In memory of Krisztina – Journey to Győr
Whenever you travel by yourself, you never will be actually alone! Give it a try and see! You will always find people like you and form alliance with the same time travelers and locals with constant wanderlust in their hearts. You can share your discoveries, ideas and your story. Unfortunately I have to say an eternal good bye now to a few day long fellow traveler. I write now in her memory.
I got to know Krisztina on the way to Győr (the 6th biggest, historical Hungarian city) as a car sharing passenger. That time, in march 2016, I was preparing the blog already for few months, and Győr was the first city where I went consciously to collect pub-experience outside of Budapest. It was an amazing ride, we talked a lot and laughed even more. Józsi the driver recklessly told us the funniest pub stories of his life in excellent funny style, after he learned my purpose of traveling that day. As if we would pay for a stand up comedy on the road as extra service.
Józsi dropped us out of his car in Győr and drove away. Krisztina came to take photos, I came to do a pub crawl. Both of us traveled alone, but we didn’t stay alone. After we got off, the most natural thing in the world was to explore the city together, starting with the good gyros place, that was recommended to us in the car.
After that I have accompanied her to her hotel to pack down her stuff. On the way there we could face a quite outer area of Győr.
We have been talking about travelling alone, confirming each other the main title, that whoever travels alone naturally finds company all the time. She has traveled alone already, either have I, but this was the first occasion for both of us coming alone into a Hungarian city. We headed to the city center to have a coffee and a first look at the streets, buildings, statues and people of Győr.
It was an experimental journey for me, from more perspectives: to get to know myself in this new situation, how is it to be in a new city by knowing that I will write about it later and the fact that I may already write in my mind, shouldn’t hinder me in experiencing the present moment. The first own rule I set myself was, to get a clue of the city first, to have a whole picture about its atmosphere, to realize its limits, its distribution, its volume and inhabitants, and I should taste its pubs only after. Krisztina was thinking the same way, she saw a lot and clicked few with her camera. As if she would liked to understand first what she is taking a photo of. She wasn’t only adaptive to the obvious things, she didn’t only paid attention to the mainstream sights. She was excited about smaller ornamental elements of building frontages, strange labels or name plates. She became a fan of the corner balconies of Győr, the same way as I did and she starred at the beautiful Spartacus boathouse on the Radó island long with grief in her eyes, because it was said that time to be demolished soon.
When we made it to the rivers, we got to know a local family on bicycles, András (“Bobó”), Bálint (12 yo) and Liza (8 yo) who joined us. They very pretty cool, had pleasant personality, sense of humor and they were informative and chatty about the interesting facts of their city, even the smallest one. She was especially mature to her age. Kriszta and I both preferred the tourist guide of local people, and we particularly adored theirs. They showed us first the district of Révfülöp. They took us along with them to eat and when I started my pub crawl, the accompanied Krisztina to her hotel.
We didn’t really say goodbye with Krisztina at that point. We have promised each other to send our good revelations and tips of Győr in the form of pictures and we held on to that promise. We have seen the same spots separately but we have explored different sights either. In the following two days we met once a day. We had lunch or breakfast together according to the good review of local people in the 300 years old Matróz csárda (tavern),
We went together to the Püspökvári (Püspökvári) lookout and to visit a children’s drawing exhibition of Apor Vilmos (he was a defender, martyr bishop in Győr against the Turks back then).
We’ve been happy about each other’s company and we both made these few days even more interesting this way. We could go together in our own pace. We agreed on one of the most useful things for those, who travel together: they never should force the own focus, preferences or pace on each other, they have to be able to separate and rejoin by sharing anything that they found in between. She seemed to be an excellend fellow traveler. We said goodbye by foreshadowing, that we will meet again in Budapest. We never did, but I never thought that I won’t even have the chance to it, that its opportunity will be lost forever this soon.
I just saw a necrology on her Facebook page the other day, just had a quick look at it, had to run and I got it wrong. I thought that she has lost her sister, I just sent a sad emoticon and I was about to write her later. Józsi the car sharing driver contacted me that evening: – What happened to her? I saw that she has passed away – he asked me.
– She wasn’t the one, who died, but her sister – I answered quickly, but I got the shivers in the same minute. What if I am wrong? I was wrong.
Whenever I recalled the memories of this Győr’s journey, I was thinking of her too. I thought that some day we’ll meet again and also that I’ll will return to Győr, but to this second goal I specified a preferred date. I wanted to go back to Győr sometimes in summer, when the syphon* fountain is not covered like in winter anymore. I didn’t specified any exact date to meet Kriszta again, as if its opportunity would be eternal. I was wrong again.
*the carbonated soda water is a Hungarian invention of Győr
