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THE GOULASH-STAINED DEVIANT TOUR OCTOMBRIE 2004
Vineri 8th – Capstan Square LONDON
Simbata 9th – Hampden Park GLASGOW
Duminica 10th – Baross Pension BUDAPEST
Luni 11th – Piata Unirii IASI
Marti 12th – Dinamo Stadium CHISINAU
Miercuri 13th – Republican Stadium CHISINAU
Joi 14th – Hotel Moldova IASI
Vineri 15th – Dacia Continental ORADEA
Simbata 16th – Benczur BUDAPEST
Duminica 17th – Benczur BUDAPEST
Luni 18th – Hame YAHOORSUR
Friday 8th October
The Wallace and Pizza Hun arrive at the Plastic Palace for warm-up drinks.
Saturday 9th October
The fist early rise of the tour, as The Plastic Chancellor, The Wallace and Pizza Hun made their way to Stansted to fly up to Glasgow for the Norway game. Plan A was for Scooter Boy to attend as well, but globe-trotting got in the way of this plan.
Wee Davey and Fannybaws were expected to join up for pre-match drinks, but demonstrated their incompatibility for complex travel arrangements by arriving at Hampden two minutes after kick-off. Junior Pizza Hun was also in attendance along with several members of the extended Pizza Hun clan. The match itself was a bit of a let-down, but that was not to deter us from enjoying the rest of the tour!
Scooter Boy joined the tour fresh (well, not that fresh, come to think of it) from the US of A, and four-fifths of the KELTA Tour Party were in place for the train journey down to Prestwick – a train journey that was shared with a bunch of singing Ayrshire muppets. After checking in to the Stansted Hilton, we propped up the bar until the arrival of the Iron Chancellor.
Sunday 10th October
An early flight out to Budapest, where we spotted the first mullet of the tour while waiting for our taxi into the city centre. Nice. Our taxi took us to our hotel, the Baross Pension, which was handily situated across the road from Keleti Station, and (conveniently for Pizza Hun) upstairs from Pizza Hut. Our source of local knowledge, Livia, joined us shortly afterwards and helped us with the transaction of buying train tickets to Oradea (which is pronounced “Arad”!) before taking us to Champs Bar for a light snack and refreshments. In a moment of clarity we all learned how to say cheers in Hungarian (I wish I’d also learned how to spell it, as the closest I can manage is “eggy shakey breath”). Six hours, three renditions of the jazz band joke, nine broon beers and nine palinkas each later, Pizza Hun and Scooter Boy were snoring into their drinks, The Wallace had announced that “mi chiamo Stefano” and been christened “Il Duce”, and Livia had basically drunk us under the table.
The journey back to the hotel is all a bit of a blur, but definitely involved a fair amount of staggering, a game of “pile on the biscuit”, the exposure of body parts to the elements, and the Iron Chancellor using his diplomatic skills to rescue Pizza Hun from the clutches of the Budapest constabulary. At some point after this, Pizza Hun found himself outside the Keleti Station demanding to be taken by taxi to the hotel (which if you remember was on the other side of the road). Probably the easiest fare of that driver’s evening!
Monday 11th October
Another early rise for the train to Oradea, incorporating a quick stop at the station shop for some tasty looking spicy meat baguettes. At the platform, we discovered that not only is Oradea pronounced “Arad”, it is also spelt “Arad”… this didn’t seem to make a great deal of sense, so we checked the map to find out that we’ve got tickets to the wrong town! Arad is about 70 miles south of Oradea, and on a different route. As it’s in the right country, we got on the train anyway. Our hangovers were kicking in, and were not helped by the spicy meat baguettes.
