On the road again.

After getting back last night from Hungary, I have to jump on a night train to Sofia. The new group is having a meeting and I have been invited to talk to them about succeeding in Peace Corps. A honor, really. But, I can't believe I have to get on a five and a half hour night train tonight.
Yuck.

I am getting back to Shoumen Friday and am hoping to stay put for a day or two at least...

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Hungary for Goulash? Yeah. Starving.

I pulled myself out of bed at 07.00 on a Thursday. The bus was at 07.30. Bad news.
After tossing some poorly planned things into a backpack, I was standing at a cold, morning corner waiting for a cabbie to happen upon me. One did. As usual, I was within a couple three minutes of missing my bus.

07.30 bus heads north toward the Bulgarian border town of Russe. Two and a half hours of listening to Steely-Danielle (the new iPod) and I hopped off the bus, grabbed my bag from below and realized I had five hours to kill. The train was at 15.15.

I decided to divide up my time between a few establishments – to limit the possibility of getting kicked out for appearances of vagrancy – and I hoofed it to the center. And, after a bit, I found a little pizza place that I had eaten at well over a year ago. I sipped an espresso until it was a respectable lunch eating time and then proceeded to eat the pizza as slow as I possibly could. It was cold and the choice of eating cold pizza or going out in the cold was really no choice at all.

After overstaying my welcome at the restaurant, I headed back towards a café near the bus station – knowing they are more accustomed to semi-squatters in transit. I settled into a little nook near a heater and put down another espresso over the course of three quarters of an hour. (A bit of a feat considering its Dixie-cup dimensions). I next had to drop my caffeine intake and picked up a coke. After nursing that, I was getting a bit jittery and decided to walk to the train station.

The train station was not heated. Because I was shivering in under twenty minutes and because I had over an hour and a half to wait, I walked back to the bus station. I snagged a sliver of a bench in the station and waited for about an hour. I walked back to the train station. Needless to say, by the time the bus came I was a tired camper and was ready to settle into my sleeping cabin and block out the 20 hour train ride I had ahead of me.

FYI: There are only two more downers in this little narrative before the good gets goin’. So, if this is coming off as complaining, hold your britches.

Downer #1: The sleeping car’s heater was beat. No joke. Solution: By the grace of God, I packed my sleeping bag and that – plus three blankets provided by the concerned conductor – was what made the trek doable. I just cinched up the little mummy hood on my extra-long mummy bag and dug under the covers. (I just reread that, and it sounds worse than it was – with all the covers, I was warm enough, it was going anywhere that posed a problem.)

Downer #2: They did not sell food on the train. Luckily, I had semi-considered this possibility and brought along seven Powerbars (that my brother had brought over here last Spring) just in case. So, the Powerbars, plus some water, plus the fact I slept over 12 hours of the trip was how I finagled through that minor misjudgment.

Fast forward 19 hours of sleeping, reading, writing, and almost continuous listening to Steely-Danielle plus four stamps in my Passport. [Major highlights of the Soundtrack include: Rjd2, The Shins, The Doors, Modest Mouse, and Jimmy Buffett.]

Budapest.

11.00 Friday.

Grabbed my repacked backpack, hopped off the train and onto the platform of the giant central station of Budapest. It was dark and echoed. It was vast and ultra Central European. Very cool.

With about a hundred US in my pockets (excluding the temporarily useless leva) I set out on finding a favorable exchange. Random dudes with horse whispers offering ‘good change’ = unfavorable. Just past them are the familiar yellow ‘Western Union’ signs – also unfavorable. And, about 300 meters from where I started my hunt was a bank. Nice.

With my money exchanged and me excited about not getting totally ripped off on the whole deal, I set out to grab some grub. A double whopper with cheese combo meal later, I headed to the hostel. [Don’t judge me. I was staving and we don’t have BK in Bulgaria.]

Following some directions I dug up on the internet, I took a metro and then a tram to the ‘green bridge’ and walked a few blocks down to the hostel. The building looked like it would crumble with a stiff breeze, but I had reservations.

