4,795 words and 274 photos

Get excited: as I type I am uploading 274 photos for your viewing pleasure. They're worth it, really!

I'm still a little disbelieving that this is my life. A few years back I would have never imagined that I'd return to a home (albeit one missing the family that "home" connotes) in Belfast after a 10 day trip/experience in Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina. I suppose that's a benefit of not "dreaming big"; real life continues to exceed my expectations. So here's the play by play to accompany the photos, the blog entry to beat all others as it's serving the dual purpose of journal:

23/12: H and I leave Belfast on the 1:00 am bus to Dublin Airport. I anticipate this being a fun, middle-of-the-night adventure. Really, though, it's just exhausting.

24/12: The dark morning hours pass slowly at Dublin Airport. Thanks to the ceaseless newscast on the television above our heads (in cooperation with the most uncomfortable chairs in airports ANYWHERE), we are well informed of the highway flooding in Maryland, the worst flu strain to hit Britain in years, and Obama's comparable "fitness" for office based on photos of him and other heads of states shirtless. We board our 6 am flight, hazy, excited to sleep and then not-so-excited about the crying baby, but still manage a bit of shuteye enroute to Amsterdam. The airport in Amsterdam is huge, signs are all in English, we pass a Starbucks cafe and more good looking men than I have seen in one place (hum...maybe I should have considered continental Europe over the UK/Ireland...). Flight #2 and we land in Budapest, Hungary! I crossed my fingers for my luggage (it's been "delayed" the last 6 times I've traveled by air) and thankfully, it's one of the first bags out! Not so thankfully, we wait and wait and wait for H's bag, and then wait and wait and wait in the lost baggage line... But when we finally leave the baggage claim area, groggy and a little annoyed, R is right there waiting for us, with bus tickets and a smile to guide us back to her home for the holidays.

We take a bus through the outskirts of town, to the underground metro, so we don't see much of Hungary, aside from the homeless population, which is a shock after living in Belfast, where I mostly recognize the handful of street drinkers and beggers, and then blindly follow R to her flat (apartment). It's amazing. The front door is HUGE (see photo), the lift (elevator) is a fabulous old box with doors, all flats open out into a common courtyard, and her furnished flat that she is essentially long term house sitting is warm. It's a fabulous place to call home for the 10 days (thanks, again R!)

H and I settle in, clean ourselves up a bit and the party begins. R had suggested we send ahead recipes for the food that our families traditionally eat at Christmas, so she had all the makings for quiche and cinnamon rolls. We decide to make the quiche for Christmas Eve and the cinnamon rolls for the day after Christmas. Soon after, R's friends begin to arrive. She hangs out with a very internationally crowd, most are students in some level of study and people she's met through church and a Bible study. I meet people from Ethiopia, Korea, Colorado, Alaska, Sweden, Cyprus and another African country that I forget. R's friends are lovely, easy conversationalists and we eat and chat and flip through trivia cards and read the Christmas story. I missed the Christmas Eve church service(s) and gift sorting and candle singing :) that are old family traditions, but it still managed to feel like Christmas.

25/12: Christmas morning and we walk to church with R. Her church meets in an old theatre and it's the first year they've had a service on Christmas day. We are glad we got there early because soon enough it's standing room only. After one fabulously awkward cultural greeting (traditional Hungarian is alternating kisses on cheeks, my good ole American is a handshake... it's only bad when I go for one and he goes for the other!) I enjoy the Hungarian/English service. I am even pleased that I attempt (horribly, I'm sure!) to sing the songs along in Hungarian. Worship songs and hymns are so cross cultural, I know most of the songs and it really feels like Christmas to sing "Joy to the World" regardless of language.

After church, we get a lift to E's house. She's cooking waffles for the folks who can't make it home for Christmas (waffles=feeling of home!!). We spend a lovely afternoon chatting, eating, lighting sparklers on the Christmas tree (sounds dangerous, but it was the regular candle and paper napkin combo that was the bigger hazard, right, R ;) ), singing Silent Night and sharing our wishes for the next year. It was so refreshing and rejuvenating to spend the holidays with people who remember that it's about Jesus. For being so far from home, it felt peaceful and profound.

That afternoon, we get our first real views of Budapest. We make it to the Danube for sunset, with our Christmas market purchases of rolled bread and mulled wine in hand and stroll along the river as the sun sets.

