THE LAST STRAW/Frank McNally: The taxi-man taking us to the airport in Budapest had developed a very low opinion of the driver in front. She had transgressed the Hungarian highway code in some unspecified way - possibly by driving at a safe speed - and he snorted at her through his moustache in disgust.
"This is big problem here," he told us. "Hungarian girl driver." After blasting the horn, he overtook the car and greeted the occupant's startled look by shaking his head and running fingers through his hair in what I took to be a theatrical impression of a woman having having a nervous breakdown. He did this while cotinuing to drive at a rapid pace. And I don't konw about the woman in the other car, but I was having a bit of a weak spell myself.
The girl-driver problem has not featured in the country's current general election campaign, as far as I know. But then the election is probably the last before EU accession, so there are more important issues, although the taxi-man would dispute this. Government policy is dominated by the need to meet various convergence criteria, and the effort appears on target. Certainly, drivers in Budapest seem already very close to being as crazy as those in Paris or Rome.
According to the local English-language newspaper, the campaign has been vague and devoid of real content, so Hungary has clearly made big progress towards Western democratic norms. Indeed, the only residue of the old Soviet system I saw, apart from the high incidence of moustaches, which suggested central planning, was the way airport officials stared when comparing you with your passport photograph.
The one who took mine was female, and she studied me with an intensity I'd never experienced outside a serious relationship. I tried to stare back, but lost my nerve eventually and had to look at the floor instead. Maybe this is a cultural difference, and Hungarians are just more relaxed about eye contact than we are. In Ireland, even the airport security people look at you sideways.
Confident as it obviously is about the future, however - and nobody seems too worried about the Republic's rejection of Nice - Hungary does have problems. Chief among these is a large and impoverished Roma minority. And it was to demonstrate its efforts to improve the Gypsies' lot that the foreign ministry invited a group of European journalists for a visit last week.
Governments like to portray things in a positive light, so we had to remind ourselves to be sceptical as we set off on the tour, which started with a visit to the small-holding of a Gypsy called Peter. And when Peter introduced his family in the yard, and six smiling girls with roses in their hair lined up before us, we suspected we were not witnessing everyday reality. This suspicion deepened when Peter announced that his daughters would perform a traditional Gypsy welcome dance, despite the fact that it was raining.
Then Peter offered us a glass of his five-year-old apricot brandy, and after drinking this, all our misgivings disappeared. I don't know what the percentage proof was, but my guess is it was a lot higher than the turn-out in the Nice referendum. A second glass and I might have considered performing a traditional Irish thank-you dance in return. But luckily Peter intervened by inviting us into his house, where his wife had prepared enough food to feed a European army.
THIS set the tone for our fact-finding trip. Later, for example, we visited a Roma project in which a pig-farm was being converted into workshops for small business, and where the organisers gave us an explanatory leaflet, helpfully wrapped around a small bottle of peach brandy. A clear pattern was emerging here, but I couldn't make out what it was, because the apricot stuff still hadn't worn off.
In general, the tour involved the intake of a lot of calories as well as information.
Back in Budapest and in need of exercise, I re-enacted an episode from the country's history, by making a brisk climb from the Danube to Castle Hill, as locals did in the 13th century to escape the marauding Mongols. Up there, safe both from marauders and Hungarian hospitality, you could see things more clearly. And while, in all honesty, I still can't offer a definitive opinion about how Hungary's Gypsies are doing, I can say with confidence the Danube is not blue, from wherever you look.
On the plus side, I would add that the Hungarians are a remarkably resilient people. The country has been transformed in the past decade. And on the evidence of my short visit, it seems well positioned to meet the many challenges facing it: from social exclusion to EU harmonisation, to Hungarian girl drivers.