Mischief in Europe

From Bucharest to Budapest. I caught my last night train and slept my last three hours on a night train. My hostel was on an island in the middle of the Danube. It was a beautiful park with a big fountain and everything. Pretty sweet. It so happened that one of Europe's largest music festivals was going on the next island up the river. The Sziget (it means island in Hungarian) Festival. Being at the end of my trip money isn't exactly flowing freely. So I missed out on going for a day or two. But the upside of there being a festival is there were loads of awesome people to meet.

Budapest has some really nice boulevards that are great for just meandering down and checking out the city. It was a beautiful city. I only took public transport once. I preferred to check it all out rather than see the tunnels. Folks there were also really nice. I'd be eating lunch on a park bench they would try and converse with me, despite a complete language barrier. We might eke out six lines of conversation that we could understand but it was a great gesture. Another thing that made me smile is when I'm say I'm from the US they get really excited and happy to meet someone from there. It makes me glad to see people still like us. People have only gotten enthusiastic about my home in Eastern Europe, I guess because not many Americans make it over that far. I sure didn't see many. For instance I was the 5th American to ever stay in my hostel in Bucharest.

When I first arrived I checked in and went to a corner market. While in there I saw they had a big bowl of some crispy looking objects in the little deli section. As I was paying for my stuff asked what was in the bowl. "Fried fat." she told me. I was literally taken aback because she laughed a little at my reaction and my contorted face. "That's disgusting." I thought to myself. Then "When in Rome." was the next thought. So I asked to try a piece. It was foul. I can't describe the texture of it. But I can tell you how revolting I felt as I ate it and forced it down. After I get back to my hostel I asked the guy why they eat fried fat. He then proceeds to tell me that nobody just eats pieces of fat. That that is gross. A little might be sprinkled on top of some food or in a sandwich. The girl at the market could have informed me of that. Or maybe she wanted to see some moron eat fat.

