The Danube
On my way to the train station last night I took the trolley. I sat in the very first seat because it had extra room to put my bag next to me. After a couple of stops the trolley came to a stop but the doors didn’t open. A man who wanted on the trolley started banging aggressively and shouting things because he wanted on. The driver walked to the door and pulled really hard to make the doors open so the man could get on. As soon as the doors were opened a really strong smell of poop overcame me and the people around me. The man who was getting on the bus appeared homeless and was very dirty. He was carrying two bags and I’m not sure where the smell was coming from but it was definitely something the man had in his possession. The man also appeared to be drunk as he staggered his way onto the bus and cornered me in my seat while he tried to stay standing. Everyone else on the bus was covering their noses and moving towards the back. There was no where for me to go, he had me cornered, though not on purpose. Every time the trolley would stop and fresh air would come through the doors I would take a deep breath and then try and hold it until I got to the next stop. I never could hold my breath that long and every time I had to breathe in more poop stink air. When we finally reached the train station both the man and I got off and I quickly walked away from him so that I could get some fresh air.
When I got to my compartment there was an elderly woman in my bunk of the train. I let her stay there because she was old and I assumed she had the top bunk and would have a difficult time climbing up there. After about 2 hours, she got off and a young Ukrainian guy got on and wanted to know why I was in his bed. It took much gesturing and talking very slowly on my part, but I think he either finally understood or didn’t care and took the larger bottom bed.
As with the other overnight train there were the constant wake ups from the train staff and the border crossing people. This time however there was an added twist. The tracks in Hungry and those in the Ukraine are of different sizes and the wheels of the train have to be changed. This involves lots of very loud power tools that shake the entire train violently. I think I was also in a lucky compartment because an engineer came into my compartment removed my rug from the floor and exposed a cap covering. He removed the cap covering and then reached down under the train and pulled out 4 large metal things and placed them on the floor in my compartment. About 30 minutes later he returned and put them back in the floor and resealed the hole and covered it with the strip of carpet.
Sometimes when I get someplace new I just smile, I don’t know why, and Budapest is one of those places.
The exchange rate here is 1 USD to 178 HUF (Hungarian forints), the most out of sync exchange rate that I have yet to encounter. Whenever I get to a new country I find an ATM and get money from there because I use E*trade and they exchange my money at the actual exchange rate and don’t give me any fees from any ATM anywhere in the world. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a single working ATM at the train station so I headed into the city to find one. I found 2 more that weren’t working before I was able to find one that was. I withdrew 10,000 HUF ($56.17) but I was given a lone 10,000 HUF note and I didn’t think that I could buy a train ticket with that, so I went and got some Chinese food for lunch. Oh how I love Asian food, even if it is in Hungary.
View from my hostel window
Chinese food
The hole in my floor
Even when my compartment door was closed you could still see inside of it
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