I’ve been sitting on this train since 7. It feels like forever. When we stopped in Budapest to change locomotives, I was seriously tempted to just get off the train and go have some Hungarian food and then go to sleep at the Maverick. I went up at 4:30, because I was nervous about not missing the train. But, obviously, I didn’t get off in Budapest. Instead, I try to keep awake by eating my provisions. Chips and chocolate bars and apricots and nuts.
The landscape has changed from the Serbian and southern Hungarian completely flat plain, fertile and with the occasional sunflower field – the beauty of that sea of yellow flowers running past my window cannot be captured with the camera, it’s almost a shame to try. Now, the Slovakian mountains surround us.
In Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia, a whole bunch of tired looking backpackerish type young people of many different nationalities got on. I hadn’t realized, but of course that was bound to happen. The EXIT festival, where our Belgradian host Nevenka was spending her weekend, was in Novi Sad and it ended yesterday. The train got completely packed with ex-EXIT goers on their way to Budapest or Prague. Luckily, no one had reserved my seat, so I didn’t have to move.
My plan was, as always, to be efficient and spend the trip fixing with my photos and blog entries. However, I got interrupted by the very hung over Hungarian guy who got on at Novi Sad and was very keen on telling me about the festival. And once he fell asleep, snoring next to me, it was just so hard to concentrate. Lack of sleep is not good for the coherence of thoughts.
Later, after leaving Budapest behind, I got to talking to an Australian (a 22-year-old apparently traveling around Europe visiting music festivals – he has at least five different bands around his wrist) and a Macedonian guy, and that just seemed so much more agreeable than trying to concentrate on writing. Now one of them has gone to the bistro and the other to the toilet. So I have to write. But soon I’ll be in Bratislava, so, I guess this wasn’t such an efficient trip, after all.
Katja Malmborg 