The view is of Buda Palace.
There have been worse views.
Tessa now sits in a chair that looks like a nest and Skypes her family.
Her family wonders what I'll do when Tessa releases me into the wild.
I try to communicate that I've been traveling alone for two years now and am quite content to wander the world solo, but I suppose all my blogging about inner turmoil (and terrible sense of direction) makes me appear unsuitable for the wilderness.
Perhaps I'll be eaten by a bear one of these days. Because I wandered off into the woods when I was looking for a toilet.
Tessa would mourn for me, but she wouldn't be surprised.
I sit on the wood floor next to the L-shaped sofa and contentedly sip my Baileys.
When you win at couchsurfing, you REALLY win.
Tessa and I left Novi Sad at 10:00 yesterday morning. Our host had warned us that it might be relatively difficult to hitch from the border to Szeged, but we were willing to take a chance.
"Always try."
We took bus #5 out of Novi Sad and illegally, cheekily hopped right across the highway (easier said than done) and stuck out our thumbs on the right side of the road.
And stood. And waited. And sweated.
Bullets.
This is worse than hot vinyasa yoga.
Drip, drop, drip.
Sweat fell in fat, salty droplets onto the pavement.
Drop, drip, drop.
Sweat fell in fat, salty driplets down my shirt.
God, it's sweltering. Planet Earth should not be allowed to be this hot.
Cars zoomed past at 500 km an hour. At least.
Maybe they're trying to escape the heat. AGH! I circled around the abandoned highway, hoping that a little bit of movement would at least keep the heat moving around. I'm going to get skin cancer on my feet, I looked down at my plump little toes that were swelling up into plump little sausages (and turning a brilliant shade of red). Damn. Why on earth did I leave my sunscreen in Croatia?
Someone finally pulled over. A Serbian chap (who spoke excellent English) on his way to a business meeting in Subatica.
We told our stories. The same ones. How we met, what we're doing, where we're from, why we hitchhike, when we'll stop (or not), yada-yada-yada.
He asked a different question.
"Don't you get bored? traveling all the time?"
No one has asked us that before. People just assume that our lives are perfect, so how would we be bored?
Of course, Tessa and I don't believe in boredom. There are far too many parks in which to picnic to allow for it.
Our Serbian driver left us just outside of Subotica.
Thirty-five km to Szeged... but with the Serbian/Hungarian border in the way.
My lobster feet broiled some more.
We circled and pranced and held our sign for over forty-five minutes.
I believe we might have hallucinated a bit. Just a little.
I'm going to die of heat exhaustion thirty-five km from where we need to be. Hilarious.
"Let's put away our sign," I said to Tessa after an infinity of waving at listless drivers. "Nobody wants to take us across the border. Maybe if we just use our thumbs, someone will take us somewhere. And anywhere is better than here."
A truck driver took us somewhere. He took us five km down the road.
When Tessa and I are delirious and hallucinating and dying from heat exhaustion, we talk to the vehicles that pass us by. Usually in the voice one uses whilst talking to puppies or especially chubby-cheeked babies.
"Hey. Hey, you. Wanna take us? We're really nice. You've got room. You've got loads and loads of room. Hey. Hey, slow down. We can sit in the back and tell you stories. We have melted chocolate to share."
This keeps us laughing. Which makes us more appealing travel buddies for drivers.
Someone pulled over.
Finally.
I clapped my hands. Tessa opened the passenger door.
"Do you speak English?"
"Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"I am only going to Szeged."
"YES!" I could hardly contain myself as my swollen, tingling feet trotted themselves into the car. "That's where we're going and we've been waiting for a long time... so we're really, really happy to see you."
Aaron (our Serbian/Hungarian driver whose last experience with Americans was with a couple of Mormons who helped teach him English) drove us to the border and waited patiently as the passport control officers flipped through ALL the rulebooks in order to figure out what the hell one does with a kiwi.
"You sure you're not from Pakistan?" Aaron asked after five minutes of flipping.
"I'm from New Zealand. I'm allowed to go everywhere."
Which is, of course, quite true. We eventually made it into Hungary and gave each other a solid, "back in the Schengen area!" high-five.
"No more borders!" I crowed. "Thank god."
As we approached Szeged, I started to notice familiar things popping up on the side of the road.
"Tessa!" I poked her shoulder in rude excitement. "Tessa, it's Tesco! We're back in Western Europe!"
"Tesco!" she squealed. "And Lidl and Aldi!"
It's strange to notice the things that now make me feel at home. Two years of travel in Europe has made Tesco signify home more than Walmart (which saddens me not at all). Aldi more than City Market. Lidl more than Sam's Club.
After nearly three months of living in the Balkans, seeing a big, sterile, efficient Tesco sitting in a big, black, paved parking lot was almost as good as coming home to a bowl of my mother's chicken tortilla soup.
We thanked Aaron and then strolled through the pleasant downtown area of Szeged to find a cafe and contact our hosts.
After a series of complications (not having a phone sometimes makes our lives tricky), we met Edina in front of her apartment near the main bus station.
We cuddled cute puppies, drank cold drinks and ate some version of meatless goulash made by Edina's boyfriend.
Once we'd recovered from our four and a half hour hitchhiking adventure (with a touch of ordeal), Edina took both couchsurfers and fox terrier on a walk about town.
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| I've never seen a more stoned looking Jesus. |
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| It's like a human carwash. Perfect for sweltering summer weather in Hungary. |
Edina left for work at eight thirty the next morning, so Tomas prepared us a plate of fruit and two cups of Nescafe (Hungarians generally drink Turkish coffee, so there was no mocha to be had).
We looked at pretty things, failed to find Edina's library, listened to a podcast in the park and ran into a cafe when the weather turned tumultuous.
I'm not just using the word tumultuous for the sake of using a big word. It rained so hard that the water bounced back up, flew in sideways and flooded the streets in a matter of seconds.
Thunder boomed.
Lighting streaked across the grey sky.
"Do you want to take the bus to Budapest?"
"Let's take the bus."
We said goodbye to our host and ran (we discovered it IS possible to run with our bags. Pissing rain gives us superhuman strength) to the bus station across the street.
The bus arrived in Budapest three and a half hours later. It wasn't much of an adventure, but at least we didn't get flooded out and/or struck by lighting.
After another forty minutes of metro riding and walking and google mapping, we found our current couchsurfing host. Csaba. Who gave us fresh orange juice, showed us around his gorgeous apartment, told us to help ourselves to any of the food in the fridge (and any of the alcohol above the fridge) and then left for a meeting with friends.
"I think we found a good one," I said between mouthfuls of flavorful, melting meat, salad and sips of wine. "I hope that I'll be able to host people like this... one of these days."
But for now, I'm the vagabond. The surfer. The wanderer who gets to experience cities for only a few days before packing up and moving on.
People like Csaba give me beautiful memories of beautiful cities. People like Csaba help keep the cities from blending into one confused mess of lights and monuments and museums and honking cars.
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