From South Africa to Serbia!
Wednesday 19th October 2022 saw the print launch of my first novel – Love Unheard. I combined this auspicious occasion with a ‘Safe Travels’ party at a local pizza joint to enable me to say farewell to the people who have given the most support not only in terms of my writing, but also in my decision to travel. How strange to be the centre of attention at a book launch! But, ‘GO ME!!’ Love Unheard is officially out in the world for everyone to enjoy.
However I have to ask why I’m such a last-minute person…everything seemed to happen in a very short space of time. I arranged the launch, bought my air ticket, and took a trip for 7 days to the Eastern Cape with my bestie Jann as soon as I received my passport back from the Embassy with its Schengen visa. All in all, this happened in less than 2 weeks!
I boarded a Lufthansa plane as my first flight to officially becoming a Digital Nomad and left South African soil at 19h30 on 20th October 2022. 11 hours later I landed in Frankfurt, Germany, for a 5 hour wait until my flight to Belgrade, Serbia. Wow! Frankfurt airport is enormous! but with friendly staff in all the duty free / coffee shops, the time went by quickly. I did manage to restrain myself from spending every cent I had, and only splurged on two cups of coffee and a muffin.
I was quite surprised when a policeman stopped me on my way off the plane to inspect my passport – with a magnifying glass! Thank heavens I did things the right way – no bribes or other shortcuts underpinning this, or any other stage of my life 🙂
The flight to Belgrade was quick – 1h30 – and flying in to land, I had my first glimpse of the countryside. Every inch of land is used for farming. The fields look like wooden flooring, with stripes of varying colours going this way and that.
My friend Shona (my life-saver!) suggested I purchase a sim card at the airport – bit of a mission since they would only take Serbian Dinar and I had Euros on me – but I managed this monumental task and voila, I was through customs and giving her the biggest hug ever. It’s been three years since we last saw each other, so the greeting was heartfelt. We took a taxi from Belgrade to Novi Sad (about an hour) and were dropped outside our apartment block. We had to lug my 20 tonne suitcase up two flights of stairs and I walked into my first temporary international home.
I’ve been emotionally level most of the time, but walking into that apartment made it more real than I could ever have imagined. I’ve left my family and friends back in South Africa to undertake a journey with no end date. I’ll only be returning to South Africa if I run out of money (so keep the work coming folks) or if I need to get an in-person visa. It’ll most likely be the second that will take me home since those with a South African passport can only travel to a few places without obtaining a visa in-person in South Africa. My Schengen visa is valid for 90 days. Budapest will use 30 of those days which leaves me with 60. Where to go?
From Serbia to Hungary!
As much as I loved Serbia with its stunning architecture and friendly people, we took a bus to Budapest 26th October 2022 for the next adventure. The ride took longer than expected as one passenger did not have the correct paperwork to enter the EU. Thank heavens it wasn’t me! He was left on the Serbian side of the border and we all moved through to the Hungarian side. After that, the trip proceeded smoothly. We stoped at the Family Restaurant (similar to a One-Stop in RSA) for lunch – who knew this was going to happen? Not us, that’s for sure. We were told we had 20 minutes and everyone trooped into the building for lunch. There were no pre-prepared sandwiches or bags of chips etc. We were greeted with a variety of stews, baked paprika, mashed potato, schnitzel and so on. We looked at each other in disbelief. How could anyone eat a meal like that in less than 20 minutes? We had some cheesecake and that took all the time we had after standing in the queue, visiting the bathroom etc. It was a good choice, but we were hungry by the time we eventually reached our apartment in Budapest.
We were unable to purchase sim cards at the bus station in Budapest (a very odd fact to keep in mind if you travel this way) so couldn’t Google anything! Not a good feeling when you’re in a strange country and can’t speak the local language. However, we managed to find a taxi and lugged our too heavy suitcases to it. The very helpful driver loaded them for us and we took a hair-raising ride through Budapest to our new home – fortunately a building with a lift since we’re on the 4th floor. As we had wifi in the apartment, we could let everyone know we had arrived safely and look for the nearest markets and restaurants. First order of business, purchasing sim cards. Since neither of us speak Hungarian, we need our electronic devices to be working! Google maps and Google translate are now my bestest of best buddies!
We found a shopping centre about 20 mins walk away and set off on our errand. You can’t help but look at the architecture in this city. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before and I found something fascinating to look at around every corner. The shopping centre is like any other in the world – only the language of the shop names change – or not! We found the cell phone shop and purchased a 30 day sim card for €13 from Yettel. Dinner was next on the agenda and we thought we’d treat ourselves to a meal at TGIFriday. Mmmm. We quickly changed our minds when we saw a meal would cost upwards of R500-00 each! With this Digital Nomad thing, the idea is to live as cheaply as possible, so one meal at this price is out of the question. We ended up at Burger King and had a very satisfying meal for much, much less (HUF3540 for the 2 of us). A final trip through the Spar (yes, you read that right) for a few essentials – bread, milk, sugar, yoghurt, onions, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, muesli, cheese and ham (a total spend of HUF12460), and it was time to go home.
We purchased tickets for the Big Red Bus which we used for the next three days. They include a hop-on-hop-off feature along the route around Budapest and a boat cruise on the Danube. At the same time we bought tickets for a trip around the City Park (total spend €48 each). OMG! I’ll be returning to the park as often as possible because there is so much to see. Hero’s Square on its own is a sight to behold. Then there’s an art gallery with a Matisse exhibition and a William Kentridge exhibition at the House of the Hungarian Millenium; a castle, thermal baths, botanical gardens and so much more
To sum up:
I have not enjoyed being in a place where I cannot communicate because I don’t know the local language.
Solution: I now have Google Translate on my phone for text and no fear of asking if someone can speak English! I also have a travel mate to help with things I am not familiar with (such as self-service checkout at the supermarket!)
I have enjoyed being surrounded by buildings with history that are respected and cared for by the cities and its peoples, and being able to walk the streets at 8 or 9 at night and not have to worry for my safety – something I haven’t been able to do since I was in my teens!
A final side note: the cost of living in Hungary is more expensive than in Serbia. Time will tell how often we can treat ourselves to a meal out on our tight budgets.