Day 14 -

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Day 14
Two weeks ago, when I heard the work “Hungary”, my thoughts immediately rushed down to soothe grumblings in my belly. My mind did not visualize former commie outposts, novice lap dancers in the early stages of perfecting their trade or visualize old hags wrapped in babushkas. Rather, it was on a big juicy, satisfying Licks burger, smothered in cheddar cheese, plastered with a thick coating of garlic sauce and dripping with ‘oh so tasty’ grease. Journeying to the edge of western civilization was not one of my priorities, thus I never considered the country of Hungary as a prospective destination. However, even though I have only spent a couple of days here and haven’t seen much of the ancient Magyar empire I would certainly recommend it to a would-be world traveller.

Budapest is incredibly scenic and displays a true European flavour. While time has sped by these past centuries, Budapest, in contrast, seems unchanged. The majority of the buildings built long ago remain standing. Some of them still show off bullet holes and scars from the centuries of neglect or reminders of battles long lost. Unfortunately, my time in the Hungarian capital would prove to be too short. I wanted to stay longer and learn more about the country. I wanted to discover its’ history, culture and traditions. However, for reasons that remain unclear, Hungarians take every Monday and Tuesday off in the summer. How can a city whose economy is dependent upon tourism lock out their tourists in the middle of the tourist season? What was I to do? Should I have waited for them to forgo their accordion lessons and come back to work so I could, only then, visit their cultural attractions? Or would they prefer that I spend my afternoons sitting by the banks of the Danube and watching the river pour by? Thus, I place the blame of my premature departure on those lazy bastards, the Hungarians themselves.

Aside from watching rubbish dislodged by the flooding experienced up river, slowly float past, I admit that I could have demonstrated some patience and waited for the sites to reopen. Outside of actually entering previously visited attractions (the Royal Castle) I could have extended a little bit of effort and travelled to some of the other recommended sites. In exchange for proverbial pocket link, namely the useless forint, think of what I missed by leaving early.

One quirky factoid about Budapest is that it is known as the ‘City of Spas’. Starting with the Romans, Budapest was colonized because of the prevalence of thermal springs located throughout the city. The oldest surviving baths were built by the Turks when they controlled the region. It was not until the Turks got turfed when the Hungarians decided to build some for themselves. The temperature of the water burbling up from deep beneath the city ranges from 70 to 170 degrees. After two weeks, one trip to the Laundromat and numerous dribble showers, I finally had an opportunity to not only wash off my filth in the healing waters. This was a great opportunity to splash in the slime gifted by other more grimy individuals. After reading additional details about their most famous bath, the Szechenyi Baths, aka “Festering Disease World”, I decided to forgo the risky attraction. The use of the descriptive words “frothy hot springs” kinda turned me off the prospect of taking it in.

As described in my earlier survey of the buildings and grounds that make up the Hungarian Parliament, the scars from bullet holes have still not been repaired. Most of these were inflicted during the second world war when the Hungarians made the mistake of backing the wrong loony. They joined the Nazi conga-line of hapless Axis allies when the Krauts decided to backstab the back-stabbing Stalin in 1941 and blunder across the Soviet border. The poor Hungarians soon discovered that their pitchforks were smaller than their Russian counterparts and were quickly routed by the Reds. When the war was over, history tells us that like the Romans before them, the Red Army also enjoyed soaking in the luxurious Budapest thermal baths. Thus, rather than giving Hungary back to the Hungarians, the facilities were so nice they decided to extend their stay. Time passed and with the fall of the iron curtain, the Reds finally packed up their rucksacks, now embroidered with fancy multicoloured beads, and went home. Thankfully, along with poverty and destitution left behind by the Russians they also forgot to pack their large collection of beautiful statues of their glorious leaders. These included towering representations of Lenin, Stalin and other prominent Soviets. (I assume the Trotsky statue had a big hammer and sickle sticking out of the back of its’ head) The statues were removed from cities all across Hungary, collected together, reassembled and planted in a big park, named inventively Statue Park. I guess it was their version of Easter Island. Now that would have been an interesting place to visit and I would definitely take the attraction in if it wasn’t for those shiftless Huns.

Back to my tour…My day started by scraping my sullied self off the festering mattress. However, it was not my polluted disposition that disgusted me. Rather, it was the realization that I just slept in a mattress that oozed a wretched odour discharged from the unwashed multitude who had occupied it before me. Leaving the dormitory, I looked over to my hammered bunkmates and realized something even more frightful. I got the clean one. Heading to the trough, I crammed a chunk of bread into my mouth, followed that by jumping in the shower and rinsed off my evening crud. By 9 am, I was once again sitting on the train, getting hassled by the commie throw-backs and heading back towards civilization.

My journey from Budapest to Wein was…how can I put it??? Enlightening. For the past two weeks, I have discovered that train rides are the best place to meet people. Part of my time was spent reading the descriptions of the various attractions found at my next destination from my bible. The rest was spent discussing the prospect of visiting them with whatever traveller is unfortunate enough to sit down next to me. The train ride was not much different from my other trips. I find that unless you are passing through a mountain range, rural Europe looks pretty much the same. However, the scenery that is in constant flux is what is seen on the inside of the train. This particular journey did not disappoint.

