John Fights Communism

Finally, a new post; this sometimes can be work for me, but it’s such a catharsis for me to do it. Being that many of my thoughts, at least the witty/funny thoughts, about the things I experience don’t translate well (if I were to translate them, they’d probably just sound like a dude saying everything that comes to his head, and no one likes that guy, right?), this is really my best forum to get all the John out of me (so I can fill up again in the next few days). I guess everyone can suffer from multiple personality syndrome; each language a person speaks is a different personality, I would think. At any rate, I’ll get to gettin’ and go, eh?
In the time since I’ve last written, I’ve, as earlier stated, been on a bit of an adventure through Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest, which was, as you can imagine, quite an experience. Just to get the official stuff out of the way, I’m going to describe each place in three words, and then I can get to the best parts of the trip: the shallow and often callous observations. Vienna: Mozart, high-brow (that is ONE word), and Hapsberg-emperors-who-have-awesome-mutton-chops-that-often-connect-to-even-cooler-mustaches-whom-I-am-considering-emulating (that, too). Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia; big surprise what’s about to follow, I’m sure): Soviet-destroyed, rusting, and cheap. Budapest: (I’ll just use one phrase) best kept secret in Europe. I found Budapest to be like Europe’s Boston; beautiful weather in spring, very diverse community, not as “hustle-and-bustle” as New York, yet still retaining its big city atmosphere. Very cool location. To get more details, just look at the pictures on my facebook; they’re pretty heavily labeled with all the good deets.
Anyway, on to my two favorite stories from the trip:
Budapest is the location of the first McDonalds east of the Berlin Wall (its doors opened sometime in the 50s, I think), and it is located on Budapest’s Vaci Utca, a street which was formerly the main shopping location of the locals and an important sightseeing locale for tourist, but is now almost totally geared toward tourists, and, therefore, fairly lame. Anyway, the McDonalds is fairly significant, not so much in that it’s a McDonalds, but more for the fact that it was symbolic of the capitalist West and that capitalism was winning the Cold War. When the Soviets were still in power, people used to line up around the corner to get a taste of Western forbidden fruit. Anyway, so my first day in Budapest, I’m stumbling around the city, trying to get my bearings and check things out, and I REALLY have to go to the bathroom. Now, dear reader, what you also must understand is that in Europe, free public toilets are incredibly difficult to find, and it’s not always just so simple as to walk into any place of business and use the toilet. There are public restrooms around, but you have to pay for them, and I will NOT pay to use the bathroom, and bathrooms in restaurants are generally reserved for customers (which makes me wonder what we’re really paying for in these restaurants, you know?). And I needed one that is decently clean, because…you know…I was going to need to, y’know…sit down. So I’m walking around, desperately seeking out a bathroom, and I stumble upon this McDonalds. The place looks fairly well maintained and it’s pretty clean in the restaurant area, so I feel pretty confident about the facilities as well. Plus, it’s pretty crowded and busy, so the staff really has bigger problems than to watch who is coming and going from the bathroom, so I’m safe on that end as well. But, also because of the crowd that was in the place, there’s a line for the bathroom. So I wait, and while I’m waiting the line grows bigger behind me. By the time I went in, there was about 5 or 6 people waiting behind me. When I go in, I figure out why there’s a line for the bathroom at a McDonalds: there’s only one toilet in the bathroom. Now, it’s important to note the layout of the bathroom at this McDonalds (and the weird layout of a lot of European bathrooms); it’s arranged as such that the sink and toilet are in separate rooms, with the door to the restaurant leading into the sink room and another door leading to the toilet. I’m not just saying that the toilet is inside a stall; there’s a wall with a door in it between the sink and the toilet. Anyway, so it’s about to be my turn to use the toilet and I’m standing in the sink room waiting. I go inside and do my thing, but when I’m finished, the toilet begins to flush down, but it quickly stops and the bowl just fills with water. Yes, I travel approximately 5500 miles and what do I do? I clog the toilet at a location of important anti-Communist symbolism. Anyway, as I turn to walk out of the bathroom, I come to the horrifying realization that there’s at least 5 or 6 people waiting behind me to use the toilet…and that I have to look these people in the face as I go. But, of course, the embarrassment I felt really couldn’t compare to the monstrosity that awaited him inside that small room and the empathy I was simultaneously feeling for him and his grave situation. And suffice it to say, I didn’t stick around to see the results of my actions; I was gone like a horse out of the gate. At any rate, I now feel like I’ve now done my part to fight Communism, and that’s what’s really important here.
Next story is considerably shorter. When I first arrived in Budapest, I was trying to take the subway to get to my hostel. Being that I don’t speak Hungarian (and that English is more closely related to Hindi than it is Hungarian, which is no joke at all), getting to where I wanted to go was a bit tricky. I stood there studying the map and quickly realized that I didn’t know where I was, so I had no idea which direction in which to travel or what line to take. For some reason, the bus company whose bus I had taken to Hungary didn’t drop us off at the bus station; we just stopped at this park next to a subway stop. As I walked into the subway station, I had not looked at the sign outside to see where I was and, rather inexplicably, there were no signs inside the station that I could see that told me where I was, unlike every other subway station in the world. To solve this problem, I figured someone must speak English in the station, so I begin asking passers-by. The first two to walk by me did not speak any, but then a younger guy walked by, who was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, so he seemed like he would be fairly well educated (I love the standards by which I judge such a thing), so I caught his eye and said slowly and carefully, “Do you speak English?” He turned and gave me a strange look, replying, “What country do you think this is?” I gave it my best effort to stifle laughter and didn’t bother to inform him that I was pretty sure I was in Hungary; I was more taken aback by the senselessness of the comment than anything, but he was pretty helpful after that with giving me directions and such. Stiff-ass Europeans, right? As funny as I find this, it’s also overly typical, if indeed I understand what he meant by the question. It’s kinda cryptic, but whatever, I’m going to judge if I want to.
Naturally, other events of note happened in Vienna and Bratislava, but I’m getting fairly tired of typing. I’ll end with this: To all those who may be traveling through Europe in the near future, don’t forget about eastern Europe, particularly Budapest. Bratislava I could have done without, but Budapest was awesome and Vienna, of course, has a lot to offer, particularly with cheap transportation to most eastern Europe locations (it’s known as the “Gateway to the East”). And don’t be afraid to buy a travel book; my mom sent me one, and I thought it was going to be an incredibly lame thing to use, but it was REALLY helpful and gave me good info on what’s actually worth seeing, local traditions, what to watch out for, etc. I highly recommend anything by Rick Steves. Until later, dear readers; John, signing off.