Transiting Transcarpathia

Lviv was a whole lot colder than I wanted it to be, and I realized then what a godsend those Carpathian mountains are.  While they can't keep out Mongols, Huns, Hungarians, Russians, or literally anyone else, they can keep out the fierce Siberian winds that seem to envelope the whole of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus, and keep Hungary nice and toasty through October like a Balkan pizza pocket.  So as you can imagine, I was a bit chilly and wondering what I was doing in this ice palace instead of roasting in the Balkan sun.  

So the next day I decided to worm my way to the Hungarian border and on the advice of the hostel worker, went to Tukhlia, which was rumoured to have wooden churches. I went to the train station and learned that my train left from the suburban train station, the electric lines that cater to the nearby villages.  I ran outside and, in one of my trademark panics, starting howling at people passing by and pressing them with questions about where the "electric railway" station was.  Turns out it was right next door.  I got in, easily found my train and prepared to stand for my journey in the packed carriage.  Standing was actually preferable to sitting, as the seats were wooden and it was a rocky ride.  

The best part about Tukhlia was the weather, over which Tukhlia had little-to-zero control.  What Tukhlia had control over was the availability of restaurants and in that they were sadly lacking.  When the train stopped in the village and I was potentially the only person to disembark, I tried to leave my backpack at the train station so I could wander the city hassle free.  The clerk was less than enthused, as this was likely a part time job for her.  But she acquiesced in the end and I was smugly went on my way, as Tukhlia had just become my oyster.

But what an oyster.  There was so little to do there.  I didn't see a single wooden church.  In fact, all I really remember was a second hand clothing store, a good domed church, a convenience-store bar, and a tonne of farmhouses with these really cool painted wooden crests on them.  I overpaid for borscht and beer, did not get any cabbage rolls, and then waited for the next train to take me away to Mukhachevo, on the other side of the Carpathians. The train wound its way up the hill and down the other side, up past Ukrainian huts, and down past Hungarian and Romanian ones.  On the other side there was no snow, no bracing winds, and things looked decidedly European.  This is also, roughly, the area where the Good Solider Svejk abruptly ends.  When the train abruptly ended in Mukhachevo, I was unsure about what to do with myself, as it was about 9pm at this point.  

I was going to leave Mukhachevo to another post, but I did absolutely nothing there.  I wanderered around forever trying to find an affordable hostel or hotel (I was pooooor at this point, and 10 euros was a stretch.  I was in one of those places in the FSU where backpackers don't go, and people don't stay in cheap hotels, so if you're there it's because you're willing to spend money) and even though hostelworld.com said there was a hostel, the hostel was impossible to find.  And I'm no stranger to hostels that don't exist.  I ended up eating a tonne of perogies in a bar by the train station, buying a train ticket that took half an hour for the clerk to fill out (she had to fill out four different sheets of paper and cut it accordingly) and then bought a bunch of delicious Ukrainian beers in bottles to enjoy over the coming holiday season.  I'm so glad Ukrainian bars do offsales.  

C'est Lviv

It’s hard to even say what I did in Lviv at this time.  There wasn’t a whole lot going on—it was chilly, rainy, deserted.  In fact, all I really felt like doing was eating soup in the hostel.  Well, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a bit of a whiz in the soup department.  I can eat an entire pot of soup in one sitting.  I’ve been known to eat more.  In fact, packaged soups are one of my guiltiest pleasures, And I usually add something edgy like frozen peas, or diced ham to the packages (and extra baby shell pasta, obviously.  I can’t even imagine a life without baby shell pasta).  Anyway, while I was cooking and eating this soup, I was introduced to a man in his 70s on holiday from the UK who absolutely loved inserting himself into any conversation arguing any statement a person made.  He was drinking something like vodka and V8, or Pepsi and V8, or vodka and Pepsi or…something gross.  It could have been just Pepsi.  Or beer and sprite?  Anyway, it was gross, and he was also asking me lots of weird questions, some of which involved what I am doing with my life.

