“…And there’s a really wonderful cultural experience you might want to try while you’re here: The House of Hungarian Wines. Hungary produces a wide variety of excellent wines from many different regions, most notably the famous dessert wine, Tokaji…”
Ohhh, Tokaji. Nectar of the Gods. Heavens above, I could drink it morning, noon and night. And so many varieties! Although they do all taste the same after a while, but still incredibly enjoyable. One could quite easily and happily knock back a few bottles before tottering on home.
“…although they have plenty of reds, whites and roses if dessert wines aren’t your thing. If we go as a group, I can book a guide to take us around for a while. These guides are extremely knowledgeable…”
And some are rather good-looking, and almost always male. And very tolerant of Western drunkards. And give you something nice to look at as you sip.
“…and they will explain about the different regions and manufacturing processes for a while before giving you time to explore the wine cellar for yourself. We have about two hours in there altogether…”
During which time you are technically allowed to drink as much wine as is physically possible, and it must be said that on most occasions we are there for a good three hours, not two. They’re too polite to ask you to leave, apparently.
“…so if anyone is interested in doing that, let me know and I’ll book us in.”
Oh please, please, please say you’d like to. A trip to the House of Hungarian Wines, the second largest wine cellar in Europe, I believe, is the highlight of every one of my past visits to Budapest. And, inevitably, everyone wants to go. So off we trot, and spend a very happy evening guzzling excellent quality wine, all for 4400 Hungarian Forints, which is about 17 euros. You really can’t go wrong.
Notice how when a writer says “you can’t go wrong”, a funny story is coming? I’m no exception, I’m afraid.
For a small group (just eight of us, including me and my friend Ian, another tour leader along for the ride to take photos for our next brochure. Jammy sod.), it was incredibly mixed. Two nineteen year old Americans, taking full advantage of how wonderful it is to be out from under the watchful eyes of the parents and in a country where you can drink before you can vote. One nearly-sixty Brit lady with a fantastic sense of humour, a mouth like a toilet and the ability to drink the former two under the table any day of the week. A late-twenties Canadian actress who was mid-spiritual crisis and was looking to discover her roots (Romanian, apparently, which was a shame because in all of the eight countries that this tour covered, the Romanians gave us the most hassle, and she was so lovely). A mid-thirties guy from California with the appropriate tan and perfect teeth, who owned a nightclub and was trying to stay sober a) to fully experience the European culture, and b) because one drink inevitably turned into twenty, which turned into an unconscious mid-thirties Californian. A late twenties Australian-Asian woman who worked in the media world, darling, and went to parties all the time and was therefore unimpressed with drinking and the like. Oh well, can’t please them all.
Which just left me and Ian: two tour leaders herding this lot around Eastern Europe. It was wonderful to have Ian there. Whenever anyone made a stereotypically silly comment or had a mood-swing, I had someone to meet the eyes of and know that I wasn’t the only one internally mocking them. Not that it happened very often, actually; this was a great group, which was the last thing I expected given the age and nationality range. But somehow they had bonded within a couple of days, and by the time we hit Budapest I was pretty relaxed.
Now, the more perceptive among you will have read the above and realised, “Hey, the majority of the group enjoy a drink”. And you would be right, and so there was a unanimous decision to go drink lots of wine in the name of culture.
It all began well. We had a lovely wine guide with circles under his eyes that suggested that he was either a vampire, an insomniac or just never, ever left the wine cellar. A few drinks resulted in some lively discussion about this, and we decided that we like the vampire theory best, having been cheated of them in Romania. Despite the fact that it looked as though someone had charcoaled half-moons under his eyes, he was fairly attractive, and indeed became more so with every glass of wine that passed our lips. The poor guy probably had to contend with some serious drunken leering, but I imagine he’s used to it. Ian was getting well into his professional stride, taking some very incriminating photos, and he received many helpful posing suggestions- “How about if we all lie side by side on the floor, drinking from upside down wine bottles?” / “I know, let’s light all the ornamental candles so we get some ambient wine drinking photos! Who’s got a lighter?” etc.
