FROM BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN



Marci who shared this experience with me
(Advice: click on pics for better view)

The year was 1974. My friend Marci and I decided to go and travel in Western Europe in the summer. Sounds like a simple plan but we lived in Hungary and getting a special passport, a blue one, was never a sure thing. People who lived in the People’s Republic of Hungary could obtain a red passport fairly easily, valid for the “Friendly Socialist” countries with the exception of the Soviet Union. For the rest of the world one had to apply for a blue passport. That was issued with one exit visa (if it was issued) and could only be obtained every three years, or if you had someone who vouched for you and paid your expenses then you could apply every other year. Well Marci and I got lucky and we were the proud owners of two blue passports by March with valid exit visas. Mine was good for 60 days, his for 30. My uncle sponsored me so I had legal means to obtain hard currency.  Marci on the other hand was a regular tourist and he could only buy 70 dollars which of course was not enough. More foreign currency had to be bought on the black market and smuggled out of the country.  Marci’s father, a real crafty book worm, who not only loved to read books but was a master amateur book binder as well, was able to hide anything inside a book cover. It was done so well that I, who knew where the money was hidden, could not actually believe that it was there.

Amsterdam, I am in the middle
in front of the dorm where we crashed

I spent four weeks in London, before Marci joined me. We roamed around Trafalgar Square and ran into one of our classmates who proudly pointed out his T-Shirt from Karl Marx University, the school we all attended. Our friend explained to everybody who cared to listen why Hungary is the best place in the world: “Socialism is better than Capitalism and Hungary is the best country of the Socialist block” he beamed. Did he really believe this? If he did, his belief did not last too long, two years later he left Hungary for Israel.

Marci hitchhiking
I don't recall even a single lift

Marci and I spent most of our nights at hostels. We talked to somebody from the US, who asked us where we came from. We told him we were from Hungary, he looked at us curiously, we could tell he was searching his brain, he was almost in pain trying to remember something, then his eyes cleared out and he said: “I never heard about that state!”  We turned our attention to an Australian girl, who may not have been smarter, but certainly looked ten times better in her tank top.  We competed in a friendly way for her attention.  Marci, (who knows why), decided to correct my English, making sure that the Ausie understood me when I mispronounced the word “recognize”. A lesson learnt for life!

Auditioning for the royal guards
in Copie

We took the train back to the continent and stayed at the most appalling hostel in Brussels. Fifty plus young, sweaty males with minimal shower capacity in one room with one window that did not open. This did not stop us from hooking up with a pretty Finnish blond. She was everything we though Scandinavia was all about.

Still trying out for a job

Copie was still cool

Marci, biking in Copie

But, on we went to Amsterdam. There we found out that: “Copie (Copenhagen) is a real cool place, but Amsterdam has already been fucked up by the Commies”. This wisdom was shared with us free of charge by a Hungarian émigré, Miklos. Miklos's claim to fame was that he supposedly was a close friend of Cintula, a well know D.J. in Hungary.  As we were strolling around in the red light district he heard us talking and in his infinite wisdom he realized we were also from Hungary. I think he filled us in with tons of other useful information but I only remember this most important one. (Actually I only remember because Marci reminded me). But he invited us to the only still acceptable club in Amsterdam. It was an exclusive club, but at the door we went to the front of the line and said, as instructed:  ”We came to see Miklos at the cinema”. The bouncers let us in for free, aggravating the rest of the crowd waiting to be admitted. Inside we somehow found our way to the cinema by stepping over the movie watchers who were lying on the carpet stoned out of their minds. Miklos was the engineer running the projector. He was still lucid. He offered us some hash, (Marci thinks it was Marijuana) which we took, but it seemed to have no effect on us. That is all I remember of Amsterdam. Anyway, the rest was all fucked up, so we bailed and went to Copie as fast as we could.

The Yogurt

In Denmark

 In Copenhagen  we were supposed to stay with an old friend of my mother. They have not seen each other for years. We called her but only got the answering machine, in Danish. Having no better idea, we went to her house but the answering machine did not open the door. Upstairs the neighbor was kind enough to tell us what the message was. Irrelevant mambo jumbo, asking people to leave a message. (First encounter with an answering machine). The kind neighbors let us wait for our would-be host in their place. She showed up around midnight. Marci and I almost starved to death by then, truth be told we were offered one cracker each.

On my way to Copie

Next day Marci had to play the piano, (god only knows why), I went out to the city. Well Miklos was right, Copie was a cool place. Not that I think Amsterdam was fucked up by the Commies. In fact, Denmark was a real cool place. We ate yogurt with fruit for the first time, and saw milk sold in cartoons and not in bottles or plastic bags that leak. The Danes all spoke English but when they spoke in Danish, their guttural language scared us, put us on alert, in constant panic, because we thought they were going to throw up any minute. Today, I know that this sound is a characteristic of all Scandinavian languages, but Danish takes the prize.

We had bikes and got to bike in the cemetery where Kierkegaard was buried. My mother’s friend hooked us up with two nice Danish girls. We got to see the house of my father’s business client, who used to be the goalie of the Danish national soccer team. We were in awe when we saw his house. His son took us out to a club, the Purple Door. And the door was purple.

After I was able to pull Marci out of the 103^rd porn shop of Copenhagen, we took the train back to Hungary through East Germany. (Here our memories differ. Marci thinks we took a boat to Rostock.  I think we took the train that went on a ship and took us to Warnemünde. Marci's ticket, which he purchased in advance in Hungary, read Warnemünde mit See. The Danish conductor, the only Dane who spoke no English, wanted us to pay about 200 dollars because we were not going to mit See, which he thought was a town. <for those few who speak even less German than I, mit See means via sea>. We had altogether 20 dollars, which we were not about to give up. )

Somehow we ended up in East Berlin. I missed the chance to cross over to West Berlin because Marci’s exit visa expired, or he did not have a re-entry visa to West Germany. Whatever. East Berlin and the East German border patrol stank. Not that the Hungarians were better. They wanted to take away my Solzhenitsyn book. But fortunately they found Marci’s Playboy magazines, they preferred them. Actually, they just thumbed through them and they gave them back. We breathed easier, if not freer, we arrived back behind the iron curtain.