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Prior to going to the airport for Budapest, I heard many accounts about how great the taxis or minibuses were. "Just a mere 24€!" some people said. Locals told me that taking a taxi out to the airport was the best way to get there as well. But, with taxis costing about 5,000 Forint (20€) for two people (if they felt like being honest) I thought that there must be a better way.       Yes, of course there is a better way, but naturally it involves public transportation which an amazing amount of people loathe. I don't know why as it's generally about as fast as a taxi, much cheaper, and eschews the whole issue of having to deal with taxi drivers who are, the devil.       So, here it is. This is how you get from the center of Budpaest to the airport on public transportation. If you can take the #3 line directly to Kőbánya-Kispest, then you don't need to transfer and the whole trip will cost two people, 1,000 Forint or 4€. If you do need to take two lines and transfer at a station like Deák tér, then the trip will run you 1380 Forint or about 5.50€. Once you get off the #3 Metro at Kőbánya-Kispest, then you take the #200 bus out to the airport and get off at your respective terminal.       That's it. It takes between 45-75 minutes depending on if you hit the train and bus connection right, but otherwise, it's incredibly simple. Just know which terminal your flight is at (this really only matters if it's 1 or 2A/B) and you're set. Taxi avoided. Flight reached. Money saved. It does help if you buy your tickets at the ticket window in the Metro. Just say, "airport" and they'll give you what you need to get to the airport from the station where you're buying the ticket.

I am a bit of a fan of trains. I think until I was 10 years old, my main career path was focused on being a train conductor. So, whenever I'm in a place and they have some kind of mechanical or train museum, I usually try to go.       Budapest has a museum that is better than most, which is the Underground Railway Museum. It's at Deák tér in what used to be the platform for that station until the mid-20th century. The museum is rather small and one could probably whip through it in about 30 minutes, but it is definitely cheap, costing just one Metro ticket (a bit less than 1€) and it's really quite informative, with everything in Hungarian and English. You have to be a geek like me to get in to the history of the whole thing, but Budapest did have the first underground railroad on the European continent, which opened in 1896 (London being the first in Europe as well as the world in 1864.) So seeing the history and construction of the three lines, as well as the work on the fourth, and seeing the original cars that they used is quite cool. It appears that I might be one of the few people who feels this way as the museum was completely empty when I was there, which is too bad as it's a great spot to take kids if you're traveling with the family.       Unfortunately I didn't make it out to their full Public Transport Museum which has an even bigger display. Perhaps the next time I'm in Budapest I'll make it there.

While waiting to leave Sopron, at the train station I noticed they had one of these old arrivals and departures boards that made the, "clack, clack, clack" bit every time it updated the trains coming and going. It made me a bit melancholy as I love these boards, despite having no understanding as to how they actually work. Quickly, they're being being replaced everywhere with the digital systems, which are admittedly more efficient and quiet. But with these swerve in to modernity, we're losing a piece of travel history that I for one really liked.       Maybe it's an Old World sense that they imbue or maybe it's how the clacking of the board matched the clacking of the rails so well, but they just fit in with what I always envision travel to be. But, the times are changing and I suppose it is one less noise that we are leaving in the analog/digital hybrid that was the 20th century. But we can't be without sound though, as we are replacing the clacking of these boards with the beeping, ringing, and shouting of the mobile phone at the station. It is disharmony to say the least.

For those familiar with the song, "A Reminder" by Radiohead (it's on the Airbag EP) there is a lilting, ethereal woman's voice that comes on at the beginning of the song. It turns out that voice is a sample from the Metro in Prague warning about the closing doors at the Jiřího z Poděbrad‎ stop.       A the story goes, one or more of the members of Radiohead were struck by this seductive voice that comes on speaking a Slavic language. It pierces through all the din of the trams and Metro cars to just float above the hustle and bustle. Thusly, they felt like incorporation it in to one of their songs, as Radiohead does.       Now that I've actually heard the voice in person, I can understand why they made this choice. Truth be told, I find the voice (I believe it's the same woman) to be sexier in the tram messages than in the Metro messages, where she sounds a bit more matronly. But, it just goes to show that despite the stereotype presented in Cold War Era movies with Russian and other Slavic languages being portrayed as these brusque, hard languages, they can sound really sexy if they want to. It all just depends on who is speaking them.       That being the case, there is also a man's voice, which you hear on the red line Metro. I've included a clip of it below. Obviously, I'm not digging on it as much as the woman's voice, but it could easily be said that those who run the Prague transport system are striving for a good deal of creaminess for the riders to enjoy.       On a side note with these clip, I might be imagining things, but the beginning tones sound just like the first bit to the song Kid A. Maybe someone else will agree or maybe not...

