Hungary

The first thing you notice when you get to Debrecen is how tiny the train station is. European train stations are bustling places, even the ones in average-sized cities. They have gift shops, newsstands, restaurants, food stands, rooms full of benches – you could live in them. The one in Debrecen is a few train platforms, a convenience store and a counter to change currency. Debrecen is the second-largest city in Hungary, or, as its inhabitants say, “the largest village in Hungary.” It’s got about 200,000 people, one tram line, and some of its residential neighborhoods still have dirt roads.

The biggest attraction, just outside of the city, is Nothing. There are several miles, running alongside the road on both sides, that are completely flattened. All dirt, no grass, no trees, no nothing, just flat brown land as far as the eye can see. God knows why. The Deri Museum is worth a visit. It’s about equally split between exhibits on the city’s history and on art, both paintings and Hungarian folk art. There is also a Literary Museum that has just about as much art as literature. TAnd don’t miss the castle — well, half of a castle. An Italian millionaire started to build it for his wife in the 90s, but never finished it. A lot of the walls are done, but not much else.

Debrecen is a smaller town than Budapest, and the people are more open and friendly than their big-city cousins. If you go to a pub here, you’ll have no problem meeting lots of people. The language barrier isn’t as great as elsewhere—Debrecen University is one of the most popular in Hungary, and about an eighth of the city’s population is students. As a result, when you go out to bars you’ll run into a lot of students, who are a lot more likely to speak some German or English than the general population.

People don’t generally make a trip across the ocean just to see Debrecen, but it’s definitely worth a stop on your way further east. The further east you go, the cheaper things get, and Romania’s a lot cheaper than Hungary. Debrecen’s poor by western standards, but it’s not really that bad off – the people there have places to live and enough money for food and clothes, and the government cares enough to provide basic services like putting broken power lines back up and clearing abandoned old trains off the tracks.

There are hoods in the US where life is a lot harder than Debrecen. Cross the Romanian border and the decaying buildings dotting the countryside look like something out of a Mad Max movie.

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