{"id":4244,"date":"2014-02-25T10:06:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T16:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/?p=4244"},"modified":"2014-02-25T10:06:15","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T16:06:15","slug":"stations-semis-and-swastikas-sure-signs-youre-stranded-in-szeged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/2014\/02\/25\/stations-semis-and-swastikas-sure-signs-youre-stranded-in-szeged\/","title":{"rendered":"Stations, semis and swastikas: Sure signs you’re stranded in Szeged"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"leelost201402a\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Public transportation in Europe is wonderful; anyone will tell you that. What they don\u2019t tell you, however, is that you actually have to know how to use <\/i>the transportation. For the navigationally challenged (read: Lee and Jared), this can be a situation.<\/p>\n

So, Jared and I got lost. It wasn\u2019t the first time, and it certainly won\u2019t be the last. We were chillin\u2019 at the thermal spa (that\u2019s not really important to the story, just awesome) and it was getting late, so we were like, \u201cYea, let\u2019s try to find our way back before the buses and trams shut down for the night.\u201d Easy enough, right? So we walked to the closest tram station. \u201cThis is the right direction, isn’t it?\u201d Jared asked. I checked my map. \u201cUm, kind of\u2026\u201d After a few minutes, tram number two comes along. \u201cSweet,\u201d says Jared, \u201cThis is the number of the tram I took to get here.\u201d Nice. We were on our way.<\/p>\n

I watched my map assuredly as we sped away in the wrong direction. \u201cYep,\u201d I thought to myself, \u201cWhen we get here it\u2019s gonna circle around, go aaalllll the way back over here, and we\u2019ll get off here.\u201d How surprised was I when the train stopped at the farthest point and the driver turned and said something that could not have been far from, \u201cWhere do you guys think you\u2019re going? You gotta get out of here.\u201d So here\u2019s Jared and I on the opposite side of the landmark Tesco store that everyone <\/i>knows is way out in the middle of nowhere. \u201cUhh, let\u2019s go to that stop and see if a tram comes along.\u201d Sure enough! We were on our way. This tram went a couple stops in sort of the right direction, then, as if in a bad dream, turned, stopped, and shut down. BUST! Having no other choice, we evacuated and prepared for the long walk. \u201cWhere are we?\u201d asked Jared as I scoured the map. \u201cUhh, we\u2019re off the map,\u201d I replied, \u201cBut it\u2019s not as bad as it sounds. We need to find this street and turn right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"leelost201402d\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

There are certain things you don\u2019t see in the heart of the city of Szeged. One is gas stations. There are no gas stations in urban Szeged. We noted this as we passed the first gas station either of us has seen in a week. I actually stopped in to see if I could get a frozen pizza, but upon entering a guy in a security vest said something to me in a stern voice and I figured I should probably bounce. Another is semi trucks. I don\u2019t know how they transport goods into shops in the heart of the city, but it is not<\/i> by semi. If you see a semi (which we did) you\u2019re lost (which we were). The third is swastikas. As we trudged along on some desolate path out in no-man\u2019s-land, we passed a garbage can with a swastika spray painted on it. If you think this would be shocking in America, consider the fact that Hungary was actually under Nazi rule during a period in World War II. We were in the wroooong part of town.<\/p>\n

\"leelost201402b\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

After awhile, we passed a small pizzeria, to which Jared noted, \u201cWhoa, this is identical to the pizzeria by my place\u2026 Uh, this is my place.\u201d If you think this sounds ridiculous, consider the fact that both us live in the land of endless yellow apartments, an expansive abyss of identical buildings interspersed with identical playgrounds. This is not Stevens Point, Wis. But, we managed to find our way. Of course, it\u2019s not always good to get lost and please don\u2019t tell the girls we got lost, but you learn a lot about your surroundings when it happens. As cheesy as it sounds, you learn a lot about yourself, too.<\/p>\n

-Lee<\/p>\n

Lee Bartnik, a senior\u00a0at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point majoring in dietetics, is blogging about his study abroad experience in Hungary<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public transportation in Europe is wonderful; anyone will tell you that. What they don\u2019t tell you, however, is that you actually have to know how to use the transportation. For the navigationally challenged (read: Lee and Jared), this can be a situation. So, Jared and I got lost. It wasn\u2019t the first time, and it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,44,23,24],"tags":[185,305,312,343,344],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}