Inside the courtyard was not much better. But, inside the hostel was great. It was the cleanish, mostly warm, friendly atmosphere you come to expect when you are traveling on the cheap.

Lazing around the common room of the hostel is (what I would find out later) a cast of real characters:
Ben is a 6’6’’ American who washed out of the Marines and decided to travel for a bit. He ended up bartending in Germany for a few months before hopping over to Prague – where he has been bartending for well over a year.
Clive is a banker from London who was supposed to leave the hostel a couple days ago, but liked the crowd and decided to kick it a bit longer.
And
Jo is an Auzzie that has been traveling for the past three and a half years.

So, after I grabbed a shower and a shave, the group asked if I wanted to head to the Turkish baths and then grab a bit. Since I had until midnight to meet up with my friend, I more than glad to have the company.

Turkish baths.

After controlling the region for over 500 years, the Turks left many legacies – one of the best being their baths. These things are amazing. We spent a few hours going from one type of pool to the next. Hot to hotter to cold to sauna to frigid to hot. Two of the hot pools were outside (old men played chess on tables built into the sides). And, it being so cold out, the steam was unbelievable. You could not see your fingers if you extended your arm.

Once we were done with the baths – once our bodies felt like Gumby – we headed out to dinner. Dinner lead to drinks and drinks lead to midnight. Time to meet up with Beth.

Beth and I studied at IU and in the Netherlands together. She is in a six month rotation in Germany and since we hadn’t seen each other in a long while we decided to meet up. Our original plan was for a group of us to meet up in Maastricht for Carnival, but my pledge brothers are worthless. So, we picked a halfway point (hence, Budapest).

Once she got in, we went out and got out all the formalities and pleasantries required when you have not seen someone in a long bit. How are you? How is this, How is that?

And then we crashed back in the hostel.

Saturday.

It was a drippy, sleety generally nasty day. But, today was our ‘tourist’ day. So, we drug ourselves out of bed to grab some breakfast in one of the famous cafés. Like Vienna, Budapest specializes in the big, open forum café culture. A very solid breakfast and some amazing coffee later, we were ready to go. And we just wandered for a bit to get a lay of the land.

In the afternoon, we grabbed a bus tour of the city (although I like the walking tours better, it really was nasty out). On top of showing us all the highlights of the city, the tour had an added bonus - a little old man (we dubbed him ‘grandpa’) who was our guide. At first, there was only us (American) and a few Italians. He greeted us and started the tour in both languages. Later, a group of French tourists dropped in. And, lastly, some Germans came in the group. Grandpa was spectacular. He did his little routine in all four languages. He would say some little joke in English and we would laugh – a couple minutes in another language and the respective demographic would laugh, and another, and another. Crazy.

Once it got dark, we made our way back to the hostel to warm up and put on dry socks. Some R&R and then it was off to dinner. We found some ‘speakeasy’ in memoriam to a NYC prohibition cop who decided he was sick of busting gin-joints and opened his own. Europeans are still fascinated by the fact that we actually outlawed alcohol at one point. Come to think of it, so am I.

Dinner was followed by ducking in and out of dives. This is where we randomly met up with the Hostel team again. The rest of the night was spent dabbling in the Czech original version of Budweiser – which is really good compared to our watery domestic semi-beer – and enjoying the company of other travelers. The whole time was hysterical, but one moment sticks out. Clive (the Brit) had bought a round-trip ticket to Slovenia because it was cheaper than the one way (actually pretty common out here). Ben (the bartender in Czech) said that he would be more than glad to take the second half off Clive’s hands. Clive bought a cup full of the nastiest booze in the pub and Ben chugged it. Transaction complete. Ben called work and got three more weeks off and Clive gave us all a howling laugh.

I don’t know about you, but there is something really reassuring that there are people out there (like Ben and Jo) living life with absolute abandon. No resumes. No five year plans. Just guide book and a lot of time. I know I am about as close to that life as I will ever be to that and I am grateful to have just a taste of it. I am sure even now, only a day away from it I am romanticizing the whole thing out of proportion; but, nevertheless I am heartened to have brushed past that little world.

And then we, again, crashed back in the hostel.

Sunday.

