The Unknown Family

In recent months it seems that every time I log onto a social networking site, be it Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, I have to scroll through page after page of anti-refugee posts. In light of all the negative connotations floating around at the minute, I thought I'd share something I wrote on the train from Serbia to Hungary when I was confronted with a young family of migrants for the first time.

Initially I wrote this only for myself, as a way of processing the scene that played out in front of me, but now I feel the need to share my personal experience. I know that some people will feel differently than I do, but for me, this trip helped me acknowledge the faces in the otherwise faceless media coverage.



"Friday 25th - Train to Budapest

Sitting in the four seats in front of me is a family. I can see the back of the Mother and Father's head, I can hear the constant wails of the baby in her arms, and I can see the two young boys and their even younger sister squashed contently into the two opposite seats. Their presence however is made apparent not through sight, but through the smell. The heavy scent of stale sweat and urine fills the entire cabin and initially makes me wretch. With them are several large plastic bags of 'stuff', I can just about make out that one contains some clothes, but the others are a mystery to me.

The Mother and Father are dirty, their clothes, their face, their hair. Much like her parents, the little girl is dirty, she also has a tendency to wander and sprints up and down the isle giggling as she goes. She is the one who intrigues me the most. I would say that she is no older than three years and still has a small amount puppy fat that gives her a cute little pot belly. Clothes wise, it's not great, I am guessing that her jumper is supposed to be white, but the colour is far closer to a shade of brown, whilst her purple corduroy trousers are black and muddy on the knees and bum. She has enormously wide deep brown eyes that stare with innocent enthusiasm at everything, including myself, surrounded by gloriously long black lashes. Her beauty is obvious, and somehow manages to be the first thing I notice about her face, but when I look for longer the sheer grubbiness of her skin shocks me. Dark circles encase her eyes and a clump of mud has dried behind one of her ears, her short hair is matted to the point of dreadlocks.

The eldest of the boys, probably 11, has clearly taken on the role of ring leader. He commands his sister to sit down, and rewards her with a kiss and a kit-kat when she does. He too is laughing the majority of the time, when he opens his mouth I can see that his front two teeth are badly chipped and the rest are discoloured. I think it is his optimism that saddens me the most. Somehow the innocence of the three of them makes the situation worse, the fact that for them this is just another day of their childhood. From what I can make out, I think the father has fallen asleep, and the son has taken on the responsibility of his siblings, consistently showering his sister and the baby in kisses, whilst he entertains his brother with a series of animated hand gestures that makes them both howl.

I have the strange feeling that this isn't a journey that I will forget. In years to come when people talk of the 'migrant crisis ' I know that this is what I will think of. This exact point. This family, these people, this smell. I wonder where they will be in ten years time, what their future is, where they will call home.

This I will never know.

I can of course pretend that they make it to prosperous Germany or England, that they are given some sort of social housing and the children are provided with a decent education. That in ten years the bright eyed, dirty girl is stressing about her GCSEs and boys, her face clean, her hair long and smooth. That her brother is finishing university and is an annoyance rather than a carer. I can imagine that she has forgotten all about this journey that she is having to make, about the anguish which her parents must be suffering, about the filthy white jumper.

I can see it.

Unfortunately I also know the probable outcome. I know that the Hungarian border is closed for them, that they are not wanted here or anywhere else. I know that even if by some miracle they do make it to the West the life that is waiting for them isn't going to be what they imagined. An unskilled, minimum wage job - if any - for the father. A flat too small for the six of them, no money and limited schooling. It is hard to imagine a situation where this is the better option, where the unknown is still more promising than staying where they were. I can imagine that we both share the same fantasy scenario, that this chance, however small, is what they cling to.

Still the baby cries."



After I finished writing this the family quickly disembarked the train at the last stop before the Hungarian border. I will never know what happened to this family, but it changed my somewhat shallow view immediately. It is easy to dehumanise a situation when you only see it through a screen, to remove the individual cases and lump them all together, I know I did, but in situations like these the reality hits home with a blunt force.

I hope I never forget the face of the adorable little girl with the beautiful wide eyes.

Budapest, Bratislava and a Birthday

What I've learnt since staying in hostels is that your experience in a place is entirely dependent on the people who your'e staying with. I've stayed in some really beautifully equipped places, with gorgeous clean kitchens and bathrooms, but horrifically dull roommates, and for me that overrides the otherwise good experience. I've also stayed in some total dives, with really fantastic people, that make you not care about the fact that there's no locks in the toilets or hot water in the showers. This is exactly what happened when I headed north from Novi Sad to Budapest.