Well, not much.  I can definitely let you know that 2010 has been the year of taking from society.  He was wondering why I was in Eastern Europe and asked about my studies and then lured me into an argument on ethnicity and linguistics and seemed surprised that I knew anything about the two, considering I only studied geography.  And he said something about maps and didn't understand why I like them and that old maps are not interesting, and then said, "Do you suppose it would be possible, then, to create a map that shows where all the language groups are?  Now that would be interesting."

I stared at him blankly.  Yes, it exists.  It's called a linguistic map.  It's a thing.  

"Yes, that would be interesting if someone could make something like that."

Someone can. 

He didn't believe me, but anyway, this occupied very little of our actual conversation.  He was more focused on talking about the girlfriends he had littered throughout the Ukraine.  He was on his way to meet one of them. Like, for the first time.  He said he had met all of them online through some dating service (you know the one, we all get the emails and google advertising) and now he was going to meet one or more of them.  Some of them had kids.  Anyway, he also told me that he wants to move to Ukraine because the exchange rate was so good.  He's right, it's fantastic, but that's neither here nor there.  The issue I immediately identified was that likely these women were not necessarily looking to stay in the Ukraine. He also expressed serious reservations about the woman who already had some children.  He said he'd also like to have his own--"I may by 67 but I have NO problem in that department, don't you worry."

Okay, good, because your virility is one of my chief concerns.  

Anyway, all this lead me to believe he had absolutely no idea what he was getting into and I could only hope to be there when it all unraveled.

Apart from this I just wandered around Lviv, hung out with a couple of expats, went to a great underground WWII bunker bar, and ate at Puzata Hata a lot.  Like, too much.  And I went to get my jeans fixed because there is nothing I like more than getting services I thought were only for rich people done in Eastern Europe.  They have such high quality cobblers and seamstresses!  You’re literally losing money by not taking your clothes there for repair. I walked into a tailor shop and asked the seamstress to fix my jeans (which, by this point, had holes in the knees, pockets, crotch, and seat.  In fact, these jeans retained almost zero of their original structural integrity).  She told me they would be ready the next day.  In what follows is a hilarious exchange—entirely in Russian—that only captures a glimpse of how amazing and glamorous my life is:

Rory: Hi, I need these jeans fixed.
Seamstress: Okay, I need you to change into other pants and then give me the jeans.
R: Okay, well I will change into these gym shorts I have.  Right here.  Right now.
S: Okay, well the jeans will be ready tomorrow.
R: Okay…but these are my only pants.  So I can’t leave until they are finished.  Because it’s winter.
S: Okay, I’ll need to rearrange my schedule to accommodate you.*
R: Okay.
S: Okay, so it will still take a while.
R: Okay, that’s fine, I have about a third of War and Peace that I really, really need to finish.
S: Okay, so you really want me to do this, like, right now?
R: I mean...yes.

And she did and the jeans were perfect.

*I presume this is what she said.

Lvov is a Battlefield

Well, well, well.  Look who came to greet me in Lviv: my good buddy Steve-o.  Stephen Harper was, for some reason, in Lviv at the same time as me, and I can guarantee he likely did not sleep clutching his belongings with his passport and wallet tucked into his boxers on a massive Soviet train that bumped and grinded through the Carpathians to arrive at 5:45 AM and deposit him in a rainy and cold Lviv with no means of finding his way to the centre or any piping hot vareniki.  So, I'm sorry, Stephen, but you didn't actually "do" Ukraine.

Actually, two things to note from this: my encounter with Steve and his smarmy political staffers was less than pleasant.  They were so rude and treated the whole affair as though a visit from Canada was actually important.  Guys, we're Canada.  Chill the eff out.  Watching him put a wreath on a Holodomor monument is not "top secret official business" so being rude to curious Canadian expat onlookers who want to feel a connection to the motherland was totally unnecessary.  After one whole year of being an expat I was suddenly and mortifyingly embarrassed to be Canadian.  If we were a Scandinavian country, they probably would have invited me for a drink and asked if I had a place to stay.  Canada needs to stop taking itself so seriously.  We're an adorable middle power that influences through multilateral consensus-building.  What could be more adorable than that?  I'm surprised none of these political staffers learned that in their 4-7 years of doing a Poli-Sci degree.  The other thing to note is that I did get piping hot fresh vareniki, in small cantina by the train station where some neanderthal punk stared me down when I walked in and I had to sit next to a sleeping pregnant woman who sat up, started smoking, and then went to the kitchen to heat up my food.  So take that, Stephen Harper.  You jelly?