On arrival in Arad, we walked into a land untouched by modern dentistry, and an offer of “taxi” from a man with a prominent harmunculus (that’s what Pizza Hun’s granny calls them anyway, it’s basically a big fleshy lump that has a strange magnetic effect on your vision) on the side of his face – although it was such a corker you could probably argue that he had a face on the side of his harmunculus. What we wanted was a train to Oradea, so we turned down his offer. After finding out that the next train was not for four hours, we went in search of a Hertz office… things didn’t look promising on this front either, so when we saw a couple of mini-buses that look like they might be for hire we headed in that direction. The absence of drivers was a problem though, so when we turned round to find Mr Harmunculus on our tail, we decided to take him up on his offer and he led us to his car. I was frankly amazed that a 20 year old Ford Sierra was still roadworthy, but then when we had all squeezed in and started moving, I realised it wasn’t. The car was cramped but moved more quickly than we could walk. The bullet holes in the windscreen were a bit of a worry, and I felt every pothole in the road but got off lightly – Pizza Hun was wedged in between me and the door with the window winder up his jacksy, and every pothole had the window going up and down half an inch.
Mr Harmunculus got us just about in one piece to the bus station, where he reckoned we could get a bus to Oradea. We were introduced to Matt Le Blanc’s Romanian lookalike, who showed us where the bus would leave from. As soon as it pulled into the station though we spotted that it was half full already, and hordes of locals descended upon it taking up all the seats so we moved to plan C, which was to get two taxis to take us up the road to Oradea.
By the time we got to the Hertz office in Oradea that we’d booked our hire car with, we were four hours behind schedule, but still had 11 hours to get to Iasi (pronounced “Yash”, but definitely the right town), a journey which the RAC website told us would take 6-8 hours. Plastic Chancellor was first into the driving seat, but out of it again five minutes into the journey after falling foul of the local traffic police! After being issued with a £5 speeding ticket we were back on the move again, and shortly out on the open road having taken the decision to pay the fine on our way home rather than delay our outward journey even further. Four hours later, we were about a third of the way to Iasi, and Scooter Boy took the wheel as darkness and snow descended and the road climbed up into the Carpathian Mountains. Serious doubts were starting to creep into our minds about whether we would reach our destination on time, or indeed at all! Driving standards are pretty hair-raising in Romania, and are matched by the standard of the roads. We were on the main route through Romania, and didn’t encounter a single motorway or more than a few short stretches of dual carriageway. There’s no street lighting and no cats-eyes on the road, so during the hours of darkness the only light comes from the moon and the headlights of those vehicles on the same stretch of road as you.
After eight hours on the road, and only three hours left until our train, we still had 200 kilometres to go, and as we’d averaged about 55 kilometres per hour so far, the cards were stacked against us. Fortunately at 12.30am there wasn’t too much traffic on the road so Scooter “Leadfoot” Boy still had a fighting chance of getting us to Iasi on time. Another couple of near-misses later and we arrived in Iasi. The time was 3.15am, and our train was due to leave at 3.22am. Hats off to the Schumacher brothers.
We stopped to ask directions to the railway station, but no luck – none of the local taxi drivers seemed to know where it is! After driving around for half an hour getting increasingly frustrated that the last 11 hours had been in vain, we were ready to chuck in the towel and go to the all night McDonalds to work out our fallback plan over a cup of tea, when the Iron Chancellor spotted some railway tracks – good job he went for the UNISON sight test! “Let’s go and have a look, and see if we can work out which direction the station’s in”… so off we went. Amazingly, the “railway siding” turned out to be the train station, and our train, which was meant to leave half an hour earlier, was still there!!! On asking what time the train left, one of the frontier guards held up four fingers. Four minutes??? Or 4am??? The Iron Chancellor almost delegated the task of kissing him to the Plastic Chancellor when he confirmed it would be 4am! A quick dash back to the car for our luggage and to park up in a more sensible place (i.e. not in the middle of the road) and all that was left to do was persuade them to let us on the train. We struck gold when the stationmaster took it upon himself to cut through the crap with the guard on the train and got us aboard. The guard seemed a little bit off colour, and when he disappeared after we’d handed over our tickets we wondered if he’d fallen asleep. It all made sense when we got talking to a local guy who told us that “the guard is not asleep, but he’s not really awake either”, and made the internationally-recognised gesture for “drinking”.
