I had the most glorious run on Sunday, heading up river eastward following a collection of cobbled paths, overgrown goat tracks and riverside cycle and walking paths.

Whereas I turned west when I got to the River on Saturday, I headed eastward today moving through town on the cobbled streets and past the market district. Sunday seemed as though it was a dance, or else a strict secular adhesion to meeting one's friends at the numerous local bars and drinking large steins of the local brew.

It is generally difficult to raise a smile from the locals in passing, although seemingly easier if having direct contact at say a checkout or when paying for goods. So it was as I worked my way alongside the southern side of the Danube and onto a rough path through the overgrown grass and ubiquitous litter. There is rubbish everywhere in this town, Ian Kearin (?sp) would have a long arduous job ahead of him here. Bottles, mainly having contained alcohol, are everywhere on the streets and verges, as well as paper, Styrofoam, old clothes, you name it. Graffiti is also big, with tags on most surfaces which are 200 years old or less!

From the riverside area, I was on a narrow dirt track through the bush and rubbish. An old man wheeling a bicycle stood aside for me as I huffed my way through, and I achieved a big toothless grin! Further along the river the track led onto a rough concrete path, like a poorly maintained bike path which followed the river bank for miles. After a while I could see the towers of some lights at a stadium, and gambled on being able to cut up to a roadway as I neared these.

Surely enough, there was well worn foot track up to a similarly rutted old concrete road further away from the banks of the river. Following this back to the city led to a solid brick wall topped by sheaves of rusted barbed wire, so I headed up towards the stadium once more.

It seemed to skirt an old industrial complex, with disused, heavily graffiti-ed factories inside heavily fortified masonry wall stopped with more rolls of barbed wire. What appeared to be an old, substantial concrete road complete with street lamps was immediately on the other side, and loud, aggressive barking dogs guarded the rubble.

Eventually I could cut up to a secondary road near the stadium and was then at a major intersection. Where would I like to go? Bratislava? Vienna? Budapest? It was now very hot, and unpleasantly humid. I headed back into the centrum of Gyor seeking to find a drink. Soon enough I came across a phalanx of service stations and bought a bottle of water, pleased that I had loaded myself up with my gadget girl gear. I now walked, cooling down and sending a text to Bob to let him know that I would be later than expected.

After negotiating the strange street-scape which was a network of on and off road bike paths, intersected pedestrian lights on which no one disobeyed. It takes everything in my being to wait (impatiently on the road side of an empty road for 60 - 30 - 15 seconds as I wait for a symbol to walk across.

After coming across a large, faceless shopping mall, it was apparent that the complexes are the same the world over. It could have been a Westfield complex in Hobart, Belconnen, Darwin or Chicago. The only distinction was the long row of bicycles stretching the length of the exterior used by many of the locals to have come to the shops. If only this was the case at home.

After the long, long wait to cross the road I started to jog again and was soon familiar territory int he business district of the city. A very pleasant run!

I was getting more and more excited at the prospect of Rad joining us on Monday night, and couldn't stop thinking about his imminent arrival and hoping that he was OK.