There is one thing about public works projects in Spain, where they excel above all other countries' public works projects, which is that they really love to congratulate themselves on basically just doing their jobs. It's something that you only see once you read full cycles of the news media runs. While there isn't anything demandingly annoying about it, it is a marked contrast from the US, where no matter how hard some governmental body tries in a project, there will always be criticism and those who say it failed. Maybe this happens in Spain as well, but certainly not in the media.       Take for example the new, Visca Barcelona campaign which is a novel concept. It makes use of a number of web technologies to create an online fanclub of Barcelona. After weeding my way through packs of feral tourists in the center just before writing this, it makes me wonder as to why it's needed. It just exists to say how great Barcelona is. I know this. Anyone who has been here knows this. As they might say, "Barcelona no quiere una abuela." which means, "Barcelona doesn't need a grandmother." in that it gets all the compliments it needs elsewhere, include this new, apparently interactive proxy grandmother setup they've come up.       While the Visca campaign appears to be rather new, something that got me started on this whole article was that constant back patting (and I would go so far as to say, butt sniffing) that's gone on about the new AVE which is Spain new and currently still being built, high speed rail system. Yes, it's quite impressive and while being able to scoot around at 300km and hour (screw y'all in metric-so-scary-land, I'm not converting this) is great, I think that most would say, "It was about time." This brings up the question as to why an article need to be published stating that it is "...the admiration of Asia and the United States..."? This is news to me. Those of us who love trains and want to see more of them instead of airplanes, worship the French, TGV. That's been around a very long time and goes all over the place in France. Eventually the Spanish system will indeed go everywhere, but how about we hold off on all the praise until the damned thing at least reaches France and eventually covers all the cardinal points of Spain? No, that's not the way it's done here.       But, I could maybe go along with this and be down with all the media press of AVE if it was actually affordable. It costs 169€ (106€ each way, plus 20% discount for a return ticket) to go round trip from Barcelona to Madrid. That's about 109€ and one and a half hours slower than flying. I would much rather take the train as its considerably more environmentally friendly, but at those prices, it is incredibly elusive. And as you can see in the article image below, they do indeed compare it to other systems in order to justify the costs because it's cheaper than say, Paris to London. It just so happens that that is an outright lie. You can trying booking yourself at Eurostar and find that they are quoting the absolute highest prices. It's very easy to get a return ticket of 82€ which even the least talented math whiz knows is about 87€ less than AVE.       Anyways, it's just a silly practice here and while it ultimately doesn't do any immediate harm, it is part of an overall problem in that people who aren't being taken to task on something and think that they're doing a good job even still. Is this better than the US in the end where people just give up trying because no one is going to be satisfied? In some ways, I'd say no because we don't blindly say things like, "Oh, that AVE tunnel we're digging under La Sagrada Familia? Nah, it won't be a problem. We know what we're doing. Even the media say that. Oh, that thing in Carmel in 2005 where we dug a metro tunnel, caused a sinkhole in the neighborhood that caused 1,500 to lose their homes? Ah, that was nothing, just a little trouble with a stream bed we hadn't predicted. Again, [holds of copies of ABC, La Vanguardia, and El Pais] they all say we're doing a great job!"

In London, they just started Eurostar service to the new St. Pancras station. Beyond the fact that you don't have to wind your way through wacky Waterloo station, you can now make it to Gare du Nord in just two hours as opposed to previous two and a half.       Due to this new, speedier, faster, truly high speed train service, they have launched a rather bold advertising campaign. You can see the most striking example below. Essentially it says, "Attention, London is just around the corner." It's clever, funny, and definitely gets attention, but does it purvey the message that they want? I don't know and I don't have anyone in Paris (whom I assume they're targeting this at) to ask at the moment. I would think that you'd want some French guy timidly poking the Queen with a baguette to encourage the French to go to London. This just speaks more like an air raid siren in that, you'd better get ready and put out your most room temperature beer possible, because the Brits? Yeah, they're a comin'!       Ah, but according to Sky News, this one was targeted at the Belgian market. Still, it doesn't seem to have the effect that I think in should in that you really want to get people to London and not vice versa. Maybe slapping the Queen with a waffle would present the message that I think they were trying to present.       Hey, I'd love to see the John Cleese Silly Walks one if anyone can find it!       