At this point we started to doubt that we were on the right train at all, as it was deadly quiet despite being apparently full of Tartan Army footsoldiers. All the berths were taken, and the only people we could see were the occasional glimpses of the pished guard, and a few other passengers who like us had been relegated to the corridor, and none of them were Scots. After about an hour, the guard had sobered up enough to find us spaces in various cabins, some of which had the familiar sight and smell of drunken comatose Tartan Army in them, and we breathed a collective (shallow) sigh of relief.
As we approached the Moldovan border, the frontier guards came round for our passports. Rather than having a quick look and stamping them, they took them from us and continued down the corridor. I was beginning to wonder how many illegal immigrants would be arriving in the UK with our identities when the passports hadn’t reappeared after twenty minutes, but eventually we got them back, and settled down to get a bit of a kip. Ten minutes later and we were woken by an almighty clattering, and found out that the train was in mid air… rather than a slow motion crash, what we were actually experiencing was the old Soviet Union’s anti-invasion strategy – any train coming across the border has to be hoisted off one set of tracks and onto another. I still can’t work out why they don’t just have two different trains on two different tracks, with border control in between, but I guess that’s why I’m just a member of the Tartan Army, and they were a 20th century superpower.
Tuesday 12th October
9.30am, and we arrived in Chisinau railway station (classy – much nicer than Kirkcaldy station, but without the poetry). It was a massive relief to have actually got here, and we headed for our hotel, once again crammed into the back of a clapped out old taxi. We were amazed to find a clean, modern hotel with comfortable beds and power showers, and after half an hour of de-soiling and a change of clothes (goodbye comfy car clothes, hello kilts) we ventured out for a wee refreshment before the under-21 game. Five beers came to about £1.75, so we were happy campers!
The Iron Chancellor had consulted the oracle for restaurant tips, and we settled on La Taifa for lunch, reputed to be one of the two best restaurants in Moldova. It certainly lived up to its reputation, and we took advantage of Pizza Hun nipping to the shunkie during the meal to unveil the top secret second tour shirt: “Bismarck: makes your wee baldy veggie mate go a bit doolally”… and when the third Proclaimer returned it took him a full two minutes to spot it.
After lunch it was time to head to the stadium. We arrived just as they were kicking off, and took our seats behind the dugouts. It was a bright sunny day, but where we were in the shade it was absolutely Baltic. This hadn’t stopped one of the other Scotland fans taking his top off, and he and his mate started singing the first line to the old Sinatra song “Me And My Shadow” over and over again, in what Vic Reeves would call the club style:
“Oh the wallpaper sticks to the wa-all,
And the wallpaper sticks to the wall.
Oh the wallpaper sticks to the wa-all,
And the wallpaper sticks to the wall.”
Bizarre. But funny.
The match finished 0-0, and was a pretty abysmal affair which Scotland were frankly lucky not to lose. The only entertainment other than the half-naked club singer was provided by a Moldovan fan sitting behind us who we could have sworn was Uri Geller.
After the match we headed off to explore the city. On our wanderings we were stopped by several families to pose for photos, and then by two students from the local journalism college, who asked us what we knew about the Moldovan National Day celebrations that would be held that Thursday. We didn’t know a great deal about this, so hi-jacked the interview for our own purposes – finding out where we could buy traditional fur hats. Somewhere in Moldova, there is a tape recording of a Scotland fan asking whether we can get to the hat shop by scooter, then demonstrating what a scooter sounds like. Alles klar?
As darkness began to fall, we realised that the absence of street lighting had continued from Romania. On it’s own this wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but there was the added complication of a novel approach to man-holes – most of the time these were just the same as they would be anywhere else in the world, but every now and then we’d discover one without a cover.
Because we’d all enjoyed La Taifa so much at lunchtime, and because we knew there weren’t any uncovered manholes on the route to get there, we decided to go back for a repeat performance. When we got there, though, it was full due to the Moldovan FA being there for their pre-match dinner. We tried to exchange pleasantries with a couple of them, but they didn’t seem all that keen on our banter!
Rather than search around for another option, we went back to our hotel to try the restaurant there. We were pleased to find it almost empty, but there was a reason- the rather attractive young waitress had no other qualifications for the job. From tutting when we asked to see the menu, things went downhill – our courses came in random order if at all, and after an hour and a half when we had finally all had our main courses and were contemplating dessert, we were told that the kitchen was closed – despite it being 9.45pm and the restaurant not closing until 11pm. God only knows what the previous customers had done to ruin her day.