But while we were merrily on our way under the table, we came across a reason to control ourselves. The reason’s name was Clare, a girl from California on a wine tasting mission with her brother and her cousin. Very soon she was following us around the wine cellar (we’re just so cool, obviously), which was fine- we are very obliging, hospitable people. But it was apparent that this girl was becoming steadily hammered. Now, I know I make all this fuss about drinking- God, that’s been the sole theme of the story so far- but that is probably just because of the British drinking culture. The fact is, I know my alcohol limits, and I feel quite strongly that it’s every human’s duty to know exactly how much they can drink without making an utter idiot out of themselves, or in my case, how much I can drink and still happily be responsible for a group of people. This girl, we discovered, was late-twenties, and yet was behaving in a drunken teenage manner that was quite comical for a while, but also made you cringe and run away to a safe distance to watch rather than be caught up in it. And caught up in it we certainly became, through no fault of our own. The first I knew of the extent of the damage was when she tried to put her hand up my top. I’m serious, the girl actually tried to put her hand up my top. How spectacularly out of order is that? I managed to refrain from running away screaming, but I definitely extracted myself pretty quickly from the situation. I quickly joined my Canadian friend Kate, and recounted the incident in a horrified mutter.
“Oh yeah, she just tried that with me,” Kate nodded. “And, oh look, she’s going for Ian and Taylor now!”
I glanced over and, sure enough, Clare had Ian and Taylor in a vice-like grip and they were looking half amused, half uncomfortable. After we’d rescued them and Clare had moved on to coming onto our vampire wine-guide, I exchanged glances with Ian.
“She just tried to drag us both off into that broom-cupboard over there,” Ian said in a low voice. “And I said to her ‘But I don’t even know your name’, and she said ‘Does it matter?’ Nice. So I said, ‘Hmm, I think on balance it probably does,’ and left.”
“She’s hammered,” I grimly agreed. “To be honest, I’d suggest to the whole group that we should keep clear of her if she wasn’t so obviously impossible to avoid.”
“It’s all going to end in tears. Or with an extremely bad hangover,” Ian nodded, sagely.
It was nicely coincidental that at that point there was a huge crash further down the aisle. After a horrified pause, Ian and I dropped everything and sprinted over. There was Clare, sprawled on the floor, surrounded by wine and broken glass, having collapsed into a wine rack. After a suitably dramatic moment in which we surveyed the damage, we reached down simultaneously and hoisted her up onto a barrel. A member of the staff sauntered casually over at this point so I sent him for a glass of water.
“Ok love, let’s sit up,” I said firmly, as she slumped again. Slowly, she raised her head, focused on Ian, and suddenly we could see recognition and, incredibly, hatred in her slightly glazed eyes.
“I’m going to kill you,” she said, quietly but distinctly.
Ian recoiled, looked shocked for a second, then dropped her arm, with which he’d been half holding her up. “I’m off,” he announced, not unreasonably, and walked off in search of more wine.
I sighed. “Ok girl, come on, let’s get you some fresh air.” Kate helpfully grabbed her other arm and we somehow bundles her up the stairs and outside.
“Could you stay here and feed her some water for a second? I need to go get her brother.” Kate nodded and I marched back down the stairs. Her brother was happily and obliviously chattering away to a few in our group, and I cut him off mid-sentence. Mid-syllable, probably.
“Excuse me. Your sister is upstairs, bleeding and practically unconscious. I suggest you go and look after her.”
He blinked at me.
“Now,” I added, firmly.
“Oh. Ok,” he looked bemused, and wandered off in the general direction of the stairs.
“Loser,” I muttered. “I mean, come on,” I added, for the benefit of the group, “If I ever made such a spectacle of myself my brother probably wouldn’t talk to me for a month, but at least he’d look after me in the meantime.”
There was some solomn and righteous head-nodding at this, before everyone turned back to their wine.
“And what was all that about?” I asked Ian. “You were helping the muppet girl, why did she speak to you like that?”
“Because I wouldn’t shag her, I assume,” Ian said in disgust. A basic lesson for all women everywhere: If, when you are drunk, you ever think it’s a good idea to get moody and abusive at a guy to turn him on, please try to remember that it’s the worst idea on the planet. No good guy will ever, ever be remotely impressed, I promise you, and the last thing you want is someone in Ian’s position speaking of you with that level of disgust and scorn in their voice.
It was at this point that my flip-flops, which had been hanging on by their last threads, finally broke, leaving me barefooted in the middle of a wine cellar but slightly too drunk to care. What did it matter if I walked the length of Budapest in my bare feet? And oh yeah, I remembered, we had yet to catch our overnight train out of the country, we should really get a move on. A furtive glance around showed that we were the last in the cellar, and had stayed an hour over our allotted time.
Shortly after, we left the wine cellar, and I did indeed walk a very long way over some very rough terrain with nothing on my feet. I can only assume that the wine had something to do with it.
We caught our train, just for the record, with just a couple of hitches that involved me upgrading us all to first class, and all felt a bit rough in the morning. But we will always be grateful to Clare, for providing us with a benchmark of drunkenness, a point at which we all thought, “That’s enough wine. More than enough. I am not going to end up like that.” Happy morals.