14.02.2008: travel therapy

Part 4: Bored-a-pest (a.k.a. towards the beloved)

Relative to my normal routine I've had quite a lot of 'thinking time' lately, so these last few entries have been more ruminatious (a word I just made up) than usual. I hope you're enjoying them, and sincerely apologise if you're not. I promise I'll get back to the standard "Hey, look at the cool stuff!" format soon, combined with the usual dysfunctional travel stories that bring so much Schadenfreude to so many. (Well, to a few anyway.)

Meanwhile, bear with me while I continue ah-ruminatin' just a little longer.

Let me start with something I've said before in The Manor, but which bears repeating here for context's sake: in September 2007, when I first arrived in Almaty, I really wasn't sure that I'd made a wise choice. There were quite a few moments when I honestly wondered whether I should just admit my mistake and leave without further delay.

The thing is, though, I've gradually learned that when you move to a new place you're always going to have these doubts during the early days. Auckland was a case in point: if you'd asked me how I felt about it, say, a week after my arrival, the answer would've been something like "Let's hope it gets a whole lot better, 'cause right now I'm having a truly shit time." And as you know, I grew very fond of Auckland, to the point where leaving it was bitterly disappointing (even though I agreed somewhat with one Kiwi friend's characterisation of it as "the beer goggle city"*). I often miss the feeling of being in Auckland with my 'peeps' Greer and Nathalie, my students there and loads of fabulous NZ Nature within easy reach. And being the romantic optimist that I am - or at least, that I've recently been told I am - I still dream of returning there one day.

The point, however, is this: when you arrive in a new place with the intention of settling there, you've got not only time but also money on your side. Ties with your previous employer have been cut, so your only immediate means of earning a living is to perservere in your newly-adopted home. And with the prospect of money coming in, you have the luxury of being able to ride out the stresses of the first few weeks if you want to, then see how you feel about the new digs once you've had a chance to settle in and discover some of the cool things about wherever it is you're now basing yourself. That's what happened to me both in Auckland and in Almaty, and I'm sure it'll happen again if I decide to move in July when my contract runs out.

When you're travelling, though, the situation is a bit different. If you're on a tight budget (which I always seem to be), you don't have time to invest in places that initially come across as ugly or bland or unfriendly, or where the 'vibe' isn't right for you. Therefore, if you find yourself in a place like that, sometimes you have to make a snap decision: do I stay and perservere, or do I move on to somewhere else that stands a better chance of engaging me?

I realise that none of this is particularly shocking information. The surprising thing for me, though, is that I now have to add Budapest to the list of places that failed the test. I really was expecting to be impressed. I mean, apart from anything else, every person I've ever met who's been there has loved it. I know they loved it, because they've told me at some length about how wunderbar it is, and assured me that I was certain to fall for its charms. And I believed them. I'm therefore a little shocked to be sitting here now in a rickety train carriage, about two-and-half hours outside Budapest and heading away from it as rapidly as I can.

I've spent a good part of the last few days asking myself "What is it about this city that's telling me to get out?" I mean, Budapest certainly isn't without its quirks (like the 'door dragons' that guard many residential buildings in the centre). It could simply be that trading one busy, noisy, polluted metropolis for another didn't provide the change of pace I was looking for in my holiday. Or perhaps, as I found in Berlin, if you want to find the 'soul' of Budapest in a limited time you need to know someone who's already living there, meet up with them and let them show you the good bits. Or maybe - as I kept thinking while walking around the city - all in all it's just too damn euro-generic to be interesting. (Scott kept saying "I could see this exact same kind of thing in London", and I imagine he might be right). I just don't know. Either way, it really didn't grab me at all.

I should probably be feeling disappointed about this while not-warming-to-the-Hungarian-capital issue, but actually I'm not so bothered. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, I think there's a certain poetry in my present situation. I mean, here I am on St. Valentine's Day, heading towards a city whose name translates roughly into English as "Beloved". That's pretty poetic, right? Okay, so the fact that I'm going there alone takes away from the romance a bit - but hey, I never said it was a perfect world (or if I did, I was probably pointing at a computer running Windows at the time, so you should've known I was being sarcastic).

The other reason for my lack of disappointment is that I've actually been planning to visit The Beloved City - known in its native language as "Ljubljana" - for about six or seven years now. Ditto the country which surrounds it. Many of you have no doubt heard my rants on this subject: I'd say things like "It's my #1 must-see country!" or "I plan to get there every frikkin' year and somehow it never works out".

Well, here's the good news: give me another six hours or so, and you'll never have to endure those rants again. With Budapest inspiring me about as much as a pork milkshake, and my #1 must-see country looming just over the border, whispering "Hey Anthony, here I am - you can come and get me if you want me!", it was all too much of a temptation. After a restless night in the hostel, tossing and turning and wondering if I should give it more time, I woke up this morning and said to Scott "Listen, I've made my decision. If there's a train to Ljubljana today, I'm on it." I asked if he wanted to join me and he said "Maybe, I'll think about it". He thought, and he thought, and he thought ... and eventually the time rolled around when I had to get in the taxi and go. Consequently, he's still thinking and I'm now travelling solo - which to be truthful is how I usually like it.

So then ... here I am, alone on St. Val's, on a train and on a Mission. I'm tired, I'm stressed (because it's a nine-hour journey and there's no smoking carriage), and due to a problem exchanging Kazakh Tenge for, say, any other goddam currency on Earth, I'm really not sure my money will hold out. But frankly, none of that matters when you've got the travel bug in your system. I could scarcely be more excited if I was going to the Moon.

I'll let you know how things pan out in my #1 must-see country (a.k.a. Slovenia) when this winding little tale is yet again

(to be) continued.

(*"a beer goggle city": one which looks very glamorous and enticing in the evening when you've had a few drinks, but not quite so fabulous when you wake up next to it the following morning.)