This weekend, we went to Budapest, Hungary! It was a lovely trip and we will both have lots of photos to post. While we work on editing and organizing them, I wanted to quickly post a little something. These pictures were taken from a moving bus on a very cloudy day, so they are not the clearest I've ever taken.
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| Slovak Republic |
Nevertheless, they manage to capture the essence of the Slovak/Hungarian border. As both nations are members of the Schengen Area, they essentially have open borders. This means that their border check-points are not used for much. When you travel through them, they seem completely abandoned with the exception of a few cars. On neither of our journeys did we see a single person nor a light on.
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| Leaving Hungary |
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| Entering Slovakia |
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| This photo gives the best impression of what it is like to drive through. |
I cannot put my finger on what makes this experience so striking. To some extent, the dilapidation makes the borders look like something from a post-apocalyptic film--a shot used to imply a break down of government and a rise of lawlessness. But when you think about it, this image is not the government failing, it is the government attempting progress. This is not to imply that I think open borders are always the best policy for Europe or for anywhere else, but it is something they have chosen to work towards. It's interesting to see what looks like decay as actually progress towards a goal.
-Colleen
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