The "Eastern Europe" Trip

When I was initially gearing up to come on this exchange the thing that excited me the most was the potential to travel.  It was even a factor in why I chose to come to Slovenia rather than one of the other 30 plus countries I could have gone to.  From here, every direction I go I’m bound to end up somewhere steeped in history, awash in natural beauty, or rich in culture, and usually it’s a combination of these things.  On top of that, while I’m on exchange my grades don’t matter (I just have to pass) and most of the friends I have made are also from other countries and so are in the same mindset to travel whenever possible.  Thanks to all these reasons, I am in the enviable position of being able to just look at a map, pick a place to go and then actually go there.  And that’s exactly what Marcel and Florentia and I did.  In about 10 minutes and using nothing but a map we planned out where we wanted to go for what would be our last trip together, at least for the foreseeable future.

The fairytale-like steps up to Graz's Schloss Eggenburg

Not long after, we kicked things off by hopping a train to Graz, Austria.  Just across the border and about two hours away by train, Graz is by European standards a small city, which means it’s fairly big by Canadian standards.  At first I was worried that the two days we had allotted to spend there would be too much time and that we’d be bored.  Turns out though that Graz is a pretty cool place and there were plenty of things to do to keep us occupied.  We checked out the Glockenspielplatz, Schloss Eggenburg, and ate schnitzel, among other German sounding activities, and tried a traditional Austrian dessert called Germknödel which is somewhere between a doughnut and a dinner bun.  We also took in a tour of the Styrian Armoury which houses the largest collection of medieval weapons and armour in the world.  All the different rulers of the region from medieval lords to Napoleon have taken from and added to the cache of steel and guns making the visit a fascinating history lesson in itself.  As if that wasn’t cool enough, everything is original from the 16^th century, including the graffiti on the bathroom door which our guide deemed too crass to be repeated in public.   Most of our time in Graz, however, was spent just walking around and enjoying the snowfall which gave the city an idyllic wintery look.

Now, Europe in February definitely has its pros and cons.  On the one hand, there aren't huge crowds everywhere, you have virtually everything to yourself and for usually about half the price as in the summer, and if every city looked like Graz does in the winter it would be worth putting up with a bit of snow and cool temperatures.  But unfortunately they don’t and we learned first hand why this is the “off-season” while in Bratislava.

Bratislava's main square.
They have odd statues like this all over the city

I was frequently reminded of the movie Eurotrip while we were in the Slovakian capital.  There’s a scene where they accidently end up in Bratislava instead of their intended Berlin.  While they walk around the deserted streets which are made to resemble something like Chernobyl, a man rides up on a bike and says, “Good thing you came in summer, in winter…it can get a little bleak.”  We were definitely there in the winter, and while the city was nowhere near as rundown as the movie shows it was a little depressing.  It was bitterly cold and very windy so walking around and generally exploring wasn’t much fun.  Come 4:30pm when it was dark out there was no one on the streets and even most of the restaurants were closed.  Also, the idea of spreading sand or salt to de-ice sidewalks apparently hasn’t made it to Slovakia yet because the whole city was a skating rink.  We might as well have had defenders hurling objects at us as we walked up the steep slope to the castle because the ice made it just as dangerous.  So while I’m sure Bratislava is a very nice city when weather permits, it was all too clear to us why no one else was there in February.

Budapest, meanwhile, was a different story.  Of course, I was in Budapest in November with Julian (see post “Hitch hiking to Budapest”), but we were really only there for one day which, as you can imagine with an ancient city with 3 million people, is  not long enough.  The off-season blues that we experienced in Bratislava seemed a distant memory as soon as we arrived in Hungary.   It was warm, the sun was shining, and it was anything but deserted.  As to be expected with a city of this calibre, there’s never a dull moment in Budapest.  We spent two nights and three full days in the city trying to take in as much as possible, all the while staying at what I’m convinced is the best hostel in world (Maverick City Lodge if you ever go there).  Budapest also has some of the coolest bars around so there's never any shortage of things to do.  In total we must have walked back and forth across the city a half-dozen times and yet it never got boring.  I think I mentioned in my previous post on Budapest that every building is a sight in itself and no two are the same.  For our entire time there I walked around staring up at the buildings as if it was my first time in any city, let alone my second stint in Budapest.  It really is an incredible city and it seems the more time I spend there, the more I want to stay.  Eventually though, it was time to move on.

The Royal Palace with the famous Chain Bridge in Budapest

 

We had spent about a half a day trying to figure out how to get to Belgrade, which would be our last city and where Florentia was going to fly out of on her way back home to Athens.  We had initially planned to take a night train but they wouldn’t sell us tickets for the time we wanted and, frustratingly, wouldn’t explain why.  Nonetheless, after some sleuthing we were eventually able to get an overnight bus.  That’s when I had one of those moments that you get every once in a while when you find yourself in a peculiar place.  One of those moments where you stop and take things in.  Its 11:00pm, I’m on the outskirts of Budapest waiting for an overnight bus to Belgrade with two friends from Germany and Greece.  This is exactly where I want to be. 

View from the top of St. Stephan's Basilica with the Hungarian parliament buildings in the background. 

Our full-to-capacity overnight bus turned out to not be as bad as we were anticipating, although it still wasn’t as comfortable as the train would have been, and we arrived in Belgrade, Serbia bleary eyed at about 4:30am.  We then took a cab straight to our hostel where we had probably the weirdest experience of the entire trip.  We had already agreed to pay the driver 10 euros which we figured was probably way more than it should be as Serbia has a different, far less valuable currency, but at this point we were tired and didn’t really care.  Anyway, as we got out at our destination and collected our bags, Marcel paid the cab driver who took the 10 euros and literally started laughing and rubbing the money all over his face.  Welcome to Serbia…

Later that day, after some much needed sleep, we went to check things out.  Our initial impressions of the city were not all that great.  Despite sleeping for most of the morning I don’t think we were 100% there and into it.  We didn’t really know our way around and I actually led us in the complete wrong direction for at least an hour while trying to find the train station, which is very uncharacteristic of me by the way.  All I saw of the city that day were the cold, rundown, communist housing blocks and gypsy kids running around begging.  However, the next day was a different story.  We had great weather, took a free walking tour, and got to see the city in a completely different light which made all the difference.  Turns out, Belgrade is quite a nice place and despite all of the warnings we got, Serbian’s are generally nice people.

Belgrade looking anything but bleak.

Finally, the trip came to the day we were dreading; when we would have to say goodbye.  Although Marcel and I still had a 10 hour train ride back to Ljubljana, Florentia was flying home and it was the symbolic end to our trip and to our time together.   We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last few months so parting ways was definitely tough, especially because I don’t know when, or if, I’ll see either of them again.  Worst case scenario though I’ll just have to go to Germany and Greece.  Not so bad.