I went to Hungary in the summer of 2003. I spent a great majority of summer break there from about the beginning June until school started in August.
For the first part of July, I was located in a large resort town name Balatonfured. I stayed with family friends at their condo/summer time "zimmer frei" style. The days were passed exploring the city and beaches and going to nearby scenic Tihany, plus saving the greatest website from complete obliberation.
As I was thinking about the new articles for this very website late one night, an awful realization hit me: I didn't re-register the domain name andkon.com before leaving America. This meant that my domain was to expire soon, I thought to myself horror striken staring at 'Made in USSR' heavy steel clock in the kitchen at 2AM.
If my domain expired, not only would the website be in effect deleted but anybody could buy the domain. Thinking of the horror of andkon.com being turned into a parody site against me, I hatched a plan. I remembered from the previous year in Hungary that there was an Internet cafe somewhere in Tihany. I had plenty of cash to get online. I usually got across to Tihany by the ferry, so I decided to stop worrying and go back to sleep.
The next morning, a grave problem arose: the ferry was not working that day. Rat's ass. A nearby accident prevented me from going to the bus stop and checking the schedule. Completely panicky since Tihany was around 10 kilometers (plus some) away and all forms of public transportation were inaccessible, I went back to my residence and asked for a bike. 10 km by no means is a great distance on a bike. However, I haven't riden a bike since 3rd grade and I wasn't overly great even back then. So, my process of re-learning how to bicycle took about an hour. While I felt comfortable, I didn't exactly want to show off my newly rediscovered skills to the world.
Hyopthesizing that maybe the domain had already expired, I was running out of time and of options. There were only two options left: swim across to Tihany or walk. Being quite the avid swimmer, I calculated that swimming would actually be much faster than walking. I thought of making my backpack into a floating kickboard which would hold my clothes. As I passed by the plaque commemerating the first trans Balatonfured-Tihany crossing almost two centuries ago, I noticed the unusually high number of sailboats and decided that I didn't want to be hit by them.
So hiking to Tihany was the last option. I went to grocery store and bought two 2-liter bottles of some softdrink to keep me hydrated on my journey to save my website. I drank most of the first bottle right outside the store.
So I made my way down to the port (the same damn one that wasn't working that day) and went right, to Tihany. In the very hot summer sun, the distance was covered slowly. Because I was filled with carbon dioxide, I couldn't run too well either. About an hour into the journey, I decided the last bottle was too damn heavy so after taking an enormous piss next to the road, I drank that, causing another enormous urination a mile down.
As we can see from the map, my destination (Tihany) was on halfway of the peninsula. So I decided that hiking thru the woods and (what the map doesnt show) steep hills was going to get me to my destination quicker than if I took the normal route. What a mistake that was. Not only did I get spiders all over me, but when I reached the top of the hill, I was completely lost. The landmark I was looking for was the abbey's two towers.
Only knowing the general direction of the abbey and hence the village with the Internet Cafe, I boldly started going thru shrubs and grass about four feet high. However, I made it on top of the highest part of the entire peninsula from where I actually could see the abbey. From the peak, I see that my hike thru the hills actually made me go backwards.
After following a few paths, I finally entered the village. Only one question remained: with the summer season not in full-swing, was the cafe going to be open? And indeed it was!
For what seemed like a moderate rate due to my circumstances (about dollar per 15 minutes), I finally determined with accuracy that I had about a week left (until June 17th) to re-register andkon.com.
I sent detailed instructions via email to my financial connections back in the United States. After being assured that everything was taken care of, I was relieved.
But problems plagued everything! My financial secretary appearantly confused the reregistration with the hosting, so nothing was done about the domain. I got the phone call at about 7PM on June 17th (the very day the domain would expire) in Hungary informing me of this. I had less than 12 hours to act, or face the utter anniliation of the website. In a frantic panic since everything was soon closing and Tihany was too far away, I didn't know what to do. Someone suggested that some bakery named Diana had a computer with a phone line. Great name, for a porn bar maybe. Hmm... So as the sun was going down, I went to the damn bakery, where I was informed that they didn't have internet access, but so-and-so's uncle bob has a bar down the street past the railroad, right from the warehouse looking building, past the lingerie shop, etc.
Since the directions were awfully confusing, I couldn't find it and after wasting an hour I went back to the bakery. The lady's status, due to my anger, had gone from folsky to stupid slutty bitch. She once again explained the directions, this time taking out refrences to marriages, babies, personal problems, and alcolohism. Shortly after 9PM, I finally found the bar/cafe. I couldn't have made it at a better time as it was to close in less than hour. I got online and fixed the problem myself.
With only a few hours left before andkon.com officially ceased to be legally mine, I got an extension. Hurray!
