I fell asleep on the train coming from Budapest, and barely woke up in time to see the station name "Gyor" outside the window, gather all my bags and literally jump off the train. I was meant to be meeting someone from the Castle who would be taking me back there, but I wandered around the whole station with no sign of an official looking person holding a chauffeur's sign reading "Sullivan," as I had expected. Immediately I began to worry that something had gone wrong -- after all, I booked this trip through a Canadian agency, who works through a German agency to make reservations in Hungary. Any number of miscommunications could have occurred. Worse, it appeared that I did not get cell phone or data reception in Gyor, so I had no means of emailing or calling someone to solve the problem. I opted for a payphone, but spent twenty minutes fumbling around with it and was still unable to get through to the number I had been given for the Castle. As I juggled a handful of change, the payphone, and my iPhone showing me the contact numbers, a woman approached me and tapped me on the shoulder:"Miss Sullivan?"
I was startled. "Yes, that's me," I replied.
"I am Suzanna, with Castle Pokvar."
What luck! I couldn't believe she had found me in the busy train station (I hope I'm not that obviously American), but I walked with her to her car and she briefly apologized because she speaks virtually no English. Nor does her husband, the trail guide.
"But you, do you speak Hungarian?"
"Umm... no."
She looked extremely disappointed. I mean, come on, really? I can understand that the French have an anachronistic sense that everyone ought to speak their language, but the Hungarians? She asked hopefully if maybe I spoke any German, to which I replied "Farschein bitte!" and I think she got the point: I only know what I've heard in Indiana Jones. We rode most of the way in silence.
We shortly arrived at the Castle, which was even cooler than I imagined or had seen in pictures. 
It's been restored perfectly, so that it honest-to-God feels like being in a two-hundred year old castle. Crystal chandeliers, long wooden staircases, silver candlesticks lighting the hallways; the Georgian dining room is full of furniture and tapestries that could easily be on display in a museum, and the glass cabinets all around are filled with antique objets d'art cooler than most of what I saw at the Louvre. My bedroom is an enormous suite with a marble and porcelain bathroom and gorgeous crown moldings, and decorated with more of that amazing Georgian furniture. I thought I was walking into a Jane Austen novel. I can't possibly do it justice in writing, so click here to get a better sense of this incredible place.
It's been restored perfectly, so that it honest-to-God feels like being in a two-hundred year old castle. Crystal chandeliers, long wooden staircases, silver candlesticks lighting the hallways; the Georgian dining room is full of furniture and tapestries that could easily be on display in a museum, and the glass cabinets all around are filled with antique objets d'art cooler than most of what I saw at the Louvre. My bedroom is an enormous suite with a marble and porcelain bathroom and gorgeous crown moldings, and decorated with more of that amazing Georgian furniture. I thought I was walking into a Jane Austen novel. I can't possibly do it justice in writing, so click here to get a better sense of this incredible place.After showing me to my room, Suzanna took me on a tour of the grounds, mostly to show off the state-of-the-art fitness facility, with a half size pool, a sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, and a lone elliptical machine. It was the only really modern part of this Victorian paradise, but it made it seem all the more luxurious. She introduced me to the full household staff, kitchen maids, house maids, chef, and groundskeeper and instructed me that dinner would be served in the dining room at 7 oclock (I was the only guest, as today was the first day of their riding season), and to make myself at home until then. Before she left, I really wanted to ask her something, though I wasn't sure she would understand in English. I tried anyway:
"How did you know it was me, at the train station?"
She looked at me quizzically.
"Because you have an iPhone. I knew you had to be American."
But of course. After settling in and taking a nap in my huge Victorian bed, I headed to the formal dining room, where I was treated to my first (of many) extremely delicious traditional Hungarian meals: a turkey carpaccio salad, chicken with mushrooms in a tomato cream sauce, and a red berry custard for dessert. Mmm... I've said it before, but those Eastern Europeans really know how to fill you up. The food is so fresh and tasty and hearty, I spend my days anxiously looking forward to my next meal. (NB: I hear you laughing. Okay, yes, you're right, that's how I spend my days anyway. But it's a little bit different here than looking forward to my next Lean Cuisine.) Being the only guest, I sat with Suzanna and her husband, Laszlow, all three of us trying to find common words and concepts with which to make dinner conversation. I actually love the challenge in this -- their English is about as good as my French, I would say, so I'm constantly trying to analyze my own language to assess the difficulty level of the words and phrases I choose, and adjusting them accordingly. It's a fun exercise.
