I have returned from my first Euro-backpack adventure! In sum, I think I waited a decade too long to fully appreciate the hostel Europe-on-the-cheap ambience of the whole affair, but I am still alive and did not get pick-pocketed, so I’m a happy camper. For the sake of order and timeliness I will divide the experience into 3 parts: Travel, Hostel, People and Sites. Here are the highlights:
Travel—Trip begins with skipping payment on the Dublin Aircoach. Sense of elation from cheating leads to Travel Karma Repay which comes in the form of being locked out of our Klub Habitat hostel the first night and forced to wander the streets of Praha, thus spotting two prostitutes (one female, one undecided). Later TKP events include losing our third companion after a night out “clubbing” with some new German companions, and most unfortunately missing our train back from Budapest and having to sleep in the train station. But I believe that may fall under People and Sites as well.
However, other travel related incidents include the Nighttrain trip from Praha to Budapest, and sleeping in a train car with no curtains and being wakened every 45-minutes to a man in a pre-1945 inspired uniform yelling “Passporto!” Around the third time I was harassed and awakened by Fascist Joe, I discovered that had I been alive during WWII and forced to escape an occupied country, I would have never made it. Until now I always imagined myself like Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca,” brave, and inexplicably put-together though on-the-run. This illusion was shattered upon discovering that big men in uniform who look like extras from “Cabaret “yelling at me in a foreign language scare the hell out of me. And, by the looks of the Slovakian/Nazi Stand-In Passporto Controller, I’m certain that if he were able to understand my sarcastic comments I would have been shot immediately. Never mind that they don’t carry guns.
And, I am convinced that the vinyl on the seats is some leftover from a Gestapo torture chamber, as it conveniently seals to any skin exposed in under 1 minute and any movement causes an excruciating peeling-off process. Or, perhaps it is another ploy by Euro-rail to never allow you to be comfortable if you pay under $80 for the trip.
The final highlight filed under “travel” was having to sleep in the Budapest train station because we missed the invisible platform our Prague-bound train was on at 7:50. Next bus, 6:50 AM. Time to kill without a home: 11 hours. Taking a break while Daryl went to look for the unmarked Luggage-lock Matt and I stumbled upon a drinking fountain/town pump. So excited to have ample flat water--still water in Budapest is actually flattened mineral water which tastes like water laced with gasoline--I naively filled my water bottle and marveled at the quaintness of a shared water-well. That was until Hobo Joe appeared at the fountain and put his mouth directly on the faucet and happily drank away. I quickly disposed of my water and swore to never trust quaintness in public areas again.
Possible Acquired-Disease Tally: TB, SARS, fleas, crazy butt disease, Trench Mouth, Athlete’s foot, and Unidentified Rash.
As the night wore on, we each begin to pick up tics related to having no space of our own. The fact that people are shocked when homeless men/women are rude or mean is ridiculous. Matt got drunk and lost, wandering the streets, causing Daryl and myself to hunker in a doorway drunkenly arguing what to do next. After 4 hours homeless, I began to horde my snacks, make nonsensical comments and stake out bathrooms free of charge, stretched a stay at a kebab shop to 1-hour. After 8 hours, I mastered avoiding eye contact with authority figures, staked out “good” benches to sit on whilst cursing those faster than myself, didn’t blink when a cockroach scurried over my sandal-bared foot, laughed maniacally when a man decided to expose himself and pee on the steps to the station, slept on the floor outside the luggage lock and was filled with glee when the doors opened at 4 am, thus collapsing in a heap on a row of plastic chairs.
Host(i)l(e)—Have convinced myself that were it not for hippies and insomniacs, these “accommodations” would not exist. I am not a communal person. I do not like sharing anything, and that includes showers and bedrooms. Our first stop was Klub Habitat, described by TimeOut as: “a step up from most hostels.” If “step-up” includes sleeping in a renovated office space with neon lights, being given ratty wool blankets of varying sizes and textures, and having no toilet paper, then I must be a real stickler for basic living essentials. It was especially exciting to discover that the woman’s shower was a shared one like in high school, with absolutely no barrier. However, that falls under SBSE and will be discussed later. Getting locked out of said “step-up” accommodations did not help, and as the hostel refused to answer their phone after being advertised as 24-hour reception, I pitched a fit in the middle of Na Zderaze Street and was ready to call both the police and the US Embassy, convinced the owner was running around in my clothes and perfume having taken us for fools. Instead, we tried the key again and got in.
