on Friday I roused myself reasonably early, determined to go to Szentendre after my lack of movement yesterday. Actually that's not quite right. I went to the Palace in Godollo and just had enough money to enter on a student ticket. Twas a royal palace fallen on hard times, not kept up by the owners properly which is always sad to see. But now they have restored many of the rooms and you can wander around pretending you are of noble descent if you ignore the stewards and the arrows telling you where you should go next.

it's not like the stately houses in England that i have spent my childhood being dragged round; they were all noticeably worn as if people had only just left out of the kindness of their hearts so as to let you (the peasant) look round. Here, all the furniture is borrowed from museums where it has been well preserved and all the upholstery is new as if it were only just completed, which is just about right I suppose. The colours are rather splendid i must say, in particular a few of the rooms are in a lovely shade of purpley violet. I never thought it would look so nice.....

?i was fortunate to go there on a weekday methinks because it was really peaceful and once I got bored looking at the house I wandered out into the park behind and basked in sunshine. It was such a lovely day and I just lay on the grass catching up with me old diary and writing nothing in particular as one is compelled to do when one leaves ones book back at the house. There I passed several hours, I'm not quite sure how many, until i was asked politely to leave by a gardener (or as politely as Hungarian people can be) who wanted to spray the park with pesticide or insecticide or something equally pleasant. All the same I preferred not to be doused in the stuff myself so I reluctantly took my leave.

It always makes me think, going round old palaces like that because as you look you can all too easily forget that people really did live here once. When they were there they probably gave no thought as to what would become of the place once they were gone as they cantered through the parkland or sat in the chapel. I'm fairly positive they did not forsee a strange English girl who thinks too much going round their old dwelling and sitting in their parkland wishing she could have seen?what it was like for them.

As I said, I think too much.

?anyway back to Friday. It ended nothing like it began or anything like how I expected to, which is why I loved it so much.

Szentendre was all right, just a tourist trap in a pretty little village close enough to budapest to make it popular with day trippers and school parties. So obviously I was a little tired of it after, say, one hour but I had a back-up plan: there was a group of skansen or villages nearby which apparently were interesting to look at, so i dutifully bought a ticket and waited on a bench which had a plank missing for about an hour for a bus that should have turned up within ten minutes.

Then followed a fraught journey. Why? Because the trip that should have taken maybe five or ten minutes (the villages are only 4km out of town) took more like 25. Typically I was just rooted to my seat thinking about how I should really be admiring the view of the hungarian countryside and not worrying at all about how I might well be crossing into slovakia?ina couple of?stops. Eventually I caught sight of them, all gleaming white in new paint and I hastened off the bus. So did two other people and as the bus blithely went on its way we all crowded round the bus timetable to see the times of the returning buses, if there were any.

?Thus it was I became acquainted with Mewine and Alessahdra from toulouse and sicily respectively. And thus it was after we wandered round these quiet deserted skansen which were all from different places in Hungary and different times of the 19th and 20th centuries that I returned with them to Szentendre and munched on hummus and drank tea.

Somehow I was invited (or knowing me i invited myself) to join them and some other friends in Budapest to go to a gypsy gig in the bowels of a boat on the Danube. The music was fantastic and i only wish that when I return home I can go to parties like it. Alas I fear that having an accordion on stage would not be quite so popular. So I danced (badly) like a mad crazy person and then we wandered the never quiet streets of budapest until the wee hours. cold, but over the moon and smelling of lilacs we went into the metro and ate pastries served by the most unfriendly shopkeeper I have ever had the pleasure to meet. A fleeting question of 'does she actually want to sell her food?' crossed my mind, but my inadequacy with Hungarian prevented me from asking her this.

Two Italians, a portugese, two French and an English type. I love travelling.