Rolling down the rails, I was putting pen to paper and occasionally glancing at the landscape rushing past. We were in the middle of nowhere when the train suddenly stopped at an obscure outpost. I would not have really noticed the stop, except for the fact that a squad of hot, young honeys climbed aboard. At first glance, the crew just seemed to be eight lovely diva's travelling together with the objective of sowing their wild oats on a whirlwind European tour. (This may just be my optimistic imagination) I would soon realize that the band of hotties were actually the Big Guy’s renegade, scriptural storm troopers.

To explain, there I was, sitting quietly, and staring into the abyss when the train stopped and the ladies climbed aboard. Like bees to honey, they assumed the seats that surrounded me. I moved my knapsack to make room for one particular female. While I was hoping to rev up the charm on this spectacular specimen, I would quickly learn that the vivacious doll was sizing me up to become the target and victim of her relentless, born-again-Christian, reform-a-non-believer mission. Her equally attractive friend sat directly in front of me and would serve as flanking reinforcement. It all happened so suddenly. Forget bees…it was as if a swarm of locusts descended upon me from the heavens. When their beady little eyes latched onto me, they saw a feast. Initially, I did not realize the gravity of my situation. Soon after the pod of brainwashed babes clustered around me, a conversation naturally ensued. It gently meandered from what I do, to what I’ve seen, to what parts of my European adventure I most enjoyed. I mentioned my book. After prodding the one on my right on her reasoning for slumming it out in the Hungarian milieu, the biblical beauty advised that she was teaching the local barbarians how to speak the English language. Therefore, the early stage of our conversation was rather interesting and I quite enjoyed the opportunity to speak with them. I liked to talk about the objectives of my tour while imaging the dirty girls begging me to join them in their monastic den for a night of anonymous carnal glory.

As our conversation ebbed and flowed, I began to realize that these ladies were not just looking for a debonair, charming, young man for companionship, rather had more altruistic objectives. While nattering away, I noticed the spectacle occurring in the seats on the opposite side of the aisle. A tiny, young Oriental sprite was their first target. By this point in the train ride, the congregation had split up and two of Gods' foot soldiers were setting to feast on my timid, Asian seatmate. She should have saved her dignity and privacy by using the time honoured ‘me no speek no anglays’ strategy. However, unfortunately, she chose to use the chat as an opportunity to improve her conversational English. Bad decision. Blindly, she marched right into their ambush. After thirty minutes of divine coercion, it appeared the young miss relented. I recall overhearing her offer to give up all her worldly possessions, get her individuality surgically removed and join the cult.

After witnessing the spectacle, I was determined to ensure that my encounter with these beasts would not carry the same fate. I thank my celebrated and well-honed methodology of conversational obfuscation and confrontation avoidance for the freedom I enjoy today. After watching the little lamb get led to the slaughter, I patiently waited for the approaching onslaught. I could see them coming, dashing forward with their "Jesus is Lord" slogans ready to be hurtled my way. I knew they were well equipped. Jesus freaks always come with handy bible quotes at the ready. They are professionals, eager to exhaust the seemingly endless stores of Godly passages upon non-believers until victory is proclaimed. Thus, alert and prone to the coming attack, I stood on the proverbial parapet that faced the biblical battlefield and waited. My stockpile of rational principles and arguments for inherent morality were in position and ready for use against the invading force. After a few tense moments, I overcame my sense of trepidation and met the assault full on. Hurling myself over the top and miraculously, wading uninjured through rally upon rally of dogmatic prophesy followed up by surges of ultra pro-Christian eulogies. They shot over my left side. I ducked under the furious barrage. Unfazed, they tried my right side. My only option to protect my being was to crawl through the mud of reluctant appeasement. I found that if I mirrored their Christian anecdotes with my own innate morality, I could force them into agreement and personal reflection. The secret was to get them to think for themselves and once that was achieved, I would know that I won the battle. Unfortunately, as with all wars, the fog of battle was so thick that I really did not know who was winning. I just kept talking and talking, while hoping that I would avoid the mines and the proverbial barbed wire commonly found in the field of religious battle. Suddenly, like a white dove gliding effortlessly through the hurricane, a refuge appeared in the distance. Outside the window, a faded sign shouted …Wein. Thank God!

Once the train stopped, like Moses, I parted the aisle and scurried out to the promised land. Behind me, I heard a chorus of pledges from the lot, with offers to pray for my damned soul. I rushed out, hid behind a small shrub, lit it on fire and when the tribe of crusading bible-belt Yanks rushed over, I stuck out my arm from behind the burning bush, pointed to the left and in my most authoritative voice commanded "Go over there and get him. He went that a-way!!" Whew!! I may have survived the battle; however I am certain that the war is not over.

Now that I am condemned to fiery eternal damnation in hell it was no wonder that all of the hostels in Wein were full. Satan had a hold of me. While we were destined to sleep in the gutter together, I did not give in. I needed to find a way out of this predicament. Wandering the streets looking for salvation, I tossed a couple of useless Czech koruna's to some gutter-bound derelict, helped an old lady cross the street by removing the weird, four-legged contraption out of her way and did a rosary…or was her name Rosemary? Either way. My acts of contrition were apparently noticed and I was rewarded with a room in a nice hotel-style B&B. The owners charged me an arm and a leg for the bed but it was pretty nice and I really didn’t feel like bunking with the sewer rats. After a quick roam of Vienna, I retired for the evening. The battle with the bible battalion had tired me out.

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