Caribbean Boy goes to HungaryAs a child at primary school in Trinidad – Malabar Government Primary School to be exact – the pride of Trinidad, I remember playing a game in class with my fellow classmates on naming as many countries as we possibly could. In the fervent heat of childish battle, a friend of mine Quesi shouted out, “Hungary!” I recall laughing as hard as I could, “Ha! Wat kinda country name ‘hungry’! You lying!” He insisted, “No boi..I know what I sayin!”. The other students just observed… we were deadlocked. We had to go for a ‘review’. Our teacher Mr. Persad came over, this was serious business. We asked, “Sir, Is there a place in the world called Hungary…?” He paused… “Yes”. He continued “It’s in central Europe...”
Damnit, I was wrong.
Thirteen years later, I’m on a bus from Serbia’s capital city of Belgrade, to the capital city of Hungary, Budapest. Without going into the Medieval Latin origin of the name and all that confusing stuff, quite frankly the name has nothing to do with being physically hungry.
But it does make for the odd ‘late night, had too many beers, run out of topics to talk about-type joke’.
I’ve usually been reluctant to travel on my own (a bit too many re-runs of ‘Taken’) but this trip had to be a solo move. Although it’s more advisable to have a crew of people on these kinds of trips, you’ll eventually realize that there’s nothing more riveting and exciting than doing them on your own.
On a relatively spacey bus we moved through the Belgrade night toward Novi Sad, the second –largest city of Serbia with a population of approximately 250,000 people. At Novi Sad, we took a bathroom stop and then moved on until we reached the border crossing between Serbia and Hungary.
Usually there’s always some level of tension when crossing some of these boarders entering the EU – especially in the context of the immigration issues which have plagued the region since the civil war in Syria. There’s also the quite obvious fact that I’m a Caribbean black man studying in this part of the world (the facial expression I get most of the time)…something I wear as a badge of honor. I’ve been to some places where I’m the first and potentially the last Trinidadian or Caribbean man that some people have met and may ever meet. Some were hearing of Trinidad and Tobago for the first time in their lives. That wasn’t the case with this particular Hungarian Immigration officer. In this particular case, the immigration officer knew Trinidad. He could barely speak a word of English but the name ‘Ato Bolden’ got my passport a nice swift stamp. In hindsight, Ato Bolden, Dwight Yorke and that 2006 Trinidad and Tobago World Cup team have bailed me out at a lot of immigration counters.
I arrived in Budapest at 4 a.m. and had to wait in the freezing December cold until 8a.m. for that God-forsaken transport station/ bus station/information center where I had stopped off to open.
The purpose of the trip was to explore a particular graduate school option but I had enough time to explore. Outside of the long wait at the beginning of the trip, I was able to have a great deal of fun. I was given a special tour of Central European University, one of the premier private Universities in Budapest and all of Central Europe. I also visited the Budapest Christmas market and picked up some stuff.
Finding a hostel wasn’t that hard. I simply looked online – and although it was:1) on short notice and 2)some walking distance from where I was dropped off, the prices were affordable and it was relatively comfortable.
The surprising thing with Budapest though is that no one spoke English, or even appeared to want to. I had read in the brochures and on the websites that English was spoken; apparently the actual people in the city didn’t get the memo. Because every-time I walked up to someone the response was – “No English”, as if the language was a plague. Maybe it was the black guy thing, ….if that was the case, which I highly doubt then it’s a shame.
There’s a lot more in Budapest which I wasn’t able to see, the night life, more of the actual food – not McDonald’s (which was my go-to meal over there), and even mingling with the people. But there’ll be another time; as far as I know, Budapest and Hungary isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Visit Experience:
Damnit, I was wrong.
Thirteen years later, I’m on a bus from Serbia’s capital city of Belgrade, to the capital city of Hungary, Budapest. Without going into the Medieval Latin origin of the name and all that confusing stuff, quite frankly the name has nothing to do with being physically hungry.
But it does make for the odd ‘late night, had too many beers, run out of topics to talk about-type joke’.
I’ve usually been reluctant to travel on my own (a bit too many re-runs of ‘Taken’) but this trip had to be a solo move. Although it’s more advisable to have a crew of people on these kinds of trips, you’ll eventually realize that there’s nothing more riveting and exciting than doing them on your own.
On a relatively spacey bus we moved through the Belgrade night toward Novi Sad, the second –largest city of Serbia with a population of approximately 250,000 people. At Novi Sad, we took a bathroom stop and then moved on until we reached the border crossing between Serbia and Hungary.
Usually there’s always some level of tension when crossing some of these boarders entering the EU – especially in the context of the immigration issues which have plagued the region since the civil war in Syria. There’s also the quite obvious fact that I’m a Caribbean black man studying in this part of the world (the facial expression I get most of the time)…something I wear as a badge of honor. I’ve been to some places where I’m the first and potentially the last Trinidadian or Caribbean man that some people have met and may ever meet. Some were hearing of Trinidad and Tobago for the first time in their lives. That wasn’t the case with this particular Hungarian Immigration officer. In this particular case, the immigration officer knew Trinidad. He could barely speak a word of English but the name ‘Ato Bolden’ got my passport a nice swift stamp. In hindsight, Ato Bolden, Dwight Yorke and that 2006 Trinidad and Tobago World Cup team have bailed me out at a lot of immigration counters.
I arrived in Budapest at 4 a.m. and had to wait in the freezing December cold until 8a.m. for that God-forsaken transport station/ bus station/information center where I had stopped off to open.
The purpose of the trip was to explore a particular graduate school option but I had enough time to explore. Outside of the long wait at the beginning of the trip, I was able to have a great deal of fun. I was given a special tour of Central European University, one of the premier private Universities in Budapest and all of Central Europe. I also visited the Budapest Christmas market and picked up some stuff.
Finding a hostel wasn’t that hard. I simply looked online – and although it was:1) on short notice and 2)some walking distance from where I was dropped off, the prices were affordable and it was relatively comfortable.
The surprising thing with Budapest though is that no one spoke English, or even appeared to want to. I had read in the brochures and on the websites that English was spoken; apparently the actual people in the city didn’t get the memo. Because every-time I walked up to someone the response was – “No English”, as if the language was a plague. Maybe it was the black guy thing, ….if that was the case, which I highly doubt then it’s a shame.
There’s a lot more in Budapest which I wasn’t able to see, the night life, more of the actual food – not McDonald’s (which was my go-to meal over there), and even mingling with the people. But there’ll be another time; as far as I know, Budapest and Hungary isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Visit Experience:
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