Backpacking (Central/Eastern) Europe

Travel time: August 2008  |  by Christina E.

Hungary: Budapest

Sunday, August 24th, 2008- 5:10pm:

Taken from an excerpt in my journal:

"We are leaving Budapest! The 10 minutes prior to us getting off here, a girl solicited us for a hostel on the Buda side (the older part of the city) to pay for a hostel we've never even laid eyes on. We heard of stuff like this going on, how people try to sell you something that isn't what it seems.

As we made our way to our intended hostel, we took a good look around at the people, the graffiti, the dirty city, and just had a bad feeling about the place. Granted, we weren't there long enough to truly give it a chance, but after having such great experiences in Germany and Austria, Hungary just seemed like the uglier stepsister of the ugly stepbrother. Not to mention that upon arriving to our intended lodging, there was no longer a THERE. Not even when we walked a full circle in case there was a typo in our guidebook AND on the map.

Shortly after, I used the 'toalette', and offered to buy a soda to be nice, but the lady didn't want to take my Euro coins, accepting "paper Euro only" and would give me Hungarian Florints as change. I had to say forget it and walk out because at this point, the thought crossed our mind that we would probably reroute and change our destination. We walked to the bridge over the Danube, and saw the Parliament building, the Castle and the Cathedral, took a picture, and since we still couldn't locate a hostel, all signs pointed to 'get the hell outta here!' When we looked at our timetable and saw that a train would be leaving back to Wien (Vienna), to connect to Koln (Cologne) we made a mad dash for it. On the way back to the subway, we didn't realize that the metro ticket expired in 60 minutes, and lo and behold, a "metro-maid" was standing at the exit, waiting to give us a fine. 5,000 florints poorer (30 euros, $44 USD), all we could do was laugh it off, chalk it to experience, and catch our train back to Germany. "

The Danube

The Danube

Parliament building

Parliament building

Site of where attempted robbery was made (Second attempt since being in the Eastern part of Europe!)

Site of where attempted robbery was made (Second attempt since being in the Eastern part of Europe!)

Graffiti everywhere

Graffiti everywhere

Back to the train station we went

Back to the train station we went

Just our luck... the metro-maid!

Writing us a ticket despite our pleas

Writing us a ticket despite our pleas

A Hungarian souvenir to remember by...

A Hungarian souvenir to remember by...

We took the metro back to the train station in Hungary on time, and got in line to book reservations for the train to Cologne-- except there were no train reservations left! All reservations stop 30 mins prior to the train leaving for its destination. We then got in line at the information booth and they told us to go to the train platform and speak to the conductor to see if there were any available seats left. If lucky, we'd be able to squeeze in.

On top of all the mess, this was the last day we had left on our Eurail pass, so if we couldn't get on this train to Germany, we'd be stuck in Hungary for the next 4 days!

After speaking with the conductor, he charged us each a small fee for the seating fee, and we squeezed into an almost empty compartment.

Whew!

Another passenger soon joined us, and he and I got to chatting about interesting things while Adam napped.

We talked for some time until I found out he was a high school student, and he, that I was a high school teacher! It was insta-weirdness from that point forward.

The seats were so uncomfortable that Adam and the high school boy slept underneath them!

The seats were so uncomfortable that Adam and the high school boy slept underneath them!

Back to Germany we go!

© Christina E., 2009
You are here : Overview Europe Hungary Budapest
The trip
 
Description:
"Good Pants, Bad Pants"; Czech Republic pick pocketers; Kutna Hora...THE BONES; Chocolate Factory; German sausages and Hofbrauhaus/Biergartens; Austria bike riding; Pub crawls; tons of new friends and an amazing journey....and, one too many potato dumplings and pork knuckle
Details:
Start of journey: Aug 13, 2008
Duration: 3 weeks
End of journey: Aug 31, 2008
Travelled countries: Czech Republic
Germany
Austria
Hungary
The Author
 
Christina E. is an active author on break-fresh-ground. since 17 years.
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