Bromania 2010
Last Tuesday I left Vienna by car with Rens and Sebastien. Rens drove from the Nederlands to Vienna and was going to be the only one driving the whole way (he has a manual, so i'm useless). We were going to travel to Budapest, and then Istanbul via some combination of Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria the way there, and another combination of those three countries on the way back.
The drive to Budapest was the shortest we'd have, about 3-4 hours, and crossing only one border (Hungary). It was highway the entire way, a luxury we'd later wish for while crossing less developed countries. We arrived in Budapest around 6 PM and had to navigate the city to our hostel. It's a really magnificent city, straddling the Danube with Buda on the west bank, and Pest on the east bank. We struggled to find parking, and also to navigate the tiny side streets, but eventually found a spot behind a market about ten minute walk from our hostel. The hostel we were staying in was on the fourth floor of a residential building, and was very much like an upstairs loft, with high wood rafter ceilings and funky angles. The loft was accessible by an elevator just large enough to fit three persons with luggage, and just old enough to make us feel a bit nervous about our ascension. The staff was really friendly and helpful about pointing us to some sights to see, one of them even dislodged the battery I had jammed in my camera, thus pretty much saving my trip!
The first night we checked out a local Hungarian restaurant and had some goulash, which was amazing, and altogether the dinner was very cheap. It was a Tuesday (I think) and we were told that there were only a few bars with much going on. The one we went to was a mixture of Irish pub and standard top 40 dance bar in one building with many many rooms interconnected by a series of tunnels reminding me of some kind of bomb shelter with low ceiling and narrow hallways. It was alright, we brought the fist pump with us, drank a few beers, and left to get some rest for the next day.
The next day we had to move our car as it was unlikely to last the entire day in a short-term parking zone. The 4 mi drive ended up taking us two hours because the streets/bridges to get to the other side of the river confused us to no end. Finding the holy land of free parking was also tough as we only had a vague idea of where it was. Eventually we found a parking spot, and Rens made his country proud by only needing to adjust the car 8 times during his parallel park before resting alongside the curb. We hiked up some hill with a statue that reminded me of the Christ Redeemer (unfortunately my camera was still messed up at this point, but Rens took some pictures I should be able to steal), and on to an old castle. We returned to the hostel during the evening to get some rest for our early launch the next morning.
We took a taxi to our car the next morning and left Budapest to drive through Serbia en route to Istanbul. The Serbian border was about 6 hours drive from Budapest and as we traveled further south and east in Hungary you could see the country becoming less wealthy. The countryside was nice, with smaller highways and eventually single lane traffic closer to the Serbian border. The border was fairly empty, and we showed our passports to the agent who took them and instructed us to pull aside and purchase a “green card”, I didn't plan on working in Serbia so this was a bit confusing. We pulled aside and entered a small building on the side to see what this was all about, inside we were greeted by a less than friendly woman instructing us in broken english that to cross Serbia we needed a special kind of vehicular insurance. Rens called home asking for some explanation and eventually we learned it was legit, and that we were going to have to pay E115 to cross through Serbia, mostly out of spite of this seeming injustice (afterall, we already have insurance, and interestingly enough Rens has a green card at home he wasn't aware he'd need) we decided to drive through the Romanian border a few hours east and hope they didn't require similar proof.
The Romanian border provided no problems and we were back to traveling in no time. The problem was we now had to break our travel into an additional day to Istanbul because the route through Romania was slightly longer (4-5 hours perhaps), so we decided to make for Bucarest and decide upon arrival. About 45 minutes into Romania we got stuck in a single lane traffic jam that lasted about two hours. 30 minutes into the jam we saw a toppled semi-truck with trailer and figured that would be the cause of the accident, traffic picked up for 5 minutes, and then halted again. The bleak scenery of flatland and seemingly endless power plants (seriously, this country has a power plant every 50 mi along the highway) combined with stray dogs wandering around and litter all over the roadside was so different from anything i'd experienced (and I've driven through North Dakota...). It was the first, but not only moment of the trip that reminded us how lucky we were to have been born into a world of relative comfort and support. The traffic jam ended with us crossing a railroad track that had a rather large gap between asphalt and iron, right after this track the jam ended...we waited in traffic for two hours because of a pothole that could probably be fixed overnight, oh well.
The travel across Romania was not as fast as through Hungary, and we quickly realized we wouldn't make it to Bucarest, we stopped at the epitome of Contemporary American Gastronomy (McDonalds) to use their internet and quell our hunger. We adjusted course for the city of Sibiu, to arrive around 8 PM and catch some of the Champions League (soccer for anyone unfamiliar). The hotel we stayed at was rather nice, and cheap for a multi-room stay. We drank some beers with a Bulgarian businessman who had already had quite a few himself. At the end of the night he wanted to give us his e-mail address, no big deal, kind of weird but sure, the exchange took about 20 minutes. The Bulgarian alphabet is Cyrillic, which absolutely blows my mind when trying to read, so this difference combined with more than a few beers made for a comical situation.