Parliament

Alexander- one of my friends from a park

Let me start this post back in Istanbul. I went to buy my bus ticket at the main bus station in Istanbul, the Otogar. There was about a hundred different companies and offices to buy from. Some previous research told me what a fair price for a bus ticket from Istanbul-Bucharest would run me. Armed with this knowledge I decided to just pick an office at random and go from there. No English. No problem. I convey I want to go to Bucharest in an elegant manner as this "Bucharest?". Nope. The fella behind the desk steps out with me and hollers at a guy about 3 shops down and they have a quick back and forth and the original guy points and bids me to go to the new guy. Good, I'm making progress. I go in and inquire about leaving. He produces a calendar wanting to know when. I point at the next day. No dice. Back into the street, back to hollering, back to going to another stranger. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I'm going to a fourth office now, being lead across the giant Otogar by a hospitable Turkish man who always made sure I stopped when he stopped so that I didn't get flattened by a madman in a car. We get to the office for Oz Troy. My personal attendant tells them what I want. The folks at Oz Troy confirm with me what I want. We get it squared away. They only take cash so the friendly Turk leads me to an ATM and makes I sure I don't end up squished. Cash in hand the man working at Oz Troy handwrites me a ticket (I'm a little skeptical about this handwritten ticket) and points out it leaves from Europa Bazaar and NOT the Otogar. Europa Bazaar, Check. He then points to and underlines the departure time, it looks like it could be either 14:00 or 24:00 so I get him to specify. He says "Two. Four." while holding up the appropriate amount of fingers for each number. I breathe a sigh of relief that something as complicated as buying a bus ticket is out of the way and I can get on with my day. At first I was bummed about a midnight bus, but then I realized that it would be arriving during the day. Which beats arriving in Bucharest (which doesn't have the safest reputation) in the dead of night wandering the streets with my pack looking for my hostel. So the next day I check out, leave my bag at the hostel and spend the last of my lira minus the train fare to the bus station. Time comes to leave and I get to the station at 11:30 in case I have to do any sort of checking-in for crossing the border back into the EU. The station is a ghost town. The office of Oz Troy is dark. I take a moment to analyze the situation and the night guy working there comes up to me. Thankfully he speaks English. I explain what's up and he says there aren't any buses leaving tonight and that the Oz Troy bus left today at... 14:00. Crap. He says he'll make a couple calls on my behalf just to make sure. While he is on the phone my thoughts are elsewhere with my hands wrapped around the ticket man's throat for scamming me out of me 100 lira (~$50) and writing me out this (probably) fake ticket with the wrong time. After a few methods of revenge have been exacted in my imagination my friend the night guy confirms there are no buses leaving tonight and I should come back tomorrow and talk to them. He gives me hope I'm not SOL for missing my bus. But now it's about midnight and I'm three miles from my hostel, where I don't know if there is even a spare bed. And I don't have anymore money, not even for a train fare back to Sultanahmet. And I'll be damned if I eat the international service charges at the ATM and get stuck with more currency I won't use just to get a train back to a hostel where I don't know if there is a bed. I'm not in the mood for those shenanigans. My new friend tells me that there are a few hotels nearby that accept euros (I have an "Oh Crap" stash of money for this kind of situation) and that a fair price would be about 20-30 euros. Excellent! This first one I find is clean and costs 25 euro. For comparison I'm paying 18 euro a night for the hostel I'm in right now. So I get a room. It's a legit hotel too. Not like the crappy one I had in Venice. I have a big spacious room, TV, AC (that I get to set), my own bathroom and shower, and a queen size bed. Yep, I lived like a little prince. I check out and head to the station to get this monkey business sorted out. There was no sorting anything out. I hadn't even gotten to the explanation of what was up before they were processing my handwritten ticket and putting my name down on the passenger manifest. Well, that was painless. For both me and the man who sold me that ticket. The lady working the desk told me the bus leaves at 3. I confirm that it's three in the afternoon and not two, like yesterdays bus. I kill a couple of hours and come back to leave. After I put my bag on the bus I realized why there was no problem getting on this bus. There were maybe a dozen passengers, a third of which seemed to be associated with the bus company. The rest of the space on the bus was filled up with cargo. Remember the picture of the guy with the handcart stacked high with things to be delivered? Guess what was on my bus? Loads of stuff all wrapped to ship in plastic bags covered in packing tape. Makes sense now. When it comes to time to leave is where it gets fun. My bus is broke. If the decals on the bus are to be believed it's a 2007 Mercedes bus. How do you break such a high quality bus in so short of time? Those Mercedes diesel engines run for an eternity! Whatever, I'm not a mechanic, I'm a passenger. So I wait. And wait. I try not to use up all my phone battery before I even get on the bus. I wait some more. Finally about 5:30 it's running. It's also rush hour now. Leaving the city was about as timely and as much fun as you can imagine trying to leave a city of 14 million during rush hour can be. Finally we escape the clutches of the city and drive on and on. We get to the border and in between Turkey and Bulgaria is a Tax Free store. The bus company purchases a tobacco fields worth of smokes and starts stashing them in all the crevices of the bus. While we're on the subject of smoking. Everyone freaking smoked on the bus!! The whole way there there was always at least one person smoking! I turned all the AC vents away from me in a circle of protective wind. Back to the hiding of cigarettes. We get to the EU checkpoint and we're lined up outside of the bus while customs agents go through the bus. I thought for sure the driver would get arrested and I'd be stuck in Bulgaria with 3 more miles to go. Nope. We get through fine. Somehow... We take the most indirect route known to man. It's dark out but I can tell we're on a one lane road cutting through the countryside. The indigenous fauna is like 7 feet tall and we have to drive partially off the road to pass oncoming traffic. We stop at a closed gas station and some one appears from the station and accepts a couple of cartons of cigarettes and a smallish black bag that couldn't have a carton in them. We repeat the process of handing off mystery bags and cartons. Once to a man waiting on the side of the road, another store, and even an official looking checkpoint! I don't know what kind of smuggling ring bus I'm on but it's an experience. We get to Bucharest about 6 in the morning in one piece with out having any automatic weapons fired at us. I guess the trip was a success. We didn't arrive at the regular bus station, but the Oz Troy office. I tried to find out where we were in the city but there was a language barrier. I showed the lady the address of my hostel and tried to point in a direction I thought might have been right. She just said "Taxi". At that point I give up hope of saving a few bucks and walking and just say sure. She calls a cab. Then I point out I only have euros and no Romanian Lei. Out of nowhere someone with fluent English enters the office and starts helping me. He gives me a fair exchange rate for euro-lei, tells me they called a trustworthy cab company but that my ride shouldn't be more than 15 lei and to definitely not pay more than 20, even if its just throwing the money at the cabbie and walking out. He then resumes offloading the bus. A white cab pulls up and I grab my bag to get into and the lady who had been helping me originally puts a hand on my arm and shakes her had and says "Bad". Apparently this isn't my cab. A minute later a yellow cab pulls up and she nods her head and walks me to the cab, says the street name to the driver, and sends me on the way. Sketchy business operations but nice folks they were. So that's the long story of my bus ride, smuggling(?), bribery(?), and smoking a whole lot of cigarettes on the bus.

If you read all of that you'll be pleased to know my summary of my time in Bucharest will be short. It has a bit of a rough reputation and I was prepared for that. Living where I live and travelling for the past 4 months has prepared me for being alert and out of bad situations. Every city is as safe as you make it. I went in with a little extra dose of caution just because of the horror stories I've heard about Gypsies robbing and beating people. That being said I came out unscathed, even if I did give up a couple of excellent photo opportunities for the sake of keeping my camera and kidneys.

The times I did shoot locals they would always ask for some money. But they did it after I asked or shot so I felt obligated. I know they are poor and are asking just to see if they can get anything out of me. After a couple of times of that happening I wised up. I bought a pack of cigarettes so I could give them something (everyone there smokes) and I won't be hemorrhaging money. I went to the Parliamentary Palace. It's the second largest building in the world, following the Pentagon. The wiki article is short and goes into detail about all the material used in its construction. Staggering.

Bucharest was experiencing a bit of a heat wave while I was there with a high of about 110 degrees. But no humidity, it wasn't that bad. Parts of the city almost looked bombed out. Heaps of rubble inside buidlings, buildings in various states of decomposition, and, yes, packs of stray (but friendly/not aggressive) dogs. But when you got to the nice parts of the city it was a different world. It looked like any modern city.

I enjoyed Bucharest and wish I had more time to spend in Romania. Fortunately Bucharest was extremely cheap, and the country side can only be cheaper. So another time.

Thanks for reading and have some mood music for looking at the pictures: Taraf de Hadouks