Definitely an old priests' hostel

My throat was sore again, probably aided by a good snore. My room-mate was in no condition to complain, he had come in drunk sometime in the wee hours and quickly gone to bed; he emerged at 1.30pm.

I wrote up notes and typed up blog entries, but I had a hangover and needed coffee.

They had changed the guard at the concierge’s station, a cupboard of a room containing a small bed, mini fridge, 14” TV, phone and a collection of keys.

“You like Turkish coffee?” I nodded and got instructions. Outside, walking through a rain that was so slight it didn’t wet the concrete and so fine you had to keep moving to get even faintly damp, I mused that for supper I’d been pointed at Chinese food and now Turkish coffee for breakfast. Hungarians didn’t seem particularly proud of their own cuisine.

I gave up for the search for the Three Guys coffee shop and traipsed back via the corner shop where I bought iced tea, as strangely popular here as in Romania.

“I couldn’t find One Guy, let alone Three Guys,” I complained when I got back.

“Sorry, I meant it was run by three guys.”

The hostel was obviously the priests’ lodging for the Catholic church over the way. Long since used as such, the floor tiles were faded and worn, plaster peeled from the walls and paintings of dead priests gazed down from on high. The stair rods and carpet were gone but the brass eyelets remained. The rooms had names outside, the ghosts of the last occupants, and inside, sometimes through two foot thick walls, lightly constructed bunk beds, tables and cupboards jostled for space.

The bathrooms on the ground floor were units of plastic. Shower cubicles, all curtainless, operated on timer buttons. On the first floor they were merely tiled, and blocked. Hair smothered the plug-holes in the sinks too.

Rudimentary kitchens, consisting only of a fridge, crockery, a table and a sink, were on each floor. Outside the barred windows of each room was a playground of sorts - an asphalt yard, caged off from the street and with a couple of benches and a hopscotch pattern cut into the tarmac. I revised my assumption.

Later on I told an American backpacker that the place must have been a church-run orphanage at one time. We were waiting patiently as the latest concierge, who spoke only Hungarian, contemptuously waved us away each time we tried to ask anything. He indicated we should sit and wait. The American had arrived after me and as he sat down, after being shooed away like an annoying fly, he asked me how long I'd been waiting.

"Fifteen minutes," I said and it suddenly felt like a long time.

"Sprichts du Deutsch" I said, using the too familiar form and was dismissed again, silently.
About ten minutes later, just as the novelty of the situation was wearing thin, the concierge from the coffee debacle turned up, apologising. The American booked in and I changed rooms, ready for Jan's arrival.

I mentioned to him my theory about the place being an old orphanage and he told me the real story. It was in fact a Lutheran boarding school in current use. The children would be back on September 1st and this was the second year that the school had been used as a cheap hostel during the holidays.

It was hard to imagine it being true - the weeds, the worn fittings, well everything.. but come September 1st, come the children, filling the high-ceilinged rooms and halls with their chatter and being hushed by priests..