In 1996 I climbed on a train in Belgrade with no ticket and rode for free thanks to a bottle of plum brandy. It was, in a sense, my first lesson in Carpathian hospitality.

Jumping the train in Belgrade was an easy decision. A friend who was supposed to meet me there conveniently forgot and had left town; it was midnight and the station was filled with more shadows and lurkers then friendly faces; and I had no dollars, a handful of Turkish lira and some Bulgarian toilet paper, which at the time may have doubled for currency. I was stranded and panicked. So I snuck on the only train still idling in the station, one that was on its way to the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

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