A daily routine

The caravan has been at Pécs Dom Square for almost a week now, and slowly a daily routine has evolved. In Germany and Austria we had a lot of media attention, but the Hungarian press beats them all. No day goes by without journalists knocking on the caravan door. It is a challenge to provide new and original answers to the same questions and to find a special connection with each individual reporter.

Something that works well to that purpose is the canning of fresh aspirations. So today it happened with reporter Földesi Vira’g (beautiful name: first name ‘Flower’, last name ‘of the Earth’). For her, I canned the plan to improve both her English and Italian language skills.

All this attention in newspapers, on radio and TV has lead to the situation where people actually recognize me when walking down the street, and people spontaneously paying me a visit at the caravan. Yesterday I received a large group of foreign students that spend 6 months in Pécs under the Erasmus exchange program. A mix of nationalities, among which a Turkish student who wrote ‘Tow Bar Wanted’ in Turkish onto a piece of cardboard for me. After treating the group to Dutch licorice I asked them what they considered the soul of the city. They unanimously answered: “Cheap Hungarian wine and the great bars”.

I have also become part of the daily routines of the Wintermans household. I am very inspired by the fact that Simon and Kata spend a lot of time preparing their meals, using fresh ingredients. They make their own pasta and soups, and bake cakes and fresh bread. The last time I baked a bread was when I was 4 years old, during a visit to the local bakery shop. So under Simon’s watchful eye I do my best with flour, yeast, water and nuts. Kneading dough has a relaxing effect, or is this more related to the fact that I can finally get a little daily routine, after 6 weeks of excitement on the road. I made a floor bread and a raisin bread. After our meal, Katika, Simon’s 11-year old daughter, finished my work by putting all the remains into a piece of art. And how else could she do this than with (typical Dutch) chocolate sprinkles!