The Transition continues

Vacations are supposed to generate photographs and stories. A trip to Eastern Europe certainly does that.

The photos speak for themself. For example, here's a picture direct from Budapest, Hungary. Our boat sailed down the Danube River after dinner, passing the major downtown sites along the way. The most beautiful buildings are lit up. In this case, the Parliament Building in Hungary comes under the spotlight. It almost looks like the moon is directing a beam upon what is considered one of the world's great civic buildings. I have other photos taken that night, and they look magical. 

But then there are the stories that go with the region, and the people that are willing to share them. Americans know from a distance that the region has had all sorts of problems. The divorce from the Communists has been a messy one at times, and - as they call it - the Transition continues. Old hurt feelings returned to the surface, causing more bloodshed. 

We heard from a passenger who joined with in his family in a walk from Hungary to Austria and freedom in 1956, because the father knew he had no future in Communist Hungary. He was reunited with his best friend from that era on this trip. The backstory was almost repeated by a woman from Serbia who fled when her father feared for the family's futures in the early 1990s. We heard a Romanian tell about standing in a plaza as the 1989 revolution was underway - and saw his best friend die via a shot in the head. We had another crew member tell me that the Russians' invasion of Ukraine was no surprise, because - essentially - they've always been scoundrels. 

For those of a certain age, Eastern Europe was something of a mysterious place for the first half of their lives. It was under Soviet control, and it was rare for anyone to cross the border in either direction. That era ended in 1989. It's only a long plane ride for Americans to see what it's like now, 34 years later. Change has come to Eastern Europe, but it's been uneven with winners and losers everywhere and it's still ongoing. That makes a trip there frequently fascinating. 

It takes a certain type of traveler to go to a place like this. Any American probably has at least a little curiosity about what it's like to go to London, Paris or Rome. But Eastern Europe? The boat was filled with veteran travelers, people who liked checking off countries on their personal list while learning about areas that are usually ignored on the national news. It's interesting to note that a high percentage of those on our boat were retired teachers. 

We ended up spending 18 days in that part of the world - one more than we had planned (story coming) - mostly on a boat that went up the Danube. Along the way, we wrote down observations about what we saw along the way. The ones that deal with specific attractions will be written up for this blog later. We'll stick to general stuff here. They'll be flying at you in this essay, sometimes in no particular order. This is all done so we can remember stories that came out of the trip, but the method has proved surprisingly popular to others over the years. So we share it.

The usual warning: long trip, long essay. And click on the photos to see them larger.

Enter, Stage Right

Admittedly, Romania doesn't put on a particularly attractive welcome mat. 

In our case, we arrived at the Bucharest airport on a cloudy, gray day after about 5,000 miles of flying. Naturally, the ground surrounding the runaway unintentionally mirrored the sky on this particular afternoon. The airport's infrastructure could be described as modest, especially for a world capital.

But ... our luggage arrived in tact and on time, and we were off to downtown. The fascination started with the hotel. It had served as something of an official location for important visitors, as least by the standards of the day. By the mid-1990s, it was time for an upgrade. The guts of the place were torn up, revealing that the Communists had placed gifts in the rooms: thousands of hidden microphones, including ones in the toilets. Yes, to be crude, that's a bit shitty. And we were off.

* The hotel happened to be located on one of the main streets of the city, which is the subject of a successful experiment. When the weekend arrives, the road is turned into a pedestrian mall from Friday night through Sunday night. People stroll through downtown at a happy pace, perhaps stopping for a meal or an ice cream cone. It really works nicely. There's a vitality that hangs in the air as crowds stroll by.

And speaking of the streets ... would it be too much trouble to put signs up identifying the name of the roads in Bucharest? 

* The top statistic of the visit was that Bucharest has a little less than 2 million people. It also has a little less than 2 million cars. In other words, everyone - of all ages - in theory has a car. And where do they park? Everywhere.

Sidewalks are fair game for parkers, sometimes putting only two wheels on the actual streets. Intersections also tend to shrink because of the demand for space. As for the actual driving, it's probably not for the faint of heart. 

* Our other overnight stay in Romania was Constanta, located on the Black Sea. That makes it something of the Riviera for this part of the world, with a very nice beach in front of some hotels. Yes, we put our feet in the water; never thought that would happen.

