On Thursday April 26,
I hopped on a night train to Belgrade to go off to Budapest! This was to be my
first trip out of the Balkans since September (as well as my first trip alone
since then as well) and I was excited!!!
I had heard that the trains were bad and slow and I
shouldn’t take them-from the locals, but from the internationals, I heard they
were fine and I should take them. The options were either a 10 hour night train
ride or a 6 hour night bus ride. I choose the train- more leg room, actual
sleep, locking compartment door- all major pluses for me to choose the train
over the bus. When I bought the ticket, the lady told me 8pm, but the schedule
said 8:45; I decided to arrive 10-15 minutes before 8pm. Luckily I did because
the train left at 8:10 on the dot (its scheduled time, by the way). I had to
pay a little bit more to have a sleeping compartment, but it was worth it! The
train was really clean, and the compartment steward was really nice.
The train goes north to Serbia, and it takes about an hour
or so to reach the border. When we got there, something that I had secretly
been hoping to happen did! I have been to Kosovo twice, and have three stamps
from there. Now, as you may know, Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a
country, but rather a wayward province that needs to give up on this silly
independence idea and get with the program. The International Court of Justice
has stated that when Kosovo declared Independence, it was legal, with Serbia
responding that it will Never recognize Kosovo independence. According to Wikipedia,
Kosovo had gained 92 diplomatic recognitions as an independent state (90 out of
193 UN members, 22 of 27 EU members, 24 of 28 NATO members). The US does
recognize Kosovo as a state. Now, I had heard that Serbia would annul the
Kosovo stamps. But this hadn’t happened yet. But this time, they came in and
asked for my passport, glance at my name and went to stamp me in. Then he saw
the Kosovo stamps, flipped back to the front, looked at my name and looked at
me, then back at the Kosovo stamps. Then he said “Just a second, problem with
stamps Kosovo.” I just said ok and waited for him to bring my passport back. They
drew two lines over them and wrote “anule” (which by which I think he meant
annul, but I digress). This ended up striking up a conversation with the guy a
few cabins over, because he was all- “what was the problem with the Kosovo
stamps? I have them?” Then we got to talk in Macedonian for a bit. When I
actually have to use the language, I seem to remember more than I give myself
credit for. [There was also a customs
guy carrying a battery operated drill-I’m not real sure why they needed that,
as there was no where to open with a drill in the cabins. More on this later]
A little bit later, I promptly feel asleep. It wasn’t great
sleep, but better than nothing or what I would have got on a bus! When I woke
up in Belgrade, I went in to buy my next ticket. I thought I was going to have
to wait about 2 hours, but low and behold, the online schedule was incorrect!
There was a train at 6:50 to Budapest (well technically Prague, but it stopped
in Budapest, so who cares!). Hopped on the train, grabbed my seat and promptly
fell back asleep for a bit. I always have this internal debate- do I stay awake
and force myself to see this new scenery or do I take a much needed nap? I
usually choose the nap- because then I won’t be cranky later.
I did get to see about an hour or 2 of scenery in Serbia, it
was flat. No joke, the flattest country I have been in since August! Lots of
pretty fields and small houses. I got some reading done that I had been meaning
to do since last May (sorry Dr. Ely! I promise the book is interesting and I’m
enjoying it, just a bit hard to get into…). All in all a peaceful, easy journey
to Budapest. At some point this little old lady got on and she just gave me the
heeby jeebies. I swear she was trying to smuggle stuff into Hungry. She walked
back to the bathroom with a bottle of alcohol and came back empty handed. The
border crossing took about 2 hours though. SO long, and they turned off the A/C
and didn’t open any windows. Very hot. And they came on with drills again. But
this time I heard/saw them unscrewing the compartments in the bathroom areas.
Then the customs guys walked through with about 6 bottles of hard liquor. So
maybe she was smuggling something…They passed by me with no incident.
When I arrived in Budapest, I went to the Tourist Information
Center to buy a Budapest Card. This came highly recommended to me, but I can’t
do the same to you. Unless you are over 26, the card doesn’t save you any
money. You can buy a travel pass that does the same thing, but lesson learned
later. I also bought a ticket to a folk dance performance and dinner cruise.
Then I adventured off to find the hostel. Let me tell you- Hungarian is a very
difficult language. I couldn’t pick up a single word while I was there. It is
basically its own language family. It is connected with Finnish and Estonian,
but they are not mutually intelligible.