Before heading to bed, Laszlow asked me, "In what o'clock you would like your having breakfast?"
"Eight o'clock," I answered, smiling, and was immediately brought back to one of my favorite scenes from my favorite movie:
"Sweetnessheart, what watch?"
"It's ten watch."
"Oh, such much?"
I'm reminded of that scene a lot, here, and the movie, everywhere.
In the morning, I walked into the dining room to take part in the amazing full breakfast buffet. None of this "Continental breakfast" crap anymore. Here I get meats, cheeses, fresh fruits, yogurt, pastries, cereal and hot drinks. The kitchen maid, Maria, asked me if I prefer tea or coffee, and when I requested tea she returned with a steaming pot of (wait for it...) Twinings Prince of Wales.
And that, dear readers, is when I knew I had come to the right place.
After breakfast, Laslow took me for my first incredible ride. I was on a wonderfully gentle horse, and we rode from the castle out about ten miles through the woods in the surrounding area. Though I have riden often before, I am hardly a very experienced rider, and had never gone post-trot before heading out on this exhilirating ride. Trotting alone turned out to be much more work than I had anticipated. Good grief! What an exercise! Just staying balanced was tricky enough, but it took me the first hour to figure out how to get a good rhythm so that I wasn't getting the hell beat out of me with every step. Finally I felt like I got there, and was in control of myself and my horse -- so in control, in fact, that I could no longer hear my pocketful of 50 forint coins jangling in my coat because I was now moving so little with the jostling of the horse. I was proud of myself. Then came the words I was both wanting and dreading: "Okay... gallop!" Yikes! I had no idea horses really went that fast! I leaned down and gripped the reins, pulling them as tight as I could, then grabbed my horse around the neck in order to get my balance back. Sitting upright again, I was holding those two thin straps of leather for dear life with only one thought running through my head: "Don't fall off the horse! Don't fall off the horse!" Screw form or technique, I just wanted to make it through my first day unscathed. (Mission accomplished... but only just.) Whew. After a few long stretches at full canter, I was breathless and exhausted. It's unbelievable how much effort it is to just ride on top of a moving animal. I never gave jockeys enough credit, because, damn, horseback riding is hard. At the end of our ride, I was feeling pretty comfortable with the galloping, extremely comfortable at trot, and actually starting to be bored when we were just walking. I was really looking forward to a whole week of long gallops through the country. After three hours riding, I was sore absolutely everywhere. My shoulders, my thighs, my lower back, my upper arms, my calves, my abs... how this activity works so many parts of your body, I'll never know. But it's great.
I love riding. I don't know where this prediliction came from, since it's certainly not something I grew up with at all, but I really love it. I love the feeling of being in a saddle, I love how natural and comfortable I feel on horseback, and I love exploring little hidden parts of the world like this on a horse -- the ultimate all-terrain vehicle. I just love it. It is simultaneously relaxing and exhilirating, natural and extremely physical. I wish I could ride every day. I wish I had taken up the hobby earlier. But mostly, I hope I find many more opportunities to pursue it in my life.In the afternoon I soothed my aching muscles in the sauna, and then took a few laps in the pool before settling down for a nice pre-dinner nap. There is a television in my room, but it only seems to get German TV, and one English channel: MTV. When I'm inclined to watch television I am therefore confined to the days-long back-to-back marathon of a horrible, horrible reality show called "Double Shot of Love" in which two bisexual identical twin girls play "Bachelorette" to a group of twelve straight guys and twelve lesbian girls, trying simultaneouly to discover their life partner and their sexual orientation. Why on earth anyone would produce this show is so beyond me, I'm speechless to explain. I try not to watch much TV.
After another fabulous Hungarian dinner I curled up in bed next to the fireplace in my room and read a few chapters of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, the only English book they had here for me to borrow, and then fell asleep. (In the evening while I'm at dinner, my room gets turn down service, which, in addition to making the bed and putting chocolates on the pillows, includes adding a few more logs to the fire so that it crackles and smolders all night and keeps me toasty warm.)
