My Big Fat Romanian Adventure Pt. 1

Halloween in Hungary

(Caveat: It's been some time since I've written, so you'll forgive my lack of usual wit and prose.  Much like a muscle - get your minds out of the gutter, dears - that will atrophy if left neglected, so does writing.  Bear with me for a few posts).

In the inviolable intelligence that is the Army communication process, I was notified, with what amounts to three days of lead time, that I was leaving from Germany to Romania.  For a total of two weeks.  What follows is the account of some of the more memorable moments of that three-hour tour.

Little did I… I mean, I guess I should have suspected, but I didn’t actually believe it’d come to pass, what was two weeks turned into two months.  However, I am not complaining (just want that out there for any interested party that happens to be reading this, can’t forget how much trouble I got in last time for posting something that amounted to an unfavorable opinion about the way things are).

We started out like this: 

I started in front, so I can’t take credit for this photo.  10 hours of flying across Europe?  No big deal.

What had never even crossed my mind, at all, ever, was the fact that I’d be in Hungary on Halloween.

This picture is in color, it's the country that's in black and white.

Papa, Hungary: A city of claustrophobia.

As dark as this place is, on Halloween, at midnight, we decided (for whatever reason) to wander through the streets of Werewolf Town right near Children of the Corn Farm and Why the Hell Are Your Tombstones Lit Up With Christmas Lights Cemetery. 

Plus this guy that just kept staring.

Despite Hungary’s best attempts to murder us (to say nothing of the Hungarian Army Barracks with bars on the windows – to prevent werewolf attacks, obviously – and the mattresses made of human hair, unknown creature blood, and the strangest racist scrawls pidgin English/Hungarian), we survived to make it Dracula Land.

Naturally (naturally being used in the context of expectation of continuance of odd shit), the first thing I saw sitting on the table in my new office was this gem:

I have nothing to add.

Anyway, these are my mornings now:

-I always knew she had the ability, to kill me.  It just never occurred to me that she’d actually try.