Anyway, I rolled into the Cosmonaut Hostel, which was in a beautiful old apartment block in the centre, and I was able to shower and change my socks and put down my heavy bag to prepare myself for a day of walking around Lviv in the rain and watching a bus try to stop but instead slipping on the cobblestones and slam into the side of a tram and knock it off its rails and cause glass to shatter and woman to have a bleeding face.  That was all pretty real.  

Night Train to Ukraine

My destination was the Ukrainian border, because for some reason that was the logical next step.  I didn't go to Bucharest, and I didn't go to Moldova, and I didn't even do a Bulgarian dip, as I am often so wont to do.  In fact, I felt rather limited in that I was waiting for my work permit to clear and always wanted to be within Budapest's one-day-train-ride ambit.  Moldova is not in that ambit.  Moldova does't fall into very many ambits, if I'm honest.*  

The train itself was kind of freaky because it was a newish style of train, in which there were no cabins and instead was very open.  It made for difficulties in sleeping, but I did get to talk to some old women and watch some hot young babes get kicked off the train in the middle of the night.  I'm not sure what that was all about.  But I had pizza and beer, and is there any other way to maximize your potential when you're unemployed and highly mobile?  If there is, I don't want to hear about it.  

Apparently this was an actual stop.  

In any case, I woke up in Cluj Napoca feeling groggy and dissheveled (2007 throwback) and forced to de-train and get into a much more enjoyable regional carrier.  You know, the ones with the pleather seating covers and the individual cabins.  My bread and butter.  I couldn't wait to get in and collapse onto a seat and sleep for several hours as the train inched through the Carpathians at a excruciatingly slow pace.  Which it did.  And I loved it. 

Romania is so beautiful.  And the Carpathians are so nice in the fall that I found myself actually preferring to spend my time watching the scenery go past with my head out the window like a dog rather than actually sleep.  We snaked through valleys and past charming villages, one with a group of small children waiting by the tracks to wave--and then flip the bird--at the passengers.  It really was a pleasant experience.  The closer we got to the Ukrainian border, the more multilingual the signs on the train stations became and the more stunning the scenery.  

By about 11am I was in Sighetu Marmatiei and I was able, this time, to walk across the border, because evidently that's all everyone else was doing.  I feel like in this region, people are constantly just walking across border, with those burlap sacks, as if to suggest there are different goods on either side of the border.  I'll be the first to admit that the cookies are better in Ukraine, but apart from that things are pretty similar.  

I crossed into Solotvino and discovered I had just missed the train to Lviv so I decided that this was a perfect time to really soak up all that Solotvino had to offer.  After 15 minutes passed, I decided that all I really wanted was a huge dish of perogies and I had some of the best ones I've ever eaten at a little restaurant nearby.  Then I ran back to the depot, discovered that the only tickets left were the second class ones, and I thought, well, I only live once and I'm on vacation, so why not split a berth with 4 other people?  And I did.  

*Don't worry, Moldova, it's not you.  It's Western notions of ethnocentric territorial nationalism.   Don't ever change.  

Filling the Time in Filiasi

There was something off about my time in Romania.  First of all, no one seemed interested in me and my shenanigans.  There was also a considerably deserted quality to Drobeta, and most definitely to Filiasi. In fact, we throw the term "post-apocalytpic" around so carelessly these days that it's hard to really drill down on what we're talking about.   But if I ever use it in conversation in the future, I am purely benching it on Filiaisi and the feeling of pure terror/hopelessness I got from Filiasi.  I just felt unsafe.  I've never felt unsafe*.

