Back in Budapest from Balaton

Back in Budapest from Balaton

I arrived back in Budapest today and my friends at the Loft Hostel graciously set me up with a free bed. I am looking over these past three months of unintentional Eastern Europe travel with an overwhelming sense of preemptive nostalgia. I know that when I board that flight tomorrow it will be with deep, deep reservation.

I traveled up from Central America to Prague via New York and Ireland three months ago with the sole intention of making it to Turkey and the Middle East as fast as I possibly could. This did not quite happen like this.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- Late August, 2008
Travelogue — Travel Photos
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I fell into an entire barrage of friends and good times in Eastern Europe at every stop. I quickly found myself full of smiles that I did not wish to potentially shed by moving on to another region of the world. It simply felt right to be where I was this summer: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary were surprisingly good to me. The work came when it needed to and the good vibrations of friends and joyful cheer carried above all.

I am growing older, I know this. I needed another glimmer of unthinking youth; I needed to run streets late at night with wine in hand for the benefit of my own sanity and sense of temporal worth. I clearly acted my age at times, and it was comforting. It has been a while since I have been in position where I had a group friends like I did in Budapest.

But now I prepare for a semester of school in a city that I know nothing about and have scarcely a real friend. But there are a lot of people in New York, and plenty of opportunities for making friends. My interests have been drawn towards Islam, and there is a huge Muslim community in Brooklyn.

My head hangs low as I walk out of Budapest and Eastern Europe.

These travels did not work out as planned, but they did work out exactly as they had to.

On the windy paths of traveling you can expect nothing other than what you get, and, thankfully, this is usually just what you really want.

On to Brooklyn.

Farewell Budapest.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Vacation to Lake Balaton
• August 15th Travel Anniversary
• Bicycling to Romania