It was on my last trip up the Capital Corridor on Amtrak that I saw something new that I haven't seen in the US for awhile: a transit hub. There, in Sacramento, they had finally tied together the Amtrak station, which had been its own hub for some time, with the city train, as well as city buses. Astounding! A US city with a transportation center that wasn't left over from the days when we used to have transportation centers. Something new, brand spanking new, much like the Transbay Terminal tower that San Francisco is planning.       I suppose that I find all of this to be quite a revelation because Sacramento didn't used to just have a transit hub, but it was the transit hub for the West Coast for some time. Being that the First Intercontinental Railroad terminated there, it quickly became The Place for everyone and everything that was moving across the country to converge. Inevitably, this railroad connecting both sides of country lead to the expansionist thinking that has since dominated the American psyche in just about everything we do these days. So, as to whether this railroad was a good thing, is most certainly up for debate and I feel should generally be thought of in the same manner as the one they've built from Beijing to Lhasa.       But, under a discussion of the global-political ramifications of this new transit hub, it's great to see that it's fully up and running. It's funny, because as you look at how close the capital building is and Old Town, you realize that this really was the center of everything in the past for this city. I like it because it gives the feeling that you get when in places like San Francisco, Paris, Zagreb, or Belgrade (to name a few) that you are in the town center once you step off the train. Town centers are good and I'll be curious to see if this new center for the movement of people changes the face of downtown Sacramento and thusly if any other cities follow the model to redevelop aging cores that have been left to rot.

Time and again, I'm amazed at the lack of train use in the Balkans. For some reason, everyone is really in to the buses and I don't know why. Sure, there's the fact that buses go places where trains don't (such as from Split to Dubrovnik) but there are many reasons not to take the bus and take the train such as:              - Comfort. I can get up, walk around, go to the dining car, and use the tragic, albeit thankfully there, restroom.       - Cost. Trains are almost always cheaper than buses.       - Speed. Trains are quite often faster or at least the same speed as the bus.              Given these reasons, you can understand why anyone in Western Europe would take a train and people do take them in places like France, Britain, Germany, and Spain with great abandon. I think that most people in the US would much rather take Amtrak than Greyhound. It is true that the trains do not usually have air conditioning, which is a big problem in the summer for about two or three months. But the AC in buses can be pretty shoddy at times or not even there.       I have a perfect example from our stay in Serbia to illustrate my point. We went to Novi Sad from Belgrade twice. The first time we took the bus. It cost us $30 round trip and took a tad bit more than two hours each way. The second time we took the train which cost us $10 round trip. It was suppose to be a one hour and 15 minutes trip, but was delayed a half hour each time. Even with the delay, it was still 15 minutes faster than the bus! Take that delay out of the equation and it's even faster, plus the train and bus stations are right next to each other in both Serbia and Novi Sad, so there is no advantage of one over the other.       So, why would someone pay more to go slower? I have thought about this a great deal on a great many long, crappy bus trips. I don't really have any concrete answer, but I have a theory that can be summed up in one word: Communism. In Communist times, both the bus and train lines were state owned. It has seemed to me that one of the main images associated with the progress aspect of Communism was the train (Tito and Mao Zedong both had their personal trains) and thusly I think that to some extent, people still associate the train with a Communist past that they are happy to leave behind. You see, while the trains are still nationalized or part of a privatized monopoly which is pretty much the same thing, the buses are all privately run and there are multiple buses covering the same routes for pretty much the same price. This gives the illusion of choice and people like that. With the train, you've got one option, the train and you're stuck with its schedule.       So, I think this is what it all really comes down to and in some ways, it's a shame as trains are lovely transport systems and once electrified, quite eco-friendly. Maybe with time this will change. In Slovenia (which doesn't actually consider itself part of the Balkans) they already use trains a great deal, so I am hoping there is hope for the rest of former Yugoslavia.

This article was a great thing to read. Mainly because I take the Capital Corridor route a great deal. The article sums up everything that is great and still needing improvement with it. The fact I can get up to Oroville in just an hour longer than it takes to drive is pretty fantastic. It's unfortunate that the train doesn't go up the Central Valley, since it is definitely the better way to travel, but I'll take what I can get and take it often. My rather unfortunate experience with Enterprise last weekend has made me appreciate the ease of the rail system even more. And of course, the more we ride it, the more the powers that be will see it and hopefully give a new life to our old rail system that used to be great in days of yore.