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Chapter II Two cities in a country One at war the other at peace

The journey wasn't long and I soon awoke to the voice on the intercom and the only word out of everything was Budapest, so I sat up and looked out of the window. We would soon be at the station so I had to decide what I was going to do, I decided it would be better if I stayed overnight and made an early start for Croatia the next morning. As we pulled into the station I noticed how many people were on the platform doing nothing just like the London bus station that I had left what seemed like weeks ago, I got off the train and started to look for the tourist information office as I assumed that there must be someone who spoke English, eventually I found a sign for it and started to follow the arrows. As I walked I saw an unusual amount of families all seeming as if they had nowhere to go, all with suitcases and boxes, they must have been refugees or that's what I thought. When I reached there was a queue so I waited my turn, when I arrived at the window I asked if she spoke English and she nodded,
"how do I get to Zagreb and what time does it leave and how much does the ticket cost" I asked,
"there is an express leaving at six in the morning" writing the price down on a piece of paper for me,
I bought the ticket and then asked if there was anywhere that I could stay for the night that wasn't too expensive, she looked through a book and wrote an address down and which bus to catch, also she gave me a map of Budapest and marked the spot where the hotel was, I changed some travelers cheque's and set off. 
After about an hour of wondering around I eventually found the building it didn't look like a hotel but in I went. I found a door and knocked on it, an old lady opened it and invited me in, she seemed like the landlady, signed in and she led me to a room at the front of the building I was right from looking around this was what looked like her front room but it had everything that I needed and was also very cheap. It was fairly comfortable and went for somewhere cheap to eat, I found something that looked like a McDonald's and bought a beef burger and coffee, it was okay not as good as back in the UK but I was starving and soon finished it off. There was no time for sight seeing so I went back to my room, set an old alarm clock on the bedside table for five in the morning which gave me plenty of time to get to the station. When the clock went off I dressed, washed and set off, after a little bit of trouble finding the station I arrived with only ten minutes to spare, found the train and got on, no trouble finding a seat as there was hardly anyone on it and I hoped that nothing was going to delay me further from reaching Croatia, what would I find in the capital Zagreb, how was I going to join their army, where was I going to end up, all these questions were going through my mind traveled along the tracks to a country at war. We passed through the Hungarian border without any problem and continued into Croatia thankfully I had no trouble at the either of the boarders. We continued on our journey closer and closer to the war zone or that's what I thought. We finally arrived in Zagreb so I stood up and went to the window expecting to see some sort of war damage but nothing to show me that this was a country at war. There were no tanks or armored personnel carrier's on the roads, hardly any uniformed soldiers and what seemed like the war had not reached Zagreb yet, I would probably find out more when I found someone who spoke English. I got off the train and the only things that suggested that this was a contry at war were posters on the walls and a few soldiers walking about. There were also a lot of ordinary people walking around carrying AK47's, grenades hanging from their belts and knives in their boots, I wondered who taught them to dress like this, I went through the main hall and outside where lot of trams passing by, there was also a large park opposite what was I supposed to do now? It was there and then that I made my first tactical choice, heads I go left and tails I go right I tossed the coin and it landed on heads so off I walked. It was not long before my choice proved to be correct, I was standing outside a building with soldiers loading a lorry, most of them dressed in black with arm patches on their right arms and the letters HOS on them which now I know meant Hrvatska Obambene Snage-Croatian Defense Force I wondered who they were and was this an important clue to me getting to Vukovar. 

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