I awake early and lay awhile, watching the sunlight filter through the curtains. Breakfast is semmel rolls and butter and cold cuts, bad coffee from an espresso machine and little plastic pots of jam with a foil cover. The orange juice is some kind of sweet, tang-like powder and water concoction. The Hungarians who run the Pension Huber, where I am staying, speak better German than I and are more polite. Also most of the artists are more polite than I am. I am somehow really fond of the two that are just as sloppy and careless as I.
     After breakfast I retrieve my bike from the room where it is 'locked' up. It is really a dusty garage filled with every conceivable kind of junk treasure, from ancient rusty cogs and a rudely carved crucifix, to a bright pink children's bicycle and a badly proportioned portrait of a Great Dane. The lock on the door is a wooden peg suspended from a rope, which is dropped into a ring on the door each evening. But in this town, that's about all you seem to need.
     The road to the Fertoerakos Yacht Club is dirt, bumpy and bordered by fields. A canal runs alongside, stinking from the fresh manure the fields recieved this week. I spent a few days painting a scene of a small white chapel that sits right by the canal, so by now my nose is immune to the fumes. Bugs smack into my face as I whip down the road. I can hear the cattle in one of the barns start to moan and scream; it must be feeding time. I don't know why they call what a cow does 'lowing', because it's certainly not low - it's loud and sounds like the cow is being dismembered. Mooing is an equally dissatisfactory description. Here is how a typical Hungarian cow conversation probably goes:

COW ONE: 'Hey Laszlo, what's up?'
COW TWO: 'Not much, Istvan, you know, just chewin' the hay... how's Epa and the calf?'
COW ONE: 'Oh, doing good, doing good... did you know little Ernoe made his first cow pat yesterday?'
COW TWO:'You don't say!'

Here, however, is what I would hear:

COW ONE: 'AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOO!'
COW TWO: 'YEAAAAARRRRHGGGGGGGH... No.. NO.. NOT the OTHER LEG!'
COW ONE: 'A CIRCULAR SAW OHMYGOOOOOODD! please...HAVE MERCYYYYYYYYY!'
COW TWO: 'BLEYAAYAYBLEGAGAGAGAGABLEYEEE
AAAAAAAAAHHHBLE!!'

     The cows today are as harmonious as ever. I turn my bicycle down the left fork of the path and park by the side of the Yacht Club, really a small white building perched above a small patch of water that leads to the Neusiedler See, a large shallow lake shared between Hungary and Austria. (In German, See = lake.) The lake itself is never more than four or five meters deep and about half of it is filled with tall thin reeds, used to thatch the roofs of the buildings around the Hungarian part of it. From the Yacht Club one can see a stream of blue cutting through the yellow reeds, leading out into the wilderness. Little birds have made nests in the eaves of the Yacht Clubs roof and they are busy this morning, flying in and out from their hidden nests. I can hear the tiny babies crying out each time the mother bird comes back with something for them to eat. When we had our exhibition two days before, some of the landscape paintings set out below these nests received an extra element of reality from the landscape itself. We all decided to call this radical new movement in landscape painting, 'Bio-Realismus.'
     Some of the other artists arrive, in great auto-driven dust clouds. I tell them the bad news. The Yacht Club is totally locked up and no one is in sight to help out. We all have our paintings and materials locked inside, so we can't leave without going in. Everyone has his or her own personal shitfit and then sits down to wait. That's pretty much all we can do. After about a half an hour I decide to get up and take a walk. I cross around the back of the Yacht Club and cross over the stream, turning my shoes out towards the wilderness.
      I pass the remainder of the fields, following a dirt path that takes me past some favorite fishing spots, to judge by the numerous children, and sunburnt men in waders. Another five minutes and it's just me and the many flies. They don't seem to bite, but rather fly alongside me, like a shiny black entourage. These flies look almost like wasps, the way their long back legs trail behind them. But I know they don't sting, either, because several have hit me in the face already. They have a habit of flying straight towards my face and then hanging there for a few seconds, as if observing me. If I'm going too fast they just run right into me. I notice a dark grey beetle trundling along the path and stop to observe him for a moment, careful not to aggravate him since I don't know anything about these foreign bugs. He isn't easily annoyed however and just keeps on trudging, even when I turn him over for a second with a little stick. Just as I am about to get up and go on I hear my first, 'hoo' - coming from the water on the right side of the path. I stop for a moment and listen, and there it is again, 'hoo', followed soon by
another, slightly higher tone, 'hoo', from the left side of the water. I stand up and try to see where it's coming from, and immediately all is silence. I wait awhile, but nothing happens, so I go on. I emerge from the reeds to a place where a stream of water cross-cuts underneath the road, surprising a family of mallards who hop- mama-papa-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby- into the water and swim away through the reeds quacking. On the other side of the road two of the silliest sounding birds ever are doing a midair mating dance. They have white bodies and black wings, which they use like paddles to swim through the air. I can't see their faces but it is just exactly like listening to two squeaky toys get it on. (Well, imagining that one squeaky toy is constantly trying to get away.) I pass the squeaky toy birds and come to a place where a section of reeds was burned over, the water is dark and murky and short bright new shoots poke out, their green confident against the trembling black water.
This is where I hear my third 'hoo.' I stop, and squat down, pretending to look at a piece of grass. I stay like that for three minutes or more, when I hear another one. 'hoo.' The end of the hoo dies a little, like a sad dove sound. Then a second one, 'hoo.' A third, and a fourth. 'hoo.' 'hoo.' Always the same length, volume, and mournful resonance, only now from many different directions. Soon I find myself surrounded by a gently bleating chorus, first there are tens, and then hundreds of them all around me. I edge slowly over to where the path meets the water, honing in on a stick of green reed that seems to be hiding a member of the choir. 'hoo.' 'hoo.' One step closer, and...
silence.

