Day 11 (17 June): South Central (Hungary)
Took a morning train from Zagreb to Pécs in South-Central Hungary today. Pécs is a really picturesque town that is a UN World Hertiage site given the number of historical ruins it has: Roman city walls, early Christian musleoums, Mosques (that now serve as Christian churches) from the period of Turkish rule, functioning mosques, and synagogues.
We came on the day when the town was hosting a festival for Hungarian folklore and Hungarian folk music, so it was very hard to find a place to stay. We ended up in a very nice place (that incidentally was also cheaper) than anything in our guidebook as well, run by an old woman out of two extra rooms she had in her court-yard style house. It was great spending the afternoon listening to the local music and eating local food at the festival despite some quite warm tempratures.
Economic observation of the day:
1) Its hard to understand the evolution the American dream in some ways when you look at a town like Pécs. The goal of people in Pécs was to be within the city walls and have a private courtyard inside your house with flowers and grass there, yet the American dream is to live in the suburbs (outside the city walls), have a small yard around your house that's less easy to use and enjoy in many ways as the internal courtyard, and not be within walking distance of everything you need.
2) Why don't more people in the US rent out rooms as guesthouses? It seems like a great, low-maintence way to supplement income.
3) Transportation networks do not flow very well between Croatia and Hungary and its surprisingly difficult to get between the two countries. We managed to do so on local-only trains that stop every 5 km for Pécs. There are inter-city trains to Budapest, but as far as we could tell, no bus lines between Zagreb and anywhere in Hungary. This is all very surprising to me considering the two countries share long borders, both were communist countries, and never fought a war in recent history. Even more surprising is the number and frequency of routes between Serbia and Croatia considering the two just got out of a war with each other.
4) 'Rat tails' never go out of style. Almost instantly after crossing the Hungarian border, we began spotting men with the 'rat tail' hair style popular in the 1980s. 'Mullet' like haircuts are also big in Hungary, at least in the more rural areas, but the same might still be said in the US.
Weird sighting of the day:
We saw a man putting a kid tri-cycle on the roof bike rack of his brand new 3-Series BMW. It looked really funny because tri-cycles are so small and not expensive looking like his car. Besides which, the tri-cycle would fit easily in his trunk. Maybe showing that he had one for his kid was some kind of additional status symbol and that was the point?
We came on the day when the town was hosting a festival for Hungarian folklore and Hungarian folk music, so it was very hard to find a place to stay. We ended up in a very nice place (that incidentally was also cheaper) than anything in our guidebook as well, run by an old woman out of two extra rooms she had in her court-yard style house. It was great spending the afternoon listening to the local music and eating local food at the festival despite some quite warm tempratures.
Economic observation of the day:
1) Its hard to understand the evolution the American dream in some ways when you look at a town like Pécs. The goal of people in Pécs was to be within the city walls and have a private courtyard inside your house with flowers and grass there, yet the American dream is to live in the suburbs (outside the city walls), have a small yard around your house that's less easy to use and enjoy in many ways as the internal courtyard, and not be within walking distance of everything you need.
2) Why don't more people in the US rent out rooms as guesthouses? It seems like a great, low-maintence way to supplement income.
3) Transportation networks do not flow very well between Croatia and Hungary and its surprisingly difficult to get between the two countries. We managed to do so on local-only trains that stop every 5 km for Pécs. There are inter-city trains to Budapest, but as far as we could tell, no bus lines between Zagreb and anywhere in Hungary. This is all very surprising to me considering the two countries share long borders, both were communist countries, and never fought a war in recent history. Even more surprising is the number and frequency of routes between Serbia and Croatia considering the two just got out of a war with each other.
4) 'Rat tails' never go out of style. Almost instantly after crossing the Hungarian border, we began spotting men with the 'rat tail' hair style popular in the 1980s. 'Mullet' like haircuts are also big in Hungary, at least in the more rural areas, but the same might still be said in the US.
Weird sighting of the day:
We saw a man putting a kid tri-cycle on the roof bike rack of his brand new 3-Series BMW. It looked really funny because tri-cycles are so small and not expensive looking like his car. Besides which, the tri-cycle would fit easily in his trunk. Maybe showing that he had one for his kid was some kind of additional status symbol and that was the point?
posted by Traveling Brian at 1:43 AM
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