Friday was another gorgeous day, sunny and 70 degrees, and I headed out again to the stables after breakfast. This time I was to be on a different horse, a so-called "better" horse. But from the second I mounted, I knew I didn't like him. He was obstinate and wouldn't listen, he just seemed angry, as though he did not want to be ridden. Within a few minutes I felt that this was not going to end well -- you can always tell a bad horse, I think, and this one just had a horrible way about him. So I told Laszlow: "This is a bad horse. I don't like him. He's unsafe." In all likelihood, Laszlow probably didn't understand me very well. I repeated this uneasiness to him multiple times, but he kept saying, "Ahhh, no, he is just more energy! Lots of energy!" No, I knew better. I've been on high energy horses before. This horse was angry and disobedient. He didn't want to be ridden.
About an hour into the ride, all the while continuing to tell Laszlow that I thought this horse was unsafe, we went for our first gallop, through a long, open field. My horse began galloping so fast, he tried to overtake Laszlow in the lead, and then put his head down almost between his legs so that I wouldn't be able to hold the reins, and had to lean forward almost flat on top of him. He obviously did not want to be ridden. He suddenly turned a sharp right, going completely off the trail in the wrong direction, and at that I knew there was no way I could stay on. Instead of trying to tighten my grip and stay mounted as long as possible, I decided to just prepare for the fall, so I started to take my feet out of the stirrups to avoid a twisted ankle, or worse -- getting dragged a half a mile by a wild colt. The horse made one last jerk of his head, so that I lost hold of the reins entirely, and I did my best to fall off him sideways, so I could tumble on my shoulder, instead of backwards, risking a kick to the head from an obviously angry and untame horse. I did manage to fall pretty solidly and roll on my left shoulder, but also, excruciatingly, with my left hand tucked underneath me. After a few moments of shock, lying on the ground, I began to feel the upswelling of pain in my hand, and started to cry.
Laszlow came back around and quickly hopped off his horse to come over to me. In my pain and frustration I couldn't help the bitter reaction: "I told you that was a bad horse! I told you!" I sobbed. Laszlow looked heartbroken, and I felt bad for saying it. (It's true, though, and if this were the US there would be some serious liabilty issues. I must have told him a dozen times that I felt unsafe on that horse.)
A cell phone call and a bumpy car ride later I was back at the Castle with a pack of ice, but as the swelling and the pain continued to get worse, I tried to make my case for going to the hospital. The house staff and Suzanna had a hard time understanding me, so finally Suzanna called her son, Gabor, who is a student at the University of Vienna and speaks perfectly good English.
"Hello," he said, "I hear you have fallen off a horse and hurt your hand."
Oh! How nice it was to finally hear clear English while I was in such distress.
"Yes," I responded, "I think it's broken!"
He then explained that he was on his way back to Gyor, would skip his last class of the day and with the train could be here in four hours. Then he would take me to the hospital. Could I wait until then?
I thought about it, but decided I couldn't risk more damage from swelling, and needed to go right then. I gave the phone back to Suzanna, and he explained my decision.
"We go now to hospital?" she asked me.
"Yes -- I need to have an X-ray."
She furrowed her brow and looked genuinely perplexed.
"An X-Ray?" I repeated. Nothing. "Like, a bone picture?" Still nothing. "Radio wave? Particle wave? Radiation?" Not a flicker of recognition. If there is one word that should be universal between languages, shouldn't it be X-Ray?
I was getting desperate. "An X-Ray?! You know... like, Röntgen?!"
"Oh! Röntgen! You need a Röntgen -- a photo of skeleton!"
I closed my eyes so she couldn't see me rolling them. Good grief! I guess since Röntgen was German, Germanic peoples prefer to give him the proper credit for his invention. But seriously? How ridiciulous.
"Yes, I need a Rontgen."
For some inexplicable reason, it was Maria the kitchen maid, not Suzanna, who drove me twenty minutes into the Emergency Room, and her English was even worse. Before leaving, I grabbed my passport and a wad of Hungarian cash -- who knows how a Hungarian ER operates? Would there be bribery involved? I decided it was better to be safe.
