Raving in Debrecen, Hungary.

I barely remember Vienna.  Maybe it was boring.  Maybe I was tired, or in a bad mood.  I took an overnight train from Bruges.  It was my first trip with my Eurail pass!  So I looked in the book for anywhere that was an overnight trip.  To save a nights accommodation.  I picked Wien.  Which I immediately pronounced Ween, and gleefully told everyone I'd met in the Bruges hostel that I was going to Ween.  It took about a day for me to realize that if you said Wien with a German accent it was Vien...Vienna.  Idiot.  So I took an overnight train to Vienna.

Met a very nice guy on the train in the dining car.  He was eating tomato soup.  The train split in two and he went to Italy.  He didn't invite me to go, but I bet he wouldn't have argued if I'd asked.  I should have asked.

I remember entering the hostel.  I remember the church of Charles Borromeo.  I remember meeting a Polish guy as I was sitting on the grass.  That's about all I remember of Vienna.

My last memory of Vienna is the train station.  I met two guys.  One from Serbia, one from ... one of the countries Serbia doesn't like.  They were DJs from Amsterdam now.  On their way to Debrecen to play a festival.  I was on my way to Budapest, a few hours before Debrecen.  The non-Serb took a liking to me and invited me to come along.  He seemed harmless, the other guy seemed morose.  So off we go.

Just after Budapest.  JUST AFTER, the train is stopped.  Men in uniforms get on and take away my new friend.  Now in retrospect, at this point, I could have gotten off and gone back to Budapest.  I probably should have.  But I didn't.  I sat in mostly icy silence with the Serb.  We continued onto Debrecen.

They set us up in a room with 3 small beds.  Got us a tourguide for the day.  It was nice weather.  Eventually the Serb came out of his shell.  He was uneasy about having a girl around when he had a fiancee.  He also managed to drop that he hates Americans.  We gave his mother a heart attack defending the asshole Albanians don't you know.  He told me that he liked to corner American frat boys in the alleys of Amsterdam and threaten to kill them for it.  He never went through with his threats, it was just to scare them.  But you could see in his eyes, he was capable of it.

We got on well enough, as long as I went down to the cafe downstairs to buy cakes a few times a day.  I didn't mind, he paid.  I don't know how long I was there for.  Maybe 3 days.  The day of the festival, it poured and flooded and it was cancelled.  So they had him DJ in a club.  It was an awful experience.  Rave dancers and what have you.

Eventually I went to a travel agent.  He wouldn't let me just go to the train station.  I bought a ticket to Bucharest, Romania.  I got out of there.

I ran into him later in Amsterdam.  He owns a record show there.  In Deep n' Dance.  I didn't ask about our friend.