Abandoned

Another action packed day. We had planned to go to Hungary’s highest point today but seeing as it’s cloudy, we didn’t see the point. Hoho. Instead, as the journey there is long and as it’s on the way, my godfather has said that we’ll go there on Sunday on the way back to the airport in Budapest. Phew, it’ll be a long day then!

Today, we went into town, to an abandoned factory, to pick up some sand to make cement from. It was a bit weird. We drove down these long lanes between what looked like bombed out factory buildings until we got to one where there was still some activity. My godfather paid a man there the equivalent of just over a pound and was told that he could take as much sand as he could carry. We only needed a large bucketful for some path repair work that my godmother was planning for the garden.

It was all quite surreptitious.

Ózd is part of what is termed Hungary’s ‘rust belt.’ There are a lot of run-down and abandoned industrial buildings all over the area. The other day we drove past a huge factory that I estimated was about 5km long. Only one small section of it appeared to still be in use.

Most of the houses in the area where my godparents live don’t have plumbing. You can see the out houses behind each as you go past. Thankfully my godparents house does, so we have a fully functional toilet and shower.

After the clandestine sand gathering we popped into a small key cutter/watch repair shop on the basement level of an estate block type building. It was no bigger than two metres by three and on every inch of wall were keys and watches of every colour you could imagine. The watchmaker looked about eighty and had massively thick panes of glass on his spectacles. If he were Asian he would have reminded me of the key maker in the Matrix. His box-sized shop was cool. I felt too self-conscious to take a photo though, afterwards, I wished I had.