The Locals
Aside from sampling the local cuisine, one of the other primary goals of visiting exotic locations is observing and interacting with the locals. In the arc we traced from Budapest to Istanbul by way of Transylvania and Bulgaria, I noted some interesting things that I will now share with you.
Budapest, we quickly discovered, has a noticeably dour outlook. The wait staff at restaurants are known for being unfriendly, although we did encounter some exceptions to this. But they do not hold a candle to the local dog-owners. In North America when you see somebody walking a dog on the sidewalk or in a park it is customary to compliment them on the visual appearance of their canine companion and play with it briefly, to which the dog-owner practically always reacts positively. In Budapest, on the other hand, dog-owners seem rather unaccustomed to this display of puppy love from random strangers and react with anything ranging from disdain to palpable hostility. After a few days Eliza learnt to temper her enthusiasm for the the furry quadrupeds we frequently came across for fear of having her head bitten off by their owners.
To their credit, however, all our other experiences with the locals in Budapest were overwhelmingly positive. Despite our struggles with the language, we were aided in our bumbling efforts at navigating the city by random old women who showed us how to work the mechanical ticket-cancelling equipment on board the older city buses. One thing that only struck me halfway through our visit was the general lack of paranoia to which I've become accustomed at US edifices. It was only brought to my notice when I noticed for the first and only time a no-cameras-allowed sign in Budapest and realized that I hadn't seen anything like that anywhere else. Appropriately enough, it's existence was explained moments later by the US Embassy sign around the corner.
Making the transition from Hungary to Romania afforded me a chance to gauge from both sides the degree of lingering hostility between a pair of nations that have traditionally been on less than favourable terms with each other. At the Museum of Terror in Budapest I got a good dose of the general attitude of Hungarians toward their Romanian neighbours. It was overwhelmingly bitter, due in large part to Romania having been awarded a large chunk of Hungarian land after the first world war. In Romania, I was able to ask a friendly tour guide about the flip side of that bitterness, now that Hungary has been returned the land that had been annexed from it and the Soviets who occupied both countries for decades have left. She told me that most of the Hungarian land that had been given to them after WWI was actually populated for the most part by people who were ethnically Romanian but that Romanians did not really mind having lost it back later. They had, apparently, been so glad to see the Soviets leave that any former ill-will against Hungary was left in the past.
Plovdiv, Bulgaria was the most pleasant vacation spot I've ever visited. The people there were incredibly nice, the food was both cheap and good and the transit was both cheap and reliable. They had so many ancient Roman ruins that we were able to climb up and jump around on them to our hearts' content. Many of the wealthier locals have turned part of their homes into museums that people can pop into for just a buck or two. While wandering around we randomly befriended a street performer who gave us a private tour of the ancient bathhouse that was generally closed to the public but to which she had been given special access to practice in as part of a government program to encourage the arts. The vendors in the local produce market were friendly without being pushy. We managed to visit a local monastery for the feast of the assumption, where we finally saw the gipsies I'd been looking for the entire trip, although they didn't pay us much attention. When the time came to depart, we had some trouble finding the correct platform for our train but a trio of young hooligans took personal responsibility for making sure we found the right platform! I was quite touched by their concern.
Istanbul was a sharp contrast to the laid-back friendliness of Sofia. People were generally pushier, albeit still very cordial. One store even gave me a free piece of baklava after I insisted that I didn't want to purchase an entire box of them but merely wished to eat a single piece. The Grand Bazaar was enormous and enthralling with so many merchants selling identical wares that it felt like the closest thing to perfect competition I've ever seen. I might even have bought some clothes there if I'd been able to use either of my credit cards. Overall, my impression of Istanbul was a city of bustling entrepreneurial chaos. I wasn't quite so impressed by their airport security, which let me get a whole bunch of liquid toiletries on board the plane in violation of their policies despite my bags being opened and searched!
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