Due to our travel exploits, and the absence of Bismarck, none of us had the energy to get doolally, so we all headed upstairs for the night.
Wednesday 13th October
Matchday, and our first day with no travel!!! Another bout of sightseeing was on the cards for the morning, including finding out where the Republican Stadium was, and after a couple of hours of activity we were all ready for lunch. We found a place near the United Nations building called Green Hills, so gave it a try. The food was good, the beer was good, the service was good, and while we were there we got chatting to an American and a New Zealander, whose husbands both worked in Chisinau. Nice people.
After lunch we went on another hats’n'hose mission, and found the main department store in town. Third floor: furry hats for 119 Moldovan Lei (= £6). Fourth floor: blue hose! Now that’s what I call a successful shopping mission. Hats are the new hose.
It was back to the hotel to wrap up warm for the match after this. After doing so, we stopped in at the bar down the street for a quick drink and ordered five vodkas. We were served by Pat Butcher, who sold us a bottle of vodka for 15 Lei (75p), but the ambience wasn’t too our liking so we left to find somewhere closer to La Taifa. Our next stop was a wee bar halfway along Bucuresti Str, where half the clientele were Moldovan moshers and the other half were a group of Scots who seemed a wee bit worse for wear. All we wanted was a drink, but instead we got shite patter. It turned out they had arrived that morning and had spent the entire day in the same pub, intended to stay there until it was time for the match, and were heading straight for the airport and their flight home straight after full time. It crossed my mind to ask why they didn’t just watch the match in their local at home, but I kept that one to myself.
After another superb meal in La Taifa (grilled sturgeon… delicious) we wandered off in the direction of the stadium. There was still a couple of hours to go until kick-off so we stopped off in a basement bar that looked reasonable. We had a few rounds of drinks (a shot of vodka with a pineapple juice chaser and a slice of gherkin) with a table of Moldovans, and discovered that taking your fur hat off and putting it on the table is a serious social gaffe in Moldova. As we were beginning to suspect that everything these fellas were ordering was going on our tab, we made our excuses and looked for the next stop on our pre-match pub crawl. The next pub was full of Scots, but the drink was cheap and of a decent standard so this made up for the lack of elbow room. The cheap drink was getting too much for some people though, so when a scuffle broke out we downed our drinks (local cognac if I remember rightly) and made our way into the stadium.
We all know how bad the football was, so I won’t go into that here. The Plastic Chancellor thought it was a great game until half time, until we told him it wasn’t really 2-2. He shut one eye for the second half, and there were no longer 44 players, 2 balls and 2 referees on the pitch. The highlights of the match from a non-footballing perspective were the presence of one half of Ant & Dec in front of us, meeting up with the Kirkcaldy Tartan Army, and having the warmest heids in the stadium due to having them sheathed in the finest Moldovan fake fur.
Thursday 14th October
With an evening train to catch, we wanted to make the most of our last day in Chisinau by celebrating Moldovan National Day. The atmosphere in Boulevard Stefan Cel Mare, the main street in the city, was superb for the National Day celebrations and it was another bright day, although still a bit chilly. I’ve no idea who the locals thought we were, but we could hardly go 20 yards without being stopped and asked for our autographs. There were surprisingly few Scotland fans around, but this was probably partly due to people catching early flights home and partly due to the extent that collective sorrows had been drowned after the match the previous night. The celebrations made me wonder why we never have public celebrations on such a scale in Scotland… and how fortunate the Moldovans were to be able to celebrate the event without it being over-commercialised. I guess as their economy gradually catches up with the rest of Europe they may lose this, but I sincerely hope they don’t lose the national pride that they have despite being one of the poorest countries on the continent.
