Budapest, Hungary
Overnight by train from Bucharest, Romania, I have arrived in Budapest for a few days before making my way on to Slovenia.
Having written scantily in the last few days, heaps of stuff (that’s Aussie English) has been building as possible things to log about… you’ll just get to see where I go with it, but I absolutely won’t cover everything.
It’s raining here, as it has been for the entire morning part of the trainride, and with free-internet offerred by the hostel, I’ll have a go at it until I’m bored.
To write briefly about Romania, I didn’t find it particularly enthralling. Parks, some beautiful and antique buildings, etc.- the general sites of a city. Many of the buildings were huge, massive monolithic beasts. Whereas in Sophia I had the impression no building was over three stories (though a few were), in Bucharest I had the impression that no building was under 8 stories (though some were), and they were built for either really girthy, broad people or tiny people who ride ponies horses inside. The people did not give me a great feel either; Bulgarians I found much friendlier.
When I woke up this morning and began watching the landscape, I had a reminiscent feeling of New England (Maine, in particular). Not that the architectures were similar, but something in the mixing of farmlands, narrow pairs of periodic train tracks, rivers, and the sporadic village…. But that could be anywhere I’ve been… It hit me after a few minutes: yards. In the villages, each house was sized only for a family (perhaps with some leeway for a number of kids or an older grandparent), and each house had a yard. This is my first real re-exposure since I left the US: the nuclear house, if you will, with its intent on a single nuclear family. I have returned to the West, though still in the East. I guess we can call it white-people culture (neither European nor Western really fits, if you want to consider Eastern Europe as not-exactly-west)….
Posted: April 25th, 2004 under The World in Six Months '03-'04.