Eurojournal - 25 June 2006

The flight to Budapest yesterday was smooth but exhausting. Byron loved the tea on British Airways. It tasted like Darjeeling or English breakfast. London airport was kid friendly and had loungers to sleep.

Arrived in Budapest seeing unfamiliar words followed by English translations.Actually not too unfamiliar as James and I had been studying the language a bit at home. We were greeted by Lazslo, a very friendly face who took us to the apartment. He and his wife, Sandra owned the apartment. They were warm, friendly and spoke English. This will be fine. He took us to the apt, where we met Sandra and their daughter, Skye.

Later we went for a walk to the bridge at the Danube. Beautiful! Everyone was out watching the World Cup in bars, restaurants and the square.

On train to Kolozsvar now. Originally we were planning on taking a bus from Budapest but it was too full. So with bags and luggage in tow we hobbled to the bus station to find a taxi. The metro was right there and we could get to the train station from there. This was difficult as we had no idea where to go and where to get off. It sounded like we needed to transfer from metro to bus to station. We could never do that in an hour as it had taken almost that long to get the tickets. I decided we were going for the taxi upstairs. James negotiated with the drivers and to the station we went.

We waited for two hours, relaxing after we had our tickets for the 2pm train in hand. This was a direct train too, even better! I stayed with the luggage and Byron. We played cards and
scrabble.

I observed a family, perhaps from Turkey. Many children and a handful of adults-VERY poor. We looked so rich next to them with our nice matching luggage. Mother was caring for about 6 children varying in ages. She was pregnant and looked exhausted. She was stressed when baby cried, often slapping the baby. Painful to see. There were 3 men there, assuming one was the father and another a grandfather. They offered little help for the mother. Later Liam started playing with the baby. James offered to share some cotton candy he got for Luna, Liam and Byron. The children seemed delighted and hungry. Mother smiled at me. It was neat to watch Luna and Liam interact with the children. James too. To show gratitude, the younger man offered James a sip of his vodka. James initially declined but took some later.

Our train arrived and we managed to get on with all of our luggage. The ride so far has been smooth and relaxing. We just had our passports stamped after crossing the border into Romania. In Hungary, the view is green, flat and agricultural with some small towns interspersed. In the distance are red roofed houses with a prominent steeple in town. The rounded ones are Eastern Orthodox, others are protestant. In Transylvania the squarer ones are Unitarian. The church steeples were contrasted by concrete block buildings – reminders of the iron curtain era. The train is old. The smaller train stations and areas surrounding have a feeling of a Solzhenitsyn novel. Romania has more hills. Just passed a runned down concrete complex with grassy area between train tracks with 2 sunbathers.