The bus ride to Poland we are currently taking is a stern reminder not to underestimate Eastern Europe's desire for and ability to integrate modern technology--except for the heating being on instead of the air conditioning. We've got a bus attendant--kind of like a flight attendant but with bleach-blond hair, heels and a sparkly belt--and leather seats. It is mind-boggling that the bus driver just knows the way to Krakow. We've hardly driven on any main roads or highways. We pass through rural towns with beautiful tiny houses with chimneys. There have been a few auto service stations along the way, too. But mostly this journey consists of lush green forests and mountains. The road back to Poland is already just as I remember it from last time I went. Green, winding and full of weeds. The wishflowers are already popping up all over Slovakia. We haven't arrived at the Polish border yet.
OK, just kidding. We are officially in Poland, as denoted by a large sign announcing, "PL." We're 93 km away from Krakow.
I didn't write much in Budapest because I needed something of a hiatus from my own mind. The people we met in Budapest actually helped me notice this through our conversations. They were amazing people, actually. The best thing I realized after just a couple of discussions with the other travelers in Paprika Hostel is that everyone (around here, at least) has a World War II complex. It affects their perception of Europe and its history. It affects their nationalistic sympathies--especially when it comes to deciding who to root for in the Euro Cup. It jumped into nearly every conversation I had. Quite fascinating. In Budapest, I also learned a great deal about Australia and New Zealand and why long periods of world travel matter so much. People have been away from home for months, even years. It's slightly unfathomable to me, but I am lucky to live close to...well, everywhere else.
On Friday I learned a lot. We began the day at the House of Terror, 60 Andrassy Boulevard, Budapest, the headquarters of the Nazis and then the Communists in Hungary. I was transfixed by the amount of Hungarian history I did not know. It's quite similar to Polish history in some respects. The Communists came immediately after the Nazis lost the war, and their reign was cruel and fatal until 1989. The year I was born was the first the Hungarians experienced without living in total fear of authority. The Communist regime continues to be such a frightful memory in the Hungarian mindset that World War II history seems slight in their eyes, or at least it did to an extent at the House of Terror. Fortunately or unfortunately, I left Budapest with very little sense of Hungary's attitude toward its Jewish people, but that brings me to a separate story that happened at the end of the day.
Friday night was my first time getting turned away from a synagogue. One of the world's largest synagogues (second or fifth? It was never clear) is situated in the center of the city. Ironically (or is it) it's surrounded by some of the best bars and clubs, as we were told and later found out for ourselves. But anyway, after a long/overtime walking tour, Aurite and I ran through the heat, picking up scarves to cover our shoulders along the way, trying our best to arrive in time for the 6:00 evening service. We finally arrived and even made it through security (common for European synagogues) when a guard appeared. He informed us that our dresses were too short for us to enter the synagogue. Even after pleading that we just wanted to pray there, that it means a lot and I do it every week, he refused to let us inside, claiming the rabbi would be too upset. So we couldn't go inside, we couldn't pray, because our skirts were literally one inch above our kneecaps.
It threw me back into what has been eating at me: Judaism and its exclusivity. Judaism and its need to make sudden judgments about its own people and about others. Judaism and its exclusive, irrelevant rules. Judaism and its need to hide its good parts--family values, spirituality, prayer, music, beauty--from anyone that could be judged possibly incapable of understanding Judaism.
I hate this part of Judaism. I always have. But now it's happened to me, and I can't remember the last time it has...
To celebraet Shabbat, Aurite and I did something simple. We walked to the Hummus Bar around the corner from our hostel (our life-saving vegetarian restaurant with arbitrary Hebrew words decorating the menu), ordered a meal that included 2 pita breads. We picked up some beers and returned to the hostel to have a miniature but proper Shabbat dinner, which happened to also include everyone else who sat with us at the table, whether they realized it or not. Whether they even know what a Shabbat dinner is or not. Because it doesn't matter. Everybody can come, because everybody can understand the value of enjoying a good meal and a good conversation, the value of giving others the time of day, even if you don't know them well or if they have no idea what religious duty is or if they're just good people to talk to.
...So if anything, all I can say is that I felt frustrated by Judaism in Budapest. I want to be Jewish and I want to take every opportunity presented to me to celebrate the values of my religion, even and especially if those opportunities are somewhat abstract. I have a sense now, though, that from this point in my life and moving forward, most of my opportunities will be those abstract ones. Well, I'll make the most of them. All I could ever hope to do is show others the joys of Judaism. I want to use it to bring people together, to offer a firmer sense of character and understanding. That's the priority right now. Personally, this is all I really want from the religious side of myself.
And other than that, Budapest was a blast, my favorite city so far. It's a city with very little pressure. We visited one bath house, one museum and did one walking tour. Otherwise, Budapest was about living rather than learning, a crucial thing to understand in the midst of a six-week travel period. Meeting other travellers gave me a lot of validation that this trip is worth the time, the money, the comfort and the job I could have possibly searched for at home. People in transit have a lot to teach each other. It's automatically assumed that no one you meet is certain of anything in life, which is a very humbling assumption, and I venture to say a correct one, if you think about it.
Last night I also came to the realization that I don't really need anything. Maybe just a bit of money. But other than that, I think I'm beginning to understand that I absolutely can take on the world. I can be in foreign places. I can develop new friendships. I can appreciate the temporary things in life. I've already started throwing out some of my clothes (the ones I don't like and I've owned since the sixth grade or something, of course) in an effort to just make my life a little bit easier to navigate. Literally.
We're still in rural Poland, by the way. I guess we wouldn't be anywhere else right now, since we are on a bus to Krakow. It is so beautiful here, really unique from all the other places we've been so far. People should come.
I am sitting next to a nun, an Italian family with two small children, and quite a few English speakers. So I guess people are coming. I guess that's good, though I'm not really sure, to tell you the truth.
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