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in transit

Wednesday, December 19, 2001 9:08 PM
well, here's our latest, after a crash erased the first version. (lucky you, this one's shorter).

three consecutive days of rain in istanbul dampened our spirits, so we decided to leave. the route took us through bulgaria and into romania. the train we were in was basically a metal shell with vinyl benches--no heat, no lights, no frills. we lay in our sleeping bags, watching our breath, chattering silently to ourselves "thiis is an adventure, this is an adventure," a technique that worked so well we still believe it was one.

all we had brought to eat was bread and water, and the water began to freeze. glimpses of bulgaria: old shepherds with staffs and flocks, horse and buggies, old cars and machinery. at one of the stops they pulled a Turk out of the airspace between the ceiling and the roof--a stowaway. we were impressed that he made it so far into bulgaria, and felt sorry for him, wedged up there and enduriing all the cold just to be hauled off in handcuffs. (unless he was blocking the air vent to our heater! book him, boys.)

some great scenery--thick new snow, like someone turned a firehose of shaving cream over everything, and some neat tunnels through rock (pitch bblack sections where you imagine this mountain on top of you and you begin to wonder if you might be claustrophobic after all). we didn't really give bucharest a chance--we were too cold, and the canadians we talked to in istanbul gave us this advice: "don't stay long, and watch out for wild dogs." we saw the dogs yalping after someone when we got off the train. the guidebook says if you're bitten, go immediately to the hospital for jabs.

we decided to just go, to budapest. but the train didn't leave for 4 or 5 hours. it was 1 am. the security guard wouldn't let us in the public waiting room. "there is a . . . problem. . .i hope you understand me. would five dollars be too much?" and patrick tenses up a bit when we get the drift and he kind of snaps "well, i guess we'll walk around outside then." i guess he's got something against corruption. it wasn't long before we realized that what was said in the heat of the moment wasn't going to help against the cold. some policemen saw us and told us to go into the station, we could pick out a few words in their broken english, like "mafia" and "bandits." they escorted us to the same waiting room and directed us in. the security guard was strangely silent. the next train was heated. we were thankful.

some neat rural scenes in romania, like haystacks with pitchforks in top, old cornstalks chopped and stacked upright in bundles, etc. budapest was great, too, though cold at this time, and so castle hill, the parliament, cathedral, etc. were in our minds second place to the turkish-style bath we went to. the interior is largely unchanged since 1556 when it was built (the turkish invasion). we walked in and they gave us a small white square of linen, which it turns out was meant to gird our loins. the main bath is in a large stone room, a big pool in the middle of the room, with stone pillars and arches around its edges, and in the four corners smaller pools of varying degrees of heat. add to this picture some steam in the air and a bunch of fat old hungarian men with their bums hanging out (or worse if they've forgone the loincloth) and you have a bit of an idea of the atmosphere. they also had saunas, wet and dry (the wet one feels like you're being boiled alive). i've just reread and that sounds a little sketchy, but it was really great.

from here we went to vienna, and looked at masses of huge old buildings, amazing how many are there. something about stephansdom really took me in, the lighting, the detail inside. hundertwasserhaus was interesting architecturally: whimsical, with uneven floors like they'd forgotten to level mounds of dirt before building it, stairs that sagged in the middle, everything looking like it might have been built without a level, kind of wild paint job and tilework..

sunday morning we attended a mass sung by the vienna boy's choir, and that evening left for venice. a few days spent wandering the streets in venice which really feel like a maze and constantly dead end into canals, varying in width dramatically, with 3 story buildings straight up from the edge. taxi, bus, garbage, police are all done by boat from the canals. the gondoliers were still active as well, though a little more bundled up then the tourist brochure pictures show. the main cathedral is quite enormous and full of plunder. the floors are mosaic'd and geometrically tiled, and the ceiling seems to be all mosaic, and mostly gold mosaic.

the pigeons out front in the square were entertaining. it started out innocently: a couple was kissing, and a pigeon landed on the guy's head, who thought it was the girl's hand and just kept the kiss going while everyone laughed at them. then the pigeon's began to swarm over entire people, landing on them or fluttering as close as possible if there was no landing space available. one guy was so traumatized that he kept screaming even though there were no birds near him anymore. the birdseed man was beating them off with sticks but they kept coming. i think in the summer the tourists feed them and keep them fat, and now that tourism's down for the winter, the birds are beginning to starve.

merry christmas! laryn and patrick