Growing up in the era of “The Wonderful World of Disney” and when our trusty encyclopedias were our Google, my brothers settled many a dispute that could have ended up in a free-for-all with a encyclopedia. Most working-class parents we knew of invested heavily in encyclopedias for their children, hoping it would lead their kids to a better life through education. My family, like those families, bought theirs a volume at a time or even had them financed. Come to think of it, that’s one of life’s burning questions I never asked my parents: how we got our encyclopedias.
In the 1950s, we heard a lot of talk about this “Iron Curtain.” We heard of the Soviets building a wall (sounds MAGA-ish), people being stuck on one side or another of the wall, or trying to escape from behind the “The Curtain.” Those books I grew up with couldn’t give me any real sense of what Soviet Russia was: the people, their lives, or history. Everything we heard made living behind the “Iron Curtain” sound so bad, almost draconian.
There was tension everywhere in the world, and no one took notice of how full of anxiety children like me were. I’ve never told a soul until this moment, but growing up, I was more afraid of the “bomb” than the KKK. And to this day, one of my favorite movies is still Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” I wonder how many other children experienced the same trauma; being a 5-year-old being led to the basement of their school building and being asked to “duck and cover,” knowing even that young that “this crap won’t save me.” Looking back, Sting got it right; what saved the U.S. was the Russians loving their children, too.
When I was older, that “Cold” War we heard about became personal as my mother’s youngest brother was drafted and sent to Germany not long after Elvis. The books gave me a geopolitical picture of the world as I scanned all the maps I could, but none of them referenced the location of this “Curtain.” Other than that exposure, I never had any interest in peeking behind “The Curtain” to see Eastern Europe. It wasn’t even on my long list of places to go. If you gave me 100 places, it wouldn’t have made that list. What could they have there that would be of interest to me?
This was the mindset I was in when I received an offer of another unexpected Random Act of Kindness. My friend, a constant traveler, found herself in a jam without a roommate on a trip that was due to depart in less than a week, and had been planned and paid for almost a year ago. It was too late for a refund. She asked if I would be interested. The six-day vacation was a river cruise on the Danube River in Eastern Europe. She’s always gone along with my wacky adventures, no questions asked, and I love her for it, but really, I wasn’t feeling it, as they say.
So, what did I do? I said, “Well, if you need me to go with you, I will,” hedging my bet she’d say, “No, that’s nice, but you don’t have to.”
Thinking I was home safe, I moved to walk away when she said instead, “Oh, I didn’t think you would, that’s so nice.”
I stepped back and went, “Wow, wait a minute this is all behind what was formally ‘The Iron Curtain.’” Yes, that scary hanging cloth of my youth.
So, I said yes to save her from paying a substantial amount for nothing and repay her for her long-time support of my work, like raising funds so I could pay the homeless an honorarium for getting vaccine shots during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. I found out later I was going to be taking the road less traveled and envied by so many Boomers. But at the time of my decision, I was faking excitement.
So, without enough time to overthink it, I was packing for the nine-hour first leg, which departed from Dulles in the middle of rush hour. Twenty-six hours later, I touched down in Frankfurt. The sky was dark gray, clouds hung low and rainy as we stepped off the plane into some of the coldest weather I’ve experienced this side of Iceland.
The Frankfurt airport was huge. It took us 45 minutes to be shuttled to another terminal for the connecting flight. We weaved through a maze of service roads, tunnels under other terminals, and construction projects. It was almost as if we’d left the airport entirely, before emerging outside again at yet another terminal, only this one appeared to be for those traveling east on airlines I’d never heard of. We boarded our flight on Germany’s national airline to Budapest. And thank God the flight was just a little more than an hour.
When we arrived in Budapest, it was grayer and colder than Germany. The tour provider’s emails warned us how cold it would be this time of year, but if you follow some of our misadventures, you know old wise sayings and well-meaning advice don’t always hit home with us. We were dressed warm enough, we thought, until we stepped outside into the cold sub-freezing air. We learned quickly upon arriving in Budapest our definition of winter gear was a little different from what was needed here. We boarded a tour bus with other groups of people to make our way to our ship docked on the Danube.
This city is actually two separate cities, joined by a conqueror’s necessity, we were told. The best way to explain Buda and Pest is St. Paul and Minneapolis — a river running between two separate cities identified as one.