     The others continue their rhythmic call, but the one I was looking at has detected me. What could it be? An insect? A frog? It can't be a bird, no bird is that small. I think it must be a frog, and wait, hoping to see a movement in the water, or a small splash somewhere. Still nothing. Just 'hoo, hoo.' My curiousity keeps me stuck there, waiting, watching, wanting to know. With this odd chorus all around, it strikes me how innate the urge to call to one another is - even above the risk of predators, these little whatever-they-ares feel an urgent need to put their grave little call into the air, somehow to let the others like them know they are there. Honestly, I don't think I understand it. It strikes me as being almost art for art's sake, for if such a thing as joy can be expressed by such a long, low tone, I am sure they are doing it. 'Here, here, I am here,' it seems to say, echoing itself a thousand times out over miles and miles of secret hiding places in the reeds.
      Around the corner comes the green rubber boot of a mustachioed fisherman and his trusty friend who holds the bucket. Instantly the symphony is over, and
all is quiet, but for the sound of them crashing into the water and snapping reeds right and left. As they disappear from sight I hear the deep slop-slop-slop of first one, then another suprised duck taking off from the water. Too bad they're not duck hunters. I wish them luck, and continue on my way.
      Once I arrive back at the Yacht Club, everyone is packing up. The owner finally showed up to open the door for us, so everyone is anxiously bundling and carefully wrapping their still-wet oils. I retrieve my bicycle and take one last look at the paintings I made over the week - the hillside town of Fertoerakos with the church steeple sticking out, the 'kleine Capelle' (little chapel), three or four abstract paintings - before packing everything away into my friend's car. He'll take the stuff back to Vienna for me, so I can be free to ride my bike part of the way home. I look at my map, say goodbye, and start up the dusty road to Fertoerakos, headed for the hills.
      The town of Fertoerakos itself is snuggled crookedly into the hillside, every house has a dog and at least two cats, and the graveyard holds the names of families that have been here for generations. Many of the names are Austrian, since this part of Hungary was part of Austria until after the first World War. The decision for the nearby city of Sopron to be a part of Hungary or Austria was put to a vote; Hungary immediately marched its troops into Sopron. Not to coerce the citizens, but to vote themselves. A friend of mine heard a woman talking to her (adult) son on the train coming here:

Mother: "Well, that's how it is in Oedenburg."
Son: "It's Sopron, Mother, it's part of Hungary now."
Mother: "That's not Hungary! That's Old Austria!"