We have ourselves a merry little Christmas back at R's home. We exchange small gifts with each other and enjoy the company of friends.

26/12: Cinnamon Rolls and Hot Egg Nog for breakfast. Best breakfast EVER. But best breakfast ever means we leave a little late and are pushing it to stop by the train station enroute to the opera house. R tells us to wait in the metro station as she runs up to the train station to see if, by any chance, the trains will be off strike for our planned trip to Bosnia tomorrow. While she's gone, H and I set ourselves up for disappointment and make peace with the probability that we won't be traveling that direction. R runs back to tell us otherwise!! The lovely train employees have agreed to go off strike for the rest of the holidays- Thanks train people!! And we're off to the Hungarian State Opera House. R had gotten us tickets to see the Nutcracker in this gorgeous theatre. We were surrounded by little girls dressed in their best dresses and practicing ballet in line for the toilets, the whole atmosphere was magical. I guess I've never actually seen the Nutcracker in its entirety and it was nostalgic to match each character to the memory of the Nutcracker ornaments that we used to hang on Ga-Ga's chandelier.

We leave the opera house and head for the best falafel place in the world (R's advertisement). Sadly, it's closed, but instead, we buy food at the outdoor Christmas market: Hungarian Cabbage Roll and Veggies. And then part two of our "experiential day" in Budapest: the baths. I thought these things were Roman, but whoever invented them, bravo! Pool after pool of natural warm water, indoor and outdoor, European men in speedos (lots more men than women, and most of them should avoid the speedo), old men with little hats who are playing chess on the side of the outdoor pool, running through the FREEZING cold to get into the hot pool. The entire experience feels like a fantasy.

On our way home we pass the castle and the outdoor skating rink. The castle is a recreation of old Transylvania castles and (maybe?) is home to museums and the statue of "Anonymous," which, apparently, most people don't bother to see, so we didn't either. We walk through Hero Square with the statues of all sorts of Hungarian people, past the art museums and through the city to R's flat to get ready for the next leg of our trip.

27/12: Sarajevo here we come! H and I get ourselves to Keleti Station (with lots of tips and instructions from R) and successfully navigate ourselves onto the proper train (and eventually the proper car, thanks to the ticket checker) and settle in for our 12 hour journey. The Hungarian countryside is GORGEOUS, I feel like I cannot sleep or read or do anything except stare out the window. We pass small towns and smaller train stations, eat the last two sugar cookies that R insisted we take with us and generally enjoy letting time pass. You know that scene in Anastasia, where they get into the train and the little spirit guys coming looking for them? That's exactly the type of train this was- I felt like I was in the movie (minus the runaway train bit). We cross into Croatia and then into Bosnia, which we only know because of the customs people who come around asking for passports as we leave one country and then again as we enter the next. (I was pretty excited to go through Croatia- I never thought I'd actually be in the country that the exotic Dr. Kovac hails from). H and I have the compartment to ourselves for most of the trip. Things pick up, though, as we get closer to Sarajevo. A Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) joins us and tells us about school, Bush and Bin Laden, the Bosnian mafia, the drug trade in Kosovo, the concentration camps during the Balkin wars of the 1990s. His perspective on things is intriguing, so the conversation is enlightening and he laughs as I try out a few Bosnian words. He leaves and another native of Sarajevo joins us. Conversation with him is much more lighthearted and we struggle for a good long while trying to remember Ben Stiller's name and recounting funny scenes from Meet the Parents. Our "wee man" tells us all about Sarajevo, draws us a map of the "must sees" and suggests several Bosnian foods that we should taste (although, they're nothing compared to his mom's cooking, he tells us). We're lucky he's sitting with us, since we pull into the Sarajevo train station an hour early and unsuspecting.

So we've made it to Sarajevo. Whew. We quickly find out that that is the easy part. We head over to the still-open ticket counter to get details about the train to Mostar the next morning, get directions to an ATM (at the bus station, over that way) and the toilets. Problem #1 at the toilets: figuring out which word is "Female" and which word is "Male". Problem solved when a man walks into one. We walk into the other. Problem #2 at the toilets: there are no toilets. There's a hole in the ground, covered by a grate. We think we read about this somewhere... Problem solved by holding on for dear life to the bottom of the partition between stalls. Problem #3 at the toilets: no toilet paper, but several litre bottles of water sitting around. Problem not solved. Apparently they rinse and don't wipe...