Even though today was our ‘chill’ day, we got up at a reasonable time (all things considered) and headed back to our breakfast spot. Coffee. Eggs. Pastry. In a word, civilized.
The day was considerably warmer and most of the snow had melted its way to the Danube; the grey moved out and our spirits were high.

Since I had spent a good part of the previous day telling Beth how great the baths were, and how we had to go to the baths, and that they had tons of pools, and that some were outside, and that there were old men playing chess in the pools, and that she would really be missing out if we didn’t go, we went to the baths.

Fast forward three hours of hot, cold, warm, sauna, frigid goodness. Gumby all over again.

Dinner. The whole time, we had been talking about Gulash and how we really, really had to try some. Since Beth was leaving in two hours, this was kinda our last shot. We re-found a restaurant that grandpa had told us had legitimate Hungarian food and ordered the ‘Tourist Menu.’ Typically, I am against such a commercialized attempt at tradition, but we were tight on time and didn’t know any real Hungarians who would make us dinner. It more than sufficed, it was great. That grandpa character knew what he was talking about.

We had to rush back to the hostel to get the taxi-bus-thing waiting to take Beth back to the airport. I chilled and laughed with the traveler group for about an hour or so and then grabbed my pack and made tracks for the train station. Tram. Metro.

It was 14.55 by the time I got to the station. I picked up some water and four sandwiches at a little street vender (I wasn’t going to fall for the no food for a day gag again) and booked it to my track. Hopped on. And entered my 100% heated cabin. I put on my IU basketball shorts, a fleece, and Steely-Danielle’s headphones. Train left at 15.15. Warm, full, and exhausted I fell asleep. Fast forward 19 some hours and four more encounters with border patrol to get stamps and I am back in Russe.

Monday.

I was sad to find out that there were no more busses back to Shoumen, but there was one to a town two hours away from Shoumen that I was pretty sure had some kind of transportation to Shoumen. It was two and a half hours to random town and then two hours on a lucky bus to Shoumen.

By 17.45 I was back in my apartment. It was strange so much had happened since I left, I half expected the locks to be changed and someone else to be living there. It had only been three and some odd days. I picked up some quick dinner, talked to my Dad to confirm I had made it alive, and then crashed.

Obviously, I give Budapest two thumbs up.
Hope all is well.
--Mark

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Winter comes...

Here is a little taste of winter in Shoumen.

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Lace up your traveling sandals…

To Budapest: 19+ hours
To St. Petersburg: 65+ hours

All aboard.

In the past week, the travel department of markljackson.com has been working at breakneck pace. Next weekend, I will be off to Budapest for a couple days. Despite the fact that it will take over 19 hours to get there, I take heart in the fact that I will be at my destination longer than my travel time. Obviously, pictures and documentation will be on its way.

Also, it looks very likely that I will be able to go to St. Petersburg in March for work. This is a big one folks. And, of course, if we are with in striking distance of Moscow, we wander over there too. The twist in this little fantasy world I live in is, again, mode of travel. It will take no less than 65 hours each way. This is what happens when you have more time than money - could be really bad, could be really good. Again, this is in the works; but, if I had to bet on it now, I would say it is happening.

Other cities on the ‘likely list’ for before September are Athens and Istanbul (definitely happening). Not bad.

The Big Trip.

But, of course, the real show is after I finish my service here. The Peace Corps gives us a modest sum of money to let us ‘get on our feet’ once we get back to the States. Some volunteers use part of that money to travel – I am one of those Volunteers. Africa? Central Asia? The Tsunami region? Pure Travel? Mini Volunteering projects? Who knows? Not me.

Anyone with any ideas, tips, stories, tricks,… Let me know. Every time I look at a world map and try to plan for this, I well up with blinding excitement. The same giddiness that made me rip open every Christmas present in less than five minutes has now manifested itself into me trying to plot a ‘safe’ route from Jerusalem to Cape Town. I really have no idea what I will end up doing, but it will be good.

Well, back to dog-earing pages in the travel books and pouring over maps…More to come…Take care.

A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
~Lao Tzu [my kind of guy.]

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