LAKE BALATON

With a free Saturday stretching before us like a new horizon, we headed out with bulging backpacks for a daytrip to Lake Balaton.

We barreled southwest out of Budapest through remote countryside villages in a train that looked like a beat-up blue tin can. The frequent stops—sometimes in a secluded grove of trees or next to a dirt clod of a hill—stretched the ride into a three-hour trip; but we weren’t impatient as this was our first lengthy glimpse outside the city. The five of us—Kristin, Sam, Liz Wright, Liz Yeager, and I--spent the time gazing out the window or asking each other popcorn questions about favorites, family, music, adventures, hometowns, and other getting-to-know-you things.

It was pleasurably-filling to slurp up the greenness flashing by in a hurtling blur; I smiled at the houses all shades of yellow—citrom gelato, lemon sorbet, egg yolk, mustard, lemon meringue—they looked delicious all tucked into lush, untamed hillsides. Most were messily framed by whitish picket fences; vibrant fuchsias, reds, and fresh greens spilled over wrought iron balconies into the cheerful disarray of gardeny-lawn below. (Why is it we loved our neat, army-buzzed lawns so much in the American suburbs and business parks?)

Lake Balaton was lovely and breezy. I sat near the water’s edge with my camera and journal to enjoy it. One of Balaton’s dozens of swans swam up to me from about ten feet away; it stared at me straight on, looking haughty with its long neck erect. After a few dips to the bottom, it glided away, indifferent.

I let my eyes wander down the shoreline; the late afternoon sun made the water look like a glittering mess of bright hot diamonds…a grand casino floor showered with some high roller’s winnings.

I counted twenty-six sailboats from where I was sitting…and there were many hidden around the curves of the shore. There was a feeling of leisure and carelessness at the lake that felt far away from the busy week of Hungarian and registration, far away from tourists and trams kicking up dust in the city.

The respite was good for me; I finally had time soak in the events of the last two weeks and write down a lot of my thoughts. I was inspired to do some creative writing; I enjoyed the company of friends and the leisurely background sounds of the beach behind my own time of quiet. It will always be a cozy, friendly memory.