Sunday, April 8

Can You Guess Where I Am? Part 4b

Yesterday/Saturday = 12 hour train ride Brasov --> Budapest
Today/Easter Sunday = Budapest
(Tomorrow/Easter Monday (argh!) = Budapest)

Right, so I didn't cover a few things in my blog last night, but they're all sort of retrospective-y things on Romania anyway. First of all, I heard two (Romanian) jokes while I was there, which I thought were funny.

First one: The parts of the body are having a meeting to decide who should be the boss. The brain says, "I should be the boss because I tell the body what to do, I coordinate the movements and I do all the thinking." The eyes disagree, and say, "We should be the boss because we perceive the world around us, figure out what's important, and gather information." The mouth chimes in: "I should be the boss because I control the information going out and communicate to the outside world." Then the butt speaks up. "I should be the boss," it says, "because when I decide to stop working, no more food can come in and the whole system shuts down." Moral of the story: Any asshole can be the boss.

Second one: Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism are having a tea party. On the day of the event, Capitalism and Communism show up, but Socialism is late. Finally, Socialism runs in, out of breath, and apologizes: "Sorry I'm late guys, I was waiting in line for meat." Capitalism says, "What's a line?" and Communism says, "What's meat?"

Well I thought they were funny. The second one is a little more Romanian, but I think the first is pretty universal. You know me and my jokes... bad and inseparable.

Anyway, Romania was an interesting country to visit; it really is a bit of a mind boggle that it is in Europe proper and the EU. It's sort of a hard country to visit, but I'm really glad I went. So much cooler than everyone else's spring break trips to Berlin, Rome, Paris, etc.

Lovely reflections on Budapest and Hungary to follow, when I've actually experienced something of the city.

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