Sept 10-Travel Day to Budapest

Sept 10, travel day to Budapest

David did not sleep well, dreaming about trains. We pack and check out, but ask for the hotel to call for an English-speaking taxi driver to take us to the train station and assist us to get on the right train. We do not need to leave until 11, and decide to try to mail some souvenirs home. The hotel clerk checks to see if the Post Office is open on Saturdays, and it is until 2 pm. She shows us the Post Office on the map, where a tiny letter is the symbol, and we head out. We think we may need tape for the package, but the grocery store does not carry it and the book shop is not open yet. We walk across the main square and find the post office. I say to the clerk “box”. She points to direct me around to another area of the building. The clerk does not speak English, but through gestures, we communicate. She finds a box about the right size, then uses scissors to cut it down to size. We put the things inside and she tapes and tapes it shut from every direction. Then she has me address the package and fill out a tracking slip. She looks something up in a manual. She asks us a question we do not understand. She and another clerk try to figure out how to communicate. She looks through a dictionary, but cannot find anything to help. Finally she points to a calendar, and we understand she is asking by which method to ship and how long delivery will take. She says “avion” and I understand that as air mail. Then she says “normal?” and we nod. Now that method is decided, she calculates cost, and we pay her about $40 US, hoping for the best that the package will be delivered home. The women have been very helpful, and we think they may have enjoyed this as much as we did. They smiled when we asked to take their photo.

We feel pleased about our success and stop on the square for breakfast. This has been a lovely cool morning for our walk. The square is just waking up, flower stalls setting up their bouquets and vendors opening their kiosks. We enjoy an outdoor breakfast, before heading back to the hotel where I have about an hour to blog and David reads a travel book about Budapest. The driver comes early to get instructions from the hotel clerk. They both look over our train tickets and see our plan. The driver helps us take our bags downstairs and loads the taxi. He drives to a parking lot beside a large shopping mall. We are puzzled as we see nothing that looks like a train or a station. The driver parks and steps to a display board, which lists trains and platforms. At his direction we get unload bags and follow him to a lift which takes us down a level to the train platform beneath the parking lot. We would have never figured this out on our own.

The board has said we need platform 2. When we have walked out on the platform, the driver again  checks to be sure this is the correct one. There is even a sign along the building which shows platform 2. I sit down next to a German woman who speaks to me. She has been at a conference on Iranian history. Her travel will go beyond our stop, but she offers to help us get off at the right place. The driver waits with us until the train comes and helps us get our luggage on board. The train is very crowded—we assume it is college students returning to school. We have paid for first class seats, but sit with the German woman in crowded second class. It is so crowded that David and I cannot find seats together. David moves ahead and sits with three college students from London who are travelling around Europe together before classes begin next week. They tell him some lively travel experiences. He is a bit envious of these carefree young men, who have each other’s backs and are prepared to just roll with whatever comes along. They are headed to Istanbul. This train is very jerky-much worse that any we have ridden on. When the conductor comes by for tickets, he does not speak English, but is trying to tell David there is a problem and he wants more money. David purchased these tickets over the internet from Eurail and assumes he has paid all that is needed. A second conductor, a woman who speaks English, comes to explain that there is an additional “intercity” fee of about $7 US that is due. David is frustrated and says he thinks he paid in full. She shows that the tickets do not show the additional fee. She says that if it is not paid, we will have to get off the train at the next stop, and looks at him imploringly, “Just pay it”, she suggests. He reluctantly complies. I am not sitting with David, and when the male conductor comes to me, he brings up the same issue, of course in a language I cannot understand, and when I am not getting it, he speaks louder as though more volume will help me understand. The female conductor comes behind him to say David paid for both of us. The man seems disappointed as though he has lost an argument. The German woman warns us our stop is coming up.  We get off and have about 30 minutes to make our connection.

We jump off the train, and look at the announcement board but cannot find our train. You must first look at the departure time as they are listed in that order, but our time was not there. David went downstairs to try to find the information. Meantime, I become aware that a woman on the train is yelling at me in Hungarian and making a hand motion for me to walk around to the other side of the board. We have been looking at arrivals. I walk around the board to the departure side and find our train and the platform number at about the same time as David comes upstairs with the same information. I give the lady on the train a thumbs up and she gives me a big smile. Assured we are now in the right place to catch the train, we sit down to wait. I open my bag of snacks and find some sliced cheese and bread. I ask him “Do you want cheese with stale bread or crackers?” A woman sitting next to him laughs and says “stale bread!” so we chat with her and discover she and her travelling partner are from Tempe! Small world! They are on their way to Prague, but missed their earlier train and have waited here for three hours. So now we will travel on the same train.