While waiting for the train at the DTS station I noticed that there was an old homeless man rooting around for scraps to eat.  He pulled up a huge plant growing between the railway ties, and sniffed the lengthy root.  I believe he discarded it after.  I would have never thought something growing between railway ties could possibly be edible.  But this is the sort of thing that happens when you're homeless.  You think of doing things to survive that others with security wouldn't.  I couldn't wait to find out what I would be reduced to when my work permit was rejected and I was reduced to scavenging around Europe and writing home and on my blog about how cool and awesome living in Europe is (because obviously I would choose to spend my money on postage an internet cafes than on food or a place to sleep).

Anyway, I did get a pizza in Filiasi because it's well-known that one of my favourite ways to maximize "me" is to race across Romania by train and by night with a whole pizza.  It's my dream job to be an important businessman who needs to be in several Romanian cities throughout the week, so that I have the excuse of needing to take the train nightly, every night, and have to grab a pizza on the way.  And then I would start a blog about pizzerias near train stations in Romania.  I already have the basics for all this laid out.  

Oh, by the way, I got a new passport!  What a relief that was.  My passport was set to expire on October 25 but I preempted that by applying for a new one (a business one).  It's about time I did too.  Did you know that a lot of countries won't let you in if your passport expires within less than 6 months?  Yeah, because I'm going to just stay in ____ country once my passport expires.  I don't think most border guards and consulares really get what I'm trying to do here.  But it's hard to articular myself on a rigid visa application form because there is no box asking for a contingency plan if my passport expires.  Please, if my passport expires I'm not going to stay in your country and leach off your social services.  I'm going to call my parents and fly home and leach off their social services.  

*this statement excludes unrecognized, lawless states

DTF in DTS

The weather was pretty nice while I was there so I thought I would take in all that DTS had to offer for the day.  If I'm honest, there wasn't a whole lot.  Yes, the area is beautiful and it has a nice centre, but it doesn't appear to be a particularly bumping' city, though I always tend to build these things up in my mind.  What I did learn was that there used to be an island in the Danube that was essentially a fortress between the Turkish and whatever empire currently occupied Romania (which…was the Turkish Empire?  I'm really uncertain about the details of this anecdote and I'm not willing to research it further) and it ended up becoming a "smugglers' nest" or some such thing.  It sounded fascinating.  Like, an island fortress made up of winding streets and cubbies and passageways.  Anyway, in the 1970s the Ceausescu regime shut that shit down by building a dam and flooding the entire island.  I've never been more angry at Ceausescu than I was when I learned that.  I would have had so much fun on that island.  

There was also a tower north of the centre that cars had to drive around.  I went into the ground level of it (which…was apparently a mechanic's shop, or the administrative component of a mechanic's shop) and they told me flat out that no, I could not go up the tower.  Why do they get to control the tower?  They weren't enjoying it at all. 

The next adventure involved walking around the old part of town and seeing a beautiful courtyard with an old crone tilling the garden.  She sweetly said hello and I told her that the garden and house were beautiful.  She seemed happy and invited me into the house, which had been chopped up into apartments.  We reached the top of the stairs and three men came out, one on crutches.  One was rather large and surly and asked me a question in Romanian.  I gestured that I didn't understand and he said, "Passport."  Just imagine the range of emotions coursing through me at this point.  I immediately responded with "Oh, F*&K no.  This is not happening" and as soon as he lunged at me I kept down the stairs, one landing at a time, and burst out of the house.  After all the wonderful experiences I have had in Romania involving kindly old women, this one turned out to be a real downer.  What a cow.  

Anyway,  by this time I was ready to gtfo of DTS and catch my afternoon train so I went back to the hotel to collect my bag and make my way toward the train station.  Outside the hotel I saw a taxi and decided that it would be worth it to take it.  Trust me, I don't know what's wrong with me either.  Hotels, taxis--Romania was like opposite world for me.  In any case, the taxi ended up costing me like 30 cents.  Taxis are so cheap in Romania!  I was actually losing money by not taking them.  

In the centre, I had a pizza.  Or else I didn't.  No, I didn't.  I had something with meat and french fries and the outrageous woman next to me had a pizza.  And she was brought ketchup without asking for it, and I got a look of serious disgust when I asked the waiter for some.  She got hers in a bottle (which she squirted greedily all over the pizza and proceeded to devour with a knife and fork) and I got mine in a silver gravy dish with a tiny ladle and what I believe was a $2 markup.  You're killing me, Romania.