A few stops and halting questions with mime-like gestures and we find the ATM (which is a good thing, since we're low on Euros, have no Bosnian currency and need to pay for our hostel!) and then decide to forget the tram system and opt for a taxi to the hostel. It was definitely the expensive route, but we haggle a lower fare and are dropped of just metres from the front door. Hostel Posillipo is lovely. We have our own room, a bathroom directly across the hall and are sad that we can't get another room with them for the return trip. It's only about 10 pm, and I'm in SARAJEVO, so H and I head out to see what we can see. Turns out, Posillipo is directly across from the old town, a quaint, cobbled grid of streets broken up by Mosques, an Orthodox Church, a Catholic Church and a Synagogue. We have a quick stroll through town which just makes us even more excited for our return trip when we'll have a day to spend looking around. On the way back to the hostel we stop at a Pekara/bakery (marveling that things are still open at 11 pm!) for our first taste of Bosnia: Burek, a pastry filled with cheese (or meat or spinach or potato). Then back to the hostel for a good night of sleep.

28/12: We are up earrrly for our train to Mostar. Thankfully, the trams start running at 5 am, and thankfully, we are directed to the appropriate stop for the train station by another set of travelers who overhear that we are headed there. Another train successfully boarded, I fight sleep for the most amazing views I have ever seen. The landscape between Sarajevo, in the hills and mountains, to Mostar in the valley, alongside a river that is naturally a vibrant teal colour not often seen in nature, is astonishing. The photos don't begin to capture the beauty and depth of the snowcapped mountains or the starkness of the villages we pass through. I feel like a small child, pressed up against the window, amazed at the creation of our God, and saddened that so much of it is off limits due to the number of land mines left over from the wars in 1992-1995.

Our arrival in Mostar is, retrospectively, somewhat humorous. (Often during our travels I felt like a team in the Amazing Race... at this point, though, I felt like we were losing!) I can't figure out my mobile well enough to call our friend, K, when we arrive (texts had gone unanswered), we hadn't bothered to bring a map of Mostar with us, we don't speak German (which was a MAJOR problem for the woman at the bus station who rolls her eyes so far back as we try to ask how to buy a card for the pay phone), but the guy at the kiosk that sells said card is elated to speak English with us (and sell us a pricey phone card). Just as we finish our wandering and successfully figure out what to do next, K comes hustling up, apologizing profusely for having no money on her phone to text us back. We are just really glad to see her! She walks us back to her lovely home, we drop our bags and walk the few minutes to her church. Unlike R's church, K's church is led completed in the local language. Luckily for us, there are several other "English Only" speakers and a lady in the congregation offers to sit with us and interpret. And we sang in Bosnian. One of my favorite memories from this Christmas will always be that I sang Joy to World in English, Hungarian and Bosnian. It's an amazing testament to the omnipresence of God. God is all over this world, working in divided communities and building enclaves of peace.

K takes us through the Old Town to a lovely cafe where she teaches us how to drink Bosnian/Turkish coffee (a drop of water in the top, so the foam changes colour, pour into the little cup, over the sugar cubes). We sit and chat for hours. Three hours, actually. That's the Bosnian way. I eat another Bosnian meal, Cevapi, small, grilled rolls of meat with pita bread and onions (which I get to eat with my fingers!). Later in the afternoon, H and I explore the city, taking tons of pictures of the gorgeous Old Bridge that the city is known for, and of the front line, which is a street still lined with buildings that show the horror of war. We meet up with K again for dinner. The Bosnian restaurant is closed, so we head across the street to a pizza place and then decide to go for cake. Bosnian cake= Heaven on earth. I'm not even kidding. Layers of chocolate and cream with a hard chocolate icing on top... it was DELICIOUS (and we'd eat a lot in the next few days!!). We spend another several hours talking over our cake and then back to K's for the night.

29/12: Day 2 in Mostar and we take LOTS more photos. We already had photos of the town during the overcast afternoon, dusk and after dark, but it's so beautiful in the sunlight, so we take more. I spend the morning walking up and down the cobblestones of the Old Town trying to decide which souvenirs to buy and then we head across the river to meet K for lunch. The river in Mostar is basically the dividing line for the city. On the West side live the Croats, and the Bosniaks on the East. Like in Belfast, each side supports their own football teams and rarely is there occasion to mix with the other side.

