back with Buda and Pest

 I think I spent just a little too much time on the train today, because even now--five hours after getting off the train--my body still leans just a little whenever I sit down in anticipation of the train lurching off towards our next destination. being stationary. what a novel concept.
the quiet is a little eerie.

 We boarded the train in Ljubljana before the sun had risen (I guess Slovenia is considerably north of Macedonia) and it was amazing to watch the light change as we sped across all sorts of landscapes. Maybe it's spending four years with a train track literally running through my life, whistling to me, rumbling through town irregardless of weather, exams, mood or deadline, but there's something about seeing the world from a train window which I just love--the perspective on the world, the clattering, the lilting. the old man who wheels up and down the aisle "can I interest you in coffee?" he says, with the most wonderful smile. A week before leaving for Macedonia, I spent an evening with Charlie--kicking around the train station in Burlington before heading up to Radio Bean. "they're all somehow the same," he said. and the same could be said for the countless stations we zoomed by today--same conductor, with his red cap and flags, same people wrestling luggage off the train, same family members

 looking longingly after the train once it has pulled away from the station.
and all of a sudden, it was getting dark again, the softness returned to the light as it slanted across the Hungarian plains. and there--up ahead--was Budapest (actually Pest--which certainly threw my internal-map for a loop). and oddly, coming up from the metro--it felt like a homecoming of sorts.
it's good to be back with Buda and Pest