Hanging out on a Budapest corner on a Sunday night, the ridiculousness and romance of it all. We ended up eating a bowl of mediocre student pasta and drinking “palinka” which is the Hungarian version of slivovic, out of a plastic Fanta bottle.

Now I am back in Pristina after my lovely interlude, took the midnight train last night, got into my sleeping car compartment and had a mildly alarming moment when the porter took apart a ladder and showed me how to barricade the door against all intruders! The Budapest-Belgrade train being known for, and I quote, “armed gangs…they use knock-out sprays…guys with guns….very dangerous.” Needless to say nothing of the sort appeared and I spent a pleasant night sleeping. At the border the Yugoslavs dealt with me very suspiciously but then I whipped out my blue card and it was all smiles. (You’ve got to love communism!)

So in Belgrade I transferred to the Pristina bus, a double-decker affair. It was excruciatingly slow, taking six hours for a three hour drive; nonetheless, I am back in my room, back in Pristina.

The worst of the mud is over, I think, but it is still quite cold. I will try to get an egg to stand on end on the first day of spring.