(May 2005)

The way back...

After almost one year living in Bucharest it was finally time to take a leave. We already said good bye to all our friends and colleages during the last days. Very early in a friday morning it is time to leave our apartment and Bucharest behind us.

Luckily none of the roads on our way are flooded (anymore). So we can go the direct way without any detours. But along our way we see a lot of flooded fields and meadows.

The border is not busy at all. No sign of any special easter travellers traffic jams or anything like that. Just a lot of trucks queuing up which we can fortunately overtake. Prepared for dozens of different stops, fees to pay and explanations why our car is so stuffed with bags and boxes, we reach the Romanian border. A Romanian officer checks our passports and thats it - we can go on and have just left Romania. Unbelievable how easy, inexpensive and transparent this border processing is compared to the Romanian-Bulgarian border. Probably it's already somehow regulated by the EU? Entering Hungary goes smoothly as well -- we have reached the EU! We drive a short while through some Hungarian villages. We can notice a big difference - the houses and front yards look nicer and better maintained than most of the ones we've seen in Romania; the roads are better and it's not as dirty and dusty as in Romania. It's quite obvious that Hungary is some years ahead but therefore they are already in the EU.

Szegedin, our first overnight stop, welcomes us with a friendly and sunny afternoon. Even without detailed driving direction it's no problem to spot our hotel (Novotel) quite fast.

We enjoy a while the beautiful view from our 7th floor hotel room.
	You can see the impact of the flood. The river Tisza went over the shore and flooded close-by-areas and the main road leading along the river.
We have a walk through the charming city and later we have a nice dinner at a great pub that we already know from our last stop in Szegedin a year ago.