The Magyar Memoir- Part 10 (Waterpark!)

This is how I described Cegléd. Perhaps because it was summer, perhaps for a variety of other reasons, many of the stores were shut during the day as well as the evening. Many with grafettied rolling shutters, it just saddened me a bit. This is also kind of insulting, I referred to Cegléd as the IE of HU, meaning the Inland Empire* of Hungary. Retrospectively, this is not an accurate description, as I have much disdain for the IE, where I lived either in or on the cusp of for much of my life. The comparison had more to do with the the fact that Cegléd was an hour from everything, much like the IE.
Although there wasn't a whole lot to do after work without a whole lot of effort and travel outside the city, I was in no hurry to expedite my time there. I hadn't really figured out what I would do next, and by this point I knew the job, and just wanted to enjoy the moment as best I could despite the extreme heat.
Most of us realized that our time in Hungary was fleeting, so we decided to make the most of our weekends. In order to do this we needed to unify in NOT being available on weekend for the dic's meetings and other whims. Starting Friday afternoons we wouldn't be tourists, not employees. We started with a trip to the Waterpark/ Turkish bath, located just outside the city, deep within the corn fielded suburbs. This is were I embarked on one of the scariest- yet most exhilarating moments of the trip.
At the water park they had the highest half pike I have ever seen, fiberglass lined, with a constant flow of water for lubrication. The idea is you sit on a tube and go down and up and down a few time, and eventually slide down into a pool at one end. Seems innocent enough- right? Perhaps this works if you're a child; but a fully grown adult that had regularly been indulging in goulash and fatty cholesterol ridden sausages hasn't the same effect. I was fired up to experience this ride, so I hit the sloop with full force in my tiny child size tube (it was nothing like a cloud of watery air goodness, as I had expected). It was like jumping butt first into a empty swimming pool, while covered in Vaseline. I was totally out of control- on my first trip up, I caught major air, I could see people below pointing in horror in slow motion, as I was a few inched higher than the guard rail! As I feel back into the earth's atmosphere I hit the ramp with as much force as a 50 mile per hours car crash, I'm sure I had at least minor whiplash at this point, but the ride continued a few more times up and down each time more painful and disorientating as the last. What fun ;~()
After that adventure, I tried a few tamer waterslides, which were still bit much for my fatigued body, so I retired to the lazy river, which was a good pace for me for a while, but it wasn't long before I made my home in the Turkish bath watching the pre-melinomic half dead seniors play chess, yup, that was where it was at. I liked that it was possible to get a beer, which could be taken in the bath, although the thought seemed insane based on the fact that we were outside in the sun, on a 100 degree day, in a 110 degree salt bath.
The adventure didn't really end there. When we left the park at closing, we watched as the last bus into the city pull away in a puff of smoke. We had no choice, we had to call the dictators for a ride, as we couldn't manage to get a taxi to come all the way out there. Not the best end to the day, but thankfully, they came and rescued us. I slept very well that night.

* The IE: It's not that this is a bad area, well some parts are very ghetto, but for the most part, it is simply a suburb located 30-60 miles east of Los Angeles. Some of it's notable features include some of the worst air quality in the United States, uncontrollable residential spral, culturally mixed populous, but in no real integration. There have been attempts made in the last ten years to create some high end shopping areas, to serve the nevou rich that were, up until the recent economic downturn, buying up the plethora of new mcmansions being built (on a naturally flood plane and directly in the path of a wind tunnel). Overall, the area is mostly a working class and middle class conglomeration. My theory is people don't choose to live hear, they just get trapped here, by way of job, lack of job, loved ones in need, or being knocked up by someone here. Talented, interesting people generally leave as soon as they are eighteen if they were raised here, or if they are outsiders, a job brings them here, and then they can't leave.*Victoria is an exception. *I am sort of an exception; but I think I could classify myself as being part of the financially trapped. The way it works when you live in the IE is first, complacently sets in, and eventually people just resign to the fact that this is what life is suppose to be like: void on conciseness, culture, and community.