Moving On East

It's amazing how the farther east you go (with the exception of Turkey and Greece), the more downhill go the trains, the standards of cleanliness, the frequency of smiles, the ease of getting around, and up, up, up goes the chain smoking coupled with bad 80s rock and worse 80s fashion. Good thing we didn't attempt Romania or Bulgaria, but what we saw of eastern Europe did not disappoint.

Zagreb proved a nice surprise, and while we were having mixed feelings about skipping the Dalmation coast and not seeing more of such an interesting country, we both agree as we sit on a small Greek island right now that we made the right decision to move on. It's not yet high season here in the Aegean paradise, and while the Euro is killing us once again, we are living the high life soaking in the sea, lounging on half-empty beaches, filling up on moussaka mama made that day, and just digging the island scene...and we've only been doing this gig for 36 hours. The next nine days are bound to get even better.

Croatia's capital is a curious mix: crumbling apartment structures riddled with graffiti teeter next to pristine Austro-Hungarian architecture; deserted dark streets open up to vibrant cafe scenes; the serene old town with its intricately decorated churches looms over fascist-styled boxy buildings and bustling trams. We had a really nice time during our short two days in Zagreb and agreed it was worth the stopover, despite there being anything really monumental to report. A nice local guy at an accommodation agency hooked us up with a super small studio for the right price on a quiet street smack dab in the middle of the action. The city and its people were good to us.

We rolled into Budapest two days later after almost eight hours on a smelly dirty train plodding along through the rain, but at least we had the compartment to ourselves. Halfway through the journey David discovered a baby slug on one of the fresh strawberries we'd bought at the Zagreb market. We named him Sluggi (mind you, pronounced "SCHlug-ee" in deference to our Czec and Slovenian comrades, who love that SCH thing), carefully confined him to the clamshell despite his efforts to escape, and kept him occupied with more berry tops than he could digest in a day until we could find him greener pastures in which to set up shop. I felt a bit guilty that we'd transported a living creature over the border. Would he miss his Croatian slug family, I wondered? Would he need a passport? Would he be deported?

Budapest was grey, grey, grey and wet, wet, wet upon arrival...quite dreary, and full of people and concrete. We soon found ourselves missing Croatia's cozy little capital. Lament aside, the first order of business was finding displaced Sluggi a home. I braved five lanes of traffic in a Hungarian roundabout and jaywalked in front of a sea of 50s-era buses to a patch of greenery perched above the Keleti train station metro stop. At that point, Sluggi wasn't looking too good and I fought to move his almost lifeless body onto a leaf. Dejected at the thought that we'd failed in our mission to safely transport the little guy, I jaywalked back to meet David for the ride to Moskva Square, where we'd catch a bus for the 1/2-hour ride to the burbs, where we'd decided to hole up for four nights at a four-star we splurged on thanks to a great Internet deal David had found. Turns out life movin east ain't all that bad.

Didn't think we'd need the fancy hotel respite until Africa, but it turned out to be a nice break from the endless sights, hot weather, and noisy streets Budapest delivered. Our hotel had a sweet bathroom, down pillows, a huge heated pool, a fitness center complete with a steam room and sauna, and daily aerobics if we so desired (we stuck to the free weights and stairmaster). It all came in handy after gorging on huge buffet breakfasts, more breaded meats, and endless Hungarian beers.

We took in the major monuments, visited the historic city of Ezthergom (home to Hungary's largest cathedral), hiked to the high hilltop citadel of Visegrad overlooking the Danube bend (look closely, you'll see me waving at left), took a slow boat several hours back to Budapest on the aforementioned famous river, and soaked for an afternoon in the famous Szecheny baths (awesome!). After four nights in the four-star digs, we reluctantly downgraded to a studio apartment in a bullet-riddled building in the Jewish quarter to save some dinero. It was cosy enough, with a great location and killer price, not to mention cheap Internet around the corner.

We attempted a glorious day trip three hours south to Pecs (pronounced Paich) but were foiled by a faulty announcement board at the train station. After having waited over half an hour staring at the board for them to announce our platform number, we took matters into our own hands after our scheduled departure time had passed and tracked down a Hungarian train man who knew enough sign language and broken German (everyone assumes we speak Deutsche) to reveal that our train had left without us. How could it? we exclaimed. We were waiting with the rest of the crowd for the platform announcement, which clearly never came. Turns out, after arguing with numerous train "officials," that they don't have enough room on their boards to list all the destinations, so they lump some places with other major city destinations on the same line. Ours was the train listed for Sarajevo, but how were we to know that Pecs, just right below, was on the same journey? Stupid us: we just don't have our eastern European geography down well enough to connect those dots.

Luckily we argued long and hard enough to get 14,000 of our 15,000 forint outlay back (almost $75!). We stormed out dejected, feeling lame and abused. We did some sightseeing but spent most of the day running errands and taking refuge in the mall from the mid-90s stifling heat wave. It was actually kind of nice to mix with the locals and do some normal "real life" things for a change. Yes, even the Hungarian clouds have silver linings.

Having learned the ropes the hard way, we returned the next day for the trip to Pecs and made a successful journey south for a wonderful afternoon (David's birthday, no less!). In the midst of touring a spectacular old church, we experienced a huge thunder- and windstorm that was magical as long as we stayed inside. After braving the rain, we tracked down a great cafe meal in town and witnessed a beautiful sunset on the way back.

The country proved pretty neat after all, but I say get the chain gang ready, my Hungarian friends. It's time to lay down some new tracks and update your outdated announcement boards. Challenging at times, rewarding at others, those were our eight days in Hungary.

May Sluggi rest in peace, wherever he is, and enjoy endless strawberry tops in the afterlife.