Dealing with both central European and Canadian university bureaucracy is almost unbearable, and as a result I needed to get away from all the stress by embarking on an absolutely stress-free excursion to the Balkans to see my friend, Adam, from university, whom had recently been posted to Albania in the Peace Corps. I sent him a vague email explaining that I was thinking about coming to see him, and then immediately went to the train station and hopped on the first train to Szeged. The first snows were falling in Budapest at this time, and I dreamed of the warm waters of the Adriatic splashing playfully against the sun-baked Albanian shores.
The train arrived in Szeged around 10am, and I had decided that for this crossing of the Serbo-Hungarian border I would try the little commuter train that runs between Szeged and Subotica. As you know, of course, the two cities, while large and close to one another, are not well connected, and the main route to Belgrade from BP goes through Kelebia to Subotica, and does not touch Szeged. And Kelebia is…not much of a global force. I knew about this litter commuter train because I had taken it the other way in 2007*, and had arrived late at night to discover no trains were leaving for Budapest and that I needed to wander around the city to find a place to sleep. There were no hostels but I managed to find a university dorm that I was allowed to sleep in for incredibly cheap. This time I didn't leave the station because I would be taking the same commuter train back the other way. I had a bit of time to kill so I went to the restaurant in the station and ordered a beer**. The bartendress asked for my ID and when I gave her a puzzled look, she gestured that I looked young. Unfortunately did not know enough Hungarian at this point to have a snappy comeback like, "Younger than what? 6?" because….Europe.
Anyway, shortly thereafter I was on the little commuter train going to Rozke and then to Subotica, where I detrained and waited at the station for the train to Bar, which was some sort of special train that only left on special days and went directly from Subotica to Bar. This was fantastic news for me, as it would deposit me in Podgorica at 8am. I ate at some cantina near the station, loaded up on a couple of beers, and got ready to make myself comfortable in a first-class cabin on the train. I had just uploaded the new Girl Talk album and also the Notorious B.I.G's greatest hits to my iPod, so with fine Serbian beer and a 14 hour train ride ahead of my, I was basically in my comfort zone. The train even went through Bosnia, but didn't stop, so I didn't get any passport stamps, and therefore was not worth it.
When I awoke in Podgorica, the weather was balmy, and I was ready for a long and pretty heinous walk to the Albanian border. Apparently no trains/buses/anything actually goes to the border, so I just toughed it up and decided to walk the 10km to Tuzi and beyond to the Hani i Hotit border crossing. I passed some winery, which actually produces wines I've seen in Canada, and groups of school kids who giggled at me, and then got picked up by a Mecedes heading to the border. It was full of boxes of dates and nuts, and I had to really squish in the back. There had been heavy rains the night before and many areas on the road were flooded. Just after the border we went though a massive puddle and the car started filling with water. I immediately retracted my feet, as water began to gush into the floor of the car, and I was worried the car would stall and we would be stranded there, in the middle of a puddle in Northern Albania for the rest of our lives, but we managed to push through and are stronger for it today.
Once we arrived in Shkoder I was pretty happy to see furgon service to literally anywhere, and I never felt more comfortable about how to get around and what my next steps would be. I went to give the driver a kindly tip of 200 lek and he refused and said "5 euros." I was flabbergasted. I said no. He pressed for more. I acquiesced, thrust 300 lek in his hand and shouted, "You have no recourse!" as I darted into the first furgon I saw headed for Tirana. This is my favourite way to make an exit. In fact, in the future, I hope I have the opportunity to exit every unpleasant encounter by getting into a Tirana-bound furgon.
* Oh! Can we please talk a little bit more about Szeged? Okay, so the Hungarian "Sz" is pronounced the same way as an English "S" and not at all like the Polish "Sz" which is pronounced like an English "Sh". This isn't even remotely interesting or funny, unless you know Hungarian and know that the word "segged" (pronounced "Shegg-ed" means "you ass" and not the name of a city so when I asked the ticket lady in 2007, "Kaphatok egy egyet Segedbe" I was basically saying, "Could I please have one ticket to your ass?" which, no matter how broken my Hungarian was, was pretty clear. And for some reason no Hungarian seems to think that there is a remarkably coincidence between the two words.
**Ugh, whatever. It was probably noon, and even if it weren't, whatever, who are you to judge? I was unemployed at this point, and there is nothing unemployed people love more than having a beer at 11am, amirite? ;)
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