Chillin' Out, Maxin', Relaxin' All Cool in a Maxi Taxi

I caught the first group taxi (Furgon in Albania, dolmus in Turkey, marshrutka in the Po-So, and MAXI-TAXI in Romania.  When I first heard this I thought it was the best name ever and told a Peace Corp worker that it sounded like a pad delivery service and instead of bursting out laughing she didn't say anything and subsequently avoided talking to me for the rest of the time we were in each others' presence. Can't win 'em all.) to the city which was packed full of villagers heading who knows where (I mean, obviously they were heading to the city, but why at this hour I don't know) and they were hilarious.  They were happy I studied economy, and told me Romania needs one.  I LOL'd.  

Drobeta Turnu Severin was decidedly gloomy.  I mean, it was a warm evening, but it was so humid that it was warm but felt like it should be cold.  Have you ever played The Colonel's Bequest?  You know how when you're wandering around the grounds of the Colonel's mansion out in the bayou and it's all foggy but clearly warm enough for the main character to not need a coat and it's also the 1920s and there seems to be no one around?  That is exactly what DTS was like.  Anyway, I went to train station to see if there were any leads on later trains to the rest of the country.  There were none.  In fact, DTS is at the complete end of the line so most of the traffic had already cleared.

The woman working the ticket counter was not impressed with me.  I don't know what I did.  It was after 9pm, and I'm sure she was sick and tired of indulging the whims of tall blonds who pass through the station with no clear direction in life.  At this point, I was starting to wonder if anyone really, truly, actually enjoyed putting up with my shit.  She was of no help so I tried another lady working in the station.  I asked her, "Umm, English?" and her head popped up (she looked like the old one from the Golden Girls.  The really old one), cracked an enormous smile, and beamed, "No!"  She also was of no help.  She indicated to me that I should go back to the first lady for help and when I tried to explain that the first lady had some unresolved issues, Crone #2 essentially told me to tell Crone #1 that she was beautiful and then she would help me.  As I'm always looking for ways to reinforce gender norms under the guise of being progressive and post-sexual, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I wasn't successful and subsequently left the station no better off.  

On the walk into the centre I didn't encounter any more people.  It really felt like a deserted ghost town, and there seemed to be no indicators of where I might find lodging for the night.  The one sign of activity was some sort of discotheque above, I believe, another discotheque, but the one above served pizza and was full of teenagers.  Obviously that's the one I went to.  I didn't like it, however, as the pizza was subpar, the waitress was sour, and I wasn't served any beer, despite everyone around me getting some.  What I did get, however, was free wifi, which tipped me off on where I could find an HI Hostel in the city. 

Had I remembered by gut instinct about HI Hostels in Romania, maybe I wouldn't have spent 2 hours wandering around the suburbs of the city trying to find an address that does not exist.  Almost on the brink of tears and ready to collapse, I spotted the Traian Hotel, one of RomIntour's famous landmark hotels spread across the country and offering, in many cases, perfectly acceptable accommodation at lower-than-hostel prices.  I kind of wanted to shower, and I always like the breakfasts, so I went for it.  Why not?

In the hotel room I cracked open one of the delicious Serbian beers I had been saving for my sister when she visits at Christmas (sorry) because I deserved it and everything really just went wrong for me that day.  Then I turned on the TV and I drowned my sorrows in Romanian television and an incredibly comfortable bed.  I was determined to get everything I could out of this experience, which involved showering (but, like, with soap this time) and taking up as much bed space as possible because I paid for it, so I may as well use all of it.   

Gullible in Golubac, or: how I managed to entirely miss the Iron Gate

The next morning I rose, discovered someone had nicked $90 from my bag, left a passive aggressive note on the door, and caught the early train to Pozarevac.  You may remember it as the birthplace of Slobodan Milosevic.  Lovely little town, but with poor rail connections so it took a considerably long time to get there.  Disembarking from the train with me was a student named Teja from Uzice who, incredulously, was also going to hitchhike his way to the Iron Gate.  Which is exactly what I was going to do!   And he's actually from there.  I'm so local. 

