Arrived in Eastern Europe

I arrived in Budapest, Hungary, the nearest big-city portal to my final destination of Kosice, Slovakia. Hungary is an “interesting” entry point because it is a rare European country that has not condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (I think Serbia may be another.) To its credit, though, the country has taken in about 300,000 Ukrainian refugees, who have crossed the country’s narrow common border.
When I travel, often alone, I ask others (usually tourists) if I can take their picture and in return if they can take mine. Yesterday, along the Danube River, the family of three I approached happened to be Ukrainian. The husband/father took my picture, but the language barrier prevented me from finding out their story.
The Easter weekend is a four-day holiday, and many locals use the time as an opportunity to travel to the countryside, leaving the city rather quiet, with a larger % of tourists. (A couple years ago, I was in Ha Noi for Tet and was told that the city of 8,000,000 drops to about 1,000,000, as most people go back to their ancestral hometown. Perhaps an exaggeration, but a point was made.)
Tomorrow I’ll take the train into Kosice, about a 3.5 hour trip. As I become more adept with inserts to my blogging, I’m attaching (or trying to attach!) a YouTube video from Ali Adel, an Iraqi medical student I have been in touch with, who is studying in Kosice, Slovakia. We’ll be meeting in the next few days. Incredible work he and his colleagues are doing with the Ukraine relief efforts.

The maps show first, Eastern Europe and the proximity of Slovakia and Hungary to the Ukraine western border. The second map, of Slovakia, shows Kosice in the east. Just across the eastern border is the Ukrainian town of Uzhorod (or Uzhhorod). This is a key crossing point for refugees into Slovakia. It is also a mass gathering point for Ukrainian refugees who do not want to leave their country but want to get as far to the west as they can.