Caving In Hungary

Oh wow, suddenly we're in Eastern Europe.

We arrived in Budapest to be  accosted by people trying to sell us hostels, taxis, prostitutes, newspapers. Unfortunately Burble had only written down the name of our hostel, not the address so we got off the metro totally lost. However immediately people wanted to help us and I found that the Hungarians would go out of their way to show us the way to our hostel. At first I thought a woman was trying to sell us something but after a moment we found she just really wanted to help. Our hostel was in an ancient building on the top floor with no elevator. The stairs were made of some kind of stone with patterns that looked like premature foetuses. We shared the room with a Swedish police officer who was a compulsive talker and an old Spanish alcoholic with whom I managed to have an actual conversation in Spanish. (Actually it was an argument about immigration, I was angry so I had the confidence to make up a lot of Spanish words that turned out to be real words.)

Budapest is an amazing city. It's filled with old buildings that are partly falling down. It's so weird to see this beautiful architecture falling into disrepair. The buildings are dirty and worn down but through the grime you can see the frescoes that were painted on them and the beautiful statues that lines the walls. It's like looking into a age that passed and that no one cares about anymore. One I particularly liked one had windows held up by statues of babies. It had paintings of people having orgies and one of hippy Jesus with a guitar.
Budapest was once two cities (Buda and Pest, I told Burble he had to stay on the Pest side), which were divided by the Danube river. Now the cities have grown together and on the tallest hill you can see both. There are several bridges crossing the river. They're all different colors but my favorite was the White Bridge.

The people here were deeply religious before the Communists took over and made everyone abandon their faith. In one of the caves they built the Cave Church. The monks who made it were tortured to death rather than denounce their God. I hope that worked out for them and that they were richly rewarded in heaven because it would be such a disappointment to die for your beliefs and find out there is no heaven and that no one cared. Burble reminded me that even if I don't believe what the monks believed they were still brave to die believing what they did, free and unbroken. I feel sad for them. Communism seems like such a good idea in theory but here behind the iron curtain we can see the horrible damage people did in its name. It seems to me that those who should have power never do and those who have the power never stop abusing it.
After the Communist rule ended a lot of the Hungarians returned to their faith. In Budapest I encountered my first ever Jesus flea market, every booth dedicated to promoting God. Very strange.

The city is situated over caves made from hot springs. The springs well up into baths that the Turks made hundreds of years ago. They are amazing. The one I went to had hot tubs and steam rooms and saunas and dozens of pools of different temperature water. The water is supposed to be good for you. I spent hours there going in the steam room until it was too hot to stand and then diving into the pool. The old people there liked me a lot because I was enjoying myself so much. One woman said I made her feel young again and then I showed her how to sit on the bottom by blowing out all your air and we did that for a while. The baths are in huge bathhouses made of marble and filled with light. It's like being in a palace with only swimming pools.

We were told that if we were going to the baths we had to also go to the caves that formed the baths. So we booked a tour of the 20km cave system under the city. It was incredible. Normally cave tours are a 15 minute walk on a concrete path set down in the cave. Not this one. Our guide took us on an epic spelunking mission into the cave where some of the passages were so small that you had to lie on your stomach with the rock scraping your back and sides. At first I was so terrified thinking of the meters of solid rock over me and knowing the only way out was to squeeze through a passage that barely fit my shoulders. But it required so much effort that we forgot to be claustrophobic and just focused on not getting stuck. Sometimes we had to slide down huge faces of rock into underground caverns with natural limestone faces etched in the rock. Our guide showed us one that looked exactly like the blind cave monster from the movie The Decent (in which everyone gets eaten by the blind cave monsters), then he turned out the lights and plunged us into darkness. I was certain we would all be devoured but after 3 hours we made it back to the surface alive and muddy and uneaten. It was the most fun I've had on this trip, and I felt so proud of myself for not panicking in the tightest spaces. I was so calm that one of the guys thought I was a professional caver, even though I was so paranoid I would get stuck. 

I loved the city, it felt like people lived there instead of only being filled tourists. People there were so nice, even as we were about to get on the train an old man came running up to me and helped me with my backpack, though rightfully he was so old I should have been helping him instead.

We took the overnight train from Budapest (Hungary) to Bucharest (Romania). I splurged on a ticket in a sleeper car because the train took 15 hours and I didn't want to have to try to sleep in a seat. I woke in the early morning to get my first look at Romania. I realized how far I've come from home as I watched the windswept plains of this country occasionally dotted by a falling down building or a pack of feral dogs picking through piles of trash in the fields. When the conductor came to see my passport at the border he looked incredulous when I told him I was headed to Bucharest. I foolishly asked him if it was nice and he laughed like I had made a joke. But then he said that no matter where I went people would still live and die and laugh and love.
I'm having a hard time in Eastern Europe. I miss home where I understand the customs and I don't unintentionally piss off people by not understanding the culture of the country I'm in. As we move further east I am concerned I insult these people by coming to see their city as a tourist. Bucharest is so poor, the buildings are falling down and everything is dark. The apartment complexes look like ruins and there are wires falling out of everything and the power went off as soon as we got to the apartment of our host. I feel so wrong coming here with my nice backpack and wandering around their city like I'm trying to look at the poverty here to make myself feel better. I'm tired and not ready to be faced with the lack of comfort here. I'm frustrated that my job in the states doesn't pay me well enough but here they can't even drink the water. Nevertheless we were met at the train station by our CouchSurfing host Mada, who is amazing. This CouchSurfing project never ceases to amaze and impress me. No matter how far from home we are we have found wonderful interesting generous people who have opened their doors to us. I could never travel any differently than this, seeing the cities through the eyes of the people who actually live here.


Here my journey with The Burble will end. He will backpack around Romania and I will take the long train to Istanbul. I am nervous about traveling alone in a Muslim country but I am confident that this part of my adventure will improve my ability to watch what I say to strangers so as not to piss off anyone. Also I have been warned not to let anyone kidnap me and make me their wife. I have already received an offer of marriage from a nice young Turkish man named Omar. I respectfully declined (even though he offered me a horse) and he was not offended, apparently this happens all the time. After the last two months of traveling I feel that it's finally time to strike out on my own. From Istanbul I will head to Greece where I will climb Mt. Olympus and ask the Gods there why there are so many Republicans. With that knowledge I plan to head back to the comfort of western Europe to start work in France and then to Portugal for the BOOM festival in August. That's like Burning Man but in Portuguese and there's a lake instead of a desert.