Moving on. . . The Budapest hostel Marco Polo was slightly better as we had our own bunk beds sectioned off with a shower curtain which, unfortunately, allowed for Loud and Obnoxious Canadian Guys to think that noone could hear them talking about their parachuting over Budapest adventure. And, I am convinced that the most obnoxious one with stripey-bleached hair had SARS and gave it to the entire hostel. We also were blessed with Annoying Australian guy who must think that the world cares what he thinks, as we were awakened every 7:45AM to his lovely accent. The highlight occurred at approximately 3am on our last night, when he decided to have a heart-to-heart with his lady companion, in which he performed an entire monologue of the lovelorn for about an hour in the loudest whisper known to man, “I just feel that we are very different people. And there are things about you that I think are wonderful. . .” insert various platitudes and imagine the Crocodile Hunter saying it and you get the general idea.
Scary Bathroom/Showering Experiences: As some of you may or may not know, I have recurring nightmares about shared-bathroom experiences in which I am often in a public restroom barefoot and there are no doors on the stalls. Not to mention other people are using the toilets anyway. Underscore: recurring. So, the Klub Habitat shared-shower was a pleasant surprise. I have no problem with being naked in appropriate situations, but a public restroom is not one of them. Eventually, I faced the hard facts that I either spent the entire trip sweaty or overcome my fear. (Conveniently, the cleaning woman—otherwise known as Smoky Cleaning Lady—decided to come in at just that moment, so I can now say that a Czech has seen me naked). Once overcoming this fear, I thought I was ready for anything. That is, until the evening I emerged from the bathroom stall to find a drunk and giggling girl standing in only a g-string and top, waiting to use the stall with her male “companion.”
The Facing Subconsicous Bathroom Demons sub-theme continued in the changing rooms at the thermal baths in Budapest. Standing in line with my fellow bathers--average age 65 with varicose veins and sagging bosoms--I knew I was in for a treat. I crossed my fingers that they were planning on bathing fully-clothed. As I parted the curtain to the “changing” area I was greeted by a woman bending over into her locker, so better to display her bosom dangling just over her torso girth and below her knees. Multiply her by 25 and I had safely entered by nightmare. Needless to say, I was quite happy to see these same women decked out in bikinis at the pool. I would like to add that my problem is not fat/overweight people, but naked strangers combined with damp, communal environments.
People: The first fun person we encountered was Smoky Cleaning Lady who apparently smoked so much her body exuded the smell of fifteen burning cigarettes in an ashtray. It was, however, handy to know where she was without even having to leave our room.
Old American Man in Kangol Hat was my favorite travel find. We signed up for a tour of Prague, and found our group to consist of the usual mixed-bag of quiet and polite varied Euros, one traveling-alone American girl and American Senior Citizen Couple. OAMIKH was white-haired, looked like Hemingway and was still bristling from WWII, and ended every sentence/statement with an ! exclamation point (i.e. my favorite kind of American tourist). After standing for approximately 30 seconds at the established tour meeting point he let loose: “So, where do I pay?! At the center they said to meet right here, and here we are, but where are the tickets! I’m just trying to follow the rules, here!” His wife, in appropriately appliquéd t-shirt and waist-pack responded with a wispy, “joe, just calm down we’re not in any hurry here. .. “ and offered a shaky smile to the rest of us. OAIKH was full of important questions and comments about the architecture, and fun comments like “Yep, we’re the ones that brought you McDonalds!” to which the tour guide offered a raised eyebrow and sighed, “Yes. I signed petition 5 years ago to stop it from being built. It did not work.” The real gem was offered to the ticket-money-taker girl who didn’t have exact change, to whom he scolded “The Communists gave you some bad habits!” Sadly, we didn’t stay for the traditional Czech lunch at over-priced restaurant, which I think ticked off OAIKH who realized that he had been had.
Our next acquaintances were Stupid American Girls, and I blame this meeting entirely on Matt and Daryl who think it is fun to “meet people” in hostels. I take the more prison-like approach to avoiding all eye contact with fellow-hostelers, and counting days to escape, gathering no acquaintance moss. Needless to say, SAG met all my expectations as they were “from the Valley” and one continuously giggled and spoke like Jennifer Tilly. When I told them we were going to Budapest, J. Tilly opened her eyes wide and said, “Ohhhh!!!! We just got back. It’s so weeiiiiird. We were like, I don’t know, harassed by gypsies, and it’s really hard to get around and then, like, we were there on Easter Sunday and everything was closed and all these homeless people were yelling at us and no one speaks any language like any language I have ever spoken. .. “
Me: “What languages do you speak?”
JT: “English.”
However, SAG were countered by Fun German Guys, Mario and Maloko who took us to a really nice dance club right on the Praha River (go to the map if you want to know the real name), and peppered their conversations with fun words like “Scheisse!” Causing me to expand my hostel-acquaintance policy to People I Already Know, and Germans.
A recurring theme throughout this trip was How Shannon Felt in High School: Trapped, surrounded by idiots and annoyed.