While strolling along the water's edge, we noticed a woman sunbather on the beach suddenly sit upright. It turned out that this was a topless beach. Applause was not a good idea at that point, although it crossed my mind.

Building an image

How can you tell which buildings are from the Communist era? They are the ones with the fans in front. At least they looked like fans - just like the ones that were in front of apartments in St. Petersburg, Russia, when we visited there eight years ago.

OK, they also are the ones that are ugly and look as if they have aged 50 years in the course of a decade. The Communists weren't too good at upkeep, and the new bosses probably are more concerned with getting new stuff up to attract business. The quality of the buildings improve as visitors get closer to downtown, but it's still a mixed bag of construction. In terms of looks of their buildings, it is going to take a long, long time for these countries to shake off their past.  

Up the river

After leaving the Black Sea - which was a little too close to the activity taking place to the north in Ukraine for my tastes - our boat traveled through a canal to reach the Danube River. We'd stay there for well over a week.The first stop was in Ruse, Bulgaria.

Now ... what comes to mind when you think of Bulgaria? All right, I couldn't come up with much either. I guess it had some Olympic wrestlers that were mighty good in the day. Romania did a lot better concentrating on women's gymnastics back in the Cold War Era when it came to creating an image. During a visit today, it's striking that the adults in this country - especially the ones around retirement age - essentially look tired. You can write a story about how difficult their lives must have been just by looking at them. 

And then a ride into the countryside confirms all that. The landscapes is littered with abandoned buildings - factories who gave people jobs in the Communist days, but simply couldn't keep up with the economic might of the Free World. No one could be bothered to clean them up, so they sit there - a silent tribute to those who lost the Cold War's economic battle.

By the way, the kids in their teens and 20s look like ... kids in their teens and 20s. They would fit in nicely walking around the streets of any American city. It turns out that culture really does travel.

* The alphabet stopped playing fair in Bulgaria. We went from a Roman alphabet to Cyrillic. It's tough enough trying to translate the language of the region under the Roman names. But I had no chance at its counterpart. By the way, Cyrillic is said to be easy to learn. There are 30 sounds, and they all have a separate letter. Sound it out quickly, and you have a word.  

* There's a nice old church in Ruse that draws the tourist crowd in, such as it is. The woman who handled the money for admission had no clue about English, and we wisely decided to make a small extra donation to the church for the chance to look around rather than to negotiate the change. On the way out, we were hit up for another "donation" by a couple of panhandlers. I always feel sorry for these people, but you'd think a lesson on how to say "Do you have spare change?" in English would be worth their time. Generally, panhandlers popped up less often than we might have guessed.

* I was told that if you shake your head up and down in Bulgaria, you mean "no." And sideways means "yes." Yeah, like I can break that habit for a two-day visit. 

* A "hands across the ocean" moment: The souvenir shop in Ruse supplied "Burning Down the House" by the Talking Heads as background music for shopping. 

Photo opportunity

We're not telling you that you SHOULDN'T get a hair cut at this place located near the riverfront that we passed on the way in to Ruse.

But if you are in the area and decide to go in for a trim, don't blame us if it isn't up to your usual standards back home.

We took about 700 photos on this trip. This was by far the silliest. Luckily, everyone else in our group was snapping away at this sight, so I didn't stand out by any means. The guys must be used to it by now.

Other silly photos that didn't fit in here are now posted on Facebook. 

Color my world

The Danube had a great press agent in Johann Strauss. He wrote "The Blue Danube" in 1866, and supposedly wasn't too happy with how it turned out. But you can't argue with success, and it's hard not to hum when cruising down it - or in our case, up it. I'm not sure how the Blue Danube ultimately runs into the Black Sea, but those philosophical questions can wait for another day.

But it is interesting to see how the geography and politics came together in drawing the map of the region. Bulgaria and Romania don't have any truly major cities on the river, but Serbia checks in with its two biggest cities. Croatia's people are mostly closer to the Adriatic Coast, but Budapest is the clear center of Hungary. Bratislava and Vienna are the other world capitals on the river.