All I knew was that I had to look for “Sventi Ivanti” or something like
that to get off this trolley bus.
But there was construction and my directions from the
tourist info center included “Go to the Burger King Street.” I wish I could
make this up. I walked out of the train station (much less the train station
itself), and wanted to just stop. Within eye sight there was a McDonalds, BK,
Mexican restaurant, subway, trolley, tram, buses, people, big buildings and
more. I felt overwhelmed and a bit like a country bumpkin. This city life was
way faster than the Skopje life I had gotten used to over the past 8 months.
But I followed the signs to the trolley bus and using a little guess work found
the right one. I almost got on the wring one, but the guy said something in
Hungarian and pointed at the one in front of me. So I picked that one. It is
amazing to me how much you can understand about a language or communicate without
understanding a word. Gestures and facial features and tone of voice are so
much more important than the words sometimes. I figure this out when there is a
bit of words and then a hand gesture and I think I know what they mean. Even in
a language I have never studied before. I did make it to the hostel after
getting to see a lot of Budapest on the way. The lady was super nice and told
me where the National Dance theater was so I could go try to get a ticket to
the ballet that night.
After unpacking a bit, I headed downtown to try to visit the
National Ethnography Museum. The day was
beautiful- warm and sunny (and it stayed that way the whole time!!!) I got to the museum about an hour before
closing time and asked if it was enough time- the lady said “no, but you can
come back tomorrow.” So I decided to go in. The building itself was
breathtaking. I’m not sure what it used
to be, but I’m sure it was a palace or mansion of some sort. I always get like
a little girl at times like this and picture myself walking down the stairs in
a big ball gown all dressed up for the ball. But the beauty aside, the museum
houses nearly a quarter of a million artifacts, 2/3 of which belong to the
Hungarian collection. “Its primary concern, however, remains to impart
knowledge of traditional Hungarian culture: how the peasants and craftsmen who
formed the bulk of Hungarian society lived under the circumstances typifying
the period prior to the advent of the modern industrial age.” It also shows a
bit of global culture as well- there was a Amazonian and Greenland exhibit. The
lady was right- you needed about 30 more minutes of time to see it all. If I
had possessed a map (which museums here don’t seem to believe in), I would have
picked to see the rest of the Hungarian exhibit rather than the one about the
Amazon and the melting ice caps. But all in all a great museum. And you could
take pictures!
After this, I grabbed an ice cream cone and walked towards
the bus stop to go up to the castle area where the Dance Theater was. We passed
the most colorful church I have ever seen, more on this later though. As I got
off of the bus at where the hostel lady had said was correct, I was lost. There
were no signs to anything. And the national Dance theater was the least of
their concerns. But I had about 45 minutes, so I wandered through this little
handicraft market and fell in love with this way overpriced jacket that I didn’t
end up getting. But I did figure out what I wanted to get from Hungry!
Then I
kept walking in the general direction of the theater and actually found it. I
was able to get a ticket to the performance of Romeo and Juliet for that night!
There was a dance fest going on and the tickets were a bit cheaper than normal.
But I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. This age old story was
totally rethought and very modern. I couldn’t tell who Romeo was until he
killed himself at the end. (I don’t remember that Juliet actually went on and killed
herself too, but apparently she does.) the way to tell these two sides apart
included green kitchen sink gloves, and red arm bands. No joke. And this weird
monk guy who went back and forth. The dancing was beautiful, although modern, and
engaging. You were just watching the stage the whole time, and you couldn’t
take your eyes off of them!
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| View from the Buda hill to more of the Buda side. |
After this, I hopped on a bus. This nice guy tried to tell
me that the bus wasn’t going where I wanted it to go, but I didn’t understand
until it didn’t actually go where I wanted it to go. lol. But that was ok, I
was able to hop on a metro (after finding it- they hide it with the littlest
signs ever!). I tried to go eat at this one vegetarian place recommended by
the map, but it was closed, so I headed to the next place only to
find that it too was closed (this time due to the time of night and not the
state of the restaurant. ) This is when I realized that it was 21:45 (or 9 pm)
even though a Friday, most places were closing at 22 (10). I had walked past a
few Chinese restaurants, including a take out one. Since it was so late, I
decided to just grab some stuff to go and head home! I’m also very glad that
other people learn English- because traveling would be so much more difficult
if they didn’t. Note: I don’t expect
them to at all, it is just a nice surprise and relief when they do, especially
in countries where the language is like Hungry!
See you around the globe!