We walked through the town, out of the centaur*, and towards the turnoff to the Iron Gate where we caught a ride with a series of trucks and cars and were given loads of misleading advice by everyone (leading me to believe that no one, at any given time, actually knows anything), and finally made it to a town on the Danube.  This was a pretty big deal for us, and the next car to pick us up happened to be a man who used to be the mayor of the the town of Veliko Gradiste.  He told us all about the developments he implemented during his tenure, and admittedly it was a lovely community, especially during autumn.  He drove us to the far end of town so we would have a better chance of getting picked up, which I thought was incredibly nice so he definitely has my vote in the future. 

Our next ride was in some sort of ambulance, and I learned later from Teja that the driver had been on some popular Serbian reality TV show where he was reunited with his sister, whom he never knew he had.  What a heartwarming tale.  The next car was driven a by a bunch of old people who were delightful and happy to see us.  I also noticed a lot of cars had Austrian plates, and Teja explained that most people went up to Austria to work.  I decided not to bring up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is something that I have learned I should never bring up, anywhere, even if it clearly was the best thing for this region, and would have made the visa process so much more simple.  Even if Serbia proper had never been part of the Dual Monarchy, I'm sure there would have been a simplified visa regime.  Austria was so progressive like that. 

We arrived in Golubac and immediately descended upon a small store and bought all the provisions we needed to picnic at the ruins of the castle down the road at the entrance to the Iron Gate.  For me this was some locally made sausage and some green apples.  For Teja it was a huge tube of bologna, a bottle of ketchup, and some buns.  To each his own.  We got one final ride for about a kilometre to the castle, and we sat and ate and took pictures of the fairly impressive structure.  After, we parted--he back to Belgrade and me through the Iron Gate and waited beyond--and I can only hope he's succeeding in life now.  

I set off down the lonely road and was picked up by a Serb who worked in Austria (surprise!) who took me to the small village of Brnjica where I waited for what felt like a month by the side of the road for the bus.  Everyone nearby made a bit of commotion regarding my existence, and when the bus finally arrived I slinked in through the back door and plopped myself into a seat because I was exhausted, the sun had just set, and I was expecting to be brought a Nestle instant cappuccino and pay my fare of 10 euros.  This never came, and once I noticed the driver had breezed past the border and I screamed "STOP THIS BUS IMMEDIATELY!" I awkwardly shuffled myself and my bag out the back door.  While retracing steps back towards the border, I had time to reflect on how it was nice I had saved 10 euros, I also didn'tt get a free Nestle instant cappuccino, and sometimes we need to ask ourselves what is more important**.

Once I got to the border I was forced to fend myself against an enormous lineup of cars all desperate to get into Romania, a far cry from the days of communism when it was the other way around.  Long lines of cars have never been much of a formidable match against me, however, and I simply walked in front of them and presented my passport to the border guard.  This backfired when the border guard rejected my attempts to leave Serbia and told me that pedestrians were not welcome here and could not cross.  I asked him if it was only at this crossing and he just got annoyed at me and screamed, "You cannot walk across!"  I can understand that if you only know three English phrases, that someone asking multiple questions in rapid-fire English is overwhelming, but he should have just made an exception for me in this case.  

Anyway, I was forced into a car with two nice old Romanian men.  We slowly inched through the crossing and onto the Romanian side of the Danube by 8:45pm.  I had been planning on catching the night train from Drobeta Turno Severin to Filiasi at 9:23, and I could see from the line of cars and from the fact that I was way far from DTS that this wasn't going to happen.  The men dropped me off at the turnoff towards the city, and I was on my own, back in Romania, and ready to make waves.  

*Which, when you think about it, is hilarious.  And by "think about it" I mean think about the word Centaur.  If we lived in Ancient Greece, and in the Ancient Greece that included the wonderful mythology as reality instead of what I would assume was actually really a hot, smelly, and miserable reality for nearly everyone, then the idea of a sign telling me that a Centaur was to the right or left would be very useful in navigating myself through the city.  The last thing I would want to run into would be a centaur.  They are so warlike and, while noble and just, are nevertheless a woodland creature I would prefer to avoid at all costs.  