I was getting a history lesson and loving it. The two sides are former strongholds of the Holy Roman Empire along one of Europe’s most historically strategic rivers. Buda was more militarily important because it sat atop several hills commanding the water and was, at a time, the southern border of Rome. Across the river was Pest, a great, historically Jewish-controlled community that suffered greatly. Sadly today, there’s very little left of that Jewish presence except for a few historic sites. Most buildings from earlier periods are clubs and bars in the tourist party district.
We settled into our cabin and changed for the welcome dinner. As we were walking in, I thought I was in an unpublished Agatha Christie novel called “Murder on the Danube,” because the room was full of people straight from central casting. We’re talking well-heeled. Maybe it was my insecurities knowing for sure there was no way I could afford this, but I was waiting to hear the captain’s voice come over the PA saying someone was dead and Hercule Poirot would be joining us at the next stop. It was a kind of well-off crowd for this formerly homeless guy, and out of the 177 passengers, none looked like us.
By daylight, we were up and ready for our first all-day tour of the cities, starting in Buda, and at the first of many Christmas markets. I later found out the markets were the reason everyone else was on the tour. As we loaded buses and climbed the hill, we could see why Buda’s positioning was so valuable. At the very top of the highest hill was a castle and a grand cathedral, and in the courtyards around it, I had my first close encounter with a Christmas market. I admit to being a doubting Thomas and I didn’t see the big deal until it engulfed me. Every bit of space was used for some form of market-related activities. I thought these people had lost their minds as they raced around like people shopping at a 90% off DSW sale.
We wandered around looking out of place. So, we got to the pickup spot early giving us a chance for icebreakers and to hear where people were from. This tour was mostly couples or families, and some had been on multiple Christmas river cruises in Europe, which helped us, partly because we were tired and partly because we didn’t understand any of the signage in the markets. We were newbies, so we took plenty of photos and didn’t buy anything. We just enjoyed the wonderful environment, fantastic views, and the holiday energy everywhere as I wondered why I’d never heard of this Christmas market phenomenon of Eastern Europe.
When the buses arrived, we loaded up and saw how huge the palace was. A major part of it has been (thank God) turned into Hungary’s National Library like our Library of Congress. In the afternoon, we crossed over one of the bridges that was artworks in its own right to Pest.

A cathedral in Buda. Photo by Wendell Williams
The sun was out shining bright but it was still cold, really cold. The driver took us to the old core of the city while the tour guide pointed out places that changed the mood of the excursion. Just a couple of blocks from the river she started to point out buildings and locations known for their importance to the Nazi occupation and persecution of Jewish people during the buildup to World War II. She showed us where 250,000 people attended a Nazi rally Hitler spoke at. Today, there are very few Jewish residents in Pest, when there was once a majority. Some of their homes and businesses are still standing but are now bars, clubs, coffee houses, and performance spaces for the hipsters who now call this part of the city home. The main synagogue is standing, restored as a reminder to show who used to live and who died there.
I took a walk after dinner alone and was warned by my friend not to miss the departure time at midnight. I used my phone’s GPS to find spots that were interesting from the bus earlier. Walking along the water, I saw open grassy areas all along the riverbank on the Pest side, where our boat was docked and, of course, lots of Christmas markets big and small, buzzing with thousands of people, including foreigners like me. It seemed like flying to Rio for Carnival or spring break only without the sand, sun, and beach. As it got later, it got colder. But it seemed like I was the only one feeling the drop in temperature because these people were enjoying the spirit of Christmas in weather that would’ve shut D.C. down.
Heading back, I noticed a living memorial of shoes at the river’s edge that ordinary people just seemed to put out from time to time to remind them of the Jews and others who Nazis lined up along the Danube and shot. It was not an official undertaking, I was told, and I walked away from the memorial wishing my fellow Americans could have the courage to face their painful past and ask forgiveness for their regrettable actions.
Kind of panicking, I started walking so fast on the way back, with my eyes glued to the time and the phone’s GPS (this was no time for a wrong turn), that I made it with 15 minutes to spare and out of breath, much to the relief of my friend who promised me that if I hadn’t, I’d been on my own. And we were underway for our first night traveling on the river.
To be continued…