The train comes and we board. We have reservations on this one, so have much more comfortable seats and are in a compartment to ourselves—though there are other seats in the compartment. We stretch out and relax, pleased to have made the right connection—but there is another coming up! The upholstery on the trains is all the same and it is very ugly. It has bright yellow and red three and four inch squiggles and dots and looks like organisms you would see under a microscope—all on a lime green background. About 5:30, we go to the dining car and order perogies and share chocolate cake for dessert.

At 6:50, it is time for the final change of trains to Budapest. All goes well, as for the first time, I hear an announcement in English! (This will not necessarily continue to happen. The safety signs on the trains are written in four languages-Polish, German, French, and Russian—but not English. We have spoken with several people who say they took Russian all through grade school, but only started learning English in high school or college.) There are even elevators at this station to go down and back up at the correct  platform. We have time to spare even though this is just a 7 minute layover! We board successfully and now that we are finally on our last train to Budapest, David can relax. He falls asleep and snores! Two conductors come by to check tickets as we are now on a new train. Thankfully, they have no issues. I get out the computer, using it on battery to write on the blog. I am not on the internet, but can write my report in Word, then copy and paste it into the blog when Wi-fi is available. When I finish, David plays chess on the computer. I am about half sick from motion sickness from typing while the train is moving. I decide I will recover better if I can nap, so I recline the seat and close my eyes. It is now dark and there is nothing to see out the window except occasional lights. I do sleep for a while and feel better. I am trying to keep track of stops. Of course, it is as important to know where to get off as it is where to get on! One way to check is by time, as we know arrival time—IF the train is on time. I ask a man if he speaks English. He says, “a little.” I ask if there is a time change between Krakow and Budapest and he says “no”. I ask if he is getting off in Budapest and he says he is getting off in five minutes. He shows me a written schedule of stops. This is the first time I have seen one. The train is on time and we have about 30 minutes to go. Later, David and I gather bags and move to an exit door. We pass doors in two cars that are bright red. We are not sure what this means, but worry that maybe we cannot exit there. We stop in the next car, which is a dining car. There are three train employees at the other end of the car. They have collected the trash and the bags are near the door where we have stopped. I confirm with them that the next stop is Budapest. They talk among themselves and David wonders if they are talking about us.

We finally pull into Budapest Keleti station at 10:30 pm. We pull our bags off the train and move with the crowd toward the exit at the front of the station. Our hotel, Baros, is supposed to be across the street from the station, but across which street? We do not see the hotel sign. There is a McDonalds and a Burger King on the corner, and we consider asking there, but David decides to search on his own. I wait with the bags while he walks around the station and down the block. Meanwhile, many folks walk past me, having gotten off the metro which has a stop beside the train station. David comes back unsuccessful and walks in the other direction, quickly spotting the small, vertical hotel sign. We pull our bags down the block, past street construction, and walk about half a block. We are under the hotel sign, but do not see an entrance. David asks at an outdoor restaurant, and is told, “Go to the blue door.” So we backtrack a few feet and see a blue door with a small sign, Baros hotel, on the door jamb. A woman and her twin daughters walk up and she says “Reception is on the 5^th floor.” We thank her and follow as she walks down a hallway to an elevator. The girls are probably 9 or 10 and all dressed up in long white dresses-very pretty.  They do not speak English, so we do not discover why they are dressed up. We check in at reception and thankfully our reservation is in order—it is close to midnight.

The clerk says we owe a tourist tax even though David has prepaid our room on line. This sounds like the train! We did not stop at the station to get local currency and she says we can pay the tax later. She gives us a room key and says our room is one floor below. It is late and we are tired. David thinks going downstairs means a room in the basement! She explains we are on the 5^th floor and the room is on the 4^th floor. There is an elevator to take the bags down, but when we do not have luggage, they want us to use the stairs. David misunderstands and begins to carry bags down the steps. I correct him and we get the bags on the elevator, down one floor and into the room. This is a very small room with two twin beds and barely room to walk around them. The room has a TV, closet and a good sized bathroom. Not the Marriott, but comfortable. We quickly get ready for bed and crash!