* If there is a common denominator among the cities on the trip, it was graffiti. Some locations were worse than others, but it was noticeable in most places - like this area in Romania. We happened to walk by a street fair in Bucharest in which artists were painting a mural on a wall, and it already had been defaced at the bottom before it was finished. Sad. 

* Serbia and Romania are separated by the Danube at one stretch. The catch is that they are in different time zones. Romania is seven hours ahead of Buffalo, while Serbia is six hours ahead. Since the boat's next stop while we headed up river was in Serbia, it changed the clocks in Serbia's direction when it reached a certain point on the river. But those who relied on cell phones for the correct time saw their phone switch back and forth between time zones, depending on which tower was used for communication. 

* If you are wondering about how money works on a trip, well, it's complicated. Only Croatia and Austria use the Euro, and the others had difficult exchange rates that required some math skills to determine how much a bookmark was in a souvenir store. Luckily, credit cards allow commerce to take place in most places, and some of the others are willing to "negotiate."

* I figured that Serbia would be filled with tributes to the successes of Novak Djokovic and Nicola Jokic - two athletes who have recorded major triumphs this year. No sight of that. Neither even came out to welcome us to their country, although a lot of men there sure look like Djokovic.

Even so, there was evidence of an even bigger star in Serbia than those two, and he was quite unexpected. When, exactly, did Nicola Tesla - you know, the electrical engineer guy - become a rock star? You can buy t-shirts with the guy on the front over there.

* We heard from a guest speaker about the way that the schools in Vukovar, Croatia, are segregated. In other words, the kids with Serbian backgrounds are kept away from those with a Croatian heritage. They have been stalling on this issue for years. You would have thought that it would have been easy a couple of decades ago to start to mix the two groups in the first grade, and slowly integrate the entire system. Eastern Europe sure can be complicated. 

* The cruise schedule was beefed up for Grand Circle's 65th anniversary and billed as a special trip. (That's our boat in Budapest, in a photo that should be in the trip brochure.) There were some nice extras thrown in, such as a castle visit and an anniversary cake that could have fed hundreds. The home office in Boston sent a couple of people to ride along with us on the first week of the trip to see how things went. They were quite friendly when approached by travelers, even asking for feedback on the way. I did wonder if the crew felt as if they were traveling with their parents or something. 

* Two phrases were repeated often on the trip. One was "You've got to eat sometime." Nobody starves on a boat, although the portions generally are kept under control so the boat doesn't sink from the extra weight. The other was "Watch your step," and it goes beyond basic courtesy. The roads and sidewalks aren't exactly level in some of these countries, and hazards often popped up. I tripped a handful of times in Bucharest alone. 

* We didn't hear about any cases of Covid-19 on the boat, although everyone did cope with the usual coughing that comes with such longer trips. We did hear about the brief disappearances of one of the passengers. It seems that some time ago he lost his passport, applied and received for a new one, and then found the old version. He unwisely decided to bring the old one to Eastern Europe, which set off the appropriate bells and whistles. Representatives of Interpol - and those guys don't fool around - whisked him to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, which managed to straighten it all out.

Vienna waits for you

Some years ago, we spent a day visiting Vienna. The problem was that it was hot. Make that HOT. It was somewhere above 90 degrees, and walking the streets was a chore. That night we made a non-binding promise to try to return to this lovely city to get a better view of its charms. That was one of the appeals of this particular tour - three days in Vienna. 

Getting there is no fun. There was a good-sized highway from Budapest to Vienna, but it was filled with construction and massive numbers of tractor-trailers. If anyone felt nostalgic about driving on the New Jersey Turnpike, this was a good re-creation. 

Once we arrived, we were reminded that Vienna is truly a magical place. Beautiful buildings that don't receive second looks there would be the subject of love songs and sonnets if they were in Buffalo. We discovered that the ice cream served at Aida, a local chain, is fabulous - with stores that look like they came out of the Barbie movie.

And then, as if by magic, we picked up an extra day there - although the method needed a little work. We had started to pack our belongings on a Saturday night before leaving Sunday. Then I looked at my phone and discovered that our initial flight on Sunday morning had been cancelled. Ouch!