**Obviously Nestle Instant cappuccino.  It's not even available in North America because I have some sort of suspicion the US food checking agency has banned it and they let SO MUCH slips through the cracks so who even knows what they put in that stuff to make it so, so good.  

For Whom the Belgrade Tolls

If cities were booty calls, I’d have Belgrade on voice-activated speed dial.  The number of times I have rolled into Belgrade at some outrageously inappropriate hour, only to leave before, or just as, the sun is coming up is well beyond inappropriate.  I never spend the night, just kind of position myself on the steps of the train station and catch a few hours of sleep before someone angrily brushes me away (usually an old lady, with a brush) and I have to run to catch my train, always promising vacantly that I'll be back soon and we'll one day be together, forever.  I'm sorry, Belgrade, it's not you; I just can't be tamed.  Can't be tamed, can't be blamed.

Belgrade is a sight to behold.  Belgrade is a magical Xanadu poised high above the cliffs taunting the established states of the North.  Belgrade is a cruel mistress with a smoker's cough who leaves ashes in your bed, and tears on your pillow.  Belgrade is everything I have ever wanted.  If you've never been, you need to stop wasting your life and somehow get there right now.  The rich, exotic aroma of the diesel exhaust of trucks ploughing through the centre of the city while you sip your coffee over a cherry pastry will make you fall in love all over again.

I decided to stay at the hostel across from the train station and spend at least two days in the city to get a better sense of it than what I previously had.  I went to sleep immediately and rose early the next morning to head to the Gypsy market in Novi Belgrade, where I revelled in tripping over broken concrete and patches of mud to find the latest trinkets.  One of these was a meat grinder, which I greedily snatched up for the low price of 3euros*.  Then I went back into the city and enjoyed all the cafe culture had to offer, which is an immense amount of culture.  Could you imagine being a revolutionary in the early 1900s in a smokey cafe in Belgrade?  What a dream come true. 

I regret nothing about being in Belgrade.  I would do it all again**.  There was a really cool art gallery opening near the castle that I walked past (repeatedly until I felt it was safe to kind of saunter in and grab some free wine.  I was wearing plaid so it was acceptable) and I realized that Belgrade was on the cusp of being so much better than you or I could either imagine, or even be.  I also went to the smokiest of smoky bars to eat delicious cevapi and raw onions, washed down with beer from Nis and accompanied by a raspy singer whose cigarette stained melodies still ring in my ears.  

*Though, let's be honest: who got the better deal?  Me, who bought this meat grinder, or the seller, who neglected to inform me it was missing the blade and therefore was useless, and who pocketed the 3 euros even more greedily. 

**Some might argue I did.  16 times.  If you know anyone else who has been to Belgrade as many times as I have please pass on my contact details.  We have so much to discuss.  

Balkan Weekend Getaway

There's nothing like waiting for a work permit in a country bracing itself from the 2008 financial crisis and badly exposed to the Euro sovereign debt crisis to the point where the Ministry of Labour was being dismantled and folded into the Ministry of Immigration so that paperwork was getting lost and soon-to-be let go employees were less than eager to process some foreigner's papers for a high-profile job in Budapest's burgeoning financial services industry.  Really, there's nothing like it.  Unless you strip away the details and liken it to, say, being unemployed and living in your parents basement and contributing absolutely nothing to the world.  Because that's what I was doing.  Contributing nothing. 

As I was starting to go stir crazy (also, some mosquito nest had hatched in the owl hole of my apartment and keeping me up all night and on the brink of insanity), I decided that nothing like a dose of the Balkans* would make my entire experience of waiting on my permit and dealing with the Hungarian state seem totally rational.  Since it had been my dream to pass through the Iron Gate at least once in my life, I figured this was my chance.  I also had a week left on my Balkan Pass and I was desperate to squeeze every last penny out of that.  

