping site. We waited about 1,5 hours in a totally empty lobby until the staff came to work at 7 am. We got a room (which we couldn’t afford) and went to sleep.

When we finally got up we wanted to do something useful so we rented two bikes and went to see the national park near the lake. All together we biked about 30 km that day. The scenery was so beautiful! There were so many wine fields, area was so flat and there wasn’t really any forest anywhere. Quite a big difference when compared to Finnish national parks. It also seemed to be a paradise for people who are interested in birds.

In the evening we continued celebrating Midsummer by grilling on the beach during sunset.

On Sunday we were homeless again. So we headed to the beach to chill out with all our stuff. The day was so hot. We spend some hours there until a friend contacted and invited us to watch some live American football with them. Of course we went, even though we didn’t understand much about the game. Luckily we went also see a soccer game (England-Italy), so we actually managed to follow the game. We watched the soccer game in the same local pub we had been on Friday. For some reason we found ourselves quite wasted again (no wonder after drinking like five shots each). But anyway we had so much fun and visited also some other bars in the other towns nearby. We ended up at a friend’s place again and continued the night until morning. We even tried to watch a movie like 7 am, but it of course went to hell, we all fell asleep. It was quite interesting to wake up in the middle of the night (maybe 11 am) and have no idea where the hell I was. Luckily I managed to figure it out after a while. I did have lost Piritta again though. I was quite sure that she was still in the same house, so I went back to sleep.

“In the morning” we got ourselves together and were ready to move on to Hungary. We were even offered a ride to the other side of the border, we were so happy about that. Maybe the idea was to finally get rid of us ;D Anyway we were very thankful for the ride, it made our travelling much easier.

On the way to Hungary the ground shaking hangover got worse and we had to focus not to throw up. We got to this town called Sopron and there we spent some time looking for a hostel. We found one in a great place (which we figured out the next day when we were leaving, at the time we got there we were too out to realize it) and for good price.

On Tuesday morning (today) we left to hitchhike throw Budapest to Serbia to see Piritta’s friend. We got to Budapest quite nicely but in here we decided to take a night train to Novi Sad, because we don’t really have much time left before Bulgaria, so the train seemed like a good idea right now. At the moment we are sitting here in one of the six railway stations hoping that we picked the right one. We’ll find out that soon, the train is supposed to leave in an hour.

All in all the time in Austria was great, we are so happy that we went there. We met some brilliant people (like the ones who broke our tent) and the Midsummer Fest was really unforgettable one! Danke schön guys and see you one day in Finland! ;)