After checking out of the hotel, our taxi arrived to take us to the railway station. I’m not quite sure why, given the fact that a taxi journey only cost a couple of hundred dobbers, we insisted on cramming into a single taxi yet again, but we did. The taxi driver seemed to be taking us a very strange route, and when The Wallace spotted a sign for the airport we worked out our mistake. One of the few words of Moldovan we know is railway station (“gara”) but amazingly for such a simple word our pronunciation lets us down. Remembering the success we’d had imitating a scooter earlier in the week, The Wallace decided to pull another sound effect out of the bag: “Not aeroport, gara. You know… gara… ch-ch-ch!” We all joined in. This had the desired effect: “Ah! Gara… ch-ch-ch!” the taxi driver said. He then radio’d his depot: “Gara ch-ch-ch”… ” gara ch-ch-ch ” came back from the other end of the line. Phew.
With an hour and a half to kill at the gara ch-ch-ch and several hundred dobbers burning holes in our sporrans we went for a beer. This used up a fraction of our cash so we joined the queue for the happiest woman in Moldova’s stall. Happiest because she had obviously had the best day’s business of the year from departing footsoldiers giving her their leftover dobbers in exchange for food for the train. We got juice, crisps, bread and a big sausage for probably ten times as much as we would have spent in the market, but still less than it would have set us back at home.
The train journey was just as weird as it was on the outward trip, but this time we approached it as hardened travellers, totally unfazed by our passports disappearing for half an hour or the palaver changing tracks at the border. To be honest, the possible fate of the hire car was more of a concern, but on arrival in Iasi we found it in exactly the same spot (parked squint) and condition (filthy and smelly) as we’d left it three days previously. We still had no idea where we were in Iasi, but followed our noses to the town centre in order to track down the Hotel Moldova where we had made a reservation.
After ten minutes or so we discovered a funfair – more celebrations for Moldovan National Day? Who knows, it’s certainly a possibility as Moldova and that part of Romania used to be part of the same country. We seemed to be near the centre of town, as there were some pretty impressive buildings around, so we stopped to get directions to the hotel. As a very helpful woman was in the middle of telling us that it was about 100 metres away, I realised we were parked on tram lines, and there was a tram approaching from behind… we never got a chance to thank the woman properly for her help!
The hotel was a bit dated – picture an episode of George & Mildred, it was all orange velour and wood veneer walls – and basic but clean, so after a quick turnaround we went to get some dinner down us. We eventually found a pizza restaurant that was open, and after a couple of beers, a large cognac and a main course each we paid the bill which came to about £9. One person couldn’t eat out for that amount in our version of the high street pizza place. They also wouldn’t have their waitresses in micro skirts either, but that’s a whole different issue…
Friday 15th October
Another day, another epic journey. Having taken the high road on the way out, we decided to take the low road coming back. Maybe this was the one that the RAC’s driver did in 6-8 hours?
The early indications were very promising. The roads were clearly not designed for high volume traffic, but as there was virtually nothing on the road we were travelling much quicker than we had been on the major roads. The first couple of hours were uneventful until we reached a town name and couldn’t find the road to name. We decided on the next best route, which was a bit longer but would take us past a potentially scenic lake, and set off on our way. Five minutes later came the familiar site of a policeman flagging us down… I lifted my lead foot and pulled in to the side. After taking down my driving licence details and filling in a quarter of the speeding ticket, the policeman said something completely unexpected: “You know, I have decided I will forgive you… but you must be careful. The people here are not educated, they drink too much and then take their animals on the road.” Fighting laughter, I thanked him profusely and walked back to the car feeling like a prize fighter.
After another hour or so, driving duties were past to Ralf, I mean the Plastic Chancellor, with lunchtime approaching. Shortly after this we approached a roadside restaurant which appeared to be constructed entirely from lego, and went in to eat. The food was again superb (had we eaten a bad meal all week? I certainly don’t remember one) but the service slow (but friendly at least!) but we still had most of the day to get to Oradea.
The lake we’d spotted on the map was certainly scenic but involved a bit of a mountain climb, i.e. lots of hairpin bends and a significant drop in speed. The roads were in great condition though, and we discovered that this was probably due to Romania’s largest producer of mineral water, Borsec, having their source here and consequently generating a lot of traffic. Once we were over the hills we found that the traffic was more like it had been on the way out, and our speed dropped once again.