Still neglecting to realize the hot deal that was the 15 euro BP-BG train ticket, I took a bus to Szeged (which roughly translates to "Your Ass" in Hungarian), and halfway through that trip I realized I had forgotten my Balkan pass on my kitchen table.  In Szeged I then got on a minibus that would take me across the border to the nearest city, Rozke.  This ended being a bad idea, because I was deposited in a village and had to wait for about 3 hours until another bus came to take me to Subotica.  It was late as well, and I was standing next to an old man who kept looking at me, then looking away, then looking at me again and, in a hapless gesture, shrugged his shoulders and broke the silence by saying in English, "We have not bus." 

The SuTrans bus whisked us across the northern Serbian countryside and right to the station in time to see the train I was supposed to be on take off for Belgrade.  I then walked to the bus depot and bought a ticket on another bus that would get me into the city at about 11pm.  I hopped on the bus, regretting all the false steps I had made that day and how ultimately I was not better off for it.  But then I stopped all my grumbling and remembered, "We have not bus."  This made the whole experience worth it, and summed up the experience in ways my stubborn adherence to English grammar never could.

*I had actually initially planned to go to Slovakia because, by all accounts, I flove Slovakia.  I don't know if you know this, but I went to Slovakia in 2007 and it changed my entire direction in life.  I was but a mere imp when I first set foot on Slovak soil, and by the time I boarded a RyanAir flight from Bratislava for the West bidding Eastern Europe goodbye (but most certainly not for the last time), I had emerged as some sort of adult in my own right.  Or at least I knew what it was like to sleep in a corn field and pretend I enjoyed it.  In any case, I did not go to Slovakia because sometimes I make decisions that benefit no one, least of all me.  

Greecey Times

I barely remember what I did in Greece.  I remember mosquitoes, I remember being incredibly sick, and I remember staying in a town right next to the town where Patrick Leigh Fermor was living and I had no idea and only found out after I got back to Budapest and I was kicking myself that I didn't try to captialise on this and kicked myself especially hard after he passed the following spring.  That about sums up Greece.  

What I do remember is my trip back to Budapest and the atrocious sleep I had on the train going back to Athens.  Or from Athens to Thessaloniki.  In any case I was packed into a cabin and it was such a bad sleep and the train was ultimately late and I was so disoriented in the morning I accidentally-on-purpose took the top-sheet with me from the train, and to be fair I have since made great use of it, and have certainly washed it more times than I suspect Greek Rail is wont to.

In Thessalon, I had almost an entire day to spend because the delayed train meant I missed the day train to Belgrade and had to wait for the evening express.  As taking night trains to Belgrade is somewhat becoming my forte I had no problem with this and the opportunity to see the capital of Macedonia.  The other Macedonia.  The Greek Macedonia.

If I'm honest I don't really know how I filled my day in Thessalon.  There was a waterfront, there were a few cafes, there was a bus depot under construction.  I think I was so tired from the train ride that I didn't exactly have a lot of energy to expend.  Falling asleep in a park like a homeless person is all I ever really want to do in any situation anyway, so Thessalon's abundance of greenspace fit my needs.

What I remember most fondly was returning to the station to catch my train and getting out onto the platform.  The station was under construction with a lack of signage so I had to play at a bit of guesswork to determine which train would be mine.  All the German-funded and sleek Greek Rail turbo trains seemed a little too sleek and German-funded to be taking me north, and then I spotted my ride, three badly graffitied cars with broken windows attached to a tank of an engine cast off to the side on a lonely spur line.  The train to Belgrade.  I couldn't wait.

 The ride was pretty uneventful and extremely comfortable, as I slept in a cabin with a Roma family (we collectively folded down all the seats and made an enormous pen) who de-trained in Skopje.  Or somewhere in Macedonia.  I was asleep when they departed.  Then I arrived in Belgrade in the wee hours of the morning, stepped right off the train onto track 2 and hopped right onto the immediately departing train to Budapest on track 3 (like, it was actually leaving.  It had started moving).  This was the most seamless transition of my entire life.   I settled into a cabin and hastily excused myself for casually ricochetting off Belgrade once again.