     Wine flows plentifully here, and if you order 'toast' you will be surprised to get an enormous melted ham and cheese sandwich with grilled tomatoes and onions on garlic bread. For an entire week of eating healthily (in the heaps sense, not the Diet Lite sense,) I paid around $35. I have to say here, the Hungarians seem to be better cooks than the Viennese. (shhh. I didn't say that.)
      Climbing up above the town of Fertoerakos on my bike, I can see vineyards, with their strange rows of crutches holding the twisting naked T-vines, stretching away to the north and south among the hills. Below them, and just above the lake, stands the occasional town, red-brown roofs crowded around a steeple. At last, like a sigh comes the long soft palette of yellow reeds stretching out into the flatness of the lake. From this height the path turns inland towards Sopron, or follows the lake out to Moerbisch. I decide to see what it's like to cross the border on my bike, and turn towards Moerbisch. I am accompanied by happy looking joggers and bicyclists. The border guard wears a sweater and greets me with a wave, directing me to a small white house perched over a white line painted across the road. A swivel-arm gate across the path has been left raised. I hand over my sweaty passport to the guard, and he gives it only the most cursory glance before waving me on. This is where I recommend crossing the border at the small footpath checkpoints. It's definitely the friendliest and easiest crossing I've had.
      From Moerbisch I turn inland toward Siegendorf, having one more border crossing in the hills which proves to be nothing but four bored soldiers in camoflage checking out my chest with their binoculars. I don't even know whose side they're on, but I guess it must be Austria. In the hills I'm totally alone, climbing up and then whizzing down slope after slope. I discover a strange phenomenon with the trees, which are still bare from the winter. As I pass through the forest quicker and quicker, the trees that are far away seem to melt into one another and then reappear on the other side of the trees that are closer, so it seems as though I am riding through an enormous hall of mirrors.
      I emerge to the Puszta, flaaaat farmland that is all freshly green. I still have the landscape to myself for quite awhile, and my heart can't help rejoice at the freedom to ride along, just me and my bike. At last I pass a military vehicle, probably bringing relief to the bored birdwatchers. Somehow seeing this truck is like a switch, and from then on the landscape is alive with people working the fields with tractors and machines. I've crossed some invisible threshold.
      From here I ride on to Eisenstadt, only to find that the train I want to take goes from Wulkaprodersdorf and not Eisenstadt. So I follow the bike paths (did
I mention all these nice bike paths that go everywhere around the Neusiedler See?) to Wulkaprodersdorf and sit for an hour waiting for the train, munching a Debreziner mit Senf (really long hot dog with mustard). I've discovered that, for some reason, no Wurstelstand worker can understand you if you ask for a Deh-breh-ZEEN-er mit Senf, you must say Deh-BREH-tsin-nah mit Senf or you get absolutely nowhere. Just in case you're ever in Wulkaprodersdorf with an hour to wait for the train.

Update on my favorite German words, and a solution to the puzzle, 'hoo' are you?

The last first. The little fellows from the Hungarian Neusiedler See are the 'Gelbbauch Unke', the Fire bellied toad. Here's a picture:
http://www.amphibian.co.uk/bombina.html
Thanks to Laurenz on that one.

And now, some truly fabulous words:

Pferdefleischhauerei: I must have passed this on the street here a hundred times before I got enough German to figure it out, and when I finally did, I stopped in
my tracks. It means Horse-flesh-hewery. 'HORSE butchery?' That's right, folks. They eat horse here.
And proud of it, too. When I get all bent out of shape about it people here just laugh. It's like I told them I didn't eat jellybeans or something.

Another one in the animal category:
Katzenkopfpflaster: This means cobblestone, but literally it is 'Catheadbandaid.' I guess the cobbles are about the size of a cat's head, and they cover the dirt.

Fahrradfreundliches: This one I encountered outside the Nagycenk (pronounced something like, Nodgechenk) Castle in Hungary. It means 'Ridewheelfriendly',
indicating that the establishment is happy to accomodate guests with bicycles.

Right now I'm painting gigantic watery pictures of pink and green elephants. I'm struggling with my usual panic over deciding what to do next with my life,
whether to continue on with art school next year, try another course of study, concentrate on writing, or find me a real job. For some reason I have been bred
with a very large capacity for thinking, but a very small capacity for making decisions. Funny that way. Vienna in spring is very beautiful, I've been enjoying
it immensely-- a roof of green overhead, the fountains are all open and pouring, and the Italian ice cream store up the block has opened for the season (yes!)
They have really unbelievable desserts there, and ice cream flavors I've never even imagined-- I couldn't tell you exactly what they are, because they're all in
Italian-- you just hae to guess and try it. Till next time.