Four or five hours later we were still on the road, and had now passed the RAC’s estimate for the entire journey by a couple of hours. Night had fallen but we were about to join what looked on the map like the only motorway in Romania. Not so. This turned out to be a 30 mile stretch of single carriageway road, but with occasional stretches where traffic in one direction enjoyed an extra lane for overtaking. A disappointment, but an improvement nonetheless. The policeman’s advice had turned out to be accurate, as we’d seen a lot of doolally locals wandering about the road with their cows, a lot of horses pulling carts, and also numerous cows, donkeys and dogs wandering on the road unattended. Incidentally, Romania has the highest amount of roadkill I have ever seen.
On this stretch of road, we suddenly encountered a problem. Shortly after taking evasive action to avoid a stationary unlit lorry on the road, we were belting along at a decent pace when a lump of kerbstone suddenly jumped out in front of us and clattered against the front wheel. Things didn’t sound too great so we pulled in to the side for an inspection. Unsurprisingly the tyre was a goner, so we emptied the boot to get at the spare, and started changing it. You remember I said that there is no road lighting in Romania? Well, fortunately the Schumachers’ mum had seen a newspaper article suggesting that we take a torch, and although everyone else had either ignored or forgotten this advice, the Iron Chancellor had come prepared (that’s what comes from being a keen Scout in your youth). If he hadn’t, we would have had to change the tyre using the light from our mobile screens! We weren’t quite as quick as an F1 pit team, but we did alright and can only thank Hertz for ensuring that the key for the locking wheel nut was in the glove compartment.
It was over to Scooter Boy for the remainder of the driving and to prove that cars go sideways as well as backwards and forwards, and 14 hours after setting off from Iasi we arrived in the car park of the Hotel Continental in Oradea. What a place! Five to eleven at night and their restaurant is still open, and what’s more… it has a jazz band!!! We were understandably delighted by this, and also by the very competitively priced cognacs and chateau briand. After the band stopped playing for the night, Scooter Boy and The Wallace got up for an impromptu rendition of “Wallpaper”, but as well as the band going home so had the rest of the customers, and the only people who got to enjoy this fine music were the rest of KELTA and the waiters.
Saturday 16th October
We were all very excited about our first ever visit to Oradea railway station, but before we could go there we had a couple of pieces of business to attend to. Firstly, the Plastic Chancellor had to pay his speeding fine, and then he had to explain the state of the hire car’s tyre to Hertz! It turned out that the speeding ticket couldn’t be paid on a Saturday so we’d have to rely on the postal system when we got home. Hertz’s first response when we told them we’d had a minor incident the previous day was to ask for a police report (!) but when they realised that we’d just got a puncture instead of crashing their car they were fine.
At the railway station we got to experience possibly the most inefficient example of bureaucracy ever. How long does it take to buy tickets for five people to travel by train in the UK? Two minutes? Go to Romania and it takes at least five minutes. Per ticket. So we stood about like fannies for 25 minutes waiting for the saleswoman to fill out five sets of forms in triplicate. God knows what they would do if the place was busy.
The railway station was over-run with gypsies, one of whom was sporting an incredibly horrendous mullet. When we went across to the platform we were followed by a young lad of about 12 or 13, who had a disturbing fascination with our sporrans. I think this was because he glimpsed a mobile phone in one of them, at least that’s what I’m hoping. Then he spotted Pizza Hun’s Boaby poking through his zip, this prompted him to point and snigger at it. He then took this one step further, reaching out to punch Boaby’s heid! That wee gypsy really spanked Pizza Hun’s monkey that morning.
I should probably explain at this point that Boaby is a stuffed gorilla that accompanies us on tour. Boaby is afraid of the dark, so when we’re travelling Pizza Hun leaves the zip of his bag open for him.
When we got to Budapest it was tipping down with rain, just like it had been the previous weekend. As we were hurrying along to or hotel, a helpful Hungarian offered to give us directions. Unfortunately he’d never heard of the hotel we were booked into, so tried to get us to go to a completely different hotel! We explained that we knew where we were going, but he didn’t understand any of the phrases we used for this. So we spent five minutes getting soaked to the bone because we were too polite just to walk away from him.
