Drinking alcohol every day was probably not the best idea. Even though we had almost never argued, one day while talking about our past, some things came up that triggered strange reactions and behaviours. Long story short, she didn’t like some of the things I admitted I had done in the past, and I ended up being threatened. I had never been afraid of getting stabbed before. I spent one night literally terrified, locked inside my room. We weren’t sleeping together; luckily, I had my own room. The next day, we talked about what had happened. She apologised, and we realised that we were both drinking too much. The funny part is that I thought she had a drinking problem, but she thought the same about me. One drank because the other was drinking, and since there was always so much alcohol in the house, we ended up getting drunk every single day. Obviously, things were bound to go wrong at some point. We understood we needed to do something different.
So we decided to get out of the house, change the air, do something else. We visited the town of Kápolnásnyék, some castles, and went for long walks in nature. One of the most memorable experiences was going to watch an ice hockey game, which was incredibly violent. I still regret not grabbing the puck that flew near me during the match. I hesitated for a few seconds, and some little bastard kid stole it. I will never forget that. We even went snowboarding one day: the lowest temperature I’ve ever experienced in my life, minus seven degrees.
But the best experience was without a doubt visiting the floating village of Bokodi, with its wooden houses on stilts suspended above the frozen lake. We got there by pure chance, driving around the area, curious about a blue dot on Google Maps. From there, we started walking around the lake until we reached a house where relaxing ambient music was playing. I walk closer and see a dog, some people drinking and smoking on a small terrace above the water. An old fisherman, a former fishing champion, lives there alone. He barely speaks English, but you don’t need many words to understand each other. He found his own way to have company; he offers drinks in exchange for a small donation. We decide to stay. At some point, he looks at me and asks if I want to smoke a joint with him. My classic “Why not?” kicks in. He passes it to me, and we smoke together, while the ambient music keeps playing in the background, making everything feel almost surreal.
Then he takes me to his little terrace: from there the sunset opens up in full 360 degrees, with a refinery on the horizon that, strangely enough, blends perfectly into the landscape. I would have never imagined that right there, in Hungary, in such a random place, I would see the most beautiful sunset of my life.
I’ve seen incredible sunsets all over the world: in the desert of Cappadocia, in Mexico with a whale jumping in front of the sun as it disappeared into the horizon, in the misty mountains of Ha Giang in Vietnam, in the jungle of Battambang with millions of bats flying out at dusk.
But the one in Bokodi beats them all.
I spent a month at Anita’s house, and it was an incredible experience. We had fun, we stuffed ourselves like pigs, drank like sponges, and when my flatmates in Birmingham started to miss me, I found a cheap flight and went back to England. Going home felt strange. I had gotten used to life with her, but coming back after a trip always leaves a weird feeling. For a few months, we talked a lot, long phone calls, then slowly less and less, until we lost touch. Too bad.
But the memory of all this stays. And once again, I’m glad I asked myself that night in Budapest:
Why not, Ricky?