The following letter was written by Bob to his Grandmother while traveling through Europe.
The letter below includes some interesting points:
Text of letter:
I'm sitting here in a boat traveling between Athens, Greece and a small island with plenty of time to kill, so I'm catching up on correspondence. I last wrote Florida from Vienna, so I'll continue from there. We got out on the road last Sunday afternoon, hoping to catch a ride just to the Hungarian border so we could cross over early in the morning on Monday. That way we could spend almost 3 days in the country, since our transit visas only allowed us to stay 2 nights (the government allows people to travel through Hungary for a couple of dollars, but if you want to stay longer it makes you change $5/day into Hungary currency at official exchange rates, so you lose a lot of money). No rides picked us up for a few hours, so we were just about ready to quit hitching for the night. Then a European businessman pulled up in a brand new rented car and offered to drive us straight to Budapest. Although we first said we'd get off at the border, the chance to go straight into the capital was too good to pass up. The driver was about 35 years old. Spent almost all of his time criss-crossing Europe trying to sell heavy industrial equipment for textile manufacturers. He would see his family only a few days a month and often drove from dawn to dusk. Seemed like a terrible ordeal.
We got to the city around 10 PM, found a telephone booth and began calling around to find a cheap hotel or camping ground. Unfortunately, few people speak German or English, so we would listen to Hungarian gibberish & then hang up. In the end we hopped on a bus and headed towards a camping ground. A young guy saw our packs, said "camping?" (which is close to a universal word, apparently) and indicated he would show us where the grounds were. The grounds were closed for winter. However, it was 12 Midnight and we must have looked forlorn, so the old warden indicated we could stay for one night, which we did.
The next day was quite fun. We discovered Budapest has scrumptious pastries in little, out of the way shops; naturally we gorged ourselves. Then we walked all over touring the city, which is magnificent with its old fortresses and government buildings. It was surprising to see long-haired kids working construction since I thought the Communist governments were strongly against such signs of decadence. On the other hand, the red star which you expect to find was prominently displayed quite often. That night we went to an elegant restaurant which had a gypsy group playing and which served some incredibly good dishes. I had some spicy-hot ghoulash (what else in Hungary!) and Jenny had some chicken and dumplings in a velvety sauce. Almost the best meal of the trip. Cost us each $1.10; gives you an idea of prices. Then we went to a 15c movie in a theater which had chandaliers and gold trim.
That night we spent in a hotel and the following day we hassled with getting a train out of Hungary. And it was a hassle. After much confusion we finally settled on one train. The guy told us it cost so much in Hungarian money which meant we would have to cash good money at official rates which we did. Then we went back and the guy said it not only cost Hungarian money, but that part of the ride outside of Hungary would cost foreign money; that meant changing another traveler check at outrageous exchange rates & would leave us with large amounts of virtually worthless currency. Luckily the guy relented & accepted all Hungarian currency. As you can see, there is a lot of effort to be had as you get ready to cross a border; especially in small countries with weak economies, just to make sure you spend all of a country's money in that country. The train ride was uneventful except for two things: The train was pulled by an old fashioned, coal-eating, smoke-belching, locomotive and when we crossed the border the train stopped and soldiers lined up along either side of it while other soldiers checked under the train and in the train for people trying to leave illegally.
In Yugoslavia we stopped at the border town of Subotica. We had planned to hitch out the next morning, but the first night we met a student who took us home. The family had a small, 2 room house, so we slept in the kitchen. Although poor by our standards, I think they were fairly well-off since they rented another two rooms to 2 families and a paper-walled barn to a small factory. They also owned an acre vineyard from which they had harvested the grapes which were then sitting in a 70 gallon, wooden-staved keg. We got a chance to taste last years wine, which was wretched, and some grape juice from the keg which was ok. While we were there we had a chance to attend a university lecture (which the student translated for us), a play (which we could easily follow) and a party. It was an interesting and fun stay, all in all. It was not a good indication of how our Yugoslavia stay would be, however.