Budapest

As usual I had booked the cheapest hostel on HostelWorld - The Hangover. As far as drinking is concerned I haven't actually indulged too much on this trip, it's expensive and travelling on my own, I like to have some sense of what's going on around me. However Budapest provided me with the perfect set up to have a fantastic time, drink, hardly spend any money and feel completely secure in doing so.

My 8 bed dorm consisted of a group of four Australian guys, a Canadian girl, a Finnish girl and myself. Luckily for all of us we got on phenomenally. Unlike a lot of groups who travel together, and tend to keep themselves to themselves, the Aussies were more than happy to have myself and the other girls tagging along for the entire weekend. Our five days there were spent doing the typical touristy things, visiting the stunning Parliament building and castle, whilst our nights were spent in some of the 100s of bars and clubs that Budapest has to offer.

The highlight of the entire weekend for myself has to be the Thermal Baths. Sunday afternoon, all feeling slightly 'tender', the executive decision to actually leave the room was made. Definitely not by myself, I was pretty adamant that being hungover and going swimming was a recipe for pure disaster, but we trudged on anyway. Even the idea of an outdoor pool in late September in Central Europe made me shiver, and as our group headed out into the cold kitted in our summer bikinis and shorts, pneumonia was all that was on my mind. Yet as I sunk into the 40° water it felt like pure heaven. We spent all day there, only leaving when they closed the pools.

The nights out also proved to come in useful when by pure chance I bumped into a guy I'd met on my first day travelling in Venice, who lives in Budapest and offered to give me a little tour around! I adore being shown around by people who actually live in the city, there are so many things that Lonely Planet miss off or simply don't know about, and I'll be honest, at this point I still hadn't seen as much of the city as I probably should have. It was also lovely to see a familiar face, the whole 'it's a small world' cliche has always made me cringe. Yet here I am, using it. Because let's be honest, what were the chances of me deciding to leave a particular bar, just as he decides to enter this particular bar, in a city of 1.7 million people. Seeing someone again, especially after all this time, reminds you that maybe all the constant goodbyes that you say aren't necessarily as permanent as they might feel, and that's a little bit beautiful.

Outside the parliament building.

Post Thermal Baths.

Brent, myself and Katriina on our
 last night.

View of Budapest from the Liberty Statue.

Team Baywatch.

Bratislava

After my very full-on few days in Budapest I traveled North to Bratislava to start my new Workaway position in A Wild Elephants Hostel.

I was told by a few people about how dull Bratislava is, and that scene in Eurotrip didn't give me much hope, yet on my second day I was being thrown from a bridge and on my third we broke into a black tie gala event... Not quite as dull as I'd been warned.

Again I got tremendously lucky with my first group of guests staying in the hostel, who were a dream, and the team that were already working there made me feel immediately welcome. Something which I was slightly nervous about however, was my impending birthday. The thought of being away from home for my birthday didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, I've been having such a fantastic time I really don't need one specific day to do wonderful things or relax. I did feel slightly guilty for also missing my older brother's birthday (coincidentally also on 5th October) but other than that I was quite happy to have a nice day and let it pass without too much of a note.

I was working my first night shift (9pm-7am) into my birthday, which generally consists of letting drunk guests in, and when one of these guests found out that it was my birthday, he went out and stole for me: a bouquet of flowers, a pepper mill and a dining room chair. Gift originality at it finest right there.

A fantastically unique start to my 21st. The rest of the day was spent in the most hipster-indie-chic coffee shop Bratislava has to offer, and eating a disgusting amount of Slovakian food. Slovakian cuisine is quite similar to the other Balkan states, heavy and filling and fattening and delicious. Potato dumplings covered in cheese covered in sour cream covered in bacon - bliss.

And then came the shots. Dear God the shots. As a general rule, alcohol in this part of the world is horrifically pure, strong and frequently consumed. Despite drinking litres of pure alcohol, a good night was had by all. I think. I don't remember. I'm sure they did. Well I did at least.

Team IT gala.

The Wild Elephant (and Monkey).

My lovely carrot cake and chocolate muffins.

'Take it sleazy' Mark, myself and Lorna.

Birthday gift from my boss, 15 year old palinka.

Lorna and myself.

Selfie time.

Pain in an image,