I called our program director, who was unflappable as usual, and I looked into alternative flights to keep my options open. There was a flight from Vienna to Washington on Sunday morning, but it would cost us $4,500 to be on it. The alternative was to stay in Vienna for an extra day, with the insurance company picking up the cost of all of our expenses. I've had more difficult decisions, although we had to go into overtime in terms of clean laundry to make it through the extra day. ("Now, where is that t-shirt I bought in Budapest?")

We walked through some new (for us) neighborhoods, saw some lovely parks, and had lunch at something of an outdoor market with our found day.  We also were on the outskirts of a small riot. The Anti-Vaxxer crowd had decided to get together a protest on Sunday afternoon. You'd think it was a little late for that, but Europeans do like to protest as a group. As we walked by the city's largest public square, we heard loud noises and noticed a large police presence. Several people were arrested, and a couple of thousand received citations. (We had this group pass us in the Vienna subway station; it's tough to guess whether they were protesters or fans on their way to a soccer game. Is there a difference?)

Happily, attempt number two at returning to the United States went better. And I set a personal record for speed in a car when our airport driver hit 142 kilometers per minutes on the highway - which translates to about 85 mph. Needless to say, we made our flight.

Footnote: The European Union has rules about cancelled flights. It turns out we were entitled to 600 Euros each for our inconvenience. Our decision looks even better.

In other news ...

Ever try to follow a football team from seven time zones away? It's not easy. The Bills played three games during the time we were gone, and I had to rely on social media updates to keep up with events. The only football games to be shown on television were on a German sports channel. The Bills-Raiders game started at 8 p.m, Bucharest time. Well, it was a prime-time matchup somewhere. 

As the capital of a neutral country, Vienna boasts of an international makeup ... which is shown through the list of TV channels at a hotel there. Where's ESPN?

By the way, one of the Grand Circle bosses who visited the boat was from Utica, and was a long-distance fan of the Bills. She's always wanted to see a game in Buffalo.

And speaking of sports, there was no sign of the Ryder Cup on television in Vienna. As the song goes, 57 channels and nothing on. But we could watch a dubbed version of "The A Team," in which Mr. T sounded little like a German Barry White. Colonel Potter and Margaret Houlihan of M*A*S*H also were spotted speaking German.  

* Food report: Traditional favorite McDonalds joined with Starbucks and KFC as standard options throughout the region. Subway has a little work to do. The biggest surprise was seeing a Pizza Pizza outlet - usually associated with Canada - in downtown Belgrade. And it took until Vienna to find a Five Guys.

By the way, barbecue options were close to zero in Eastern Europe. The hotel night clerk in Vienna told us he had an uncle from Texas who brought his own smoker along when he visited Austria.

* Most of the cities that we saw did have gambling casinos. In fact, one was next door to our hotel in Bucharest. We were told that people in the Middle East and Israel sometimes fly to places like Bucharest to scratch that itch, since wagering is illegal in their home countries.   

* At JFK Airport in New York, we walked past a store that sold licensed sports team items. It was funny to see that all Jets material was 20 percent off. It didn't take long for the owners to give up on this particular season. 

The last supper

One of the problems with cruising is the issue of companionship. Few couples travel with friends, so the initial time together often resembles speed dating. Eventually they find suitable company for meals and shared stories. Even though everyone is on good behavior, it doesn't take long to figure out who your dining companions should be. For example, one couple from Idaho expressed a thought that California needed to be sawed off from the rest of the United States and allowed to float into the Pacific. Not much common ground there. 

This time we were really lucky. We met Frank and Linda right at the start of the trip, and followed up with Bob and Karen soon after that. (Bob was wearing a Packers' hat, and I went up to him and said, "A Packers' hat? We are going to get along fine.") Once we got on the boat, the six of us - including three former teachers - ate all of our dinners together. After the first such meal, someone said to me, "Did you all know each other before the trip? You sure were laughing a lot." It only took a couple of nights to realize that I needed to jog up to the group dinner each night in front of the mob of diners so I could reserve a table for six. 

On the last night of the cruise, there was a captain's farewell toast. (Cruise companies seem to encourage alcohol consumption.) I said to the others, "Thank you for making our trip better." Who knows if our paths will ever cross again, but I was glad it happened this time. 

Closing shot

Doesn't this store in Vienna simply have to be owned by Eric Idle of Monty Python?

(Follow Budd on X @WDX2BB)