Even for our peculiar style of travel, Eastern Europe seemed like an unlikely destination. In fact, in spite of our desire to go there, both of us had some doubts and negative expectations. My major concern was the languages and how that would affect road signs and directions. That turned out not to be an issue at all.
Brian did pull out the Google Translate (never leave the U.S. without it) a few times, but English truly has become a universal language. Most everywhere the road signs are in the countries’ native language as well as English. Everywhere except Poland, the majority of all signs are bilingual with many just in English, and everywhere we went, there were lots of bilingual people. In Poland, however, we saw very few bilingual signs, and we ran into more folks that didn’t speak English. We found Romanian a little easier to pronounce, since it’s based on a Latin language and many words came from French and Italian. Hungarian is based on Magyar, which came from Mongolia and we couldn’t wrap or tongues around it. Czech and Polish are Slavic languages and they both use too many consonants and way too few vowels. And they use “Z” and other 2-letter consonants that sound nothing like we are used to. We would end this with “goodbye” but we never learned how to say it anywhere. Or “please”. Or “thank you.”
Another pleasant surprise was the ease in driving and arriving by air from one E.U. country to another. No passport check, no immigration control. Driving was also a pleasant surprise. The roads were excellent, even the back country roads, and the service stations had convenience stores that were clean and well stocked. What did not work so well was the navigation systems. It took the car’s system and my IPad together and yet even then we found ourselves going in a circle in Czechia, as we explored every back road looking for a motorway.
The European equivalent of Uber is Bolt, which is awesome … until it isn’t. We used it almost everyday and everywhere with great results until we found ourselves in Prague’s old town, late at night, and Bolt rejected every single one of our credit cards. By good old fashioned luck we had enough cash to get back to our hotel. It failed us one other time, in Krakow, when their system couldn’t find us. But on the whole, it’s an easy and user friendly way to get around.
We discovered that we don’t much like Polish Food, that Hungary’s use of paprika is great, that Romanian food wasn’t appealing at all, and that the Prague’s pig knuckle sounds horrible but is actually delicious. It is also very obvious that American fast food is no longer the dominant universal cuisine. Pizza, pasta, and sushi have stolen that title.
This echoes our observation that, both in Europe and Asia, being American no longer has the same cache as it used to have. Nobody is impressed or particularly interested anymore, but it’s still great fun and really interesting to talk to people from other countries. That brings us full circle to our gratitude that English has become an almost universal language, and is a required subject in schools starting in early elementary and continuing through high school. Except in Poland.
We never dreamed that anyone would be interested in following along as we bumble through our journeys, but we are amazed and grateful for your continued friendship, concern, and interest. It means the world to us! I used to think that with practice, we could become smooth, sophisticated world travelers that never embarrassed ourselves, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that time will run out before that happens. During the Asia trip last May, I was repeatedly offered services and assistance due to looking my age. This time it was Brian’s turn and both times we were shocked because we still see ourselves as young and as capable as we were on our first trip 43 years ago. So time marches on and we will too, warts and all, and hope that y’all will still want to hear all about it next time.
Over and out, from your drive by tourists.
