There is no welcome like that of a customs officer. When I landed here, I was looking forward to the homecoming routine of hugging my parents and taking a long shower. After all, I'm from here. But my camera wasn't, which the customs officer interpreted as smuggling. He confiscated my camera, and in the end I had to pay a small fine.

Welcome home. I didn't even get to pass through the new "E.U. Citizens Only" corridor.

A conductor signals from the departing train at Budapest Eastern Railway Station (photo: Balazs Gardi / Panos)

Hungary joined the European Union on May 1, 2004, a decade and a half after Communism fell. During those 15 years, eager anticipation had mixed with the pain of economic reform. A young and fast generation had grown up to challenge the values of the Cold War, which our parents were never really able to get out of their system, and by the time the country reached the home stretch, everyone had grown tired of it all.

"Negative energy is everywhere," said Ferenc Javori, the pianist I came here to see. A Hungarian Jew, he grew up in the Ukraine and moved to Budapest in 1980. "We [Hungarians] were unprepared for the E.U. after the 50 years spent mentally caged," he said. "Maybe our children or our grandchildren will look at it with virgin eyes."

A meal onboard the nostalgia cars of the one-time Orient Express (photo: Balazs Gardi / Panos)

Javori can't complain, though. He founded the Budapest Klezmer Band, a traditional Jewish ensemble that would entertain the world. He traveled freely before anyone else could, mingled with other musicians -- who need no language to understand each other -- and even played the piano for the Duke of Kent when he visited Hungary in 1992, aboard the nostalgia cars of the fabled Orient Express.

"We nearly fainted when the train rolled into the station in Vienna," he said of his first trip. "The wooden interiors, the mini-Steinway in the bar, the insanely elegant ladies and gentlemen. ... But it was all nothing compared to crossing the border without anyone checking our passports."

The duchess wanted to hear "Yesterday," and the duke requested the "Blue Danube Waltz." They had a great time until they got to Budapest, where "they caught their first glimpse of the Hungarian reality."

After the Orient spent a night in Budapest, Mario, the Italian waiter, was shocked to find the restaurant car completely looted of fine liquor, Javori recalled. Hungarian janitors had probably never seen decent whiskey, and they wanted to take it home.

An elderly man reads a book onboard the modern heir of the Orient Express (photo: Balazs Gardi / Panos)

A lot has changed since then. Hungary is richer than it has been in decades, and the people here are learning the ropes of democracy. But other countries don't always make sense the way they once did.

"Russians are building capitalism, Israel can't seem to put an end to war, and Germany seeks peace," said the Jewish musician, shaking his head.

And the Americans?

"They have become arrogant. There are so many sympathizers in the world, people that love the U.S., but then this Bush figure comes, with this Rumsfeld figure, and they give America a bad name. I have a dilemma. The Iraqi system had to end, because it would have been a mistake to appease Saddam the way Europe appeased Hitler, but --"

He didn't finish. He sat in worried silence for a while, then excused himself. I had to go too. I had to catch a flight to Istanbul, where I would board the first of many trains, retracing the old route of the famous Orient Express to Paris, across some of the countries that have changed the most since the Berlin Wall came down.

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printable version of "EUROPE: The Re-Orient Express"