Bye Bye Budapest

I am not sure why Budapest didn't grab me like some of the other places that I have been... maybe it was the McDonalds on every corner... but I wasn't sad to leave. Strangely... Bratislava has probably been the biggest surprise on this trip. I really only went there because it made geographical sense. However, I absolutely loved it. Part of it was the Slovakian people (cheerful, friendly)... part of it was the beauty of the place. All of which far outweighed the bad food and horrendous hostel. Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT stay at Downtown Backpackers in Bratislava.

Had a bit of an interesting train trip from Budapest to Zagreb. It was about 6 hours... about my maximum time for sitting in one spot! There was a Japanese couple sitting across from me and the man had a bandage on his hand. When the man came on the train to do passport control after we crossed into Croatia, I thought the poor couple were going to have to get off the train. The border guard (or whatever the proper name is..) asked the man for a paper from his doctor. It was an interesting exchange... the border guard spoke a bit of English and the Japanese man spoke extremely little. The guard kept saying "doctor paper insurance" and the Japanese man kept throwing up his hands because he did not understand and saying "Japan" while pointing at his finger. Finally the border guard said "No paper - off train". The Japanese man still had no clue what the guy was talking about so just sat there. The guard asked again for the man's insurance papers. Then you could see him thinking... do I throw this nice looking couple off the train? He went and sat down and wrote a bunch of stuff down in his book. Then he came back and stamped the couple's passports.

So here is the map of my travels thus far...