Szar Napom Van!

Fisherman's Bastion on Castle Hill in Buda

Over the course of our Czech adventures, we never had a downright horrible day.  Sometimes our plans derailed a little bit or there was our day of rain in Karlovy Vary, but never a day that made me want to scream.  Then we arrived in Hungary.

The train from Prague to Hungary took just under 7 hours.  I was really worried about catching it because we were running late, but everything worked out fine.  First half of the trip went off without incident.  Then in Brno, Germany these 10 English kids that had just "completed University" got on the train.  Nine of them were easily the most obnoxious people we've run into in our travels.  Their plan was clearly to get drunk, loud and obnoxious the whole way to Budapest.  It really was our lucky day because they were partying in the cabin right next to ours and we could hear every word that they said.  We felt really bad for the tenth English guy because he sat in our cabin and just looked unhappy with the rest of them and the whole situation.  Not only did he clearly not want to partake in the festivities, he had to guide all of his drunk friends around Budapest that night.  I don't know why Americans have such a bad reputation in Europe when the English are just as bad, if not worse--because they're in Europe in greater numbers and more often.  Yet if obnoxious Brits was the only problem with our day, I could have managed.

The real trouble started when we boarded the metro.  Using my trusty guidebook, I purchased us each "short" tickets.  My guidebook assured me that the short ticket was valid for 30 minutes as long as you don't transfer trains (Which we weren't).  There was a more expensive ticket, actually called a transfer ticket, which neither my guidebook, nor myself thought we needed.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  We took the M2 five stops from the train station to our hostel.  Upon surfacing in Batthyany ter, we were confronted by the HEV ticket patrol.  With their unwarranted level of intensity, they might as well have been the Allamedelmi Osztaly (The Hungarian Secret Police).  They took our tickets and immediately ushered us over to the side and started spouting off way too much Hungarian for either of us to follow.  I tried to explain to them that I had asked the ticket man what ticket we needed and he gave us these short-term tickets.  They pointed me to some fine print on the back of the tickets that stated they were only good for three stops...we had gone five.  We apologized profusely, but it was to no avail.  We were "spot fined" 6,000 forints each for being in violation.  It's a good thing I had just stopped at an ATM because if you can't pay the spot fine, you have to pay 12,000 forints per violation.  Needless to say, I was pissed.  Not only did I have to shell out almost $65 for our two violations, it used up so much of my cash that I didn't have nearly enough to pay the hostel and had to withdraw money from the ATM again, not 15 minutes after my first withdrawal!

Still fuming from the metro incident, we made it to the hostel.  Our hostel was cheap as dirt (<$10/night) and we definitely got what we paid for.  It's essentially Hungarian college dorms.  It was upon our arrival that I was told the hostel would not accept credit cards.  We threw our backpacks in a locker in our soon-to-be room and struck out to find an ATM.  Upon our triumphant return to the hostel, loaded with 10,000 forint notes, we paid and then went to open the door to our room.  It was locked.  There was no key.  Each room only has one key and someone else in our room, against strict orders from the hostel staff, took the key out on the city with them.  Our packs were locked up and we couldn't get to our beds.  We said, "No problem, we'll just go out and get some dinner."  After dinner, we returned to the hostel only to find that the room was still locked.  With increasing frustration we climbed up a nearby staircase to the top of Castle Hill to waste some time.  We saw the beautiful Matthias Church, took in views of the Danube from the Fisherman's Bastion, and went on an unsuccessful search for a sidewalk shop that would sell me a bottle of water.

We walked back down the hill about an hour and a half later with low spirits and lower hopes that our room would be open.  I was sure the two guys that took the key had left for the night and we would be without anything for the entire evening.  So much for our restful night of relaxing and planning our next steps.  Luckily, our room was unlocked and we discovered it was two bloody English pricks that stole the key for the last almost four hours.  Relieved to have our stuff and our beds, we retired for the night.

In hopes of not ending a post on such a negative note, the Parliament building is absolutely stunning and we're very excited about touring the city tomorrow.  Hopefully we've gotten all of our bad luck for Hungary out of the way and the rest of the trip will run smoothly.