The last few days on the farm have been wonderfully slow paced and pleasant. The daytime weather has been perfectly gorgeous, with chillier nighttime temps. We even had a few nighttime thunderstorms. On Thursday, the owner and I went into the nearby town for a girls’ day – some pampering at a beauty salon, second-hand shopping, and massages. Just to give you an idea of the cost of living difference here, I had an hour-long, full body, deep tissue massage for less than $17. At the second hand shop, I bought some jeans, leggings, sweaters, a warm coat, and a pair of RED galoshes. It’s just getting a little too chilly for me to keep running around in my summer clothing.
The galoshes and coat came in handy on Friday as it rained and rained on the entire region all day long. I got up early Friday morning, finished up some last minute packing, and headed to the train station. I left my big suitcase behind and just brought my backpack and a smaller suitcase the owner lent me. First stop: Budapest, with a quick train hop in Dombóvár (of famed Oil and Vinegar Incident of 2015).
I stopped at Kelenföld, one of the big international train stations in Budapest. I had a few hours until my next train and I was expecting to find a little cafe or something to pass the time. Most of my train experience is in Germany, Russia, and the UK, where the train stations in the big cities have lots of little eateries and shops and are fun, exciting places to be. Not so in Budapest. Kelenföld is somewhat unique in that the station is underground, so you walk underneath the train tracks to get to whichever track or exit you need to get to (like Union Station in LA). There were two small bakery shops in the station itself, but nowhere to sit and enjoy your coffee. Above ground, the station is really just a big rail yard – neither pleasant nor terribly exciting. There were a few small establishments up there, but the rain didn’t add anything to their already lackluster appeal.
I made it up to the platform and struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler, a guy from Sweden. We were quickly joined by a third traveler, a Serbian guy. Then the train arrived, and we all piled on. The Serbian guy, Alex, had purchased a first class ticket, I had a reserved seat in a second class coach, and Dante, the Swede, had no seat reservation. The train was empty, though, so Dante and I plopped down in an empty 6-seat cabin in second class. Alex settled into his first class accommodations, but it wasn’t long before he joined us for some company. Thus began the long slog to Belgrade.
Belgrade is about 250 miles from Budapest, but the train ride lasted 8 and a half hours. In addition to the multiple stops made along the way, there’s two passport check points – one leaving Hungary and another one entering Serbia. In addition, the tracks in Serbia aren’t always of the best quality, which meant slower-than-normal progress.
Speaking of entering Serbia, we got treated to a sighting of the fence Hungary has erected to keep the Syrian refugees from walking into Hungary from Serbia:
I know that extending hospitality to tens and hundreds of thousands of refugees is an impossible burden. That difficulty is compounded by the fact that you have plenty of non-refugees trying to get legal residency in the EU by claiming to be a refugee, as well as sleeper terrorists seeping into the EU under the guise of being refugees. Still, to respond to such human tragedy and suffering with a fence seems the very embodiment of evil.
But I digress…
My serendipitously acquired travel companions made the long trip much more pleasant and enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. We talked about travel and books and music and exes and spirituality… Dante and I had a lot of weird things in common – we both quit our jobs, got rid of our apartments and some possessions before setting out traveling indefinitely, and we both just read Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World for the first time within the last month. Alex was a big time traveler and a wealth of information about traveling in general and traveling in the Balkans specifically. We picked up another Serbian guy, David, when we got to Novi Sad, a computer science student on his way down to Belgrade to see his girlfriend. He swore he never studied English, just learned it from TV, but his English was excellent. He was a good addition to our random little mix.
As we approached Belgrade, Alex left us to get his stuff before getting off and we said our goodbyes. Nevertheless, we ran into him again on the platform after getting off the train. Dante and I decided to split a cab, but we had to get some Serbian Dinars first. We tried the exchange office, but we both only had Hungarian Forint on us, and they wouldn’t exchange those (strange, since they border Hungary). Then, the ATM didn’t work, so we went searching for another ATM and ran into…
Alex again! He was hopping into a cab of his own and offered to give us a lift since it was in the same direction. What a life saver.
So, Dante and I got dropped off in old town and checked into our accommodations quickly before heading off to dinner on a quaint (but touristy) pedestrian street called Skadarska. The food was even more delicious than I expected and the beer cold and tasty. We sat outside on the patio under an umbrella and watched as women in 5 and 6-inch heels tried to traverse the heavily cobbled street. The bar across the street was playing 70’s and 80’s rock – AC/DC, GNR, Queen, Sex Pistols… Dante and I talked gobs and gobs. I really enjoyed having his company. He’s an interesting person and a really fantastic traveling companion, and his company was an unexpected and welcome pleasure. It was such a pleasant evening I didn’t even mind when the rain seemed to dump from buckets all around our moderately protective umbrella for nearly an hour.
TL;DR: Serendipity abounds on a south-bound train.