We never actually met Obnoxious Canadian Guys, but since they only consisted of Spring Break dialogue like “Fuckin’ yeah!” and ass-jokes, it wasn’t really necessary. Lucky for us, they were staying in our hostel-room and brought an acoustic guitar. King Obnoxious spent a good 20-minutes requesting ‘80s songs like “Bizarre Love Triangle” and, the classic, “Lola.” Unfortunately, their parachuting adventure was successful so we got to hear “How tight were your fuckin’ goggles man? We were comin’ down so fast, I was like shit!” And, his various imitations of German accents and jive-talk. And, King Obnoxious was a hacking cough phlegm ball, who I am certain brought SARS with him from Canada.
Canadian-Hungarian tourist man who looked like Harry Dean Stanton. Or, he found us. One too many times for my taste, but what can you do? We first met him on the lawn of the castle in Budapest where he appeared vampire-like out of nowhere and asked us how to get to the castle labyrinth. Alluding to his wife who “Needed to pick up the pace,” he disappeared. Only to jarringly reappear 7 hours later at the train station information booth, where he chatted to me about how much Hungary had changed since he left 47-years ago. It was all going fairly normal until he mentioned “The goddam graffiti and thugs who ruin the place” and that “The old way of dealing with these kids—you know—you get caught stealing or putting graffiti up, you go to the work camps in Siberia. That makes you think, ‘Hey, that’s not for me,” but now we’ve got prisoners living better than we do, killers even. . . “ and so the conversation fizzled. Proof again that if there is a lonely-crazy in the world, he/she will find me to talk to.
Though we never got his name, Nazi Bathroom Attendant at the Budapest Train Station made the trip. Being that you have to pay 60 cents to use the toilet, NBA was both collector and king of his domain. Unfortunately, he took his obviously fulfilling job very seriously as when we attempted to go in with our backpacks we were screamed at in Hungarian, which, to the untrained ear sounds like “Hzleme mlkele! Veschivik kurvosi! Zeke shem marvosi ndayi!” Using our best deductive idiot tourist skills, we figured that we were not supposed to bring our bags in with us. Even using our fail-safe International Miming Gestures for “I am removing my backpack to get clothes out” was not enough. NBA stood his ground, and, in the end, guarded our backpacks from his desk.
Our final acquaintance, was Scared Moby Guy who shared an adjoining room with Daryl and Matt and traveled with an ominous looking plastic suitcase and a plastic bag filled with various foreign-labelled cookies. I think he was some sort of international killer/plotter. Of course, this is based only on his scared-rabbit movements and answering the door by opening it and staring directly through me, whilst wearing striped pajamas. He was only capable of scurrying movements and silence, which, in my mind equals International Terrorist. Or, at least crazy.
Sites—My motto is thus: When traveling you are a tourist. Thus, see the sites. Unfortunately, Daryl’s motto is: Pretend to be a local, find the real places to go and drink in local bars. So, our siteseeing consisted of site-drink-site tactics. Prague is filled with post-modern/communist buildings and architecture, atheist cathedrals, art nouveau hotels, coffee shops and weird legends. The creepiest is the Praha TV Tower which is like the Seattle Space Needle, except that it has sculptures of babies with no eyes crawling up it—to denote a culture with no future. Again, stuff of my nightmares. But, it is countered by cheap drinks, beautiful art nouveau architecture and friendly people, so I let the modern art slide. Saw Prague Castle and harassed the guards. Did blitz tours of mini-cathedrals and took the Furnicular Railway. We walked up to a monument and down again. We sat in a park. We saw the Astronomical Clock change (note: the builder of said clock was blinded by the town’s “burghers” so he couldn’t make a replica, so he threw his himself into the innerworkings of the clock to stop it, and thus, killed himself)
Budapest is another story. Not quite so Euro-hip, which, to me is great. The highlight was sitting on a hill outside the castle, the city lit up at night and the thermal baths. And, we took a trip down the Danube in which the audio-tour consisted of using a man and woman’s voice to illustrate the division between Buda and Pest, “Well, Darling, Pest, remember when the Turks came through and . . .” “Why, of course Buda, but how does that compare with the handsome façade on your royal palace?” So, that was silly. And, I am still miffed that one of our “free” drinks was merely champagne mixed with canned fruit juice. They also forced us to drink water from the Danube pretending that it was “youth” water. I’m sure we missed some major highlights, but the baths more than made up for it. Sure, there were fat men in Speedos, but the place looked like Gatsby’s backyard, and it is the closes I will ever get to feeling like I have a palace. Never mind the other 200 people bathing there.
In sum, trip was good, backpacking is not for the faint of heart, and hostels bite the big one.
I want my gossip! - 2005-08-17
Goodbye, BGT! - 2005-08-08
hell hath no fury like a awriting workshop - 2005-08-01
My Love Don't Cost a Thing - 2005-07-14
Kiss My Grits! - 2005-07-06
