the train to budapest smelled like you would assume at 80 degrees and totally booked......during the first hour of the seven i tried to open the window in between cars and had gotton heavily scolded. its funny i almost lost our train tickets the day before at an english book store (well maybe not as funny for webley at the time). when we arrived to find them they made it to the recycling bin! but we found them and were thoroughly excited to get on our stuffy train that was two hours late. when almost to the book store i was sort of rushed, nervous and anxious...i decided for the last few minutes to try and take my time and breathe deeply and accept the outcome what ever it may be. when arriving to such a new and densly populated place it can be easly confusing and cause a lot of stress...especially when taking the subway.......it felt really great to take this moment and find myself much at peace given the circumstance....i hope to use this more admently in the experiences coming before me. its interesting to see the amount of change and conflict we can come across when in such a different part of the world.......really trying to find the best way to adapt and change with the culture rather then trying to keep a constant window of my own culture in front of me..... is this then why so many people travel with cameras? always hoping to take a piece of another culture while trying to fit it in to the perspective of their own?.....expecially it seems easy to hide behind such a thing as a camera..as i do own one myself..it offers a sense of security not only by creating more purpose and validaty given the experience but offers a sort of gratification that the experience may be physically possesed rather then consciously.
this then brings me to the aspect of trying to understand culture while still somehow being integral to our own
so far we have come across as a bit distant when trying to communicate to people given the language barriers. last night on the train we disccused how it would be good instead of trying to hide our ethnicity that we will try and embrace it. not through pride but through confidence and gratitude while trying our best to communicate to others with a sense of compassion and curiosity. it seems when we show shame or weakness when trying to express ourselves when not knowing the language that we put ourselves in a position that makes things easily distant and possibly irrelavent to our own perspectives. given the amount of anti american sentiment it should be interesting to see how we begin to persue our connections. (although a patch on my backpack does sport the canadian flag....and realy i was in vancouver last fall for like a week and would like to live there someday!) but i think the most important thing is to try our best to express ourselves clearly and mindfully to the people we come across on our journey. right now we are staying with a hungarian by the name of tibi.....he seems wholeheartedly interested in our travels before us and those behind is. it has given us a great deal of momentum and is nice to be able to connect with him and with the city that we have experienced thus far.

it looks like the remainder of our train ride will take thirty two hours till istanbul. i think we may take our time in budapest to prepare. today we go to their famous hot springs.....though the images of the mediterraining that ive seen definitly apear to be inviting.