The hospital felt very much like an old American high school; clearly built in the late 60s, with square, yellow-tiled walls and a linoleum floor with a fake pebbled design. Certainly not like the modern, white, sterile American hospitals I'm accustomed to, and much more like West High in the mid 90s. With a flash of my passport and a twenty minute wait I was in to see the... doctor, I guess, but it was kind of unclear who was who. He hand wrote my name on a scrap of paper he tore out of a notebook, which was my pass to get an X-Ray upstairs in the "Rontgen" wing. Once the x-ray was developed, I was sent in to see the obviously chief doctor, a man so superior that he sat regally in a throne-like desk chair wearing nothing but an undershirt. (Well, and pants.)
(Now let's play the game "Who speaks English in a Hungarian Emergency Room?" shall we? The reception desk? Nope! The nurses? Nada. The X-Ray technician? Nothing. The other patients? Not a chance. And the chief doctor? Only one word: "Okay!")
Through Maria he explained that I had a small fracture in my metacarpal bone leading up to my pinky, and would need to be in a cast for four weeks. He sent one of his minions to get the proper supplies, and then plastered me up with a thick, immobile white cast, and sent me on my way.
Sigh. Four weeks without my left hand. Well, all things considered, this is about the best injury I could have hoped for. Better riders than myself have been paralyzed or killed from falls like mine, and I'm lucky to be left with only a month to recover. And I'll take a broken hand over a broken foot any day -- at least this way I can still travel reasonably well. It could have been infinitely worse.
It does, however, mean that I am off horses temporarily, perhaps for the rest of my time in Hungary, which is unfortunate. I'm sad thay it happened so soon into my trip, because I was so looking forward to spending the whole week riding. At least I'm getting to spend this week recovering in a beautiful castle, where I can alternately spend my hours in the pool, the sauna or the jacuzzi, or just lay out on the lawn reading a book and soaking up the sun. I can't complain too much.
Many other guests have arrived over the weekend to begin their own weeklong riding session, including a family of five Swedes who drove down from Gothenberg yesterday (arriving late at night in their pristine Volvo) and three Germans who arrived this morning in their oversized Beamer (I love people who adhere to stereotypes). Gabor also came home Friday night to spend his long Easter vacation here, and has proved to be a nice friend to have while I am recovering from my injury. He looks to me exactly like Gregor, circa 2001, with long rebellious hair and a visible desire to piss people off with the way he dresses. Very Eastern European, very counter-culture. But he speaks very good English, and has a remarkably good sense of humor. The dining room is now full at every meal, and interestingly, though I am the only native English speaker at the table, everyone speaks English, because it is the easiest and most obvious common language between them. With so many more people there is now much more wine at dinner (Hungarian wine, of course, which Hungarians will tell you is very famous and the best wine in the world), and after finishing dessert, as a digestif we always drink shots of the housemade peach Schnapps (NB: In order to be legally considered Hungarian Schnapps, such potables must be 56% alcohol.)
Many other guests have arrived over the weekend to begin their own weeklong riding session, including a family of five Swedes who drove down from Gothenberg yesterday (arriving late at night in their pristine Volvo) and three Germans who arrived this morning in their oversized Beamer (I love people who adhere to stereotypes). Gabor also came home Friday night to spend his long Easter vacation here, and has proved to be a nice friend to have while I am recovering from my injury. He looks to me exactly like Gregor, circa 2001, with long rebellious hair and a visible desire to piss people off with the way he dresses. Very Eastern European, very counter-culture. But he speaks very good English, and has a remarkably good sense of humor. The dining room is now full at every meal, and interestingly, though I am the only native English speaker at the table, everyone speaks English, because it is the easiest and most obvious common language between them. With so many more people there is now much more wine at dinner (Hungarian wine, of course, which Hungarians will tell you is very famous and the best wine in the world), and after finishing dessert, as a digestif we always drink shots of the housemade peach Schnapps (NB: In order to be legally considered Hungarian Schnapps, such potables must be 56% alcohol.)
In light of everything, I am still, surprisingly, having a really good time here at the Castle Pokvar. And who knows, maybe I will find a way to get back up on the horse again before the week is over...
