Booze, Speakeasy Bowling, and Foosball
Sárospatak, Hungary

Bowling below ground

Hidden beneath an unassuming pub in Sárospatak is a bowling alley. Not in a decade would I have found the place had Laszlo and his buddy Tipon (now living in Budapest, back home for the weekend) not taken me there.

This was actually Laszlo's first time bowling, and despite the liters of beer he did really well—embarrassingly outscoring his friend and me in our second round.

Almost everyone was bowling in his or her street shoes (including myself), making it rather difficult to readapt from years of engrained bowling form based on mildly slippery footwear (to the non-skid street shoe stylings of the evening). Bowling in socks would've probably been easier.

I got a few laughs from some of the cuter girls when I rolled my final frame "grandma style". All their male company was much too serious on the lanes. Try smiling, guys.

Bowling with the boys eventually lead to another bar near the town castle (and meeting up again with Marton). It felt great to get out and dick about a bit with some random folk—it'd been too long.

What wild names people have in this part of the world. The table of over a half dozen new faces introduced themselves, but not a single name was familiar to me (or pronounceable without taking a mulligan or two).

Beers complimented with shots of cheap vodka (that put medium-class U.S. varieties to shame) eventually lead to games of foosball, separated by not nearly enough brick wall from the girls singing karaoke in the room over.

I've really never seen people play this game the way it was played in the pub this night—truly a sight. I feel no shame in getting my ass kicked by this lot of Hungarian teenagers and twenty-somethings, they're the every bit the experts I'll never attempt to be at the game.

The evening ended with excessive amounts of rain, a closed bar, Marton climbing one of the town statues, and Tatiana (back at the house) too creeped out to leave our bedroom. Good times.

Explore photos from Hungary

Browse more entries