We eat lunch at the Bosnian restaurant, and I think I eat more Burek, but with meat this time. Afterward, we head back to the cake place (I told you, it's good stuff). And then some more exploring, mostly along the West side, to a wee market for food for dinner and back to K's for the evening. K's housemate comes home in time for dinner and we spend the evening talking about her experience as a missionary in Bosnia. When I think of the conversations that I had throughout the holiday, with H, R, K, K's housemate, R's friends, I feel so blessed. Every conversation was encouraging, rejuvenating, revealing. I am thankful for the opportunities to know and talk with and learn from so many people all over the world who love Jesus and are living lives of extreme faith in him.

30/12: Our train back to Sarajevo leaves early- between 7 and 8, I think. We arrive back to the big city and realize that it is, indeed, a bigger city than we noticed during our first short stay. The hills are lined with houses, and the train ride into the city shows that the suburbs stretch further than expected. We avoid the toilets (or lack thereof) in the train station and set out to find hostel #2. It's another doomed Amazing Race experience. We find the right tram, and think we have a hunch about where to get off, so we do, and then ask at the ticket kiosk how close we are. Turns out we're three stops away, not so bad! Until we realize just how far apart the stops are... we get a nice little tour of the other side of Sarajevo. Our hostel is across a bridge, up a hill (or "upstairs" according to the directions the hostel gave us. Thank you, K's housemate for telling us that this translation does not literally mean up STEPS, just up hill!), around a bend, take a right and then a left...feel like you're not in the right place...and there it is. It's no Hostel Posillipo, but we're glad to have a place to stay on the night before New Year's Eve and we're glad to be able to drop our bags for the day.

We find a shorter route back to the main road and take the tram into town (with a short stop at the train station to check on our train times for the next morning). It is cold. We can tell already that we'll be cafe hopping all day (and with prices so cheap and cake so good, we're okay with that). We find a cute cafe just into the Old Town and have yet another Burek (potato this time). It was a small cafe, though, so no sitting for hours on end. Back out into the cold and we walk. H and I are good walkers (I think so much so that I lost a few pounds, even with all of the cake eating, and am in better cardio shape than when I left!). We walk through the shopping streets (way too crowded) and the Old Town, marvel at the beautiful and ornate decor of the central mosque, take pictures of the churches, cross the river, climbe a hill to an old Muslim cemetery for a fantastic view of the city, find the bridge where Princip (a Croat) assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, thereby sparking WW1, and find another cafe. As our fingers and toes defrost, we split a piece of cake and drink cappuccinos until the cafe fills up and we feel obligated to give up our table. We dander some more through the city, looking for a market to buy food for our impending long haul train ride and take a detour that leads to the plateau that we didn't think we could find. We happen upon this overlook at sunset and revel in the beauty of the setting sun over Sarajevo. Looking out over the hills and mountains behind them, it's unfathomable that the city was held under siege for almost 4 years in the mid 1990s. As we wander back down the hill, we hear the call to prayer. Earlier in the day, I counted at least 15 mosques on just one side of the river and now we are in hearing distance of at least five. It's a beautiful sound, and it feels good to be a city where I can openly appreciate the beauty of another religion.

On our way back down the hill we detour into a small market for food. We are like kids in a candy store when we realize how far our money will go. I treat myself to another package of peanut butter filled pretzel sticks and a Fanta lemon. And we wander back into the city. H wants another photo of the Eternal Flame (which has me singing Bangles songs all night) but the shot isn't possible without the man warming his backside. So we find another cafe. I have 4KM left to spend before leaving Bosnia and we each get a Bosnian coffee and drink it Bosnian style: over 3 hours. I had said to H a day or so earlier that I couldn't imagine what else we could possibly find to talk about for the second half of our trip, and yet, we easily fill up those 3 hours with long talks. All that's left for the night is another, doomed attempt at finding our hostel. We find it, of course, but not the quick way... we take the scenic route :). That's where the night should have ended, but when we get back to the hostel we have a long conversation with the hostel manager (?) which was mostly really nice, but a little condescending, too, and then our next door neighbors come back for the night and laugh and holler and giggle in another language, behind paper thin walls until 3 am. Miserable. Hostel #2 doesn't get too good of a rating.

