Saturday, August 1: The train to Budapest arrives in Ljubljana from Venice at about 10 past 4 in the morning, almost an hour late. Customs' fault, no doubt: the train is packed with Italian holidaymakers and others. We pass through Croatia without problems, but there is an interminable stop at the Hungarian border. I share the compartment with two Romanians returning, I gather, from an Italian music festival. The temperature is warm but not oppressive as the sun ascends. Pulling out a pocket mirror, the Romanian woman, without leaving her seat, applies copious blue eyeshadow to her face and rubs stick deodorant onto her armpits.

Hordes of young funseekers board and disembark all the way from the Hungarian border to the eastern end of Lake Balaton, the so-called "Hungarian sea," which is over 40 miles long and the main domestic destination for Hungarian summer vacationers. I try not to stare at the zaftig teenage blonde sitting across from me, stuffed into a denim shirt exposing an alarming amount of cleavage; she sits, with legs splayed, from the Hungarian border to the Balaton. The train rumbles interminably along the lakeshore, the sun well up in the sky.

From the train, at least, the lake itself looks a lot like Lake George in upstate New York: nice, but nothing special. What surrounds it is a quantum leap tackier, at least on this shore. "It's like something out of a Conrad novel," remarks a young, obnoxious Brit to his traveling companion as they stand at a window during a stop in one of the innumerable lakeside resort towns, all the names of which begin with "Balaton." I look to see what they do: a flock of souvenir stands that look capable of being packed up in 10 minutes, if that.

A character out of the film version of Fiddler on the Roof -- gray beard, 1910-era spectacles resting on nose -- leans into our compartment, holding out a cap inside of which rests one large silvery coin. Besides this coin, which I suspect he donated to himself, he seems to be having little luck. (Wish I'd given him something.)

I'd forgotten how beautiful the Hungarian countryside is: flat as Nebraska, sprinkled with huge sunflowers that would have brightened Van Gogh's lonely, hungry heart. While Slovenia's countryside is sub-Alpine paradise pastorale, Hungary's communicates a certain noble isolation befitting the people, a race apart from the rest of Europe (as are, in a different way, the Romanians).

The kids in Hungary are still gaudily spray-painting train cars and brick buildings in a good imitation of New York City circa 1983.