Never in all my life could I have possibly guessed that this little port-a-potty, on a house construction site in some little unnamed Slovakian suburb, would be the best sight I’ve had all day. And that begs the question of how and why.
So, as they do on TV and in the movies, let’s go back and look at what happened during the past 30 hours. Everything started pleasantly enough. We had a private tour, with a terrific guide, to a charming, if touristy, little town full of shops and cafes. There was even an optical shop which was handy when my glasses fell apart in one of the stores. My favorite shop was full of locally made Hungarian folkloric items. The owner showed me how to tell genuine Hungarian objects from cheap stuff from China. Of course I had to buy some things. We continued the tour with a visit to the remains of a castle high on a hill, just to see the view of the Danube. We finished up our Budapest activities last night with a great Segway tour up Castle Hill. We all got a laugh when our tour guide from Kazakhstan, introduced himself, “ Hi, I’m Beka” and I said, “so am l”.
It was a really good day, and we happily left Budapest early this morning so we could do our laundry somewhere on the way to Prague. It wasn’t long before we realized that today was not going to be as easy as yesterday. The first rude awakening came when we stopped at a service area on the motorway and had to pay to pee. We also had a very difficult time finding the parking lot for the laundromat, but after nearly half an hour, we stumbled upon it. It then took us another half an hour to figure out how to use the machines, but eventually we left, resupplied with clean clothes.
The big problem arose with an email from our credit card fraud unit. We called them and learned that there were 4 suspicious charges that we needed to confirm that we did indeed make. The agent helping us had a very thick accent and we were having trouble understanding him. Neither one of us recognized the first charge (that’s when the panic starts), and told him that we had not made that one. We felt better when we recognized the other three charges, and that’s when I realized that the one we just denied was to the lovely lady in the folkloric shop. I immediately told the agent that I remembered the first charge and it was valid. Unfortunately, once he marked an item as denied he couldn’t change it. We begged, we asked for a supervisor, but he insisted that the only way the merchant could get paid would be for us to go back to her store and pay her again. Impossible; but also unthinkable that we would stiff her. We ended up calling our wonderful guide on that excursion and he agreed to tell her to resubmit and if she still had any problems, he was to give her our phone number. Maybe that will work. I think he will do it because he was surprised and impressed that we were trying to make it right.
We finally got back on the road , but just after we crossed into Slovakia, I got hit really hard with a bout of, hmm how to delicately say this? The tourista? Montezuma’s revenge? Get it?
We were on the motorway with no visible solution. I saw what looked like a town on the map and Brian took the exit. No town. By this time I’m desperate. We end up in a residential area with no salvation around. Now I’m praying and that’s when Brian slams on the brakes and says, there’s a port-a-potty. And what a port-a-potty! The cleanest I’ve ever seen, no odor at all, and lots of tp. A true answer to a prayer.
It took a little while to make our way back to the motorway but shortly thereafter we entered the Czech Republic and found something else that amused us. We stopped for gas and when Brian went in the convenience store to pay, I asked him to also get a bottle of cold water. He came back with orange juice because no where in the store was there any cold water. There was however, loads of 20 oz. bottles of ice cold vodka!
Decorating with umbrellas and lampshades
View from Visegrád Castle 
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