After getting to our hotel, we headed back out to meet up with Sheena and Wee Davey, who had flown out from London that morning, and Livia. We soon discovered that Livia’s geographical skills had not improved in the week we’d been away… unfortunately we didn’t make this discovery until we were walking around in the rain trying to find the cafe she’d said they were in. But we did find it eventually and it was worth the wait.
Next stop was dinner… we’d requested that Livia take us to a traditional Hungarian restaurant so that we could have a plate of genuine goulash. And it was absolutely delicious. We followed this up with our own contribution to Hungarian cuisine – the Hungarian Coffee. It would seem that no-one had thought of putting Hungarian brandy in coffee before, but I reckon they’ll be adding this to the menu soon. As we were finishing our meal, two traditional musicians arrived and started to play. Livia’s reaction? “Is it a GYPSY band???” I’m still not sure if the punchline to the joke translates into Hungarian, but maybe it’s one of those jokes that’s funny even without the punchline.
During dinner The Wallace and I hatched a plan to set up www.hotbeer.com (we’ve since discovered that some other entrepreneurial genius beat us to it, so we’re going for www.hotbeer.co.uk) with www.hungariancoffee.com as a side project. Livia offered her advertising expertise to the cause, which was much appreciated, and suggested Hungary as a test market as they are typically open to new ideas. This, coupled with our experience of their climate, convinced us that Hungary is the way forward. And even if it isn’t, we’ll do it anyway as perception is the new reality.
We were in the mood for music now, so we headed off to a bar that had karaoke. There were only about thirty people in the bar, so once we got in the mood for singing we got a fair bit of time on the mic. Maximum respect to Pizza Hun for successfully singing “Business” by Eminem, but the greatest achievement had to be Scooter Boy getting thrown off the stage during his energetic performance of “Are You Gonna Go My Way”!
Sunday 17th October
Having consumed vast quantities of palinka the night before, there were quite a few horrendous hangover’s to contend with. Scooter Boy, The Wallace, Pizza Hun and the Plastic Chancellor had decided that a trip to one of Budapest’s famous spas was in order, so we trudged off through the rain (again) to find it. The Iron Chancellor didn’t have a hangover, but preferred the company of his wifeperson for the morning. When we got to the spa, it turned out to be one of the most amazing places – a maze of rooms with different types of pools, some hot some cold, and with different minerals in the water. There was also three outdoor pools of different temperatures. Three hours later and there was no trace of our hangovers, and we were due to meet the rest of the troops back in the same cafe we’d been in the day before. We were all a bit more subdued than the previous day, either through still being hungover or by being nice and relaxed from a few hours in the spa. On our way to the cafe we’d gone into a shop so the Plastic Chancellor could buy a bottle of palinka, but his pronunciation let him down and the shopkeeper thought that he had asked for perenka. This is seemingly the Hungarian word for “nappy”.
After a couple of hours in the cafe we left to go to Champs Bar, as Wee Davey wanted to see the Premiership game. We were recognised by the bar staff as soon as we walked in, and went to our usual table. Another fine meal was to follow, washed down with more Hungarian Coffee and then a new addition – Palinka Coffee. We were getting strange looks when we ordered these, but if the bar staff tried them I’m sure they would see sense.
With an early start ahead of us the next morning, we went back to the hotel for one last palinka before bed. No-one went out for a sneaky late night drink and sing. And Mrs Iron Chancellor wasn’t spotted on the fourth floor balcony in her purple negligee waving to them, either.
Monday 18th October
Scooters homeward. Our minibus taxi arrived at ten past ohmygod to take us back to the airport, and after a smooth flight back to Stansted we said our goodbyes and headed off in different directions.
Since we got back I’ve heard a few stories about people having problems with corrupt members of the Moldovan police, but this is very different from my experience. With the exception of one waitress and two representatives of the Moldovan FA, we found the locals to be incredibly friendly and warm (despite the temperature), and this trip surely goes down in memory as one of the best we’ve been on. Fingers crossed that we draw Moldova or Hungary in the qualifiers for Euro 2008!!!
View the full photo gallery from this tour!
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