Here I am riding down highway # 7 in Greyhound bus. Ottawa to Peterborough.
This is the first stage of my eastern European 21 day excursion.
OK, maybe I should back up some more and explain my mission. After all, I always thought the bus was a little low rent, full of freaks(except me of course) so I repeatedly tell myself riding the Greyhound really is nothing to lose my head over. What I did discover is low cost fares, free fast WI-FI, airport style security carry on inspections along with other good security updates after that tragedy in Winnipeg. The fare is the same as my pickup truck's fuel bill for the same trip. It looks like the future is still good for intercity buses.
But I digress.
Toronto to Bucharest
Sometime last year my mother started talking about returning to see the village where she and her and her 4 siblings were born. My Mom's side of the family are Danube Swabians and come from around the Danube River in an area stretching several countries right to where the Danube meets the Black Sea. Wiki has a pretty good writeup on their history, here
If you scroll down through the tales of war and violence the north Yugoslavian Batschka region has experienced, my mom's story there ended in 1945 as a soon to be 6 year old. My grandmother and her sister in law left their confiscated ancestral houses with only a couple of pots and all the food they could carry and 7 children all under 10 .
65 years later I am volunteered as driver, tour director and bag man for the return home to see the now Serbian village and house.Our original intent was to fly into Vienna and drive down to Serbia. Air France had a deal to Bucharest which is a little farther but gives us another country to explore so we fly out of Toronto to Romania tomorrow.
Our first stay will be in the preserved Stalinist capital for a couple of days.
This is the first stage of my eastern European 21 day excursion.
OK, maybe I should back up some more and explain my mission. After all, I always thought the bus was a little low rent, full of freaks(except me of course) so I repeatedly tell myself riding the Greyhound really is nothing to lose my head over. What I did discover is low cost fares, free fast WI-FI, airport style security carry on inspections along with other good security updates after that tragedy in Winnipeg. The fare is the same as my pickup truck's fuel bill for the same trip. It looks like the future is still good for intercity buses.
But I digress.
Toronto to Bucharest
Sometime last year my mother started talking about returning to see the village where she and her and her 4 siblings were born. My Mom's side of the family are Danube Swabians and come from around the Danube River in an area stretching several countries right to where the Danube meets the Black Sea. Wiki has a pretty good writeup on their history, here
If you scroll down through the tales of war and violence the north Yugoslavian Batschka region has experienced, my mom's story there ended in 1945 as a soon to be 6 year old. My grandmother and her sister in law left their confiscated ancestral houses with only a couple of pots and all the food they could carry and 7 children all under 10 .
65 years later I am volunteered as driver, tour director and bag man for the return home to see the now Serbian village and house.Our original intent was to fly into Vienna and drive down to Serbia. Air France had a deal to Bucharest which is a little farther but gives us another country to explore so we fly out of Toronto to Romania tomorrow.
Our first stay will be in the preserved Stalinist capital for a couple of days.
Is that your great grandmother? I sense a family resemblance?
ReplyDeleteHere's a description of the Batschka in english:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dvhh.org/batschka/
Fixed the link thanks. I'm not sure how that went to German.
ReplyDeleteCapitalgirl,
ReplyDeleteAll us central Europeans look alike.
I followed Anita's link. I didn't knew this name, Batschka. I only knew that region under the name of Vojvodina. Anyway, the history of that part of the world was pretty shattered.
ReplyDeleteDianne,
ReplyDeleteBatschka is still in use for that area of the province but spelled in Serbian now:Backa