The day we left the weather turned cold and cloudy. Hitch hiking was good at first (we made it down to Belgrade that night) but Yugoslavia's reputation for rotten hitch hiking soon proved true. A couple of times we spent hours and hours standing beside the road in a cold drizzle. It was constantly amusing to make more cracks about the "international highway" (as it was called) which was nothing more than a poorly constructed, 2 lane country road which degenerated into potholes and cobblestone streets when it entered towns. The exception to this rule was a stretch of highway which extended, at most, 2 miles on either side of Belgrade. When you approached the city the road suddenly transformed itself into a 4 lane, divided super-highway. It was a pathetic attempt to impress visitors, in my opinion. The nadir of our Yugoslavia experience arrived on our last day in the country. We had been standing for hours, it was getting colder and rain was threatening. For about 20 minutes three little kids had been teasing & taunting (annoying in a foreign language, but easily ignored). Then they got up on a nearby roof and started pitching pebbles at us from behind. As luck would have it, a car stopped then & rescued us from our ordeal. The next ride was a large truck which took us to the border.
Of course, throughout the cold we had dreamed of it turning wonderfully warm the minute we crossed into Greece. Obviously an irrational fantasy. In an incredible coincidence, in the half hour it took us getting through customs at the border, the storm which had been over both Yugoslavia & Greece broke up, the stars came out, and the wind died down, so we walked right into Greece & beautiful weather. Our spirits soared.
The next day was beautiful; we actually, honest to God, hitched a ride in a little, hand-hewn, wooden cart pulled by an old horse. He took us a mile down the road to an intersection for two highways. Then we got picked up by an Australian couple who drove us all the way to Athens (...) in their camper bus.
The weather in Athens continued beautiful - we half-heartedly searched for an ap't so we could live cheaply for a month, but mostly we wandered around pigging ourselves outrageously at every pastry shop we passed. Athens has one major attraction, the Acropolis, which is stunning to see. We spent an afternoon there looking around, then later attended an evening sound & light show which used dialogue over loudspeakers to give glimpses at the Acropolis history and various colored search lights to illuminate from afar. Under the changing colors it was indeed beautiful at night, but the show was generally over dramatized. Still and all the ruins make the city worth visiting. What just breaks my heart is the new realization that what we now see as crumbling remnants of an old monument was almost totally intact 300 years ago. For 2000 years the temples stood in glory, then an explosion within during a war, followed by looters, destroyed it for future generations.
We stopped searching for an ap't since it seemed a virtually hopeless task. Also, the prospect of returning to Berkeley became more & more appealing since it will give me a good chance to get some necessary studying done before I start school in late March & will make finances work out extremely well. So instead of prolonging a stay in Europe we are now going to do a week and a half loop of the Aegean islands, followed by a hitch to Corfu, Greece where we can get a ferry to Italy. Then we will travel up Italy, stopping briefly in Naples, Rome, Florence and Venice, as time permits. Then up through Switzerland and Germany to Lux., where we will catch a flight to NY on Nov 28. Since neither of us has hitched across the states, and it seems like an interesting thing to do, we will do that and arrive in Berkeley no later than Dec 12 (because of school schedules & how they relate to ap't hunting & job finding, this is a strategic time to arrive).
Some (a lot) of time has passed since I began this, so there's yet more to tell. We have now visited 3 islands: Mykonos [Mikonos], Kolumnos [Kalumnos], and Rhodes, of which Kolumnos was the best time. There were no more than 3 or 4 other tourists who we saw there. The water was clear and a little too cold (you can get used to it & it's definitely not too cold for swimming) but nice when the wind is not blowing. We would have spent more time there, except a storm had held us on previous island for a few extra days (ship could not be boarded) and the boat schedules were such that we absolutely had to be on Rhodes today in order to catch the once a week boat to Crete. The islands are ugly, brown hills rising out of beautiful blue water and strung with small sand & pebble beaches. I'm coming back to them some May or June, perhaps after I graduate, and stay awhile. Mykonos & Rhodes are both too touristy, but with between 30 & 50 islands to choose from, getting away from tourists (tourists is, of course, always everybody else who isn's Greek) would be no problem.
Well, if I don't mail now it will never get mailed. Here's a Hungarian stamp for Betty. New address is Poste Restrante, Bern.
Love Bob