The Magyar Memoirs - Part 1 (Introduction)

üdvözlés (Welcome) This blog is a transcription of excerpts from the journal I kept documenting my travel in Hungary during the summer of 2007. The names have been changed to secure the character's privacy. This blog shall be posted as a series, organized by both topic and location. I will insert additional thoughts as I go on in green in order to differentiate it from my original words. Please feel free to comment, criticize, or just sit back and enjoy!

The first couple of nights after I arrived in Hungary there were some moments where I said to myself: “when I think back on this, I’m sure I will have forgotten all about these setbacks and annoyances…” Well some time has past and mention of this aggravation has made an appearance in the first paragraph which should be dually noted. It was a combination of really good and rather bad luck that characterized the trip, which could be illustrated based on the events of the first day I landed in Budapest. Upon landing at Ferihegy International Airport, I expressed concern about navigating the subway into Budapest to the Scottish business man that had been chatting with me on the flight. He kindly offered to drop me off at my hostel, as he was going to take a taxi and expense it. Great! It would save me some time trying to figure out public transportation while hauling roughly 80 kilos of luggage, plus a laptop, sure I might get hacked into a million pieces, but at least I didn't have to deal with Hungarian public transportation! The bad part was when I was dropped off, I searched and searched as asked and asked, but my hostel was no where to be found. It was 36 degrees C and I was dead tired, I walked a about 20 yards aimlessly searching, but the sun was beating down on me in a way that disabled any copping ability I might of had. So I grabbed a cab, hoping the cabbie might have some idea where my hostel was hiding, but he did not. We proceeded on a mini circular tour of Budapest in search of affordable, not to distant accommodations. This journey was delayed due to several cigarette breaks, during which my driver would stop the car, get out, smoke a cigarette in it's entirety, while conversing garrulously with other cabbies doing the same thing, or random unappreciative passers-by. Eventually a suitable hotel was found, it had air-conditioning and was affordable enough, so it was actually a bit of a lucky find. As I would later learn, the hostel I was booked in had moved to a new location around the corner and was a total dump. There were many similar occurrences on this note thorought my time in “Middle Europe”.

A Quick Aside about Traveling by train in Europe; the mere mention induces travel-romantics like myself to conjure up images of Hemingway/ Fitgerald-esk era expats; women in classic Chanel travel garb, hat boxes in gloved hands standing on the platform at Austerlitz station, thumbing through Le Parisian, as the shinny well-appointed train approaches with a puff of steam wafting up from the tracks. The porter yells all-aboard (in French of course), and takes the ladies by the hand as to insure that their Italian patton-leather healed spectators are of no consequence when they step up onto the train. . Shrrrrrraaatchhhh….Ok. It’s not like that, especially in France! Austerlitz station is a hole that literally has holes in the plaster of its walls. My train is a bus on rails. I am unsure how familiar the reader is with the fine Grayhound bus company that operated in the United States; but the mention of Grayhound produce a entirely different image for me. It is one where women with big hair and too many children, recent parolees, backpackers that haven’t showered in a while, drunk grumpy old men, homely old women knitting, confused foreign families, hoochies smacking their gum and talking on mobile phones all commingle for a longer than_you_could_have_ever_imagined trip in a tin box on wheels driven by a obviously over-worked weathered old drunk (no offense G-Hound drivers, but who can deny that this is the image of bus travel in America). This would be a much more accurate portrayal of traveling by train in Central and Southern Europe these days.

After checking into the hotel, I realized it had been a very long time since I had eaten. Even though all I wanted to do was sit naked in front of the air-conditioner and doze off, I headed out to hunt for a meal before it got to be past the dinner hour. I was concerned that my fellow teacher Ashlee would think I was lost or dead in a gutter, as we were to meet at the inconspicuous hostel. I came across an internet cafe on my walk and decided I had better mitigate any SOS calls that she may have put out on my behalf. Once that business was taken care of, I set out on my sunset stroll through the eerily silent street adjacent to the main drag of downtown Budapest. I could hear the buzz of televisions emanating from open windows of the communist style brown block apartments, but I literally didn't see one person or car for many minutes at a time. Once I reached the main drag I began to wonder if this was a dangerous neighborhood as the only people I passed were rather sketchy, and held my gaze longer than I was accustomed to, at least by European standards. I calmed myself with a quick mental analysis of the height and weight differential between me and "the scaries", and concluded that my all-American diet coupled with my stalwart Scandinavian genetics made me a stealthy competitor if things took a turn for the worse. No such confrontation occurred, in fact after just a couple more blocks I found myself in a lively area, music blarred from cars cruising, and multitudes of multi-ethnic people filtered through the busy streets, speaking every language but Hungarian. Couples dined alfresco at the cafes, ladies carried shopping bags of recently purchased luxuries, teenagers sat on he steps of the shops laughing, and families strolled hand-in -hand. I felt instantaneously more comfortable with my surroundings. The sun had set, and restaurants were transitioning to bars only, which created a new urgency for finding food immediately. I didn't think I could manage waiting for a meal at a sit-down restaurant,(knowing pace of European waiters), I opted for the Turkish Kabob stand. I chose to eat off my paper plate on the street- fast- easy- perfect!

I slept really well at the hotel, the hot shower and air-conditioning had everything to do with that I’m convinced. I filled up on a breakfast downstairs, the hotel had a nice spread for being a budget hotel. I requested a taxi to run me up to Nygati Station where was to meet Ashlee. I was curious if and how she located the hostel, when I had spoken to her the night before, she was still at he airport. She would be the source that informed me about the mysterious relocating hostel and it’s shanty amenities. She as just where she was supost to be outside the station, once we said our hellos, we had a difficult time locating the ticket office, something we thought should be quite apparent based on the function of a train station. It was located down a narrow hallway, which I was almost certain would lead to an alley with a dumpster. No, in fact this unpainted concrete walkway opened onto an ornate golden wood paneled expanse with many ticket window that only served passengers with very specific needs: such as “Re-booking Tickets” “ Ticket Sales to be paid by Cash” “Ticket Sales to be paid by Credit Card”” International Ticket Sales” etc. This segregation meant that Ashlee and I had to stand in separate cues. Once our dusty, decayed old box car rolled up we realized we hadn’t a clue which carriage we were in or what our seat number was, it seemed to be opened seating, thus we settled into a comfortable plush seat towards the back.

We were pleasantly surprised that it appeared we would have the entire carriage to ourselves as no one chose to join us, instead passing us by heading for the front of the train. About 20 minutes into the trip Ashlee and I had taken out our books, removed our shoes and were enjoying rambling along through the residential outskirts of Budapest, when our luck was up. The porter came to stamp our tickets, and informed us that we were NOT first class passengers, nor second class, but need to make our way to steerage basically! With my all-American super-sized suitcases in tow, I did my best to navigate a path past irritated seasoned Hungarian travelers to our crowded hot cabin, which, by the way, had no space to put a large suitcase, let along anything larger than a briefcase! We took our seat next to a smelly sleeping man, as our bare legs stuck to the hot vinyl bench seat….just two more hours to Szeged!