The next morning we set off from Sibiu with the plan to make the seaside city of Burgas, Bulgaria in the early evening and take off for a short drive to Istanbul the next day. As we traveled further east, the area become poorer and poorer, villages smaller and smaller, but the scenery was very beautiful. We traveled through roads carved into valleys with trees lining the sides of all different colors. It was the first I'd seen of the fall colors this year, and made me a bit less remorseful about missing them back home. The travel was slower than highway, but beautiful enough to make up for it. The gradual decline in road quality reached a peak with an indescribable 10mi stretch of road that took us a little over 1.5 hours to navigate. It was a pothole warzone, with no escape for Rens' poor car. The assault of torn asphalt ended in the late evening as it was getting dark, and we arrived in Burgas soon after. The hotel in Burgas was a nice place, with free dinner and breakfast for 3 persons for E70 last notice...pretty sweet deal.
The next day was to be a leisurely day, taking a scenic drive along the Black Sea. It did not disappoint, we stopped along the sea in a small resort town and took some pictures along the coast while finally enjoying some sight-seeing during travel. The rest of the trip was fairly relaxed, as we stopped often to enjoy the surroundings, eventually leaving the coastline for the inland valleys peppered with foliage.
Istanbul is a city of approximately 12 million people, more than twice as many as the state of Minnesota in a vastly smaller area. It was very impressive to drive through, and also very stressful. Our TomTom didn't know the route through Istanbul, and we had only a vague idea of how to get to our hostel. Turkish drivers are easily the most aggressive in the world, lane markings are simply ornamental, and you're never more than 2 feet away from another vehicle. We meandered our way around the city before finally giving into the absurd roaming data charges and using Rens' phone to navigate through the city. We arrived at the hostel and parked quite cheaply. The hostel was nestled along the coast in a rather touristy area dotted with hostels, hotels, and restaurants.
I could write for pages about the people we met in our 3 days there, most of whom were very nice, some of which carried the distinct air of Bro. Along our travels we met a number of bros of different flavors, but all possessing distinctly bromantic qualities (Large logo east coast clothing, a dialogue riddled with dudes, bros, and slang...and an interesting mix of close-mindedness and a desire to travel). The theme of the trip was to mock bro culture amongst ourselves, while observing it in hopes to learn something about this strange species. Customs agents were addressed as bros in hopes of eliciting a friendly smile proving that he also was a huge UFC fan. The staff of the hostel were each unique in their own way, none more so than Volcano, a traveling man of seemingly endless stories.
Our first day in Istanbul we all traveled around, taking pictures of the customary tourist attractions (The Blue Mosque, Galata Tower, Hagia Sophia, etc...) and ending up at the hostel for a night of beer and travel talk. Rens became ill sometime during the second day/night there, but instead of mourning the temporary loss of one of our Bros, we persevered and made the most of the remaining days/nights. Ferries were taken around the bay (which reminded me a lot of the SF area), Kebab was consumed, and there was much Chinese poker played. The second to last night the Canadians/Americans of the hostel taught some card related drinking games to the overseas crowd (F*&% the Dealer, Horse Race, Kings Cup/Categories, Ride the Bus, Higher or Lower). It was a lot of fun, and we got to learn some of their drinking games including a really fun Brazilian game requiring concentration and motor skills (somewhat lacking by 3AM). It was my favorite night there as Volcano, another traveler, and myself stayed up very late talking. The next day we were feeling beat, so we hung around the hostel mostly, and enjoyed the upstairs terrace bar with a view I never wanted to leave. It was way too relaxing to sit up there, enjoying the view while smoking hookah and listening to the travel plans of the rest of the group.
Yesterday we left Istanbul, with our driver feeling much better after his battle with a strange ailment. For much of the drive back we were somber about leaving, busy planning our next road trip, and enjoying hilarious moments that happened along the way. We drove through Turkey, on our way to Serbia, figuring it was worth it to arrive a day earlier in Vienna and just pay for the Green Card. We pulled up the border crossing, giddy with childlike anxiousness, hoping it would be different this time and we would just be waved through. The Turkish exit went well, now for the Serbian entrance...did we have anything to declare, no, we were just traveling, our vehicle was searched for contraband and smuggled humans...fortunately we held off abducting anyone on this trip. We were sent away, strange...no mention of a green card...well perhaps at the next booth they'll ask...what's this there isn't another booth? Music blasting, fist pumping celebration was had...it wasn't at all about the E115, but about how many jokes we'd made about the green card so far and our reluctance to pay it.
We decided to keep driving until Rens fell asleep at the wheel, careening into a ditch where we would rest for the night (sort of...), fortunately for us Rens had been in bed for the last 60 hours “resting” with his sickness. We drove through Serbia at night, which was a shame because it seemed quite a beautiful country even without light to see. I pulled the noob move of the trip, when after leaving a serbian gas station I checked my wallet for the receipt...and noticed that the amount was very short of what it should have been. We decided to turn around concluding that the attendant had forgotten our gas, and deciding that we'd feel really badly for leaving without paying. It took about 15 minutes to arrive back at the station, 15 minutes to try and explain the situation to the staff, and less than 1 second upon Sebastien pointing at the receipt for me to realize how stupid I am. I had pulled out the receipt for a different Serbian stop we had made along the trip, I ran out of the station laughing about how funny it was to try to explain to someone who didn't speak english that we were coming back to pay for gas that we had already paid for...Mom always said I was special...
Rens decided to drive all the way to Vienna in one shot (21 hours...yikes), and here I am sitting at “home” writing this report. I'll try to edit/upload the pictures at some point today to facebook, but I might get it done tomorrow after Rens and Sebastien leave for their homes. It was a really wonderful trip that put a lot of things in perspective, I met some really cool people along the way and hopefully can keep in touch with some of them.
Hoping everyone reading this is doing well and loving their life.
