The worn leather journal I scribbled notes into on that disastrous trip has given up its fight, pages now a mangled mess of tea-stains and scribbled out train times. I remember being convinced that a well-timed rendition of an obscure Bulgarian folk song would ease the pain of being lost in a foreign city. The accordion solo I blasted into the Budapest morning air, however, merely earned me a withering stare from a passing pastry-wielding matron. My brief taste of international stardom was reduced to the embarrassed giggles of a group of giggling Czech schoolgirls pointing at me from across the tram stop.
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