31/12: Our train leaves at 7:05 am. We have finally figured out the tram system and make it to the train station in plenty of time. The ride back to Budapest isn't as fun as the first one, and I think I'm getting a little touch of flu-ishness. It never turns into full blown sickness, and maybe it's a combo of lack of sleep and lack of meals other than coffee and cake in Sarajevo, but any thought of food turns my stomach. We arrive back to R's flat and have an hour or so before her friends arrive for a New Year's Eve shindig. We finally meet some Hungarians (most were away to their family homes for Christmas) and get bundled up for a midnight walk to the Danube River. It is such a memorable way to spend New Year's Eve, on the banks of the Danube, with fireworks bursting all across the city. Very cool. Back at R's flat we talk about the best surprises of 2008 and our hopes for 2009. At 2:30 am R's friends cook the traditional New Year meal of Virsli (hot dogs, essentially) and then, way way too late, I sleep.

1/1: There is no getting up early on New Years' Day. We enjoy our morning and the snow fluttering around outside, and despite my insistence on leaving by 11:30 for our afternoon trip, I am the last to be ready. We walk to the Hev (another metro) and buy tickets that will get us to Szentendre, a little town 15-20 miles outside of Budapest. R had never been there and H and I want to see a small Hungarian village. Once we get oriented and find out which direction city centre is we start walking and notice crowds. And then we see the Christmas market. I get pretty excited! An outdoor Christmas market, in a fabulously quaint small town... perfect. We peer through the windows of the Marzipan Museum and eat a feta pita right out of the big outdoor oven, take pictures of the Orthodox and Catholic churches around the town, and FREEZE. Sadly, our hunt for an open cafe ends unsuccessfully, and while it is lovely to visit a small, little village, we are happy for the relative warmth of the metro train back to Budapest. The Hev stop is right below the palacsinta (pancakes/crepes) place that R loves. We fill up on palacsintas and then walk down the street to the Belgian pub where we get Sour Cherry Beer that R has been raving about. Rightfully so, because it is GOOD. Then back to R's, where we decide to watch a movie and then proceed to talk about anything and everything late into the night instead.

2/1: Again, I'm the last ready to go, after, again, insisting on the time to leave. But my stomach's still not normal and after putting on millions of layers, I start peeling them off as we walk through Budapest. We head over to Gellert Hill, which our tour book says has the most "magnificent" views of the city. The way up is beautiful, stone steps and statues, but a nice fog settles over the city by the time we get to the Citadel at the top of the hill. It's still gorgeous and picture worthy, foggy haze and all. We descend the hill, cross back over the Danube and to the huge indoor market. St. George's Market has got nothing on this place. First stop: fried bread with garlic sour cream and cheese. Second stop: tourist stall for souvenirs. Third stop: basement grocery store for cheaper souvenirs. The next attraction on our list is R's office and then the synagogue. She tells us that this is the second largest synagogue in the world. It's closed to visitors, but we can see into the courtyard and the memorial garden, and she explains the monument in the back courtyard that's a tree in the shape of a menorah, with names of Hungarian Jews who died in WWII. We walk past another synagogue and then try to visit R's favorite coffee shop, but it, along with nearly every other coffee shop in Budapest, is closed. So we head back to her flat to warm up and get hungry. Because after several attempts, it is finally falafel night! One of R's friends joins us out for falafel (which, as promised, were delicious) and the suggests going to this chocolate bar. So we do. And it is AMAZING. We have cups of hot chocolate (melted chocolate, not cocoa) with nutmeg, masala, vanilla ice cream. The place is cozy and funky and the chocolate is unreal. If you're ever in Budapest, look the place up, it's so worth it.

3/1: R's birthday, so we make her french toast for breakfast. H and I set out on our last half day of adventure and walk across the Chain Bridge, up Castle Hill to the Palace and down to St. Matthias' Church and Fishermen's Bastion and then meander through streets on the Buda side of the river. The sky is a brilliant blue, and it's a gorgeous last day in Budapest. We spend our last few Forents on metro tickets and snacks for the trip home, drink another round of hot egg nog with R, pack up and take off for the airport. It's an uneventful flight back to Amsterdam and then onto Dublin, where neither of our bags arrive... what's new?? A long bus ride, a quick taxi ride and sleep...

I couldn't have asked for a better trip. The sights were impressive, the landscape breathtaking, the conversation refreshing. I'm so thankful for the time I had to spend with some amazing people and for the chance to experience a part of the world that is so different from anything I've experienced before. Go there. It's worth it.